Can’t figure out whether my own mind feeds my jealousy or my boyfriend’s actions?

[melancholy123]

I acknowledge that I am a female with very low self-esteem, and have numerous insecurities. Due to these insecurities I have behaved irrationally many times in the past, and I am fully aware of that. In my last relationship, I was extremely insecure about my ex-boyfriend’s friendship with his female best friend. They spoke on a daily basis, and I was jealous – and therefore told him that this made me uncomfortable. My ex, however, did not make a conscious effort to do anything about this because he was best friends with her for 10 + years, and it didn’t make sense for him to cut her out simply because I was jealous. Things ended badly between him and I because of his friendship with her, and looking back I now realize that there was nothing threatening about his friendship with her – it was all in my head, BUT I didn’t understand this when I was in the jealous phase.

 

After things ended with my ex-boyfriend, I began dating my current boyfriend. This time I wanted to make sure that my jealousy didn’t get the best of me, so I questioned myself every time I felt insecure or jealous before accusing my boyfriend of anything. My boyfriend had this very close female friend as well – and they would hang out one on one, go to the mall together, eat out etc etc. But I didn’t object to their interactions because I felt I was being paranoid for no reason. I actually came on this website to ask for everyone’s opinion on here about his behaviour with his female ‘friend’ because I was starting to feel uncomfortable and everyone told me that I should question my boyfriend. And so I did, and my boyfriend told me that this friend was actually an ex-girlfriend but his relationship with her in the past was so meaningless and casual that he never felt the need to refer to her as an ex.

 

 

 

However, more and more red flags started to show up, and I began to get more and more paranoid. I questioned everything my boyfriend did, and somehow my boyfriend had an answer to everything which left me baffled as to whether everything I was feeling was a result of my own insecurities AGAIN or whether my boyfriend’s behaviour was shady. For an example in the first 2-3 months, sometimes I would be hanging out with him a text would pop up on his phone, and my boyfriend would immediately flip his phone over. When I questioned this, he told me it was because he didn’t want to be rude or feel distracted by his phone when he was with me.

 

 

 

Following this, I snooped through his fb (wrong, yes, but I was concerned) and looked through his convo with his female ‘friend’/ex and all their old messages had been deleted. He told me he did this because there were messages between him and her from when they were dating, and instead of him picking and choosing certain messages to delete, he thought it was more convenient to just delete the entire convo. A couple of similar scenarios like this continued to happen, until I had enough and told him to cut her out. He did cut her out as soon as I asked, and from my knowledge hasn’t been in contact with her since.

 

 

 

Since all this happened, my boyfriend has done his best to redeem himself, by being super careful about his interactions with the opposite sex – in fact, he doesn’t have any female friends anymore (seems like she was his only female ‘friend’!). He has regained my trust, however, I cannot stop feeling betrayed and jealous of how inconsiderate he was about my feelings in the beginning of our relationship by not being upfront about his relationship with that girl.

 

 

 

I’m just confused about whether HIS actions were in reality shady, or whether I was merely overreacting (as I know I’ve done in past relationship). I can’t differentiate between my own issues and his issues anymore. He’s sworn that he didn’t do anything close to cheating on me with his ex, and he’s been completely loyal throughout our relationship, and all my perceptions were huge misunderstandings. I believed him and stayed in the relationship. But why can’t I stop feeling so ****ty about all this? Why can’t I move on? Is it because of my own insecurities, or because my boyfriend really was at fault, and I was stupid for staying in the relationship?

[WhatYouWantToHear]

Is it because of my own insecurities, or because my boyfriend really was at fault, and I was stupid for staying in the relationship?

 

It's you. And from now on, in this relationship and any in the future, make that the starting point until proven otherwise. Oh, and don't go looking for proof.

 

You come off as the bad one in this whole situation. So stop it. Always assume its in your head and that you are being jealous, that way you can mentally slap yourself and take step back from whatever jealousy fueled actions you want to take.

[mangetout]

Where is this insecurity coming from. Have you been cheated on before?

[scatterd]

Maybe something is going on. I think if you cant trust him something is telling you.Their is other men out there that will do things to make you secure.Good Luck

[melancholy123]

Yes. I was cheated on numerous times in my first ever relationship.

 

But how will I ever know when to stand up for myself if I'm always told that I'm the insecure, jealous and paranoid one?

[welshbambi]

As far as deleting the Facebook messages go, well, if he had kept them you would have assumed it was because he was nostalgic about them and missed her. Haven't we all gone and removed stuff from an ex because either it didn't matter or we needed to at the time?

 

I am insecure and have to battle with jealousy so I see where you are coming from.

 

The first thing I would have done would have been to talk very openly about it - explain that I was hurt in the past which made me a little insecure. If he loves you he should try and understand your reasoning and then work together to combat it. It is totally unfair to expect him to cut people out for no good reason, and in my experience, if a guy is hell bent on cheating he will got to EXTRAORDINARY lengths to make that happen.

 

The other thing you might want to consider is meeting this girl yourself. Form a friendship of your own with her and let the sisterhood look after you. If she and he are genuinely just friends then it is a natural thing to be friends with your partners friends, and vice versa. He might see that as a vote of confidence on his part, that you trust him.

 

Above all, if a man feels he is not trusted and is being watched, he more often than not will feel stifled and that in itself will drive him away. And actually, that is not just men, that's everyone.

[Sandrino]

The past is the past for a reason. If he's bringing his past into a new relationship, thats not fair to you at all. I think you were given reasons by him to make you insecure. But you shouldnt have started out like that. Seems like these last two guys are just bad apples from your experience with them so far. But since this new guy agreed to cut his ex out of his life for you is a good sign.

 

You just have to know if he really did, or is just being more secretive with it. I would proceed with caution, but dont make it obvious to him or you'll drive him away.

 

Always be on your guard with people when its new, because you never know what will happen.

 

I believe that people will always have feelings for exs and its just not fair to a person your starting new with if you keep talking to them, because your risking gaining feelings for them again, and you've had history with them. Its just disrespectful in my book.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Sandrino

[Satu]

One of the most effective ways of dealing with the way you feel is to strictly adhere to Evidence Based Thinking.

 

If there is no evidence that support your fears, you are just afraid because of something inside you, and you need to work on yourself.

 

If there is evidence to support your fears, you need to face up to that, and decide what to do in the context of the relationship. Stay/Go/Mend/Change.

 

If you commit to Evidence Based Thinking, you'll move forward with this.