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Jealousy and Paranoia is driving me crazy!
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hey,
I have been in a relationship with a man for 6 years, he is 7 years older than me and I am now 22 and he is 29. At the start of the relationship I found myself constantly thinking about him and I was very much in love (probably due to my age at the time and being in a relationship for the first time I was a little insecure and maybe a little 'obsessed') anyway, this was never an issue as I think I hid it quite well and I eventually grew out of it and our relationship was normal and we both talked about marriage and children over the years. We are engaged (we have been engaged for four years) and I have always been quite happy and so has my fiance, I went through a bad patch where I was going out with friends a lot and drinking and staying out until early hours (my excuse for this was that I felt like I had missed out on fun with friends when I was younger as I had met my partner at a young age) I was also getting attention from other men which was all new to me and I kind of enjoyed it! My partner was upset about me coming home drunk and late and after months of doing it I put a stop to it and changed my circle of friends (they were not 'good' friends so to speak, they encouraged me to cheat by telling me to 'live my life') anyway things got back on track and we were happy again, I felt more healthy and focussed from not drinking heavily. My fiance is not from this country and cut a long story short he wanted to visit his family and take me with him (I have never met his parents as I was in university when he previously visited) I have met him family that live closer to us. Anyway, he went back home for a month and when he returned I now feel like I want to spend every second with him and I want to know where he is, I feel like an emotional wreck because I am tormenting myself by thinking he is going to cheat on me and break my heart. He has never cheated on me and I don't know where these thoughts are coming from! We both went to his workplace last night for a meal and I met the people he works with (60% women) and I felt jealous as he spoke to them!? I think I am looking into things way too much and I am making myself unhappy and paranoid by doing tormenting myself like this. I am having dreams that he is cheating on me and I wake up emotional. I probably sound like I am messed up I know that, I have tried talking to him about this but he kind of just laughs it off and says 'oh don't be stupid' I don't want to ruin my relationship with this paranoia and jealousy. If anyone has any advice or are feeling the same please reply to this post. P.s- so sorry for going on and on I just wanted to give you guys some background info xxx
I have been in a relationship with a man for 6 years, he is 7 years older than me and I am now 22 and he is 29. At the start of the relationship I found myself constantly thinking about him and I was very much in love (probably due to my age at the time and being in a relationship for the first time I was a little insecure and maybe a little 'obsessed') anyway, this was never an issue as I think I hid it quite well and I eventually grew out of it and our relationship was normal and we both talked about marriage and children over the years. We are engaged (we have been engaged for four years) and I have always been quite happy and so has my fiance, I went through a bad patch where I was going out with friends a lot and drinking and staying out until early hours (my excuse for this was that I felt like I had missed out on fun with friends when I was younger as I had met my partner at a young age) I was also getting attention from other men which was all new to me and I kind of enjoyed it! My partner was upset about me coming home drunk and late and after months of doing it I put a stop to it and changed my circle of friends (they were not 'good' friends so to speak, they encouraged me to cheat by telling me to 'live my life') anyway things got back on track and we were happy again, I felt more healthy and focussed from not drinking heavily. My fiance is not from this country and cut a long story short he wanted to visit his family and take me with him (I have never met his parents as I was in university when he previously visited) I have met him family that live closer to us. Anyway, he went back home for a month and when he returned I now feel like I want to spend every second with him and I want to know where he is, I feel like an emotional wreck because I am tormenting myself by thinking he is going to cheat on me and break my heart. He has never cheated on me and I don't know where these thoughts are coming from! We both went to his workplace last night for a meal and I met the people he works with (60% women) and I felt jealous as he spoke to them!? I think I am looking into things way too much and I am making myself unhappy and paranoid by doing tormenting myself like this. I am having dreams that he is cheating on me and I wake up emotional. I probably sound like I am messed up I know that, I have tried talking to him about this but he kind of just laughs it off and says 'oh don't be stupid' I don't want to ruin my relationship with this paranoia and jealousy. If anyone has any advice or are feeling the same please reply to this post. P.s- so sorry for going on and on I just wanted to give you guys some background info xxx
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Comments
How do you fight irrational fears? If you know they are unfounded and irrational, then there is no cause you can fight or resolve. All you can do is distracting you from these thoughts and hope they don't return I guess.
It sounds like you've been through quite a lot in the last 6 years and the 'bad patch' you talked about may have had more of an impact on you than you thought. As much as you were enjoying yourself it may be that you still feel guilty or think that he is harboring some resentment? Just a thought, but it coud explain your paranoia to a degree if you're worried he's going to stray as a result or your own behaviour in the past.
It might help to ask yourself the question, do you trust him? Has he given you any real reason to think that he might be unfaithful or that he's looking for attention off colleagues at work for example? It can be strange to see your other half in their work environment for the first time as it's often a side to your boyfriend or girlfriend that you don't get to see as much so it can leave you feeling a bit like you don't know them as well as you thought. This should pass though and it might help you to get to know some of the women at his work and make the effort with them so that you don't create this idea in your head that they're all after your man!
TheSite article on jealousy is worth a read, in particular this part stood out in terms of your situation:
I'm not saying that you want to control him necessarily but making sure you have interests of your own and ways of distracting yourself from these jealous thoughts should help. Essentially, you clearly love your boyfriend very much and it's good you've tried to talk to him about how you're feeling but it sounds like he's not aware just how bad it's got for you. Trying to cope with it all in your head can't be easy so do keep talking to him.
Over-thinking things is always a killer, is there something you could do like calling a friend when you feel really wound up so that they can put you at ease? If things don't get easier and you're really struggling you might want to think about seeing a counselor to talk through all these emotions, they can help you to work things out in your own head.
Writing this kind of thing down can also help to clarify things so if it's helping do feel free to keep venting, we're here to help if we can