Most people procrastinate working on their emotional intelligence, thinking that when they reach a certain age (25, 30, 40, yada yada), insecurities will ‘disappear’ because who’s insecure at that age?!?!? But that thinking is very wrong. You need to work on your life, including emotional intelligence, regardless of your age. Overcome fears and insecurities for YOU — the work is not for other people.
No matter the type of relationship, insecurity, and jealousy can eat you alive and ruin a potentially amazing relationship. Once you start thinking, stressing, and worrying, you become consumed and start doing weird things — like in a dating relationship snooping through her phone, spying on her, or pestering her. You try to justify it, but most of the time, it is us — not them.
Understand that your past relationships don’t dictate your future, so don’t make your current person suffer the consequences of someone else’s actions or inactions. If you’ve ever been cheated on, it’s emotionally and mentally devastating. Cheating means that this person didn’t reciprocate your feelings or has something weird going on to cause them to act out. You can leave toxic baggage behind with a new relationship and start fresh.
Likewise, figure out why you are feeling insecure. If you do, you will better identify and deal with it. Sometimes, therapy is needed to help deal with issues. Therapy helped me deal with my childhood, which was the root of allowing a woman to cheat on me many times. I was never strong enough to admit I deserved better. I let her treat me poorly.
Another important step in dealing with relationship insecurity is to stop trying to read their minds. If something is troubling you, ask them. Hopefully, you two can have a healthy relationship with open communication. You must also stop pestering and bothering them, trying to get a different answer. The truth is, we get into our own heads a lot of the time.
Stop confusing imagination with reality. We can get into a habit of imagining what’s happening or what someone is thinking, which are worst-case scenarios. We build it up so big that it becomes our reality. You can make an ass out of yourself when assuming something is happening when it’s not.
You can also make some terrible mistakes at this point, like snooping through their phone. Never ever snoop! Don’t look through their phone or social media or do anything shady. Be careful what you look for because sometimes you’ll find it.
If you have a gut feeling that something is wrong, trust it. But know that if your gut lies to you about love, you will see things that aren’t there or ignore things that are there. Listen to your gut, but don’t let it rule you. If you don’t trust the person, the relationship is damaged and can’t be fixed. Trust is earned and not guaranteed. Once trust is lost, it isn’t easy to get back. You are not better than someone because you lie about never feeling insecure or jealous.
The worst thing to do is take someone back and then bring up the issue repeatedly. Don’t allow that to happen to you either — if they choose to forgive you when you’re genuinely remorseful, don’t allow them to use that in a fight or bring it back up. If they try, they’re harboring anger and resentment, which you can’t overcome the damage.
For your relationship to grow, it needs room to breathe. Take time to yourself—and your person does, too. You don’t need to mash and meld into one unit, like sharing social media accounts or always being together. You need outside influences to be a well-rounded person, be interesting, and develop into a confident, healthy, and successful man.
Try doing what you fear the most and take note of your mind and thoughts. Watch how the mind protects itself from hurt and creates excuses. From that point, question the source of your fears. It can be rigid beliefs or a traumatic event. Practicing this daily will make you feel good, and it’s freeing. You may uncover some ugly sh!t, though. Remember that we’re all human, and we make mistakes. Forgive yourself.
Work on being the best version of yourself to overcome relationship insecurity. You will feel great about yourself (and more valuable) and won’t worry as much about them leaving you. And if they cheat, you’ll be ‘peace out’ rather than a negative or destructive reaction. You will choose better — someone who values and deserves you. If they cheated, they didn’t deserve you! No amount of love or compassion could prevent a cheater from cheating. Often, cheating is a manifestation of unresolved issues or seeking attention.
At the end of the day, jealousy and insecurity are not inherently toxic. But they are very human. Toxicity and problems arise in how people manage those feelings and express their jealousy and insecurities. Work through how you manage and express them because it’s unfair to make them another person’s problem (assuming those feelings are not rooted in someone else’s behavior, such as lying or cheating). If you’re acting out of line, it’s time to do serious inner work. But both emotions shouldn’t be suppressed or ashamed
