Struggling a bit today

Bella

New member
I was able to spend an amazing weekend with my boyfriend this weekend, time that is precious to me and I find myself struggling with something that happened last night and not wanting to let my feelings about that taint the rest of the weekend.

My boyfriend and I were able to spend time with some really great people this weekend and my boyfriend can be quite flirtatious and outgoing. As I was helping others re-organize the space we were in, I turned and saw him doing something that, to me, felt too intimate, with one of the women we had met during the day. I should preface that, for those who may not have read my other thread, my boyfriend is married and identifies as polyamorous, I'm trying very hard not to label myself as I feel that it makes things more confusing for me, but I am not interested in being with anyone else but him. Without giving too much information, I will say that there was nothing overtly sexual going on and he absolutely did not cross any limits as far as things we had negotiated and agreed on before.

But in that moment, I couldn't help but feel hurt, to the point where all I wanted to do was cry and ended up pushing him away briefly. We talked about things quite a bit last night and today I feel that this has brought us closer but I just don't want to end up in a situation like this and react the way that I did again.

I don't want to change who my boyfriend is - every part of who he is has made him the man that I am so deeply in love with. But at the same time, I don't know how I will feel if the situation happens again.

I guess I'm really looking for advice on how to work through the things that are still difficult for me without pushing him away and letting myself fall into a place of self doubt.
 
Spend some time figuring out what feelings were triggered, and why. Are you afraid of something? Angry? Insecure? Feeling deprived?

Have you read Tacit's broken fridge article?

It's difficult to control emotions, it is more realistic to control behavior. So, think about possible courses of action you could take and what the logical results of that behavior would be- and if that's what you want.

So, if you're afraid of losing him, and one behavior would be to tell him not to do X activity with anyone but you, but then he'd resent not being able to do X with various people he's used to doing that activity with, and eventually he might get sick of dealing with your insecurities and leave you, then that's not a very productive course of action.
 
Spend some time figuring out what feelings were triggered, and why. Are you afraid of something? Angry? Insecure? Feeling deprived?

Have you read Tacit's broken fridge article?

It's difficult to control emotions, it is more realistic to control behavior. So, think about possible courses of action you could take and what the logical results of that behavior would be- and if that's what you want.

So, if you're afraid of losing him, and one behavior would be to tell him not to do X activity with anyone but you, but then he'd resent not being able to do X with various people he's used to doing that activity with, and eventually he might get sick of dealing with your insecurities and leave you, then that's not a very productive course of action.

It was definitely my insecurities that were triggered, feeling like I'm not enough somehow, that he doesn't love me the way he says and the way that I feel he does; and I think also, given some things that happened in my past, my fear of abandonment. Being so new to a relationship with someone who is poly, it's still a struggle for me to internalize that just because he is doing something flirtatious with someone else, it doesn't take anything away from the love that he has for me. My insecurities on the other hand, somehow, automatically translate that to not being enough for him.

His flirtatious, outgoing nature is one of the things I love most about him; his flirtations with me were definitely something that made my attraction to him grow. And I definitely don't want to be in a place where I'm saying he can't so this or that, and he ends up resenting me for that. But I also don't want to fall back into my old habit of stuffing down my emotions to avoid any kind of conflict. It almost feels like it's a battle between the "old me" and the person I'm working to become.

The part that I feel worse about was my reaction; I was so taken back by what I was seeing that I pushed him away when he came to offer me comfort, because he knew that I was upset just by looking at me. I have apologized a lot for that and he's assured me that he understands and doesn't want me to feel badly for reacting in the way that I felt I had to.

I do feel like the incident has brought us closer on some levels; like that last small wall of protection I had around my love for him came tumbling down. And while that's scary, in that I can say I've never been able to trust anyone else enough to do that, it feels so wonderful at the same time.

I haven't read the broken fridge article but thank you for the suggestion; I'll definitely read it!
 
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