Fear of losing him

[Nicole0923]

I have a huge problem. First i thought that must be jealousy. But I realised the problem is with me. My heart was broken too many times. And now when I feel that I have the Love of my life, the bad memories trying to pull me down, bringing back the old fears. I must trust in him, if I don't want to spoil our relationship.
Please help me. How could you stay strong? Do you freak out when your bf/gf is busy and can't text you/call you? I always freak out but I don't want to...

[kacie]

Have you talked to him about this? If he knows your insecurities he could help you through them.

[Irina_Linn]

two my exes hurt me before i met my SO,so i also freaked out if he replied 1 minute later or was not available.you can get over it only if he constantly proves his love and care to you and also you have to inform him about this problem.because if you freak out with no reason,it will just annoy him.discuss it together and with some time everything will be ok

[ST25]

I had an ex that was hurtful in the end (breaking up with me without my knowledge), so I can see how the bad memories can agonize you. You can let your SO know what's wrong so that he won't get worried himself. You owe yourselves the chance of more security, at least. ^^

[Schlafmütze]

I can totally relate.
I will PM you soon, but for now I'll share this quotation with you:
“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

[Black_Halloween]

I normally try to avoid writing long posts but this one really hit home for me, OP. Let me tell you a little story (might be a little NSFW, i'll keep it as respectful and clean as possible):

Four years ago I got involved with an old friend's ex boyfriend (with her permission...and insistence no less). Back then I, like many other girls my age, was really naive to emotions and was consumed by them. Me and Jeff (not his real name) ended up dating for a month then he broke up with me because he wasn't over his past relationship. Seems simple right? A little tears but no harm done. Well, us three stayed friends and we'd hangout all the time than my old friend met one of Jeff's friends and basically vanished with her new guy.

Jeff and I started hanging out again and I still liked him. We started "messing around" when his parents were sleeping and he told me he wasn't ready yet for a relationship and he was going into the army but he still wanted to be with me after he got back from basic training so to give him time but until then (until he left for basic) we could "mess around" (pft, typical men eh?). I was a virgin at the time and consumed by love for this guy so naturally as naive as I was I agreed to it.

To keep this relatively short, he never went to basic, dropped out of the army and move out of his parents house with a roommate to where I spent many nights in his bed hoping he'd finally commit. He ended up taking my virginity after 4 months of FWB (a week after I turned 18) and after 3 more months of that he upped and moved to new jersey, throwing me in the trash so to speak. He bitched me out on facebook weeks after the move, called me a terrible friend and that was that. He was gone. After he left I was suicidal, I didn't know how to handle my emotions and I decided that I'd never let anybody hurt me like that again so I put walls up bigger than the Wall of China. I was a fortress no man would ever get into again.

I met Daniel at the end of 2010, two years later. I still had those walls up, I was still trying to work through what had happened, how I could have been so foolish and given something so precious to me away so some guy who was only using me for one thing. I wanted to be the smart girl who saved herself for love, real love, and I had ruined that.

The night I met Daniel, something in me told me to hold onto that boy. It scared me to no end, how could somebody (in one night no less) have such a great effect on my heart? Let alone somebody I met online who I had never seen in person. I hadn't even seen a picture yet! I told myself that I was crazy, nuts, bonkers even but I knew had fallen in love with him. Thankfully, he had fallen in love with me too.

After about 8 months worth of fights about my trust issues, me "testing" him (pushing him away, pushing his temper and his limits) I broke down and told him everything. There were a lot of nights were i'd just cry and i'd be here for me for however long it took (sometimes well into the late morning we'd watch the sunrise together). He ended up falling asleep on his laptop a lot, forcing himself to stay awake to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself or that I didn't have one of my many lucid nightmares; when I did he'd txt me until I calmed down and fell asleep again.

Last year before he went off on a camping trip with his dad, he had hand written me a love letter and sent it in the mail so i'd get it while he was gone. He told me that all of the apologizing I had done for the massive amount of baggage I had was unnecessary and that he was going to "carry my bags for me" because "that's what gentlemen do". After that, I slowly let all of my walls down and he, figuratively, held my hand through all of it. He still does.

So, moral of the story? Open up to him about what you're feeling and don't be afraid to feel it. Repressing these feelings you're having isn't going to heal you or make anything with your SO better. If he truly cares for you as my SO cares for me you'll be just fine. You'll fight, cry, push him away and then pull him back in again but he needs to know the reasons why. No matter how long it takes, you will get there I promise and you will be on cloud 9 when you do.

[Lovebee]

This thread rings very true for me too. Bear with me.

I have always been the girl who gets more involved than the guy, and the guy ends up leaving me for some other woman who he proceeds to get involved with in a way he had no intention of doing with me. I'm that girl who gets used. As a consequence, my self-esteem got battered and my heart got broken often, until I learned to cope by pretending I didn't feel anything, and assuming that every man I started any kind of relationship with was eventually going to leave me.

I also learned to stop talking about my insecurities with men I was dating. They seemed to just read me as damaged goods, and run a mile - in fairness, they weren't wrong. So I put up a big front of being happy, carefree, strong, independent, when all I really wanted was somebody to love me and look after me when I'm having a bad day.

My SO is that guy who really isn't like other guys. I've never loved somebody like I love him, and I've never been loved in the way he loves me. I'm comfortable around him, but I still find it hard to tell him what I'm really thinking. Often I will worry that if I tell him about how I feel about something, he'll think I'm ridiculous, or selfish, or stupid, or a bitch, and he'll leave me. He actually called me out on this when he was visiting over Christmas, and pointed out that when he asks what I'm thinking, I brush him off with an 'easy' answer. For example, I was lying in bed looking at the ceiling whilst I fretted about him going back to the US and how awful it was going to be without him, and he asked what was on my mind. I promptly told him I was considering having a shower. I couldn't bring myself to tell him how I really felt.

In an effort to be as honest with him as he is with me, I've started a journal in which I write to him about all the things I wish I could talk to him about. I find it easier to express myself in a written way than speaking, anyway, and I haven't yet decided if I'll show it to him in the end. I might only show him parts of it. I might bite the bullet and show him all of it. I wanted some way of telling him all about what's in my head. Funnily enough, I even found it hard to tell him I was working on it, as I was worried he'd think I was weird or an idiot for doing something so self-indulgent.

He likes the idea of it and he was nothing but supportive. I'm now quite enjoying writing in it, because it means he'll get to see a side of me that nobody ever sees, and I hope it will bring us closer.

It might be something to try - you don't have to show it to your SO, but I find the act of writing down how I feel and acknowledging that it's ok to feel like that is helpful. I'm sure your SO will be supportive, and better than that, he'll be happy that you felt enough trust to share with him.

[Malaga]

First of all, it's really important that you are with someone who's actually reliable and trustworthy. When he says he'll call he calls, when he says he'll do something he does it, etc. Trust isn't something that you just click your fingers and it's there, no matter how open-minded you are. And to fully get there, it takes time.

(I find it ridiculous when people act in all sorts of flaky or inconsistent ways and then get upset because they're not trusted enough. As if that's something they're entitled to just by being in a relationship. Yes having an open mind is key, but most of all you need to build up trust with your actions.)

I get anxious and insecure as well. But then I look at the way he's treated me so far. He follows up on his word. He doesn't give promises he can't keep, doesn't lie and doesn't let me down.

If he's given you no reason to distrust him, then you know your fears have nothing to do with him but with someone else you had a bad experience with. Focus on all the times he's treated you well instead. This is who he is. Not that other person who hurt you.