Hello again! Don't mind me. Just going through some stuff and felt the best way to deal with it is to pour my deeply personal issues onto an anonymous public forum....
So things aren't going so great. Bashir (I had to dig back to page 2 to remember what I was calling him) came back into Spitfire's life. I'm not super excited about it as he's a constant reminder that Spitfire broke a boundary and my failure in being assertive and enforcing my boundaries. He's not a bad guy and I want to like him but I've got a lot going on right now.
Spitfire and I are currently not having sex. We had a big blowout when he spent the night as "just a friend"/"seeing where it goes" and I woke up to them cuddling on the couch with her having plans to move to the bed together. Now we still agree there is no sex with other partners but I'm cool with her other partner (whose nickname escapes me at this time) sleeping in the bed. So for her this was cool. She sees nothing wrong with going back to sleep with Bashir in our bed. To me, it was another person I'm not comfortable with being brought into the deepest part of my safe space. I was not cool with it. Spitfire and I argued about it, neither of us were super graceful about it. I spent that night at Jason's because it had been scheduled for a while and I felt that I deserved to at least spend time with one partner who didn't make me feel like shit for having feelings. It led to her screaming in my face she wanted a divorce in front of the kids 2 days before Christmas and me wholeheartedly agreeing. Then she stormed out and went to Bashir's house.
Ha! It's Kirk! All I had to do was scroll up on this page! Anyway...
So Spitfire came back for Christmas Eve and we worked out that we very much love each other and we need to go back to marriage counseling. Her relationship with Bashir continues and evolves. I keep getting butt hurt about it because OUR relationship is in shambles and we're trying to put the pieces back together, meanwhile I'm watching them happy and her actually wanting to spend time with him. It hurt. It still fucking hurts.
Kirk was pretty butt hurt about Bashir too but I talked him down from that ledge (I think I was successful). It felt nice, though, to be able to commiserate a little with someone else who could understand me on that level. I really am so fucking grateful to have that dude. One of my best friends for sure!
So there I was, feeling like I was basically Spitfire's friend/roomate who sleeps in the same room and pays for everything. Sleep is a stretch as I can barely sleep when I feel like this. I'm trying to make things better and failing miserably because I feel so hurt and slighted.
Fast forward through a few weeks of this to last Wednesday. We had agreed to open the house up to sex with our other partners but not the bed. I go spend the night at Jason's where I rode him like I was chasing down the Devil's herd and Spitfire had Bashir spend the night here. Well I came home early from work because we had marriage counseling that day. There was the air mattress blown up with messed up blankets in the living room. I started to clean it up, carefully picking up the comforter and moving it toward the washing machine, when Spitfire stopped me. She gently assured me she would do it (I need to pause and inject into this moment how much I fucking love her) kind of solidifying what I already figured. I asked and she told me that yes, they had had sex last night. I'm getting dizzy just typing that so bear with me here... It is the first time any of us had sex with another partner in the house, aside from a blow job I'd gotten in my bathroom at our last place.
Recap: Fooling around for me had been sanctioned for me because Spitfire had assured me the "in the house thing" only bothered me. I think she was trying to lead be example but I felt uncomfortable and kind of yucky the whole time I was doing it and it was thrown in my face (despite being assured that wouldn't happen) about a week later. Now to clear up my next statement, allow me to say I regard oral as being on a lower level than sex. That being said...
So it was the first time one of us had sex with another partner in OUR house. I'd agreed to it. It grossed me the fuck out thinking of Bashir's dick being out in my living room. It hurt me that he gets to share that kind of passion with Spitfire and that she doesn't want it with me but, that's not new. I'd been feeling that for a while. Spitfire doesn't feel emotionally secure and safe with me. She needs that strong emotional security in a partner to have that sexual drive. That almost hurts more.
I keep drifting from my story. So we go to marriage counseling and towards the end the dude asks me what I want out of life. Spitfire very accurately says "he can't answer that question. He doesn't know." She was 99% right. When worded as "what are you working towards" an answer comes to mind. I work my ass off so that one day I can live somewhere nice where I can finally relax and feel safe. Having said that I just started welling up with tears. I realize all that shit I was griping about up above is all on me. This isn't Spitfire's fault. I'm super shitty about setting and enforcing my boundaries. It takes monumental effort for me to express my desires and needs. I didn't realize at the time but this was the beginning of a panic attack.
By the time we get home, I'm shaking and sobbing. It's like my feelings were a bottle of champagne someone had shaken up and popped the cork of and feelings were just spraying everywhere. I couldn't get the cork back in. There was no regaining composure. My body kept clenching up and shaking. I felt like I was blacking out and my legs just stopped working and dropped me on the floor. Luckily I have an amazing wife who has been dealing with panic attacks for years and recognized what was going on. Unluckily for me I have an amazing wife who has 2 children with autism, a husband having a panic attack and a scheduled night at Bashir's. She hung out and talked with me until the children got home and settled in from school and off she went to get her much deserved break from all the madness. I feel like that's totally fair but it fucking sucked.
I kept my shit together fairly well. Dinner was weak as fuck but so was I at the time so I'm not going to judge myself to harshly. My youngest was also fairly kind. She didn't have any of her usual meltdowns or try to fight me at all that night. She got tucked into bed without any fuss. It was a lucky break. My oldest is incredibly awesome and they're at that age where they keep to themselves and hide in their room a lot. After the kids went to bed was when shit got real bad.
All the shitty thoughts just cycled through my head over and over until around 1am. Finally I started looking shit up. This is called rumination and is typically a symptom of anxiety, PTSD, grief... I dug a little deeper. It has become pretty apparent to me that I have abandonment anxiety. All of this shit; the hurt at her leaving to be with another man, the inability to express my needs, the blaming, the resentment, the people pleasing, the getting trapped in my own head, the migraines, the territorialness... all stemming from some abandonment trauma I never fucking addressed in my life. Can you imagine?! Thinking back to my initial post on this site I realize that Spitfire wanting to be polyamorous and me agreeing triggered some old trauma and created a new trauma based in my abandonment issues. Like, HOLY FUCKITTY FUCK! The more you know...
So I've spent the last week in and out of panic attacks. My whole body is in so much fucking pain, like I maxed out in the gym every day this week, and my right arm just starts shaking uncontrollably now. I'm really looking forward to seeing my therapist tomorrow. This emotional breakthrough had piss poor timing. Therapy on Tuesday, Marriage counseling and a mental breakdown on Wednesday and no therapy until next Wednesday. I have so much to work on.
I hope someone finds this information helpful. If you're reading this and are struggling with the same kind of shit mentioned above, get help! Talk to a therapist or some other mental health professional. Don't try and take this on alone. When they say growth is painful that is not just a figurative expression.
