Reflection on Insecurities in Just A Day In The Life

This Friday I am going on a weekend getaway with my FWB and his friend group. He is my FWB but is more like a boyfriend without the commitment (a little messy, I know.). We’ve all been tested and I already had Covid so I’m not super worried about that. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I am growing more nervous as the day approaches. I keep flip-flopping between nervousness and excitement. I was doing some reflection in the car on my way to work this morning and I had some interesting thoughts.

The first thought that came to me as I was doing some introspection was about how impactful one time experiences can be. For example, I have a story. My ex-boyfriend and I went on a trip to Nevada. We went to Laughlin and then to Las Vegas. We had been dating for about a year and I was very much in love with him. The first leg of our trip was visiting Laughlin with his brother and sister in law and their two children. The second leg was Las Vegas and it was just the two of us.
We started having issues in Laughlin. To provide some back story, we had recently decided that as a couple we thought it was a good idea for me to stop my birth control (it was affecting me negatively and we decided that we were ok with being extra safe in bed) and I was dealing with the side effects of withdrawal. I had severe stomach pain (cramping and such) and nausea regularly. So here we are in Laughlin, Nevada, it’s 122 degrees outside and we are sharing a hotel room with his brothers family. Sharing a room didn’t bother me too much because I am Hispanic and that is super normal for us. Sharing didn’t bother me because I had him there with me, so it wasn’t weird being with his family that I had barely just met. Our issue arose one night when he wanted to stay out in the casino late and I wanted to go back to the room because I started having stomach pains. He told me “If you wanna go back to the room just go back, but I’m not going with you” It felt like a small slap in the face. I was in pain, in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people sleeping in the same room as me. All I wanted was the support of my partner during this discomfort and he had added insult to injury by denying me. I eventually went back to the room alone and still in pain. I ended up having to walk out all the way to our car in the parking garage to grab our spare blanket and back. ALONE, AT NIGHT, IN PAIN. When he came back to the room I was stingy with the blanket and that made him upset. This is completely ridiculous but I managed to work through it with him.
Our second and final issue of the trip was on our 3rd day in Las Vegas. We were out salsa dancing at a beautiful club. We had been drinking (not anything crazy) and out of nowhere, he decides he wants to smoke a cigarette. I am highly against smoking but I usually don’t make too much of a fuss about it. This night I just really didn’t feel like smelling and tasting it on him for the rest of the night. I asked him “Hey, can you not smoke tonight, I just really don’t feel like having to taste it on you and smell it while we’re dancing so could you please just hold off tonight?” he responded with “I’ll do what I want and if I want to smoke I’m gonna smoke”. I think you guys can see the pattern forming. I told him firmly that if he decided to smoke I was going to go back to our hotel room and he could stay and smoke all he wanted. He decided to smoke, I told him I wanted to leave. I didn’t have my phone or wallet, only my ID. I had no pockets due to my outfit and was relying on him. He refused to get me an uber even though I said I would pay him back for it. I decided to go sit outside until he was ready to leave. about 35 min went by before he realized I was DEAD SERIOUS and so we left. We got into it back at the hotel room and he took everything except for my clothes and left me there saying something vague that made it sound like I was on my own. I was pretty sure he was going to leave me in Las Vegas.
I called my mom. It was around 1am and I felt bad but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rest knowing that I was stuck. We talked and I cried it out a little then we came up with a plan of action. If he didn’t come back I would get a rental car and drive home myself… He came back at around 5am FUCKED UP. I pretended to stay asleep until the morning when I got all my shit packed and told him I wanted to leave and that he could come with or without me. He got more mad at me and we fought again. He said that I was being ridiculous. I said that I didn’t feel that he was being a good team member and that I didn’t trust him to not pull some B.S. like this again and that I didn’t feel safe. We left.

That whole experience seemed compartmentalized into this one relationship but now that I am being faced with a trip with a man that I am romantic with and his group of friends that I don’t know, I am having a lot of fear. I know that I shouldn’t be fearful… Kevin is very attentive to me and the only time I have been around him while he was SUPER drunk he went on a long tangent about how much he respects me and never wants to hurt me. Knowing all of this I still feel the impact of that helpless night that I thought that the man I loved and who I thought loved me too had left me alone thinking I had been abandoned. I never want to feel like that again. I tell myself that I KNOW Kevin would never do that to me but that’s also what I had thought about my ex… I am going to go on this trip no matter what because I know that I am strong and can handle anything that is thrown at me… I just don’t want to. Everything will probably be fine and I will have a blast but the thought lingers in the back of my mind.

I also worry about the other girls that will be on this trip. I was bullied in middle school and ever since I have had a hard time feeling really secure around women I don’t know. I have female friends of course. My best friend is a woman and I consider her my sister. Being on a trip with 3 other women that all know each other already and who are friends of Kevin scares the shit out of me. I know how protective girls get over their male friends and how exclusive girl friends can be with outsiders around. I know that if I was one of them I wouldn’t be excited about me being there.

I am going to practice my emotional intelligence! I will work on being present this weekend. It is easy to get lost in your thoughts of “what-if” but it is important to focus on “what-is”. I am excited to exercise my mental capabilities! facing my fears and accepting reality. Wish me luck this weekend!

TTYL,
Elle