QuestionI am having trust issue with my boyfriend that I desperately want to get rid of. I have known my boyfriend for over 9 years and have been awesome friends for about 3 of those 9 years. When he had came back from basic training for the military we stopped talking for over 3 months because of a fight we were in. After the 3 months we slowly started talking again and shortly after that starting dating. Besides my trust issues our relationship has been great we have spend everyday together and love each others company. He is now on his way to Iraq but I still talk to him on a regular basis. We are very much in love as far as I can tell and often talk about getting married. I love him more than any other guy I have ever been with and I don't want to lose him over this growing trust issue.
Well of course this trust issue didn't come out of thin air. I started about 2 months after we started dating. After the 2 months I slowly started finding out information that made me very uneasy and made me worry constantly. I had found out that he had been talking on the phone and computer to other girls like ex-girlfriends or new girls that he had met. There was also a rumor that he had cheated on me with another girl which was a friend of mine. He denied it like i figured he would but to this day I still don't know that truth about it. I had found out about a sex-related conversation that he had had with a girl from another state. There has also been many occasions of him lying. For example smoking, drinking, and telling the truth about where he had been. I had also caught him taking pills.
My boyfriend is friends with more girls than guys but not because of his looks. He is average looking but has a killer personalty that makes many women like him. That also makes me very jealous. I have told him about how I felt about the situation and he promised to he would stop, not because I wanted him to but he said that we didn't want to lose me over other girls who meant nothing to him. He tells me often how I am the only girl he has felt these feeling toward and hearing this makes me feel good.
However when i had found out this information I started checking his phone often. At first it was when we had left the room, I even took the time to write down any number I didn't recognize and call them myself which made me feel really low. But later I ended up checking it right in front of him. He had told me that when I do that he feels bad because he wants me to beable to trust him and I want that more than anything. He often tells me he is sorry for what he had done in the past to hurt me and he doesn't want that to effect our relationship. Even though he tells me all this I find myself worrying constantly about what he is doing and who he is with. I even worry if he even really loves me. Its like I can't control my feelings anymore and I find my self making up false stories about him cheating on me. Lately I try not to have time to myself because I just start worrying about him with other girls, and even know that he is in Iraq.
To make a long story short I hate feeling this jealousy and worrying about him constantly. Before he left for Iraq I hadn't found any evidence of him doing what he had done in the past. I'm hoping that when he comes back I will be over this jealousy issue and have a new outlook on our relationship and be able to let our relationship grow with me not worrying everytime he isn't by my side. He expresses he love for me everyday and I express my love for him. So can I learn to look past my issues? Please help me!
AnswerHi Krystal~
In a sense he's contributed to your jealousy and not trusting him (by talking to other girls, flirting with them, etc). This has now become a huge issue for you. What does your gut instinct tell you? Does it say you can trust him just yet? If it doesn't then maybe it's trying to tell you something else. Trust your gut instinct, it's there for a reason; to tell you when somethings not right. You can't go on living like this (being insanely jealous all the time). Something has to be done or it's only going to get that much worse over time. At this point, the best advice I can offer you is to seek individual therapy if you can't move on and if this constantly consumes you (where it interferes with your daily functioning). With counseling you can get tips and advice on how to move past all of these issues with trust, etc. It would be worth at least checking into.
