Afraid of not being enough

It just hit me: the realization of how much I live in constant fear, or worry, of not being enough. 

When I injured my thumb and found out I couldn’t climb for at least three months after surgery, my first thought was, “Will my climbing buddies forget me? Will I lose their friendship?”. Then, when a couple of them reassured me (& one even showed me in action) that they would go hiking with me instead this summer, in order to maintain our connection or bond, my next worry was, “Will they want to climb with me again afterwards, once I’m healed, after having spent this summer climbing with other — and better — climbers? I’ll have to train my ass off to regain a position with them in climbing!” 

Such worries or fears with my platonic friends are more rare, at least once we’ve established a deep connection and thus trust. 

With romantic relationships, though, the fear is much bigger and gets triggered more easily, probably activating childhood wounds more directly. Or maybe, simply, because my romantic relationships of the past decade have been on less solid foundations than my platonic friendships.

It just happened again with the transwoman with whom I had a romantic relationship for the past three months. We’re both polyamorous and we were practicing relationship anarchy in our specific case. When she told me a few days ago that she had started seeing someone else romantically/sexually, too, that activated some old, deep wounds in me and the ensuing response to end things with her. 

I deeply believe in consensual/ethical non-monogamy both as my innate orientation and from a philosophical or social viewpoint. I understand and believe and truly feel that I and she both need more than one romantic and/or sexual partner — I’m very open about saying that she’s “not enough” for me and I rationally understand I wouldn’t be “enough” for her, romantically or sexually — I honestly don’t believe any one person can be sexually and/or romantically “enough” for anyone else — and it takes pressure off of me to think that my partner(s) would get some of their romantic and/or sexual needs covered by someone else rather than all by me. And yet, her communicating that to me in this particularly vulnerable moment of my life threw me for a loop that led me to ask her for radio silence until the end of this month (with the inner intention on my part to end our relationship). I know I have been less present or available for her in the past three or four weeks because of all the difficulties I’ve been going through — thumb injury & surgery with long, hard recovery; partial/temporary move now and then living uncertainty as of September; professional uncertainty, upcoming unemployment, and confusion/disappointment around my career; frustrations & disappointments around other “dating” situations for me; and maybe most of all now (apart from my thumb injury) the renewed pain and sorrow and grief from memories of my European queer ex-lover and the upcoming anniversary of my father’s death. All this has made me recoil, shut down, be less available for her or not feel “good enough”, not feel as “sparkly” for/with her as I was a couple months ago. I guess I’ve been feeling “less attractive” to her while also guilty of not being as present as I maybe should be. So her having started a new romantic/sexual relationship just now feels like a confirmation of my own “not being enough” rather than a simple fact of polyamory/relationship anarchy. 

Will I ever resolve, or overcome, this fear, this worry, this almost constant sense of not being enough for people? 

Can I ever “be enough”?