Ok so this will be a long one, but I have lived with this for a long time and I need some help.
I am in a lovely, loving relationship with the most wonderful man I've ever met. He really is, I can't sing his praises enough. He has taken on my two children and they love him, we have a house together, a dog together, go on family holidays, he does things around the home without needing to be asked, he works hard, everything.
I am so scared that I'm going to push him away, and although he reassures me constantly, which is unfair on him to have to do, I just have horrible voice in my head that he'll leave me for some reason.
He is only my second relationship. However, I was very young when I got in my first, lost my virginity to him and had two children. He was abusive in many ways and cheated on me and it really knocked my confidence, a lot more than I first thought when I got out of the relationship, I didn't think that years down the line I'd still feel like this.
So I have only slept with 2 people. My current partner however, has slept with around 20. Which isn't even a great deal of people, but I feel like I'm at such a disadvantage that he's had all of these experiences with different people and i've had nothing.
I wouldn't leave him so I can have more experiences, and I don't really even know what I'm wanting people to reply with, but has anyone ever felt similar? Like someone's done so much more than you, not even just sex experience, but life in general.
We live in a small town, and obviously he hasn't told me names of people he's slept with apart from the ex partners I know about but he had a very large group of friends, and a lot of female friends that looking at past things on Facebook etc they were all very flirty with each other. I didn't have that because I fell pregnant very young and lost all my friends. And a few of the women who he was very openly flirty with, have children at the same school as mine. So I often look at them in the playground wondering if they're laughing at me because I didn't know him when he was younger and he might have been abit of a "lad" and they know him so much better than I do.
Please be kind, I am a grown woman and it's so utterly embarrassing that I'm feeling this way. I feel like I'm constantly comparing myself to others. I have so little actual life experiences and the ones I do have are so so sad it breaks my heart to even reminisce. I do have an anxious attachment style, and I had a very toxic childhood to throw into the mix.
I'm thinking I might need to speak to a professional to help with my self esteem, anxiety, attachment etc and I have mentioned this to him in passing but I couldn't explain the whole way I'm feeling because it's utterly ridiculous.
Thank you if you read it all, I know this will sound like one big ramble and as if it's wrote by a teenager but I can assure you I am late 20s. I don't have the type of mum I can ask for advice so please be kind.