Jealousy/Distrust

[Ronin]

I'm trying to figure out what to do about distrust and jealousy in romantic relationships. My fears have left me not trusting anyone. This trust extends to my romantic partners and anytime that I experience an EF and I don't know with any level of certainty what my SO is doing, I assume that she's out with another guy.

I know that it isn't fair to my SO. I know that usually it's all in my head. It destroyed my marriage.

I am overcome with fear when it happens. I get nauseated. I become obsessed with the idea. Normally, I just stuff the entire notion deep inside and ignore it until it goes away. Sometimes I'm not as strong and I lash out. It's hurtful to me, to her, and to the relationship.

I can't expect my SO to account for, and be able to prove, every moment that we are apart. I don't know how to stifle the inner and outer critics though. When it happens, it is so troublesome that I want to end the relationship just so that I don't have to feel that way anymore. A preemptive strike to protect myself kinda thing.

How do others deal with this?

[Nali]

I have been working with this issue myself for many years in my marriage. I can only tell you about my own personal conclusions.  I found that it is important to not feel ashamed about your fixation of what your partner is doing. This will make you feel worse. Let yourself obsess about this. You have been hurt in your life and for the moment your subconcious want to tell you something and the message is for you to find in your obsessions. Feel it fully, but do not act on it, try to look at what lays underneath it deeper in your emotions. I could not fight and supress my fantasies and suspicions so I allowed them, welcomed them and felt through them.

I talked with my husband many times about that I became scared when he did not tell me things about what he did or why he did it. We hade a huge problem here because he had also been abused as a child and his integrity had been violated so he did not think he needed to tell me anything ( in a very selfrightous way). But we had a common goal with our relationship and that was to be honest with eachother and to grow and develop through this honesty. We wanted to support eachother in healing. Still I can tell you that it has been a very hard journey.

I beleive very much in the intelligence of our soul - intuition.  But I had a hard time to know what was intuition and what was fantasies due to my wounds. Well today I have the whole truth about my husbands where and abouts. He had been lying to me about where he was sometimes because he thought it would be to much hussle to tell me everytime his plans changed, for example.

Also in the beginning of our relationship he had engaged emotionally in other women and had had contact with them behind my back - but not sex.

I know that I could feel this during our first 2 years and of course this triggered my feelings of not being safe with him.

When I got to know the whole truth I asked for all his accounts to try to check where he had been and so on but I realized that this was not the way to go for me. He gave me acess to his email accuont, bank account and so on but in the end I understood that I could trust my intuition so I started to feel how it felt now to talk with him, did I feel like he was still lying to me? _ No I did not get any red flags.

So my intuition was telling me something about that he was not to trust completly, it was persistent in this (My intution) until he finally started to tell me the truth. And This was also something he had to start to do to heal himself.

There are so many things going on in a relationship, at so many levels. Many things needs to be worked out. There where a lot in his behavior that triggered my anxiety like his behaviour of avoidance. I think that there is always some truth in why you feel the way you do. I think it is about both of you  - not only one of you. The tricky part is to find out what is truth in this complex mess that lies in a relationship. And how it is true - in what way.

I am working for the moment with a very good Jungian therapist about my defences that I created as a child, dream intepretations and so on and getting to a safer and more stable ground in myself. I am learning what to trust with myself. My husband is also in therapy and we work this through. But we are very comitted to this work and interested in it.

I understand your feelings that you just want to end the relationship to not have to suffer anymore, I felt the same many times. But ask yourself  - why do you stay? Is it because that you can feel that healing would be possible for you in this relationship?

Maybe your intuition is both telling you that something is wrong and at the same time telling you that there is something valuble to experience in this relationship. You just have to find out and interprete it in the right way. Your journey is truly unique and only you can understand your own journey. Your relationship is unique and only you two can know what it is about.

I really feel with you and I feel with your pain. It takes a lot of courage to stay in the relationship when you get kidnapped by such feelings and suspicions. But I do beleive that they are there for a reason - healing will come.

I am sure that your partner would benefit from working with this togheter with you - there is something going on - but what is it and at what level? Can you come to agreements to work togheter? Do both of you want that? Do you have support and tools? I hope this gave you something and my story is very long so if you want to ask me something about this you are very welcome.

[AnnaE]

I've tried replying to this post a few times but it's been difficult for me because I'm smack dab in the middle of distrust/jealousy *.

I can tell myself that my partner is completely reliable and trustworthy, and that the panic attacks I get when I feel unsure of where he is or who he is with are just parts of this damn disorder. And oh, there's the fact that the abuser who put me in this CPTSD-situation constantly made me question my judgment.

So it's a catch 22 -- I'm trying to learn to trust my own judgment and my own instincts again after being told (and telling myself) for 20 years that "you're just crazy if you believe any of what you're thinking" and... well, it's hard when you actually feel like what you're feeling and thinking is irrational and crazy. And then you don't know if it's the old gas lighting talking again or if you actually are picking up on something that's "off."

And then there's the part where you want to have an honest relationship but where you on the other hand feel so crazy for being jealous and distrusting that you worry that you may cause a breakup of your relationship by voicing your feelings (which you're just learning to give voice to).

I swear there are days I feel like recovery ought to happen on a deserted island where I can't hurt anyone else in the process.

[Sandstone]

Same here. The reason i went for therapy this time round was to get to the bottom of my trust issues as i have found a really lovely guy who is honest.
I dont want to let my mistrust ruin yet another relationship so went for help.
That is when i was told i had multiple traumas and found this place ( thank heavens) 

My therapy is over now and im waiting for group therapy for self esteem and assertiveness. Hoping to be able to communicate properly my needs etc. I dunno its all new to me.

I really struggle with trust still and have digs at him a lot. I know he wouldnt cheat but i still keep thinking he will meet someone better than me and realise he doesnt want me anymore. I know it stems from me feeling not good enough.

I hate feeling so insecure. Today im wanting yet another chat with him to see if he wants out. I keep doing this.

I know im on a healing journey now and cant help but think im not making him happy. Perhaps hed be happier without me. Im never full of life or joy. Iv even cut out social life right down cos i get so paranoid and insecure.  Thats not the way forward,  i know that.

Just wish i could switch it off.

[Mightbeadream]

oh man,I wish I had answers for you! I am stuck in this cycle myself.
in the past I have been cheated on, in various ways (whether they actually acted on it, or simply had an active account on a site like adultfriendfinder) .and it makes it damn near impossible for me to trust anyone now. even when they open their world to me completely, I see one friend on their facebook list who I know they expressed interest in before (say before we were even dating, we've know each other a while). and then I fall into a rage assuming they are simply waiting for this girl. even if they have no real contact with them beyond simply having them on a friends list (and really, I'm sure many of us have a great number of "friends" on facebook whom we no longer really have any contact with, or maybe weren't even that close with to begin with)

How does everyone else deal with their jealousy? does being more self secure help? I know crippling bouts of insecurity often preclude my jealous episodes, but trying to completely rewire my brain to see MY value after enduring previous emotional abuse is damn near impossible

I have destroyed relationship after relationship because of this, and I don't want to anymore.

[Soulflower]

I've tried replying to this post a few times but it's been difficult for me because I'm smack dab in the middle of distrust/jealousy *.

I can tell myself that my partner is completely reliable and trustworthy, and that the panic attacks I get when I feel unsure of where he is or who he is with are just parts of this damn disorder. And oh, there's the fact that the abuser who put me in this CPTSD-situation constantly made me question my judgment.

So it's a catch 22 -- I'm trying to learn to trust my own judgment and my own instincts again after being told (and telling myself) for 20 years that "you're just crazy if you believe any of what you're thinking" and... well, it's hard when you actually feel like what you're feeling and thinking is irrational and crazy. And then you don't know if it's the old gas lighting talking again or if you actually are picking up on something that's "off."

And then there's the part where you want to have an honest relationship but where you on the other hand feel so crazy for being jealous and distrusting that you worry that you may cause a breakup of your relationship by voicing your feelings (which you're just learning to give voice to).

I swear there are days I feel like recovery ought to happen on a deserted island where I can't hurt anyone else in the process.

my apologies for diggin up an old threat, but this is exactly what im going through right now, as well as delusions and feeling everyone is plotting against me i am so afraid of whats going on in my head, its making me consider a way out of this life.

[sanmagic7]

dear soulflower,

this stuff is the result of our psychological wounds.  it's part of the beast that is c-ptsd.  like most of us, boundaries have been violated over and over, deceit has been the soup of the day, and we've learned that we can't trust ourselves let alone others.

in many cases we've had the very essence of ourselves stolen, which leads us to believe we must be crazy.  it's not true.  you're not crazy - what was done to you was crazy-making.  i do believe that as you move forward in recovery, you will learn to be less insecure within yourself, which will lead the way to being less insecure about others.  it takes time, patience, and determination, but it is do-able. 

hang tough, soulflower.  we're hangin' right beside you.