powerpuffgrl1969
Active member
That is SUCH good news!
From "Kitchen Table" to "Parallel"
- Thread starter CaptainCarrot
- Start date
AutumnLeaves
New member
Whoa. The guy said that his wife seemed gut-punched, and he seemed honestly concerned about her reaction. I was just offering some perspective why she might feel that way (a lot of newly poly people don't think about the difficulties of triangulating hard conversations about sharing spaces and times), and what he might do to help in that instance, if he was so inclined. That's it.
Meanwhile, OP, I'm glad it sounds like you're more comfortable and will be getting the help you want!
anamikanon
New member
I am not that big a believer in childhood trauma suddenly manifesting. It happens, but it is a lot more rare than claimed to be. Usually, when people escape the here and now to provide similarities from the past that they disliked, I find that it is more about avoiding saying those things about the trigger in the present.
Things I notice from your posts.
The things you describe your father making you feel, I see you going through them at the hands of the boyfriend. On one hand, you are all gung ho poly. Hanging out together and all. On the other, you are being stripped of things you took for granted about a relationship - your exclusivity with your wife, your time with her, your home space.... and you don't appear to have had much of a say about it. And so on. These are unpleasant in their own right. You don't need a father explanation, particularly since you weren't aware of any lasting trauma from your father till the boyfriend came on the scene. He is just becoming an "example" - a placeholder for things you want to say about the boyfriend on a level of feelings.
It is hard to admit own vulnerability in the here and now.
In other words, you don't need to fix unresolved issues with your father so much as unresolved issues about her boyfriend.
Part of it is just circumstantial. Their NRE, your first concrete experience of your wife having a serious partner... these will resolve with time. Don't know if you need therapy for that.
But if you're headed into therapy anyway - and why not, we all need someone to listen and focus on us. Also compassionate attention feels good for its own sake - I'd recommend learning to work with your personal boundaries. You were a child when you failed to hold them against your father, but you are an adult now and failed to hold them against the boyfriend till you got traumatized enough to explain it as something fundamentally wrong with you (unresolved trauma for most of your life grade problem).
Whatever happens of your father, your life will be immediately improved if you can simply say "she has a roommate too. You can't do all your hanging out in my space" or you could tell your wife "I need more of your time" or, for that matter "I don't feel ready for this poly thing and your serious relationship. GO SLOW."
I am only bringing this up, because addressing things you have immediate examples for and can see immediate changes in is usually easier than working on them through distant memories that will get remembered and interpreted depending on your feelings rather than actual data. It is harder. In the process, you just end up building a monument to abuse that had become irrelevant to your life till you used it as a crutch. And you end up adding it to your present unnecessarily.
Things I notice from your posts.
- Your wife suggested poly
- You were not a "joyful yes" to put it a la Galagirl
- You were ok while there was casual poly interaction
- You got uncomfortable when she got serious about someone
- On her end, she seems to have dived into poly without a look to see how you were coping
- You were losing time with her
- You were losing your home space with her
- Even his roommate's space was considered, but not yours (her roommate) - not even by your partner
The things you describe your father making you feel, I see you going through them at the hands of the boyfriend. On one hand, you are all gung ho poly. Hanging out together and all. On the other, you are being stripped of things you took for granted about a relationship - your exclusivity with your wife, your time with her, your home space.... and you don't appear to have had much of a say about it. And so on. These are unpleasant in their own right. You don't need a father explanation, particularly since you weren't aware of any lasting trauma from your father till the boyfriend came on the scene. He is just becoming an "example" - a placeholder for things you want to say about the boyfriend on a level of feelings.
It is hard to admit own vulnerability in the here and now.
In other words, you don't need to fix unresolved issues with your father so much as unresolved issues about her boyfriend.
Part of it is just circumstantial. Their NRE, your first concrete experience of your wife having a serious partner... these will resolve with time. Don't know if you need therapy for that.
But if you're headed into therapy anyway - and why not, we all need someone to listen and focus on us. Also compassionate attention feels good for its own sake - I'd recommend learning to work with your personal boundaries. You were a child when you failed to hold them against your father, but you are an adult now and failed to hold them against the boyfriend till you got traumatized enough to explain it as something fundamentally wrong with you (unresolved trauma for most of your life grade problem).
Whatever happens of your father, your life will be immediately improved if you can simply say "she has a roommate too. You can't do all your hanging out in my space" or you could tell your wife "I need more of your time" or, for that matter "I don't feel ready for this poly thing and your serious relationship. GO SLOW."
I am only bringing this up, because addressing things you have immediate examples for and can see immediate changes in is usually easier than working on them through distant memories that will get remembered and interpreted depending on your feelings rather than actual data. It is harder. In the process, you just end up building a monument to abuse that had become irrelevant to your life till you used it as a crutch. And you end up adding it to your present unnecessarily.
Overall, I would agree with Tinwen re: Anamikanon's post... if the OP had not said this:
...Which leads me to believe that - although the presence of wife's boyfriend and opening up the marriage might've been the emotional tipping point - the actual problem has existed for years, without any attempt to really address or resolve it.
Instead, captaincarrot has been content to limit his interpersonal interactions to a "female only" environment of his own construction, because it felt safer and less threatening. In such a "comfort zone", it was possible for him to bury his head in the sand and pretend that the issue did not exist ---- UNTIL the act of opening up the marriage forced him to confront his inability to deal with males in a close or one-to-one context.
Regardless of the new male partner or the father himself, I DO believe that it would probably be in the OP's eventual best interests to find some way to constructively addressing this block, which seems more than simply a preference for female company.
...Which leads me to believe that - although the presence of wife's boyfriend and opening up the marriage might've been the emotional tipping point - the actual problem has existed for years, without any attempt to really address or resolve it.
Instead, captaincarrot has been content to limit his interpersonal interactions to a "female only" environment of his own construction, because it felt safer and less threatening. In such a "comfort zone", it was possible for him to bury his head in the sand and pretend that the issue did not exist ---- UNTIL the act of opening up the marriage forced him to confront his inability to deal with males in a close or one-to-one context.
Regardless of the new male partner or the father himself, I DO believe that it would probably be in the OP's eventual best interests to find some way to constructively addressing this block, which seems more than simply a preference for female company.
anamikanon
New member
It is a difference in approaches. Some take the approach of addressing life events (this is very profitable if you charge for your time - a life being discussed as opposed to the direct issue). I find it inefficient and usually muddled processwork. You address what manifests in the here and now, you will end up resolving anything that factors into it, including dysfunctional perceptions caused by past events. Even with issues about relating to men, it would be more useful to begin with the three sentences you quoted and explore what happens and go from there, rather than begin with a childhood event. If there is an issue caused by the childhood event, it will manifest as a dysfunctional factor in the situation "I can't trust men because they could harm me" or whatever. It is far easier to challenge an obviously illogical perception than to get someone to analyze the impact of a past event from memory.
It is an approach based on what I find efficient. Not a "right answer". There may be situations where addressing past events is useful. I have not run into stuff that is better addressed through the past than present in my work (which didn't include a lot of kinds of work - not pretending to have seen all kinds of cases or anything). At the end of the day, what you are trying to do is find causes for dysfunctional behavior in the present and help the person develop more functional alternatives. The only difference is whether you strictly limit detours out of the present or wander out of it. I suspect for issues that are completely traumatic to be addressed in the present, the distance of the past could help provide some sense of separation (don't think that would be so useful if the greater trauma is in the past - actual memories of abuse as opposed to difficulty in relating).
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