I have issues around jealousy and I know it comes from my traumatic childhood. I try very hard not to show it in my relationship but every now and then something crops up and it preoccupies me and I don’t know how to address it if at all. I’m having therapy and the focus is on healing my past and trying to build up my self esteem .
I’m not sure if I should even be in a relationship because if this and I’m not sure what is worth getting in a state over and what’s just my overactive imagination.
I know that my bf is still in contact with all his exes and flings. When he’s on his phone I try not to look but I can’t help myself and I don’t like doing it but it’s like a compulsion. when he’s scrolling through messages I see various women’s names crop up in his recent messages. Often it’s a particular ex (just good friends) but other exes too as well as other women friends. Every time I look there are some of these women in the list.
He doesn’t show me I just do very indiscreet panic straining my eyes and neck whilst trying to appear nonchalant 
Obviously I can’t see the content of the messages but it always makes me feel weird. This weekend we went away and had an awesome time and we got back and he was was messaging a friend and then clicked back to the main message page and I saw the name of the girl before me (ten years younger and very attractive) before we’d got together he’d said how gorgeous and funny and clever she is and how she’d ticked all his boxes but she’d kept blowing hot and cold so they ended it.
The message was clearly very recent. I had no idea they were still in contact.
I have done some paranoid checking of her social media and she posts very sexy videos and photos of herself, has an amazing figure, always showing off her body and is very ‘hot’ , clever and funny, just like he said.
she gets a lot of ‘likes’ and attention and sometimes my bf has ‘liked’ her stuff.
My imagination is going into overdrive about what their messages might entail and I don’t feel I can ask him without it sounding like me being controlling.
I have asked about exes in the past when he’s not been forthcoming about their presence at events where he is and I don’t want to become an interrogator.
Later on he was flicking through his social media and I saw posts from her personal and business pages pop up. I asked him who she is as she often crops up as people I might know and he said he’d been seeing her briefly before me and then changed the subject immediately. It felt a bit awkward but I’m not sure if the awkwardness was because he didn’t like me questioning him rather than anything suspect...
We get on well and he’s lovely in lots of ways. We don’t live near each other but plan to later on. I have been undergoing some physical problems lately with my disability and have put on weight and unable to exercise. Recently I have noticed him checking out other women, which in itself is not a problem but he’s being much less discreet than usual , literally turning his head to look and look back as he’s walking rather than a quick glance (like the oft-used meme of the guy looking behind at another woman while his partner is next to him looking pissed off if you know the one I mean!)
I am probably waffling and sounding a bit mad but it’s really playing on my mind. I don’t like feeling this way at all, it’s tiring and time consuming and I’m too old for it!
I don’t want to end the relationship because of my anxiety and paranoia but at the same time it’s clearly doing me no good being like this.
I’m scared I’m going to be like this forever and unable to sustain any normal relationship. Through therapy it transpires that I’m exactly mirroring my mums jealous and paranoid behaviour and I’ve seen the pathological jealousy in my sister too, it’s very destructive and soul destroying being in this constant state of panic.
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Relationships
Insane jealousy
outherealone · 09/10/2019 08:59
I think I went through a bit of this for a while. About 8 years ago.
I began to feel mentally unhinged. I felt I was reading a book about emotional abuse and that it was about me, being unstable.
I got girls big knickers on and dumped him.
Thank goodness I had the emotional intelligence to do it. I'm not saying it was easy to do so, far from it. But I could only see it getting worse.
He begged to come back but I stood my ground. It would have got worse. The writing was on the wall.
Please don't be afraid to get this controller out of your life. You'll thank yourself in the long run.
Hindsight is a scary relief.
Take care 
Did you say you became ill/disabled after the start of this relationship? If you have been suppressing feelings because you believe your thinking is flawed, and because you don't want your issues to be the thing that kills this relationship, could that have made you ill do you think? Suppressing feelings is an immense strain and that really isn't healthy.
It sounds as though, because you are aware of the effect of your childhood on your thinking, you are hesitant to question his behaviour because you believe that your feelings about how he behaves are coming from your own issues, and that they are not a real and valid reaction to how he actually behaves. And also, the strength of your feelings is the thing that feels so awful as it's frightening and extreme and takes you back to the hideous feelings growing up.
And it may be a bit of both - your issues AND his behaviour. But he still behaves in this way (lots of women wouldn't be happy with it). And both you and he think that he has a right to do so. And that's fine, but it's not suitable for you. And also, you don't really believe it's acceptable.
Whatever your own insecurities and issues with jealousy are, that does not take away from the truth - that openly checking out other women in front of you is at best rude and disrespectful, (at worst designed to make you feel needy and jealous).
You can't sustain living like this though. A relationship needs to make you feel better about yourself, not worse.
I hope you can talk to him and things can change, but I think he has his own issues which cause him to need to be like this. And the fact he has been constantly telling you horrible tales about jealous women, about unfaithful women, really sets you up to be really trying to make sure you're not one of those women... to the point of feeling afraid to stand up for your own needs.
At least talking to him might help you decide - does it concern him that you're going through this mental torture? Does he want to do everything he can to make sure you feel like the most important priority in his life? Or is he adamant that he must be able to do as he wants and that you should just have faith he's not doing anything untoward?
Even if he's not doing anything 'wrong' the way he behaves is something you don't like, and that is ok. If it makes you uncomfortable, then it just does. It may mean you are not compatible. And you could just say that.
So sorry, I would rather be peacefully single than be going through this 
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