YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi ...

am so grateful to have a place I can talk about this.. its very embarrassing...my behavior linked to my jealousy...

I started dating this guy 6 months ago.. the specifics are not important because this is about me.. not who he is...

after a few weeks I started stalking his facebook and would get actually sick, nauseous, break out in hives when I saw any girl on there that I felt was skinnier or prettier than me... from there... my jealousy started to spiral...

my feelings of feeling less than, unlovable, unimportant, NEEDY....the flood gates opened and I have been drowning in negative thoughts ever since..

I stare at him constantly.. seeing who he is looking at.. I don't want him talking to ANY OTHER GIRL but ME... I look over his shoulder ehen he's on his phone (now that I cant break into his phone anymore cause he changed his password...He started locking it when he found me snooping twice before.. I never found anything... oh but in my head..WHO's that girl texting you hi!!!! ugh..)

I make up scenarios of him banging some girl he works with in the broom closet....if he stays home from work sick I have the neighbor "look out" to make sure no one goes to the house... I check phone records and snoop his email when he leaves his computer on...

Im EXHAUSTED...he is still with me because he says all my good qualities outshine the fact that I am crazy jealous... but I know that cant last forever....

I just cant get hurt again.. I am divorced after 8 years of an abusive marriage, left everything.. my home, my dog, all my belongings...I was sexually abused (I've never admitted that before) by a cousin when I was 9 years old...and mentally abused by my stepfather from 7 years old to 16.. and my mother blamed me for it. I was too messy, not nice enough and always in the way...

I just want peace... I want to be able to trust my instincts...without my insecurities and fear getting in the way.. I wanna stop overreacting...

Maybe I just want to know I'm not alone.. Maybe that would help...thanks...

Hello JustAGirl76, welcome to the forum!

I wish I had some good advice. My own problem is a frightening detachment from my own situation.

It seems your self-worth is completely conditional upon exclusive attention from this man. That makes me sad - your self-worth is something that shines inside of you, irregardless of your own efforts to shield it from your own view.

Please take care, all the best, we here are all cheering for your greatest today and tomorrow!

Thank you so much for your kind words..

Sometimes It helps to just get this stuff out.. I like what you said about me shielding my own self worth.. I had to contemplate that for a bit... Thats probably what is making things so painful for me. My self worth is fighting to come out of me and I'm doing everything I can to block it... looking for and outside source to come in...instead of letting it shine from the inside...

Thank you so much... It's really making me think... thank you

Hi JustAGirl76,

Thank you so much for sharing! I can fully identify with jealousy and neediness. I have an obsessive fear that my boyfriend (as well as all my other past boyfriends) is obsessed with his ex girlfriend(s) and desperately wants them back. I fixate on the idea that he possibly finds other women more attractive, smarter and interesting than I am (especially the wives or girlfriends of his friends) and that he's planning his escape route to get away from dreadful, boring, ugly me.
I can't say that actively I snoop through his texts or emails, but if he pulls it up in front of me, I'm always scanning for ex-girlfriends' names. I have gone through his Facebook friends and made a list in my head of the women I imagine he's fucked and tried to find ugly pictures of the ones I know he has. (Ha! Look at those crows feet!) Catch me around PMS week and I'll actually call him out on my fears and obsessions and put him through the ringer about his faithfulness to me and whether I'm enough for him or not. "You seem to really like the blondes, are you sure you don't resent the fact that I'm not a blonde? Are you SURE???"

Given, I didn't get off to a good start when I started dating in my teens - a good percentage of my boyfriends were actually obsessed and still in love with their exes, but maybe that just shows that I'm doing something wrong if I keep going out with these guys. The one I'm with now swears up and down that he's not in love with any of his exes and told me that if he wanted someone else, he'd be with someone else. So now it's up to me on whether I can accept that or just go on firmly believing that he wants to be with his exes. I'm in a 12-Step group that deals with relationships and have scheduled my first therapy appointment to learn how to manage my compulsive negative thinking.

Jealousy, possessiveness and insecurity are just your own mind telling you mean and probably untrue things about yourself. It's up to you on whether you choose to listen to it or not.

Good for you, OP, for being honest enough to post your sincere feelings. I admire your honesty.

Also, super congrats for getting out of the old, abusive relationship! Way to go!

If I may offer a perspective from the other side: a guy who dates alot. This may be tough for you to hear, and full of ageism, but it is the truth as I experience it.

Men are very savvy, and a good man has many options for dating.

The good news for you is that your bf has chosen to be with you; if he didn't really like you then he would have dropped you like the proverbial hot potato.

More tough truth.

I would dump a girl for checking my phone. I might let it go once, but that is a big maybe. Definitely by the second time.

I once had a gf who was jealous; her very accusations (which weren't true) caused the very outcome she most feared: I dumped her and dated other women.

Good men have options; what I as good man don't want is extra issues. I have issues, we all do. A romantic relationship can be a safe haven of caring and connection.

When the costs outweigh the benefits of a relationship, then the relationship will be ended.

More tough truth: Men are often a valuable and rare commodity: more girls are born than boys, males die earlier than females at all ages, and some men are not interested romantically in women. Such is the tough reality. I didn't create this system.

So, the very qualities that attracted you to your bf are the same qualities that will attract other women to him. If you hope to increase your odds of keeping him, consider what he is looking for in a relationship. You may lose him anyway, such is the heartbreaking reality of dating.

But!

Women of value are always in demand. Inner beauty is attractive at any age, and there is always a demand for good women. If you have to lose your bf, such is the tough reality. If he stays it should be because he wants to stay.

What attracted him to you is likely to attract other men.

Modern love is a game that none of us created, but we get to play by its rules, no matter how heartbreaking. Good luck.