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**hmrambling** · November 2, 2016, 12:35 PM

Welcome to LFAD!

I'm not in the business of constantly reassuring my partner that she has nothing to worry about. My actions demonstrate that I can be trusted, and so do hers. Trust in our relationship has been established over time. I didn't automatically trust her over night.

So many times I hear, "you'll just have to trust him/her," and "trust him/her until he/she gives you reason not to." Frankly, I call bull on these statements. I trust my partner because over time I learned about my partner, and trust was established over time. I would be foolish to trust someone that I'm getting to know and haven't known that long.

The other end of the spectrum are those childish games that people play where they set up their partners so they can figure out if they can be trusted. This is not the way to go, either. I didn't test my partner in order for me to learn that I could trust her. I would not trust a partner who played some game or trick on me as a test to see if I could be trusted.

If a person needs to be constantly reassured that they can trust me, then we do not have an established trust in the relationship. My actions demonstrate that I can be trusted, therefore I should not be constantly questioned about my trustworthiness.

In short, trust is established over time. I do not have to prove myself over and over again, nor do I have to constantly reassure my partner that I can be trusted. Nor does she have to constantly reassure me that she can be trusted.

I'll be damned if my partner prohibits me from talking to anyone. Her insecurity is not my problem. Her insecurity is her problem, and will become a much larger problem if she attempts to prohibit me from talking to another person. That is not trust. That is insecurity. Or one (or both) partners have given a reason for the other to not trust. If that's the case, then there is no established trust in the relationship.

**saerm14** · November 2, 2016, 12:55 PM

hmrambling - my partner and I do trust each other. We've been together for two years and have been doing the long distance things for five months of that. I see what you're saying and I mostly agree with it, but even people who trust each other worry sometimes. Everyone is insecure sometimes. Long distance situations just amplify that. I know he's not going to cheat on me and he knows I'm not going to cheat on him. But every once in a while, our minds run wild and we voice our insecurities. We're all about open communication even if what we're saying sounds ridiculous or unwarranted. I'm just wondering how to deal with my own occasional insecurities in a better way and how to respond to his in the best way possible.

**Honour** · November 2, 2016, 01:03 PM

It sounds like you both have trust issues in general, you may say that you and your SO trust each other... but you have to "Facebook/instagram stalk" every single one of his colleagues then base off their looks whether or not he's likely to cheat on you with them? You have a very skewered way of trusting your SO....

**Littlewhiteflower** · November 2, 2016, 01:06 PM

I did experienced trust problems with my partner. It comes and goes. Lately, it has been tough for us as I was the one who needed to be reassured. The more it was going and the more he had to reassure me. We fought a lot because of that and he pulled away. I understood that maybe i was the one who needed to make work on myself and not him who needed to constantly tell me "there is no one else. I love you. You're the love of my life, and blah blah blah". I realised that my insecurities were making him really unhappy. I deleted my Facebook account for a while and it helped. I read stuff on this forum. I read stuff online. I tried to work on myself. I stopped stalking him. I came back on facebook a while after and it's much more better since. If social medias are a source of conflict between you and your partner, you must find a solution (exchange passwords, delete your account or try to go less often on that).

I do not need to reassure my partner firstly because he tries to not think about what could happen "IF". What could happen IF he cheated? What could happen IF his ex who is also his best friend still had feelings for him? What IF he falls in love with his colleague? It is something I do all the time though. It's just a source of stress honestly. You have NO control on that and that's just a source of destruction if you think always this way.

I do show my boyfriend I love him unconditionally and he shows it too. Maybe that's why he doesn't worry about other guys in my life. Sometimes his way to show his love isn't very clear, but you realise it with time. It's sometimes in the little things that you see it. He doesn't need to tell you all the time he loves you. Just look at the details.
Try to let go a bit. You were fine when you didn't know him. You will be fine if he isn't there anymore. You'll survive. No matter what. So, appreciate him now and just now. You can make plans for the future, but you don't belong to him and he doesn't belong to you. your happiness doesn't depend totally on him and his happiness either. You're a team. You're partners. You must not try to possess him and he must not try to possess you.
Jealousy is normal. But over jealousy is not healthy. It could destroy both of you.
So you must try to find solutions together to solve this problem, because it could become worse with time. Discuss with your boyfriend. And you'll see where it brings you.

Finally, it is important for both of you to understand that it is normal to have friends of the opposite sex. He could be friends with a colleague and you could be friend with your colleague and that would be alright. It is normal and healthy to have female and male friends. If you worry about what others might do, you don't trust totally your boyfriend either. So you both need to solve these issues or it will be really unhealthy to continue being in a relationship like that.

I wish you the best of luck and I hope it helped.

**hmrambling** · November 2, 2016, 01:10 PM

It sucks to be judged based on how I look. Statistics show that women are way worse slut-shamers than men are. Way worse. Who are you to judge his coworkers based off of how they look?

If I can't trust my SO because of how my SO's coworker looks, the problem is not my SO's coworker. It's either my own insecurity, or my SO's behavior. In either case, it's not trust.

My suggestion is for you to make boundaries around your own insecurity, and not make controlling comments to your partner. To make rules about who he can and cannot talk to is being controlling. Stop that. You're allowing your insecurities to cause you to be controlling.

Here's a link on boundaries. It's a pretty good read.

A good way to go from SO to ex is to be controlling and insecure.

**Harlequin** · November 2, 2016, 01:15 PM

First step is to ditch the mindset of "I trust you; I just don't trust other people."
If you trust your partner, then the other people don't matter regardless of what they do. You trust your partner to know that he would never act on anything, and if, god forbid, someone didn't respect his boundaries, he would tell you. Stop worrying about if other women he hangs out with are prettier or uglier, have flirted with him, etc. There are going to be women in the world who are prettier/uglier than you, and there are going to be women in the world who are going to flirt with your s/o. It's not a big deal unless they don't back off, at which point he needs to be the one to do something (which you know he will). You can't stop people from noticing your s/o, so why worry about it?

It's okay to voice your insecurities and your fears, but you need to do some self-reflection first and you need to stop putting yourself in situations which will lead to the crazy coming out. WHY are you looking up all these women if you know it's just going to freak you out? Why even entertain the thought that he might do something or that someone else might do something? Why get so worked up, you start to try to control who he can and cannot talk to, just because you made up a bad scenario in your head? Long distance only amplifies these issues if you let it.

Stop doing things that you know are going to trigger your insecurities, stop obsessing over other people and the imaginary boogyman hiding in that crowd, and start focusing on the love you have for each other. Let him live his life, live your own life, and meet in the middle with love, trust, and understanding. What you guys got going on right now is unhealthy, but it doesn't have to be. You need to trust and believe in each other completely, which you don't if you're telling him who he can/can't talk to, and you feel like he doesn't trust you.

**saerm14** · November 2, 2016, 02:26 PM

I feel like you guys are really hanging onto the whole Facebook stalking thing. He works with two or three females so two or three times is the extent of my "research" lol. And the whole "is she prettier than me" thing isn't to say that I'm basing their looks off of whether or not he would cheat on me with them. It's just one of those things that everyone thinks of at some level, in relationships and in every day life. Or maybe it's just a girl thing, I don't know.

My main point is that both of us have voiced certain insecurities we have and anyone that tries to say they've never been insecure about anything in a relationship, big or small, is lying. Some people deal with that more than others but at the end of the day, everyone is insecure about SOMETHING.

I'm just wondering what I can do to reassure him on a daily basis (not just when he says something that's bugging him) that I love and appreciate him. So that when his insecurities do come up, he already knows he has nothing to worry about. I already make a point to tell him I love him, help him out with things, listen and give advice to him about things he deals with outside of the relationship like work and things like that, check in with him when I go out so he knows I'm ok, and I stay away from situations that seem sketchy or might make him uneasy.

And as far as me feeling insecure sometimes - I do have trust issues. A few years ago I was in a relationship that wasn't long distance and when that ended, I had the pleasure of finding out that he had cheated on me multiple times with multiple women. And I didn't have a clue. It's not that I don't trust my boyfriend, it's that I was disrespected in the worst possible way by a previous SO and I'm subconsciously afraid it could happen again I guess. I don't expect him or accuse him of cheating, I just let my insecurities get the best of me every once in a while. I'm asking what other people have done to help ease those feelings so they don't come out in a bad way.

To say that a trusting relationship doesn't ever need reassurance isn't necessarily something I agree with. Especially in a long distance relationship. Sometimes it's just nice to be reassured. I also don't think it's normal or appropriate for him to have friends that are girls. And when I say friends I mean females that he regularly hangs out with unless it's in a group setting. We are both in agreement that we won't hang out with the opposite sex alone. And as long as we agree on that, it doesn't matter what anyone else's opinion of that is because every relationship is different.

**saerm14** · November 2, 2016, 02:32 PM

A little more background on the situation - I'm going to my hometown for thanksgiving and he's voiced concerns about me being there where I know everyone and I'll probably go out to the local bars a couple times. He's worried I might see an ex or something. Not that he thinks I would necessarily hook up with an ex, but he wouldn't want me to have any interaction with an ex, especially if my boyfriend isn't there with me. It certainly would be a little off putting to me if the tables were turned and he ran into an ex and had a conversation with them. As innocent as it would be, at the same time it's like, I'd rather that not happen lol (if that makes any sense)

**Honour** · November 2, 2016, 03:12 PM

Your SO needs to get a grip on his insecurities before he ends up going to the extreme side of things, at that point it can be difficult to bring a relationship back. I get that you've had past relationships gone awry - who hasn't at some point, to different extents? - but it's up to him to try and reel himself in with his insecurities, all you can do is say, "Look, we're together, that isn't about to change, I love YOU, not someone else, I won't cheat," and don't keep reiterating it. It's not your responsibility to manage his emotions. Reassurances can only go so far.

**saerm14** · November 2, 2016, 03:32 PM

I do say those things and honestly he voices his insecurities very rarely. For some reason the topic of me going home soon has been bugging him. We've talked about it and I assure him that he has nothing to worry about. But at one point I was like "hey, I understand that you don't necessarily like the idea of me going home without you, and I never want to discourage you from opening up to me, but the more you talk about it the more I feel like you don't trust me, and that hurts my feelings."

I think a contributing factor to our recent surge in feeling insecure is because we originally started the LDR five months ago and he came to visit me in October. He just left again two weeks ago and we have to go another five months before seeing each other again. It sucks because after we waited so long and counted down the days and stayed strong the whole time and FINALLY got to physically be with each other again, we have to turn around and do it all over again. It sucks and it's discouraging in a way, even though we take comfort in knowing we're closer to closing the distance for good. I know it gets easier as time progresses because we've done this once before, but I'd like to learn from previous mistakes rather than repeat them.

We've been having a long conversation about how the both of us need to learn better ways of dealing with these emotions, as they are unnecessary and only going to make us crazy. That's when I looked to the internet and found this website and decided to give it a shot. I've got the whole "talk it out" thing covered but at what point do I need to be direct and say "ok, I've heard you, and now you need to drop it" without discouraging him from coming to me with future problems? And do any of you have other ways of reassuring a partner as well as reassuring myself and not letting insecurities lead to bad things? I'm open for suggestion no matter how simple or complex it might be.

**ronjaandbirk** · November 2, 2016, 06:04 PM

Originally posted by saerm14 View Post

I do say those things and honestly he voices his insecurities very rarely. For some reason the topic of me going home soon has been bugging him. We've talked about it and I assure him that he has nothing to worry about. But at one point I was like "hey, I understand that you don't necessarily like the idea of me going home without you, and I never want to discourage you from opening up to me, but the more you talk about it the more I feel like you don't trust me, and that hurts my feelings."

I think a contributing factor to our recent surge in feeling insecure is because we originally started the LDR five months ago and he came to visit me in October. He just left again two weeks ago and we have to go another five months before seeing each other again. It sucks because after we waited so long and counted down the days and stayed strong the whole time and FINALLY got to physically be with each other again, we have to turn around and do it all over again. It sucks and it's discouraging in a way, even though we take comfort in knowing we're closer to closing the distance for good. I know it gets easier as time progresses because we've done this once before, but I'd like to learn from previous mistakes rather than repeat them.

We've been having a long conversation about how the both of us need to learn better ways of dealing with these emotions, as they are unnecessary and only going to make us crazy. That's when I looked to the internet and found this website and decided to give it a shot. I've got the whole "talk it out" thing covered but at what point do I need to be direct and say "ok, I've heard you, and now you need to drop it" without discouraging him from coming to me with future problems? And do any of you have other ways of reassuring a partner as well as reassuring myself and not letting insecurities lead to bad things? I'm open for suggestion no matter how simple or complex it might be.

I don't know if this is an idea that would work for you, but it sounds like you both have the same issue, so you should understand each other right? Maybe you can both be more accepting of having these insecurities, which might make it easier to let it go. make a pact, you both can voice your concerns but the other doesn't have to be super concerned about it. its important you make that pact and agree on it, maybe you can even write it down. then next time he gets worried about you meeting an ex you can go back to it and say, I hear you, but remember we have made a pact to let it go, because we both rationally know we are just being insecure. keep it playful/fun as much as possible.

I have had similar issues with my boyfriend and while it doesn't make those feelings go away to handle it like this, it doesn't let those feelings get in between you when you already officially have agreed about it. The only thing I would warn about in this scenario is that you have to remember to stay compassionate about your partner feeling this way because theres coming your day where you have to let it go too.

I don't know if that was any useful, just my two cents.

**saerm14** · November 2, 2016, 07:03 PM

Thank you ronjaandbirk, I like that. I think my boyfriend and I have that as sort of an unspoken commitment already, but maybe saying it out loud like that will keep us in check. Much appreciated

**Littlewhiteflower** · November 2, 2016, 07:51 PM

Maybe you can write your worries on a piece of paper and after a while, you can read it again and realize it makes no sense to worry about it. So, you don't mention it to your partner right away. Ask your boyfriend to do the same. When you have a serious issue, then you can both have a conversation together.

**Chris516** · November 3, 2016, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by saerm14 View Post

I feel like my boyfriend and I use this phrase all too often. We honestly do trust each other but that thought of "what if they really did cheat on me?" will always be in the back of our minds. That's when the green eyed monster comes out. I've Facebook/instagram stalked just about every single girl that he works with, decided whether or not I thought she was prettier than me, wondered if she ever tries to flirt with him, etc. That leads to me being a crazy person and telling him things like, "don't ever hang out with her, don't talk to her about anything unless it's work related, make sure everyone in the office knows you have a girlfriend, talk about me non stop so no one ever gets the idea that you'd even be interested in them," blah blah blah - you get the idea. And he does the same thing to me. I can't be the only one who has experienced this. So my questions are -

How do you reassure your partner that they have nothing to worry about? (Other than just saying it, because right now I feel like that's the only thing I can do)

How do you stop yourself from letting your mind run wild and keep the crazy from coming out?

How do you deal with a worrying partner when you want to console and reassure them but at the same time, you feel like they don't trust you?

What are some things you do for each other to remind each other how much you love and trust each other?

That is a big problem. If you can't trust your SO in the LDR situation. How can you trust them if you eventually go CD?

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I trust you, I just don't trust other people

I trust you, I just don't trust other people

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