Will I ever feel secure in a relationship?

[pastacaring]

After experiencing abandonment by my mother at age 5, an indifferent dad and a failed marriage due to infidelity on my husband's part plus other painful experiences , I feel like I'm done.

I am in a long term relationship with a man that loves me and I love him but I still feel so insecure and desperately sad. He is doing well in a relatively new role at work which involves quite a few work nights out. I know that he cares about me and I can tell myself that he won't stray but I feel sick to my stomach. I won't say anything to him and will even encourage him to participate because I hope he would encourage me too. I feel so desperately sad that I can't cope in a relationship because of my past. I want to move on and enjoy my relationship but I just hate feeling like this. What can I do?

Hey OP!

Maybe you can try looking into your Love Language, and getting your partner to do the same, then sitting down together and discussing it. It sounds like this may help to really cement your relationship and improve your confidence.

If you've never heard of it before, there are five love languages, each one being different ways of expressing and receiving love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Not everyone communicates love in the same way, and likewise, people have different ways they prefer to receive love.

It sounds like you may be more inclined to Words of Affirmation, which will give you that confidence that you need to start feeling a little more relaxed in your current relationship, despite what you've gone through in the past.

There are many online tests out there to help you understand what your Love Language is and how to use it within your relationship, the same goes for your partner. Maybe both of you do a Love Language test individually, print out or write down the results, then talk through each other with each other, so that you both get a better understanding of what you both need, mentally and physically within the relationship to have the best possible time with each other.

I’m the same as you and also due to abandonment.

I hide it very well but the truth is im so needy and clingy and have terrible self esteem and nothing my partner does (even though he goes all out) makes me feel happy because I’m so stuck on all the negatives! .

I don’t have an answer but hopefully any replies you get will be good!

Have you had therapy? I'd suggest that it's worth exploring as you may eventually end up sabotaging your relationship when your insecurity leaks out.

Thank's for the replies, sorry to hear you feel the same PetersRabbitt, it's tiring pretending to be okay.

In the same boat, so reading replies with interest! Parents were preoccupied / distant and very much left to my own devices from about ten onwards. Relationship-wise, sabotaged a lovely one with my first BF because he was ‘too’ attentive, next one I fell for hook, link and sinker - only to have him cheat on me and later (yes, I took him back - cringe!) pulled the ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ line then kept me dangling for far too long. Next up, horribly abusive, narcissistic ex that messed up my mental health to the verge of suicide. Only my kids stopped me. Finally left him and was single for three years before meeting current BF. He seems so straight forward - he’s kind, reliable and we have a lovely time together - yet I’m on the precipice of fucking it all up because I’m mistrusting to the extreme. I have zero self confidence and don’t trust my judgement. It’s just awful, OP - sending hugs in solidarity x

I think the trick is actually not to learn to be secure in a relationship - its to learn to be secure in yourself. To get to that point where you can say - I love me and so, if anyone treats me badly, I trust myself to walk away.

And you also have to stop treating yourself badly.
You deserve love and happiness and you need to start believing that.

I know I need to improve my sense of self worth. Sometimes I even get to a point that I feel relatively okay. Unfortunately it doesn't last and I find myself letting those negative thoughts creep back in.

Sorry to hear you are struggling with this op.

I asked myself the same question today as I pondered my relationships including childhood abandonment and not great relationships in general.

I think pinkbonbon has it:

I think the trick is actually not to learn to be secure in a relationship - its to learn to be secure in yourself. To get to that point where you can say - I love me and so, if anyone treats me badly, I trust myself to walk away.
And you also have to stop treating yourself badly.
You deserve love and happiness and you need to start believing that.

I believe I'm working my way toward this and it really does make a difference.