Dealing with jealousy

[redwineandchocolate]

I am a jealous person, and I hate that about myself. I never used to be jealous with my partner the first six months or so of our relationship, I think because I was too besotted and excited all the time around him to feel negative emotions! But for the last year and a half I have been intermittently quite jealous. The silly thing is, I know I have no real reason to be. We live together, he tells me he loves me every day, we have a good sex life, and spend lots of time together. We're only young, still at university, so it's not a case of being insecure that I've got old or put on weight after pregnancy or something, IYSWIM! But I just get jealous for no reason. I try not to tell him because I know jealousy is poisonous in a relationship - but sometimes I do show the jealousy, e.g. I might say 'who's she???' if a girl posts on his facebook and he'll laugh and tell me not to be silly, but then I pretend to pull myself together. I sometimes am a bit offish with him if something's made me jealous, which I know is really bad of me, but I try to stop this when I realise I'm doing it.

But inside, I just feel jealous all the time, it's an awful feeling and I want it to stop. I have no reason not to trust him, and the rational part of my brain DOES trust him, but if he goes out without me (which is quite often as he's in the drinking rugby team at uni) I get this anxious, twisty jealous feeling in my stomach.

I want to trust him 100 percent because he deserves my trust. I knew him as a friend before we were together and he has always been very respectful of women - he's not the cheating type and the majority of his mates are men. I know in the past when I have let my façade of normality slip and acted jealously, it has really hurt his feelings - his mother is very nosy and always used to look down his phone when he was a teenager, and she has never trusted anyone, so he's told me before he's got a big thing about trust. He thinks there's no point in a relationship without trust and I know he's right, deep down. He's also always been very vocal about how he could never cheat on someone and if he did he'd have to tell them - whereas I'm the person who cheated on their ex-boyfriend throughout the first term of uni. (I know that makes me sound awful, but it was an awful relationship - just wanted to illustrate that if anyone has a reason to be jealous it's probably more him than me. I am also often very 'unconsciously' flirtatious, touching people's arms etc, which previous boyfriends have had a problem with.) But he never gets jealous and deserves the same respect and trust from me.

Can someone help me? How do I feel less jealous? Is this just a big defect in my personality that I need to hide from him, or is there a way to stop being so jealous? Please please advise me. I know jealousy and possessiveness is horrible and I wouldn't put up with it from a man, so I really need to get my act together. Help!

hisgentletouch - yes you're right. It's very silly to think about it in terms of looks - I guess I'm just desperately searching for a reason WHY I might be jealous. Perhaps I do put a little bit too much emphasis on looks yes. If I suddenly put on weight, or if my skin flares up, I do have a tendency to feel less 'worthy'. I know that's stupid, but I do. It's weird because I'm not an outwardly competitive person and being competitive against others, especially other women, was a cardinal sin in my family - so if I ever do feel competitive I certainly would hide it very well.
My mother is very loving and was a brilliant mum when I was a child, but has problems with alcohol now, she drinks at least a bottle and a half of wine every day without fail. Over the last few years she has been a little distant, not purposefully, but I have a brother at primary school and a rebellious teenager sister, as well as another sister who is very similar to my mum. So obviously a lot of her time and attention gets consumed by them. My dad is loving and supportive and incredibly generous, but has never been tactile and is undemonstrative, i.e., we've never had a proper hug. But I do generally adore my parents so I wouldn't want to blame them for any of my issues.
I will go for the counselling, I hope it can't really do any harm. Since first year of uni I've been thinking I really should get help for my anxiety - now I'm with my boyfriend I feel like I've unfairly transferred a lot of my issues onto him, i.e. if we're together, I'm OK, and if he goes out till 3am, I'm very anxious. Obviously that's not fair on a 21 year old man, he needs to live his life!

Thank you Rach and solidgoldbrass, I really value my relationship with my boyfriend so am trying really hard to deal with my issues before they become a rift or major problem for us. I am sorry if my post came across as a little self-indulgent but I felt that after having admitted my jealousy to myself it was a good and quite a big step to admit it on this forum.
I just want to apologise if I've come across as shallow at any point about how I feel about my body and how that relates to my relationship - I appreciate that's a wrong way to feel, and I want to emphasise that I am not judgemental about other women's bodies, just my own. I am a feminist in my everyday life, but I just wanted to be completely honest on here, since it's anonymous!

Hi,

You haven't come across badly at all. I understand how you feel, I really think think this comes from you not liking yourself enough. You are good enough for him but you don't truly believe it in yourself wether it is looks or your personality or both, because you don't feel good enough this makes you feel jealous. If you believed he was lucky to have you etc and believed in yourself you wouldn't feel so jealous.