Trust issues from past relationship

[Zoe0686]

Hi everyone,
I'm a mum with 4 children. I split with their father after an emotional and verbal abusive relationship. Towards the end I found out he had porn photos on his phone and had been speaking to another woman on Facebook ( he was too stupid to see that she was a fraud and was from another country asking for money) but he made out he was a single dad and even sent a photo of my children to her.
I've been with my current partner for 9 months and safe to say my trust issues are still there. I look for the smallest thing to show me that he would rather be with someone else. I've noticed him looking at a woman when we were driving and I went all quiet and moody, when I told her why he got really upset and annoyed that I thought he was eyeing this woman up. He likes WWE and has all the really gorgeous women from there on his instagram and it kills me.
We had a big falling out after we had been together for 2 months (we had already fallen in love and said it to each other) he went to a work conference and I found photos online of him with two very pretty blonde girls on the dance floor and then he had photos from a photo booth that was there and in every photo there is him, his work colleague and these two girls, and he has his arm around the waist of one of these girls in like 3-4 photos. It made me sick and I confronted him about it and he stopped talking to me for a week. I finally drove over to see him and he got in the car and just would acknowledge me and I was in tears but he was so upset and said "I've just got myself back to a good place after nearly 2 years from splitting from my ex and I can't go through things like this again, I can't get hurt again"
Things were hard but we got back to something good and then every now and then I just mess things up with stupid stuff like him looking at the woman, or when he's on his phone I always have to ask who it is he is whatsapping 🤦🏼‍♀️ after we fight and he 'proves' that he hasn't done anything wrong he won't talk to me for 24-48 hours and won't hug me or anything, then I spend the whole time trying to talk to him and fearing that I lost him.
I need help, big time. He seriously is 10 and I'm not even a 5. He could have some extremely pretty girl and I always see girls looking and him but instead he has a frumpy woman with 4 kids, glasses and big teeth 😢😢 sometimes I feel like I should let him go to save myself the hurt when someone even better comes along for him. I love him with all my heart but I just can't go through anymore pain.

The way you speak about yourself is so unkind to yourself, the age old saying you need to love yourself before loving someone else.

It sounds like you go looking wanting to find something, why was you looking online at photos from his work do? Did you want to find something or had something happened that made you suspect something? Unless there’s a photo of him inappropriately with someone then I wouldn’t think of anything of it, if I was with my team at work for a photo we would put our arms round eachother etc.. Pictures can be easily misconstrued.

I don’t think it’s right that he will ignore you for 48 hours after an argument, that’s not an adult way to behave but if my partner was constantly questioning me or asking who I was messaging then I wouldn’t believe they trusted me. Trust is so important in a relationship. I completely understand trust issues as I struggle due to my ex husband BUT you can’t spend your life tarnishing your new partner with the same one your ex had, they’re different people. I think you need to decide if you’re able to start to trust him (has he ever given you any reason not to doubt him?) it’s not fair on either of you to continue this relationship with no trust.

They weren't friends from work, two girls from another company. I did go looking as I believed he would of met someone there as they were all dressed up and he got very drunk and he never really drinks. He got very defensive when I asked and in my head I thought he got like that cos he knows how much I love him and I would of believed anything he said after out of fear of being alone.

I've not seen anything really. It's just the type of girls he follows on twitter and Instagram. We met on a dating site too and I deleted mine as soon as we started seeing eachother but he didn't delete his until we were exclusive for 5 months, and when he did he done it in front of me but there was no new private inbox messages on it and I know for a fact that on this dating site he got them as his phone would ping his email notifications up so he must of logged on to the site to read them and see the options. I don't know, sometimes I just feel like giving up and setting him free cos he deserves so much better. He is so good looking and I think he's trapped himself with me

The thing is, at the time when I think something or read into something it's like the little devil on my shoulder telling me it's something and then I open my big gob and say something and he gets that hurt by it that he goes silent. Also we hardly have sex, maybe once a week or once every two weeks. He keeps telling me he's exhausted from work which he is but even on his days off he's still tired. I get upset that he doesn't find me attractive anymore or I'm not good enough in bed but he tells me he finds me attractive and he is literally running on empty and the cuddles/kisses mean more to him then sex. I just don't see my worth for someone so amazing