My monster is back and it wants to destroy my relationship

[guybrarian]

I have been involved with a wonderful woman for about 5 months. And then a very old monster that lives in my head decided to wake from its long sleep.

Here's the monster: it decides, against all rational evidence, that my significant other doesn't really love me, that I am not attractive or desirable enough, that I am not sexually satisfying my parter, and then it moves on to "they must be having some secret relationship with someone else." Even worse, then the monster will start vividly picturing her in sexual situations with other people. Perversely, the more I love someone, the worse these intrusive thoughts become. And these things play on repeat, over and over and over, non-stop, 24/7. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I am constantly throwing up, I am in agony. And I don't want to talk about it because it makes me sound so insecure, and like I am attacking the character of my partner. In the past, this has been so bad that I began to think the only way to stop it was suicide. I realized that was a bad thought, so I checked myself in to a psych ward. I recovered for a while. But a few years later my then wife confirmed all those horrible fears by first demanding an open relationship because she felt she couldn't do monogamy (I said OK, but only you with women, stupid stupid me) and then later she went and did have


But that monster never really went away. And I helped keep it away by not ever letting anyone get really close to me.

But this time was different. I didn't want to hold her at arm's length. I could foresee this being something that could be great for both of us. Everything was going fine. And then, about two weeks ago, the monster decided to wake from its long slumber. I began having severe anxiety problems related to it. Meanwhile, in a kind of perfect storm, she had a brief crisis where she felt that she wasn't good for me and that she wanted to stop seeing each other. I knew it was a brief crisis and that I could have talked her out of, but I seized that opportunity to bolt. I wanted to spare both her and myself the pain of the monster. She very quickly realized that what was going on with her was irrational, and related to the fact that she has severe PMS issues that cause her to have intense mood swings. She told me that she didn't mean what she said she was just panicking because of the intensity of the PMS thing. But I was scared of the monster and was resistant to work things out.

I finally decided that I would just lay it all on the line, open up about everything going on with me, tell her about the monster and that it had woken up and see if we could make a plan to make this relationship work. We have talked about my monster and she is very supportive, she knows a thing or two about intrusive thoughts herself, and we are going to seek therapy individually and together, and be very measured and thoughtful about how we do this. I really, really want to make this relationship work. She knows her own issues very well and is committed to working on them. I have my first appointment with a therapist in about 4 hours from now. But I have the urge to bolt, to run, because the prospect of the monster really taking over and me imploding and needing months to recover is so frightening.

So I just need lots of hugs to help me fight the urge to bolt, and to fight the fear of failure, that the monster will win. This relationship could be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love her, I have become very attached to her kids, and they have become very attached to me. But that urge...to run...to find something and say "well obviously this isn't going to work" as an excuse to run, it is so powerful. I know that with therapy and hard work we can do this. I realize there are no guarantees about relationships. But I want to quit hiding from relationships, or getting in them but not really committing out of fear that I will have a meltdown. I want to stop running from love.

[guybrarian]

I forgot to finish a paragraph.

Add to end of second paragraph: ex-wife did have a secret relationship with someone that she hid from me. This confirmed things for the monster. But after our divorce, it seemed to have gone into hiding. I thought it was gone.

[Vonnesky]

Hugs!

I admire you for opening yourself up and allowing your girlfriend to know these deeper parts of you. Intimacy aversion is a monster itself. You did a brave thing. I love to see that she is supportive and you have a plan to work with it with therapy. Good luck to you!

More hugs!!