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Insecurity and Overthinking after 3 years of being together

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  • #227779
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hello

    I don’t know if anyone will read this, but I am so desperate to get help as soon as possible as I cannot talk about this to anyone.

    I met my now boyfriend “C” exactly 4 years ago, at the time none of us wanted a serious relationship, we were only talking from time to time, as we were 21 and 20 at the time, we had some other things going on but we had really good chemistry so we talked a lot.
    In Dec 2014 I ended contact with him because I had feelings for another guy, and told “C” straight forward, since we were not really dating we just stopped talking, but things didn’t work with this other guy right away, so after 2 months in Feb 2015, I was in touch with “C” again.
    We had a really strong connection and he was very open to me, he told me he had only one ex, her name is “D”, but they ended formally dating long ago, I don’t know the details, all I know is he didn’t like her way of being, she used to lie often, she kept things from him and the relationship of him with her parents wasn’t good. Although, they use to meet often for booty calls.

    At the time, “C” was really invested in us, but he fast found out I still had contact with my first ex boyfriend, totally innocent, we just talked to check up on us, nothing sexual or romantic, and also found out that some times when “C” and I met in December (WE WERE ONLY FRIENDS TALKING EVENTUALLY AT THE TIME), I ended up hooking up with another guys. He found out of this in the early stage of us dating more seriously, around mid March 2015, he was completely devastated and ended things with me because I hid those things from him, couldn’t blame him. But I really liked him, I felt a very strong connection so I tried to get back together very hard. He didn’t make it easy, he said things were over and period, but after a while of talking constantly and me being honest and making promises, we got back together in the end of April 2015. I asked him to tell me if he had met up with his ex during our time apart as he used to do before we met. He said he didn’t meet her or talked to her.

    I started to get suspicious after a night he went out and I picked him up from his friend house, he was drunk and his ex “D” called him, right after he picked up he said “Hello? I’m with “A” (my name), what do you want?” he was being very defensive, but he let her know I was listening up front, she just said “well I saw a missed call”, he called her a liar, and then I took the phone and asked her if she and him and unfinished business, she said no, that she had another guy already, we hung up and agreed to block her.
    We went on a trip together at the end of June in that year, and I just knew something was off. Checked up his phone through, EVERYTHING, phone calls, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, everything, couldn’t find a thing, so I moved to his phone pictures, where I found a screenshot of a conversation with her where he was telling her he had no battery and couldn’t call her. It was already when we had made up. I was broken, I had to confront him, I was in another city alone with him, I felt helpless and ended things right away, but still had to take an airplane back home with him. I was devastated because he made it so hard for me to be again with him because I lied and I talked to my ex, and he did the same thing to me, plus I don’t know for sure if they actually didn’t meet.

    It took me months to regain a tiny bit of trust in myself, I was sure I was not going to recover my trust in him, but he really tried.
    In July 2015, we split up again because of a stupid fight, and I was so mad that I talked back to another ex. We made up and he got so mad because at first I told him I didn’t talk to anyone, and then he found out that I did, even though we weren’t together, it was the lie that bothered him, and although we made up, we both erased all of our social media posts together (like teenagers, I know).
    In August 2015 he left for an Exchange in Germany, we weren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend, he didn’t want to start the “compromise” in such little time, he also said he was afraid I would let him down again and he would look stupid in front of everyone, but we talked every single day, we said I love you, we made promises that we would not date anyone else, or if we wanted, we would tell each other. There were Christmas gifts, Birthday presents, Valentine’s day roses sent, everything boyfriend and girlfriend would do, just not the title. It bothered me, yes, but I loved him and I kinda got why he was doubtful.

    Although he was very possessive during his exchange year, he didn’t post a single picture of us in his social media, which bothered me much, and after long time of asking and hearing excuses like “I don’t like any of our photos anymore” “I’ll post one the moment I get back to you” “I look fat in those pictures, I’ve lost over 20 lbs since then”, he posted one with the caption “Concert day with her… #tb” no loving clues. It made me mad, but I eventually let it go.

    He came back in July of 2016 (a full year away) and he posted a picture the minute he got home of us in the airport saying how much he loved and missed me. So I got calmed.
    After that, we were going through a stage of re adapting, although we remained in touch during this whole year, people change.
    We officially started calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend in October 2016.
    But right before this romantic dinner of us saying we were officially together happened, something else did:
    He had a group work in college to do a Friday noon, but he disconnected from his phone, it seemed like he had turned it off, or ran out of battery, and my crazy thoughts appeared. I went to the college library (I studied there too), and he wasn’t there, I looked him in the parking lot where he usually parks (very small one) and his car wasn’t there. He definitely wasn’t there and phone was disconnected. After 4 hours, he eventually called while he was driving and said he had ran out of battery and left his charger at his car during the group work, I asked if he had been in college and said yes, I was devastated.
    I told him I had gone there, and he called me crazy for spying on him, and told me I needed to get my stuff together, they had gone to do the work at a girl’s house and since she was a GIRL, he didn’t want to tell me. I didn’t believe but he swore and swore, and told me I needed to stop being paranoid and stalking him around. I asked the other guy whom he was with, if they were together, and minutes after that, “C” got a message from this guy, I’m suspecting they agreed to lie to me, but when I confronted him, he showed me the whole conversation and it was innocent just 2 dudes talking stuff, he even showed me the work they had made.Ā  Up to this day, a part of me doesn’t believe him still.
    Maybe I shouldn’t have believed him. But every time I have felt doubtful about him, he has shown me the truth,and then I feel silly for doubting. This thing of me being doubtful has been going on ever since, so it’s been almost 2 years.
    We have had many issued because of this, he told me he wouldn’t be with me for so long if he wanted to be with someone else, there’s no point on cheating, that after they broke up they only met because it was “easy meat” for him, and at the moment, I kinda believe it, but then I get all psycho and can’t stop overthinking about all of this.
    I go nuts, I sometimes have a full night of dreaming about his ex girlfriend (Whom I don’t even know in person)
    I constantly check her up on her social media, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. He has made several times an ultimatum saying I have to stop the overthinking and the blaming him, and bringing her up again, and doubting he was faithful during his exchange year, but it’s impossible. Every couple of months I find myself in that hole, overthinking about him meeting up with her when we had already made up, overthinking he cheated during his exchange year and that’s why he didn’t post anything of us, overthinking about that time were he went to do a school group work to a girl’s house, overthinking it all.
    I love him and he loves me so much, we are very supportive to each other and the good outakes the bad, because he doesn’t know of this whole thing in my mind every 2 or 3 months haunting me down.

    I hope someone has the time to read me.

    #227801
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    I think you should find a way to relax and reset, leave the past alone, it is too messy to figure out, at least the way you think and feel about it, it is too messy.

    Start anew. Easier said than done, of course, it usually is when it comes to obsessive thinking and ongoing distress.

    I would say either find a way to relax and reset or end the relationship.

    Effective psychotherapy can be very helpful to you. Blogs on “Mindfulness and Peace” under BLOGS may help. And do post again with more of your thoughts and feelings.

    anita

    #227809
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hello Anita

    thank you for your response.

    Iā€™d just like to know, is it normal that I overthink this so much? By normal, I mean acceptable after all the mess and confusion? Or am I being exagerated?

    Of course I want to work this out so Iā€™ll follow your advice on the blogs.

    You think is POSSIBLE to reset from all of this?

     

    thank you!

    #227903
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi Ali,

    All women have an intuition when something is wrong. The problem is, your intuition is on overdrive, picking up on things that may not be there. Call it a Psychic Auto-Immune Disorder. One little inconsistency and you’re eating away at yourself!

    I believe that at some point he messed up. Not in a major way, and probably only once. But you KNOW he did, and can’t prove it… and that’s driving you NUTS. THAT is your problem. Not him.

    If you don’t stop at least acting “crazy” around him, he could theoretically break up with you or say, “What the hell? She doubts me anyway. Might as well give her something to doubt ABOUT!”

    Best,

    Inky

    #227913
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    You are welcome. You wrote that you want to follow my advice on the BLOGS. I never blogged before and have no input in the Home Page. I am a member here on the Forums just like you, only I do post a whole lot.

    I will attend to your original post more attentively so to answer your question, if your overthinking is exaggerated in the context of the reality of what happened:

    You met C four years ago, 2014. You and him were 20 and 21 at the time. You talked from time to time, nothing serious. You then pursued another guy, stopped talking with C, then went back talking to C when the relationship with the other guy didn’t work out. A more serious relationship with C developed. C told you about his ex D.

    C later found out that while in a relationship with him, you still talked to an ex boyfriend, and that while you were talking with him earlier, before it was serious (Dec 2014), you hooked up with another guy. C was “completely devastated and ended things with me because I hid those things from him”. You then pursued him and got back together April 2015. You asked him if during the separation he met up with D and he said he didn’t meet her or talk to her.

    Later, one night he was drunk, D called him, he told her he was with you, she told him that she saw a missed call from him, he told her she is a liar. Later he blocked her. A month or so later, on a trip, you checked up his phone and went through “EVERYTHING, phone calls, Messenger, Facebook… couldn’t find a thing, so I moved to his phone pictures” and found out that he had a conversation with her. This time it was you who were devastated. A month later you had a fight and you talked to an ex boyfriend of yours. You told C that you didn’t, he found out that you did, was bothered, but the two of you made up.

    A month or so later he left for another country as an exchange student, before he left the two of you decided that you “weren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend”, but you continued to talk, saying I-love-you to each other and promised each other “that we would not date anyone else, or if we wanted, we would tell each other.”

    When he returned from Germany, July 2016, he posted a picture of the two of you in social media saying how much he loved you and missed you. Sometime in October he didn’t answer his phone, you looked for his car in the library parking lot, it wasn’t there. When you talked to him he told you that he was at the library. You then told him that you checked and his car wasn’t there at the parking lot. He then told you that he lied, that he didn’t study at the library, but instead, he and a group of other students studied in a girl’s house but he was afraid to tell you that because “she was a GIRL”.

    You wrote: “I didn’t believe but he swore and swore, and told me I needed to stop being paranoid and stalking him around”. You then asked a guy he was with if they were together, you suspected the two of them planned to lie to you, then C showed you the conversation between the two of them “and it was innocent just two dudes talking stuff, he even showed me the work they had made”.

    Later on that month the two of you had a romantic dinner and decided on being officially boyfriend and girlfriend, October 2016.

    You wrote: “Maybe I shouldn’t have believed him. But every time I have felt doubtful about him, he has shown me the truth”. You wrote, “he told me he wouldn’t be with me for so long if he wanted to be with someone else”. You wrote that this doubting him has been going for two years by this point, Oct 2016- (soon to be) Oct 2018. You wrote that you “constantly check her (D’s) up on her social media, EVERY SINGLE DAY” and overthink a whole lot, from time to time about whether he was with DĀ  or with someone else.

    Now my input at this point: yes, are clearly overthinking to the point of obsession, and that there is nothing in his behavior that is evidence that he was with another woman at any time while you and him have promised exclusivity to each other. He wasn’t perfectly honest with you but neither have you been perfectly honest with him. Given your ongoing suspicion of him, it is believable to me that he would not tell you that he and a friend or friends studied at a girl’s house. Not because he was sexual with the girl, but because he didn’t want to awaken your suspicion.

    My concern about him is that he referred to another woman as “easy meat”, and that you may be okay with this term and attitude- is this his attitude toward women, or some women, easy meat? And are you okay with it?

    anita

    #227939
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi Inky,
    Thank you so much for your input. I do feel like my intuition is on overdrive.
    I am learning to be calmed, but I definitely wanted to be sure of how this looked in someone else’s eyes.
    Thanks!!! <3

    #227941
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hello Anita,
    I’m sorry, I meant by reading the blogs, that I should follow your advice on checking out those blogs you suggested.
    About the “easy meat” part, he didn’t exactly say those words, he said he continued to hook up with her because it was known, and she was willing to do it no strings attached. The “easy meat” part was just adjectives to describe the situation, but you’re probably right, it wasn’t correctly described.

    #227947
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    Putting aside for now the offensive easy meat phrase used, or some similar phrase, I see that your obsessive thinking about your boyfriend is like you suggested, exaggerated, way exaggerated, that is, it is not based on evidence in reality. It is not different from any other obsessive thinking, excessive worrying fueled by anxiety. I would say the problem here is your anxiety, not his behavior.

    Before obsessing about him, before the relationship with him, you experienced anxiety otherwise, correct?

    * will be back to the computer in a few hours or so.

    anita

    #227949
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi Anita,
    Yes, I’ve experienced anxiety way before him, and with many other things.
    I obsess about being afraid my loved ones die, but it’s like you said, “way exaggerated”. I also obsess about my future, about being probably sick.
    Sometimes, the situations I just told you, including my boyfriend’s things and his ex, and my other fears are too much, and I can’t even focus on my daily activities, and I end up doing things like overeating, or not eating at all for long periods, and also, I don’t know if this has anything to do, but when I feel the most anxious I tend to make impulsive shopping.

    #227993
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    Yes, it is anxiety that predated this relationship. Anxiety is like a sticky substance that sticks to everything, to every part of your lives. And then we find “solutions” to the discomfort of it by overeating, so to feel better… and then we proceed to find “solutions” to the new problems caused by the solutions that don’t work (ex., avoiding eating, the anorexic “solution”; vomiting, the bulimic “solution”) and we get into deeper and deeper trouble.

    This is why it is very important to do all we can to manage and heal from anxiety, and it is possible although not easy. What about psychotherapy?

    anita

    #228437
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hello Anita! Thank you so much for your responses.
    I’ve tried psychotherapy for many years now, for a while, I had to see psychiatric and took medicine for depression and anxiety, it had me numbed and I really didn’t learn to cope and manage my anxiety, I just learned how to talk about my issues, but I was so out of me, numbed all the time, there are even periods of time I can’t remember.
    After that and a while later, I went to see a psychologist instead, she’s helped me through much, but she was focused in unsolved issues from our lives, childhood and all of that. I managed to be healthier but as you can see, there’s plenty of work to do still, and I couldn’t continue with therapy because of money and time, my working schedule makes it hard for me to go to therapy and so I tried “natural” ways, I started working out more, and I started to meditate (about 2 times per week so far) but I haven’t been consistent.
    I am constantly reading about this kind of issues, but yeah, it’s easier said than done sadly…
    The moment I read what you wrote “I would say the problem here is your anxiety, not his behavior” it hit me, I always tried to heal my insecurities without knowing what caused them, or blaming them on past mistakes.

    #228487
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    I need to get away from the computer for about fifteen hours. I will read your recent post (and any other that you may add) when I am back and will reply then.

    anita

    #228595
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ali:

    Anxiety is ongoing fear, fear from long ago that was not settled. Unsettled, it keeps interrupting our lives. If is similar to this: a lioness spots a deer, the deer notices, immediately the deer experiences fear. Fear is the most powerful emotion in nature. The reason it is the most powerful, that is, it causes more distress than any other emotion, is because the animal needs to motivate to act immediately and use a lot of energy in doing so (running away or fighting).

    Feeling the intense distress of fear, the deer immediately runs and escapes the lioness. Having escaped, it relaxes, the fear is settled and the deer resumes eating and living like before.

    But what happens if the deer is stuck in a cage with the lioness, and let’s say the lioness is tied to a post so it can’t reach the deer, but the deer doesn’t know it. The deer feels in danger on an ongoing basis and it has nowhere to run. In this scenario the fear does not settle. Over time, the deer develops anxiety and even when freed from the cage and the threatening lioness, its fear is still unsettled. It has become and continues to be unsettled and gets reactivated again and again, aka anxiety.

    We humans often find ourselves in a cage. For too many of us, unfortunately, the cage is our childhood home. The threat is not that we will be eaten alive. Instead the threat is being hit or yelled at, or hearing people yelling and fighting, and/or being rejected, insulted, and so forth. And children have no way to run away. The fear is ongoing and it becomes anxiety, even when freed from the cage, that is, even when leaving the childhood home.

    What do you think/feel at this point?

    anita

    #229637
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Anita hi!

    Iā€™m sorry to respond so late, I did not get a notification from this response.

    I have completely understood what you said, it described me perfectly. It describes me in many situations though, some involve my boyfriend, some involve my job, my dad, my humanity in this world. I think if I talk about this it may be off topic of ā€œrelationshipsā€ but Iā€™m sorry, I have to:

    I feel that emotional distress of the deer inside the cage with the lioness every single day of my life, Iā€™d say, probably from 30-70% of my daily time, depending on the situations. In a regular basis, without no special events going on, I overthink and feel anxious about my existence, fear of death, constant fesr of my beloved onesā€™ death, keeping my job, etc. But for example, this weekend I had a wedding and for some it may be a reason to feel happy but I was in constant stress. Why? Because in the past, my boyfriend used to drink too much (in the early 20s, isnā€™t everyone? Maybe?) I almost never drink, but he likes to do it from time to time. Some time ago, there was a couple of times when he got so drunk that he became irritated by everything and this one time, he got angry at me at a family reunion and started swearing at me and that scared me. It happened twice, and I ended the relationship because of that the second time it happened, I told him I was scared how he reacted sometimes when he drank. So he saw the mistake in him and quit drinking for a long while, but now he sometimes casually does it, of course it hasnā€™t happened again that he gets angry or swears or anything, and I think he saw the mistake in him and changed that attitude, but I am constantly afraid of that happening again. I have talked to him about this fear of mine and he says he understands, but that it will never ever happen again, and it hasnā€™t happened for years now, but I just cant move past that. Of course this wedding weekend he drank and got tipsy but just that, he may say some silly stuff and be too clingy with me, but thatā€™s it. But for my head is not it, I am in constant distress about it. And not just because of him, but because when I lived at my parents house during my whole childhood and teen years, my dad would come home completely drunk and would scream at my mom and sometimes I could hear them fighting over him trying to do stuff with her and her being completely annoyed at her husband trying to be sexual when he is so drunk. Although is not at all the same with my boyfriend and never has been like my dad, I, in fact, get annoyed at him trying to do something sexual with me as well when my boyfriend is tipsy or drunk because I am afraid he would react like my dad used to, or even I am afraid that he reacts getting mad at me because I dont want to do anything sexual. Although I clarify he has never been upset at me saying no, he has never forced me to do anything, but the fear that he may be one day is there.

    #229641
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I canā€™t enjoy a social event if there is alcohol involver cause I am always stressed that he reacts like my dad used to, or that he gets annoyed like he used to and starts swearing, and sometimes is just one beer, or even just the two of us and just a drink with dinner, and it changed my mood, I get so annoyed at him, I get stressed out, and everything bothers me, because I am anxious something bad could happen.

     

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