Distrust caused by insecurity

[Marvin]

I apologise if this is in the wrong forum, seemed like the most appropriate place to post.

Ive lately came aware of a nasty train in myself that I really want to get rid of. My girlfriend is the most wonderful person I have ever met, and she has never given me any reason to not trust her. However, I am extremely jealous. To the point that if any guy comes close to her, or just talking with her, I already get upset. Like I said, I know that she wont cheat on me, but, by me being jealous, is a way of not trusting her. Also, noone in a previous relationship has cheated on me.

I realise that I am a very insecure person, and I think that the reason for me 'not trusting' her, is because of this. She has never complained about me being jealous, but I can only imagine what it must be for her being around me when Im like that.

I reckon I owe her at least 'trying' to make myself a better person. I know how I would feel if she acted the way that I did.

In my opinion, I should not try to get rid of my jealousy, but rather, killing the problem by its roots : my insecurity.

So, my point of this whole post is : how can I regain my self esteem? I realise that most of the things I break myself down with, is really not trut, and absurb, but yet, it still gets to me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

"Marvin"

 

[Jade]

Well, I tend to be a jealous person myself. I too know it comes from insurcuity. how we get past that I don't know. Mine is I like to feel that I am needed. When I dont feel that I am needed or # 1 in that persons life I feel Jealous and tend to jump to conclusion, when I have not reason to. I have read somewhere what jealousy is: it is Anger, fear and insurtiy all mixed together. Fear of losing someone, anger that you have or may, and insurce to the point that they are maybe not needing you as much as you need them. I relize this, sound like you do to, but how do we get rid of the feeling....good question.

 

[jwfoster32]

Interesting proposition..Getting rid of insecurity. God knows I have my fair share! I am in a very similar situation as you are, Marvin (though I am in a Gay relationship...but the issue is none the less identical). And I have recently recoginized that a lot of my issues stem from the feeling of NOT being center of attention...100% of the time. Now, I realize that logically that is a foolish notion to subscribe to. But I think as humans, at the core...we really want that. I think it is more of a matter to seperate the illogical "wants" from those that are logical and do-able for your partner. That has been my approach -- at least -- of late. I'm giving it a shot

I recently read that to thwart jealousy you need to conciously and subconciously reassure yourself of what you know you are great at. If you know that your partner has NO intention of leaving and you know that they are attracted to YOU...hold that at your heart. This is notto say that jealousy won't ever happen again...but when it does, you'll have a defense mechanism to undermine it.

 

[Marvin]

Eya

Been some time since Ive checked in here.

Alot has happened over the last 3 months. I became much less jealous, started regaining my self-esteem (if only a little), and, the biggest thing of all, realised that I was right to be jealous. I found out a month ago that my girlfriend has been cheating on me, and has been sleeping around, and had a relationship for a couple of months with someone else, after all. Clearly, I was wrong. Lets hope I can keep the self-esteem up after all this

Regards

"Marvin"

 

[jwfoster32]

Marvin...

Sorry to hear that your fears were realized! Keep working on the self esteem, you'll pull through and end up a better person for it!

Jeff

 

[ThatLady]

Eya

Been some time since Ive checked in here.

Alot has happened over the last 3 months. I became much less jealous, started regaining my self-esteem (if only a little), and, the biggest thing of all, realised that I was right to be jealous. I found out a month ago that my girlfriend has been cheating on me, and has been sleeping around, and had a relationship for a couple of months with someone else, after all. Clearly, I was wrong. Lets hope I can keep the self-esteem up after all this

Regards

"Marvin"

I'm sorry that something like that had to happen to you, Marvin. However, it's good to remember that the bad behavior of other people does not reflect on us, the innocent. Your self-esteem isn't dependent on what your partner does, or doesn't do. Your self-esteem should reflect you and what you do.

 

[Diana]

That's right. It's ok to feel, angry and hard done by. But, you shouldn't let it get to your self-esteem. She did what she did because of her. Not because of you. It obviously wasn't meant to be, which in no way excuses her behaviour, but you can know that just because she did that to you another girl wouldn't necessarily do that. I had a boyfriend run around behind my back before. I didn't know he was doing it at the time. When I found out later, I felt very hurt that he would have so little respect for me to do this continuously behind my back. But, I also know that he thought I was great in many ways. He didn't do what he did because he didn't think I was pretty, smart or a good person. He just did it. Although it bothered me for a long time, I never felt that something was so incredibly wrong with me. I know I'm not perfect, but I never let the situation attack my self esteem to that extent. It gave me some trust issues and changed my perception of men, but despite this my current boyfriend and I are doing really well with trust and I've communicated my feelings to him about these issues.
I'm really sorry for what happened to you. It's just not nice and really hurtful. But, if you keep your self esteem up, hopefully even the feelings of anger and hurt will be minimized and even disappear.