I'm so jealous, don't know what to do anymore. Please write only if you can help

[Joanna93]

I don't know even if I can call it jealousy but it is definitely ruining my relationships. At times I know I probably am unreasonable, but it won't help how I think and feel. I feel...insulted? betrayed? when my husband watches for example movie and there happens to be naked women/sex scene. I immediatly think that he thinks sexually of them, fantasizes and compares them to me and thinks why I can't be so perfect as they are. Maybe and probably this is only in my head because he really is very good husband and says he doesn't think/look that way but everthing and everyone says that men are like that I can't believe he is different. I know he probably never cheats on me but I even feel more paranoid about the thoughts he has. If he speaks to some women or a beautiful women passes, the problem is same.
I seriously don't know what to do. If I continue this I or him will go insane but I don't want to lose such a good man. This problem goes even beyond looks/beauty. I get jealous even if someone is very smart or talented...Why have I been made this way? Most women won't think such thoughts. I even don't know why I wrote here, what suggestions I am waiting...

You need to get counselling, very urgently.

It is not acceptable for you to try and control what your husband sees and what he thinks. You need to do whatever it takes to learn to control your emotional reactions if you want your relationship to survive.

Sounds like you have some deep insecurities and could benefit from counselling.

You sound very insecure and I think the only way you can deal with that is some therapy.

You need CBT

It is certainly your issue not your DHs. You need to have more confidence in yourself. He chose you not anyone else. There will always be more attractive and more intelligent women out there but he is with you not them. Try to love yourself.

I'm sorry you are struggling like this, it is certainly not healthy, and must be so hard for you both.

I'd definitely look into therapy, to help sort out where these idea come from, and to set up some strategies to boost your own confidence going forwards.

Maybe also focus on what you do well, your job, or your home, and your own skills.

I think therapy would be a good idea, maybe CBT. It's good that you recognise this is your issue.

Was there a point in time that you remember starting to feel this way?

Has the relationship always been like this?

@Closetbeanmuncher

Was there a point in time that you remember starting to feel this way?

Has the relationship always been like this?

I remember that I have always felt jealous in friendships or when I was child and my mother's friends child was way different than I am and gave a hug and kiss on the cheek and felt same kind of jealosy. I have had one relationship before the marriage I am in right now. Then I was even more jealous but then he kind of gave me a reason. This relationship has been like this from the moment I felt that I love him and want to be with him. First 2 months we were together but I think I wasn't in love yet and those things didn't bother me, at least not in such level. I have thought that maybe it has something to do with that I didn't grow up with my mother or father being there for me and my mother always said why I compare myself with average students, I should compare myself with the one who is best. That is only thing I can think of that maybe have triggered it. But that doesn't help me...I don't have faith in therapy...how can talking heal me? I feel it is so deep in me...

I'm going to go against the grain here and appreciate maybe I'm wrong too. But... many scenes in the media are specifically designed to show women in a sexual light and this is much more common with women than men. Producers show women in a very sexualised light in a bid to turn on men to increase viewership and I don't understand why their partners are fine with this.

Many women who think it's fine for their partners to look at sexual images of women on screen (because they're so used to it perhaps?) wouldn't be happy for their partner to be looking at the same images of naked women in real life. I genuinely don't understand the difference. I would prefer it if my partner didn't see sexualised images of boobs on mainstream tv. Sexualised is key here for me, I don't have an issue with nudity as such, it's when the filming is so clearly meant for the male sexualised gaze.

It seems I'm in the minority with you though op so maybe I need counselling too. I just really don't understand why I should be so happy to sit next to my dp while he watches something which has so clearly been designed to make him get turned on by another woman. I very much doubt most men would sit smiling through similar.

What culture are you from OP? I feel like this could be a major factor.

I empathise with you OP, and used to feel very much this way when I was younger, but I feel far less jealous now that I’m older and have been with DH for a long time.

You need to eradicate how you feel about therapy. You don’t have faith in it? OK, so do you have faith in your thoughts and behaviours now? Do you have faith in the ways in which they will effect your future happiness? Do you have faith in your husband? I’m betting the answer to every question above is ‘no’.

“I don't have faith in therapy...how can talking heal me? I feel it is so deep in me...”

But that’s the point, OP - with a good therapist, you will be able to get to the root of your difficulties. Understanding the source will likely help you. In addition, certain types of therapy (eg CBT) will give you tools for managing these feelings. It won’t happen in one appointment - it’s a process - but you may find 5-6 appointments are sufficient - if you’re willing to do the work required of you. Therapy when approached properly by the client can be incredibly effective. I speak from personal experience on this.

And surely it’s worth a try rather continuing with the feelings you are experiencing, which are unhealthy and hurting you and potentially your DH.

Good luck, OP.

Therapy is the right answer, even though you dismiss it.

I sense that you're looking for validation of how you feel, and not really an answer that involves putting in the work.

That's pretty natural and you're not a bad person for it. But I think you need to truly accept that you need help and not just telling it's OK.

I think it stems from you having low self worth and low self esteem.

@BasicDad

Therapy is the right answer, even though you dismiss it.

I sense that you're looking for validation of how you feel, and not really an answer that involves putting in the work.

That's pretty natural and you're not a bad person for it. But I think you need to truly accept that you need help and not just telling it's OK.

Actually I don't seek validation because I understand that the problem is in me, at least until I got a jealous episode. But even though I understand that the problem is in me, I know that I am so strongly in my views on this that it is hard to understand how can talking to some person make me think normal. I tried to go to a therapist few months ago but she just told me that it is wrong to think like that and it will end my relationship and gave me antidepressants. It didn't give much fate to me. I wrote today after I made my husband mad because of jealousy and I felt that I am tired of my thoughts that constantly run through my head. When I am not with him I keep thinking how many beautiful women he sees/talks to. That's not normal but I can't help it and sadly I think that he doesn't understand how I also am suffering because of it. But maybe the best thing is to be alone and not in a relationship. I don't recall those thoughts when I was single. I felt so...light? Didn't have to think of someone being better and someone noticing it.

@JHMJHM

What culture are you from OP? I feel like this could be a major factor.

I think it hasn't anything to do with it but probably western culture...

@Dery

“I don't have faith in therapy...how can talking heal me? I feel it is so deep in me...”

But that’s the point, OP - with a good therapist, you will be able to get to the root of your difficulties. Understanding the source will likely help you. In addition, certain types of therapy (eg CBT) will give you tools for managing these feelings. It won’t happen in one appointment - it’s a process - but you may find 5-6 appointments are sufficient - if you’re willing to do the work required of you. Therapy when approached properly by the client can be incredibly effective. I speak from personal experience on this.

And surely it’s worth a try rather continuing with the feelings you are experiencing, which are unhealthy and hurting you and potentially your DH.

Good luck, OP.

But I think that I know where the problem lies. Low self esteem and what I wrote earlier about my childhood...Problem is I don't see how is this worked through. I have seen/heard how CBT works on phobias for example, facing your fears, but how could it work with me...

‘My mother always said why I compare myself with average students, I should compare myself with the one who is best.’

This could be the key, I think. It reads as though you were raised to compare yourself to others, it’s ingrained within you and requires a big shift in mindset and a decision to compare yourself only to yourself because (in the words of Chesney Hawkes) you are the one and only. This is what your husband is trying to tell you.

I hope this helps.

My xh was like you. I couldn’t be in the same room as a man without him thinking that I had feelings for them. Eventually it wore me down and I left.

Therapy may help because it is deep within you, the exact reason that you feel it won’t help!

Cbt isn’t about facing your fears, it’s about why we think what we think, why we feel what we feel. Questioning beliefs and looking at alternative ideas.

With total repect and in the spirit of trying to dig a bit deeper and understand the issue @Joanna93 you dont sound 'english'. The way you talk about your husband 'walking past' and 'Talking to beautiful women' sounds like you are not used to usual casual interactions between the sexes that I would be gor instance.

Have you got mates? Hobbies? Cinema? Theatre? Are you acheiving at work?

Therapy can successfully address extremely deep-rooted problems, however, as well as doing the work yourself, you need to gel with the therapist.

Also, at some level - just based on this thread - you seem somehow determined to cling to this idea of yourself as a deeply jealous person - almost as if it’s such an important part of your identity that you can’t contemplate letting it go because you don’t know who you would be without it. I could be totally wrong here but, perhaps in a way, the jealousy in your childhood was your way of remaining vigilant to what was going on around you and that helped you feel in control or was your measure for how to understand things. So perhaps in some way it served a purpose for you as a child. Probably all of us have childhood habits which no longer serve us. So at some level, perhaps the idea of releasing your jealous feelings scares you. Perhaps you equate it with losing control.

It may even be a clinical thing - perhaps a kind of OCD - again specialist therapy and potentially medication can help with these things.

In any case, if you go into therapy convinced this is just how you are and determined to cling to it then you are sabotaging the therapy process from the outset. That might be what led your therapist to say what she did.