Help with jealousy issues

[happydays2come]

Posting here for traffic. I need help with jealousy issues in my marriage. I am unhealthily jealous of women around my husband. I fear he fancies them, wants them or thinks they are better than me. I'm scared he will cheat on me. This stems from previous relationships. My husband has never cheated on me that I am aware and I know this line of thinking is not normal. It is not only destroying my marriage, but the way it makes me feel is really horrible and I don't want to live my life like this.

Has anyone overcome this insane paranoia, jealousy and I'm obsessive thinking and if so how?

I have already done therapy, which helped a little.

This is a good point, please find an ocd expert therapist you can discuss with it because chances are the ocd fatalism manifests itself in this way in you. They’ll be better placed to help you than one simply assuming this is jealousy in a purely experience based context. Your reaction is quite strong even based on previous relationships, so this angle is worth exploring.

Yes I firmly believe I do have OCD and have thought so for quite some time

Ten years is a long time, to continue to behave like this, and to treat him as you do.i can even feel the jealousy over the “hot girl” before you. And it feels like you’re only panicking now as he’s had enough and think he may ultimately leave you. There is an element of abuse to constantly treating someone poorly.

did you go to therapy before because you thought he was going to leave you? Then when the risk passed, stop and crack on as before?

im not sure I have much sympathy , as if this was a man doing this to a woman people would be saying run. Not recommending seeing someone about ocd.

Ive not been with my husband for ten years and no that wasn't the reason. It's not been a case of crack on. It takes over my thoughts

Honestly as someone who has been on the receiving end of jealously, you need to get some professional help.
That level of insecurity is super unattractive and exhausting. You will end up pushing your husband away. He is not to blame for your previous trauma and you should have worked on this before you got married. Your issues and subsequent behaviours are coercive and borderline abusive.

You don’t have to give in to every feeling in you experience. You can acknowledge your feelings and then move on, maybe even calmly mention them to your partner.

I know my partner’s “type” in so much as he has one.
If we pass someone who is his type I might catch his eye or wink at him. Just a little laugh between us.

He works with nice looking women, so what? I work with attractive people too, but I have self respect and good manners, so they stay as work colleagues.

Look at it this way, if he's gonna cheat or leave he's gonna do it whether you worry about it or not. So stop pushing him away being jealous

There’s no magic wand anyone can wave to stop you behaving as you’re behaving. Only you can change it. As a PP succinctly put it, you know you’re doing it so you need to just… stop. It’s on you.

How does that work from an OCD perspective?

Only you can make the changes you need to. There's no magic words that will sort it out. You have to do the hard work. If you have ocd then while you work on it you need to minimise the impact it has on your dh so you need to come up with a plan that works for you. I would try to avoid labelling your feelings as ocd and instead take full accountability for your behaviour. You are damaging your relationship and jealousy is a very normal feeling. You need to stop self diagnosing and get professional help, but while you're doing that come up with a game plan that allows your partner space to have a healthy relationship with you and other women he comes into contact with.

How do I do that?

Well personally I accept whilst I can't always help my feelings I am fully accountable for what I do in response to them. A feeling doesn't hurt me or anyone else, my reaction to it does. I either meditate and give myself space to feel the emotion fully as fighting it rarely works for me. I find that strong feelings come in waves that diminish as long as I don't fight them. Alternatively I go for a good stamp around the woods until I feel at peace. You need to find what works for you and stops destroying your marriage while you work on your thought patterns around your partner knowing other women. My best advice is stop self diagnosing ocd and put your energy into making the necessary changes but you need to take accountability and put in the hard work. It'll make you both much happier.

I'm a shit wife and that's basically it

I didn't say you're a shit wife. I said you need to get a handle on your reactions to your dh having contact with other women. You are having a very extreme reaction to my advice. You asked what to do, I told you what works for me. It's up to you to find what works for you, but exercise and taking responsibility are really empowering things to do. I'm sure you're great in loads of ways, lean into them because your negativity will ruin your experience of life.

It's already ruined. Hes better leaving me. I don't bring anything to the marriage and that's not self pity

I dont see how being dramatic helps, you want him to leave so you can play the martyr and wallow in self pity is exactly what i would say to someone i know who carried on like this, being jealous is controlling you want the person to behave the way you have decided they should.

Being gentle and telling you how wonderful ypu are and patting you on head wont work, you need to wake up ans get therapy if you think you need it making it all about you won't get you anywhere

And yes this is harsh

Some kind of trauma therapy might help you instead of talk therapy, look up EMDR. You would probably have to do around 3-4 talk sessions first before moving onto the EMDR part, but for those it works for it is a lot faster than normal therapy.

Is he? You say he's fed up, but until now you've given no indication that he's actually leaving you. Look, I know you don't like what we have to say and it's probably the first time people have actually said you're accountable for your behaviour. We are the sum of our actions, both positive and negative.

I got married young (too young probably) and some of my behaviour was atrocious. I got jealous and my response was to tighten the net around dh. I'd strop and spoil his nights out alone with his mates. We spit up for a while. I had a moment where I stepped back and realised that, yes some of his behaviour was pretty crap, he drank way too much, left me feeling alone and unloved and didn't pull his weight but the only thing I could do was change myself. I did the hard work and challenged myself to do better. In response he wanted to be with me, drank less and prioritised our marriage. Our silver wedding anniversary is on the horizon and we have a happy, healthy marriage.

Get counselling and medication if you need it, but your goal has to be to become better at controlling your reactions rather than endlessly trying to justify them. Find someone who challenges you rather than placates but you'll have to put in the hard work. I'm here to tell you that you can train yourself to have a positive response to your dh, rather than assuming he has feet of clay. Truly believe foundation of your belief is wrong and the rest falls away. It'll make your life so much better and whether you and dh recover or you have to move on will save you from the miserable pit you've dug yourself. Grab the ladder and climb out.

Do you have dc OP? I found myself feeling a bit insecure due to age & body changes. I do long for my young, pre baby body back and wonder if dh thinks the same. Especially when he sees a young thin blonde who looks the way I used to look.

By taking responsibility for yourself.

I mean this is it in a nutshell, trying to self diagnose so your behaviour isn’t your fault, you can’t help it line, isn’t ideal here. Neither is getting moody or letting him know, when he’s spoken to a female. Even a female friend, you can control that, you chose not to. And then immediately moving to self pitying martyr responses when you didn’t get the feedback you wanted. If this is how you behave in real life it’s not ok.

It wouldn't bother me. I think I'm a pretty good catch so I'm fairly sure DH isn't going to run off with someone else. Also if he did, I would be OK. Obviously I'd be crushed, but long term I'd be fine.

If the worst happened OP, how would you feel? Maybe if you worked out "a plan" for what you would do/ say / act it might help you realise it's not the end of the world.

Wouldn’t bother me either, couldn’t give a crap what rhe women my husband works with or for look like,

You do realise OP that cheating is only a reflection on the person who is cheating and not you right?

My view on this has always been very whatever, if he cheats, it’s over because he’s an asshole and not worthy.

I think its time to let him go and then work on me