I've been dating the most amazing man for a few months, perfect in every way, but with a history of abandonment and childhood/adult trauma. He's been working on healing his issues over the last few years, and has done extremely well, but his low self esteem and lack of confidence is starting to cause issues between us. He doesn't think he's deserving enough, is constantly overthinking and often thinks the worst and believes he will eventually lose me. I'm more than willing to put in the effort to try and rectify these issues, but I'm constantly having to reassure him and validate him, I'm a very confident person but now I'm starting to second guess myself, and wondering if he'll ever become more confident in himself as he's an amazing person that's been severely damaged over the years.
8 Replies
Here’s the thing.
Reassuring him won’t help. It just makes him seek more reassurance. Only he can fix his past issues, and it sounds like he has jumped the gun getting in a relationship.
He isn’t ready.
If you stay in this relationship it will come at the cost of loosing yourself. You will loose your confidence, and you will be controlled.
You can’t reassure him out of this, you can’t text him enough, you can’t promise you’ll never leave enough.
🤔🤔 Perfect in every way... BUT. Is he really "perfect" if there's a but?
Look, in all honestly it doesn't sound like he's made enough progress with his childhood trauma to actually be in a relationship, not just with you but with anyone!
It's only a few months in and you're already feeling like you bare responsibility to rectify problems within the relationship caused by HIS issues. His low self esteem, his lack of confidence, his insecurities and unfounded fears. They are all his to deal with!
As mentioned above, there's only so much validation and reassurance you can give someone before it becomes exhausting because it's usually never enough. At this stage it's neediness but that neediness can quickly descend into posessiveness and jealously that will have you making concessions or causing you change your behaviour just to placate him. You're already second guessing yourself which kind of suggests that's the kind of trajectory this relationship is on.
There's often a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy with this sort of thing too, a person is soo scared of losing their partner that they unintentionally behave in a way that drives their partner away.
As a last ditch attempt, you could tell him exactly what you've mentioned here but I think you really do need to consider that he may not be in the headspace to have a healthy relationship.
Get out. NOW. I have been married to this man. It’s a nightmare. It will destroy every piece of you. He needs to get his shit together. It’s true what they say - if you don’t love yourself you can’t love anyone else.
Why are you putting in effort to rectify his issues? That's a nope from me. Learnt that lesson the hard way. He doesn't sound amazing he sounds like hard work and damaging to you, it's started already.
You need to stop validating. He needs to be able to do it himself, or live without it.
I get where he's coming from. I am that person - but it's not my partners responsibility to soothe my fears.
I’m in agreeance with everyone here, if he is damaging you or your children. If he is no longer seeking help for his mental health then go. He wont change if he doesn’t try and change. However, i also have my own similar story.
My current partner. We have been together for 2 years now. He is absolutely amazing. I cannot fault him, except for his confidence. His ex wife destroyed him by cheating. For months i thought i’d have to break up with him, he was so insecure, but besides that he made me happy. We have so much in common, we enjoy all the same things so i really wanted to break the insecurity. After about 6 months, he is a totally different person now. He trusts me, he isn’t clingy anymore. I managed to show him that i wasn’t running away, and i have supported his mental health as much as he has supported mine.
My FIL has no self esteem, my MIL is very strong.
His new wife is amazing and he is slowly pulling her down.
We can see it.
He is dominating her to make her second guess herself.
It’s horrible to watch
I feel like this sometimes in my relationship (trauma anxiety insecurity is all there blah blah..)and have seen counsellors and hypno therapist. They all help but by far one of the best things i did was listen to an audio book called 'overcome neediness and get the love you want'.
Its a great stepping stone and helped me realise I over think and drag my husband down and my actions are doing the very thing i fear, pushing him away.
Its been a couple of weeks (and a period 😂 the most neediness of my time) and I've backed off heaps, if i feel needy i listen to the audio book, well parts anyway, to reaffirm my stance on no longer being 'that' person. Hes acting more loving towards me and engaging in conversation, he doesn't feel as though hes on a short leash anymore, he was even suprised when i got my period because there was no needy blow up before hand!
I havent told him i listened to the book, just doing my own self work and hes noticed a change!
Anyways, its helped me realise what i could loose if i continue and may help your partner too, I wish you guys the best. It does suck, for both of you xx