Insecurities Ruining Relationship

[Domini]

Hello. I am 19 years old (turning 20 soon), and I have been with my boyfriend for almost four years.  I have extremely severe self confidence / trust issues, and I tend to take them out on him quite intensely. I always find myself almost out of habit interrogating him about what he thinks of other females in regards to their appearance, always giving me the auto pilot answer of "no I think you're the prettiest", but for some reason that never satisfied the stubborn voice of anxiety in my head. When we go out for lunch / dinner, or even watching TV together at home and a commercial comes on, I watch him like a hawk to make sure he isn't 'checking out' anyone else, and if it comes across like he is, I feel this stabbing pain in my chest, my heart starts beating really fast, can feel the blood rushing through my body, and I literally have to resort to heavy breathing to stop myself from bursting into tears. I have also developed this terrible habit of going through what he's following on Instagram, and he loves skateboarding but a lot of the skateboarding pages he follows contain girls with large bottoms posing sexually to advertise the brand. Even though it's obvious that he only followed it for the videos of the skating (which he also states), I can't seem to shake thoughts like "he would see that and be wishing I had a butt like that" or "that I look like that". This provokes that same stabbing in the chest feeling. The interrogating often leads to fighting and it's killing me because I can't seem to break these habits of letting my insecurities break through, and he's beginning to say things like he feels he should let me go because clearly [he] doesn't make me happy in spite of always telling me I'm the most beautiful and he never looks elsewhere etc., which I don't blame him, I must be awful to live with. Today, things came to a head and he ended up revealing (at the top of his lungs) that he in fact does think other girls are attractive when he goes out, and always has but has just been lying to try and make me feel better. He was saying it really harshly like "clearly you aren't the only attractive girl!" etc. I am confused by my own thoughts and actions as it seems this is what I wanted to hear all along to validate my self loathing, but now that I've heard it I feel betrayed and ugly and not good enough and in so much pain, but I understand he must be at the end of his tether. I literally cannot control my thoughts, I don't know what to do anymore.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Domini,

Welcome to BeyondBlue and thanks for reaching out.  Also sorry that nobody has gotten back to you sooner!  Please know if you need to talk to someone quickly you can always ring the BeyondBlue support line.

I'm sorry that you're struggling with this; dealing with insecurity is so hard and I've been in the same boat before.  The really good news is that you've recognised it.  You know that it's a pattern and you know that it's not helping you.  This is actually one of the hardest things to do because so often people don't realise that it's happening over and over.

One of the things that helped me in dealing with this was actually seeing a therapist.  For me, the insecurity came down to I didn't feel like I was enough.  This is not something that anyone can say; it's just something that we have to feel.  We can have our boyfriends, partners and even husbands tell us that we're beautiful and attractive and all those good things, but none of that matters if we don't believe it ourselves.

From what you've said, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of evidence to show you that he's not going to be loyal, or that he is 'checking out other girls', so try to remind yourself of that.  One of the things I learned is to kind of check our thoughts - are we jumping to conclusions? Do I know this or am I just assuming? How do I know that I'm not attractive/etc?  Try to remember that just because were thinking something doesn't mean it's true.  It takes a lot of time to train our brains to recognise this, so don't worry if it doesn't come naturally.

And finally - what do you need to feel secure?  Is this something that comes down to feeling attractive in your own skin, or is it something more? (You don't have to answer this by the way ha - just food for thought).

Hope this helps some - you're definitely not alone and this can get better.  Feel free to reach out again and let us know how you go.