I don't trust my boyfriend
Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old FemaleI met my boyfriend on the internet, moved 3 hours to live with him, giving up a great job and moving away from my friends and family, being a big city girl and coming to a quaint little town with no opportunity, and struggling to get back on my feet. I love this man. I plan to spend the rest of my life with him. He has taken me away from a party life that did nothing but cause me stress and heartache. He bought a house for US. He has done everything possible to show me that he cares. People look up to him and respect him.
I have a history that keeps haunting me. From being molested to being raped to being taken advantage of along with constantly being pushed down. Its been an on going struggle. My family life was broken with my parents divorcing, being put in foster homes and moved around quite a bit. I know that it has just made me stronger but I see things in such a different light than most. I over think things and I am very uncomfortable with my weight gains and loses.
My biggest fear at this point is that things will be great and all of a sudden someone will realize that he is everything that I speak about and take him away from me. I don't want to fail after everything that we have done to get to this point. I particularly fear a girl that is around my age that was in his life just before me. Nothing happened between them but there were thoughts of wanting to persue something. I am very threatened by it.
I have talked to him and he cant seem to understand why I am stressing a conversation that recently took place for the first time in a long time. Just the "hows the house going?" type of convo. I have been hurt so many times and I dont want it to happen again. I am lonely because I still dont have friends in this new town and I seem to be attached to his hip which doesnt seem to bother him. But I just wonder if I had something better to do, other than wonder and snoop around with the intent of finding something would our relationship be perfect?
He thinks I dont trust him. There might be that slight fear but it mainly comes down to not trusting what she will do. He tries to constantly reasure me that I am the one he is with and wants to be with. But tonight I made him admit that he would have persued something with her if he had the chance before "us." He wouldnt admit to it until I made him say it out loud. Just to spare my feelings.
We are very open in our relationship. We always talk about likes and dislikes. We respect one another and have fun together. The only thing that we are lacking is on my end. I cant come to terms with there being cheating men in this world and careless women that dont worry about relationship status when they want something. HELP HELP HELP! p.s. sorry to keep this going!
RomanceClass.com AdviceFirst, I can understand *completely* how your background has made it hard for you to trust people. You have had many lessons in life about how some people cannot be trusted and how people can harm you. However, an *equally* important (or perhaps more important) lesson is that even though SOME people out there are bad, it does NOT mean that all people are. And since just about every one of us humans is hurt at least once (if not many times) in life, it is a key lesson to learn in order to be happy and healthy.
Yes, you have a past, and it involved you being hurt. Yes, your boyfriend had a past, and it involved him having love interests!! But that is NORMAL. We ALL have had love interests in our past, but they do not affect our ability to have a full, trusting, loving and honest relationship NOW in our present with the person we have chosen to be with.
It sounds like right now your sole source of fun and happiness is him, and that you are really worried about losing him. It does in many ways come down to your trust in him. There are ALWAYS better looking girls and old girlfriends and richer girls and everything else around in the world, for ANY relationship. The fact that he has in essence an 'old flame' around makes him the same as probably 99.9% of guys that us girls date. But most girls accept that their guy won't run off. The difference in your situation is that you DO worry about that. And I have to warn you, jealousy like that can easily break up a relationship that is otherwise quite perfect.
So you need to get this under control. You need to shore up your own self esteem so you KNOW you are worthy of his love. You need to work on your trust of your boyfriend, so you can accept that he has eyeballs and will see other attractive women and this will NOT cause him to think about leaving you. You need to work on your world so that your boyfriend is a vital part of it - but that he is not the ONLY part of it.
I would really recommend finding a therapist in the area to start out with, because with all the things in your past it might take you a little while to get the first self esteem issue under control. That is really critical. I would also *actively* go out and find groups to join, activities to do and people to talk to in addition to your boyfriend. It is great to be best friends with your partner! But to be healthy you need other friends too.
-- from Jenn
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com
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