Hi all. I have been with my boyfriend for seven years now, and as one might imagine, we've had our ups and downs. The bottom line for us is that we love each other a lot, and want to stay together. We are both 24 now, and I am sure that if things get better between us and all is well, we will get married eventually.
But neither of us would EVER contemplate marriage until we stop arguing as much as we do. There is a lot of conflict. We have always been an argumentative couple. At the moment we are going through sex therapy as things in that department have kind of fizzled out for me. I suddenly found myslef not really wanting to do it with him, almost like someone placed a hige block of ice between us on that front, and so I thought (and he agreed), that sex therapy would be ok. Apart from that intimacy, we are otherwise very close to each other generally.
It's the arguments which kill us, and I know that I am the source of many of them. I freely admit that I am a rather jealous person, and I get paranoid about him meeting someone else. I have to emphasise however, this isn't a feeling that is with me always. So I don't sit and worry over these things on a daily basis. On a day-to-day level I totally trust him and believe that he loves me- but say there is a situation which could give rise to feelings of jealousy then I definitely will get jealous and annoyed, and nosey, ask him lots of questions and inevitably we end up arguing. To give you an example, he recently started a PhD (we live together by the way) and obviously, as one would expect he has been meeting other PhD students and so on. One evening he came home talking about some new people he's met, a few of them girls, and as soon as he mentioned them I started feeling insecure and jealous, wanting to know what they look like and so on and so forth. It's totally irrational. My boyfriend is really a gem, he treats me well and I don't want these feelings getting in the way. I have talked to him about how I feel and my jealousy and made it clear WHERE I think these feelings come from. When we first started going out (17 years old) he used to go on about this girl he knew ALOT. She is a friend of the family. He used to blatantly just tell me how stunning he thought she was, how he wanted to marry her, and all sorts, and this went on for a good 6 or 7 months. Now, I think that has affected me, he can't understnad this as his general response is "This was years ago, I was stupid and naive, trying to impress you as well and obviously didn't mean any of it"- which I believe, but I really think it has had an impact on me. I think its the reason why I am so distrustful of him and jealous- because I think he is constantly on the look out for someone else. The rational part of me doesn't believe this, but the irrational part of me does!
I hate feeling jealous and trying to monitor what he does, it makes him feel trapped and makes me feel like a stupid child. I really don't know how I can put a lid on these feelings! Any suggestions anyone?
Thanks
