Recovering: Insecurities, fear of abandonment and a new relationship

[whatever1607309243]

Hello everyone. I will start this thread by giving some background on me and on the situation. Last year a relationship that lasted, on and off and in different modes, for 5 years ended on a terribly sour note. My partner went from being affectionate and making plans with me to, literally from one day to the other, asking me not contact her again. Of course, now I see that this had been building up and I should have noticed something was up, which I did, but not to the extent to which it was affecting the relationship.

 

A few months later I met a girl with whom I share many things, on various levels: political, existential, aesthetic, etc. Even though I was still grieving I decided to give it a shot, because I know that you don't meet people like that everyday. As the relationship has developed many issues have surfaced with which I am having trouble dealing with. Because I thought I shared a very special bond with my ex, one of trust, the fact that she was pretending to be happy with me for such a long time has been very hard to deal with. Basically, it's hard to trust that people are not hiding something, that words and actions mean what I think they mean, that behind everything there aren't dissatisfactions, thoughts of leaving, boredom, a lack of attraction. It was extrememly hurtful, and still is, to think that I was giving my love, affection and time to someone who wasn't interested in it and did not appreciate it. This is making me overanalyze everything that my partner does and says because, to me, this is helping me prevent a new betrayal, to see the signs I missed before, to avoid being hurt again as I was. I know that in any relationship one needs to have adequate tools to analyze and evaluate what is going on, intuitively, emotionally and rationally, and know if something is wrong; but I feel that I cannot discern whether something is going on or whether it is just my fears and insecurities playing up. I sometimes remember when we met (9 months ago) and recall that she used to give me little gifts, drawings, and that she would be very expressive with her emotions: I then think about how it is now and see that those things have changed. At the same time, however, our relationship has deepened and we spend a lot of time together, so I imagine it is normal that the relationship evolves, changes, and that love and affection take on new shapes. It is so hard to know what is going on! That is one example of how this situation is affecting me.

 

My partner has been very understanding, as we have talked about this many times. I, however, imagine that it must be very wearisome to have to deal with these insecurities and that, on top of that, it must be something of a turnoff- in many ways, I wonder if that negative reinforcement has made her distance a little bit, cutting back on those ´romantic´ gestures. What can I do? I mean, day by day, how can I deal with this?

[whatever1607309243]

I guess this is somewhat exacerbated because she is not given to talking, expressing verbally, and that is the main way I communicate. Thus, while she might be very excited about any given thing, she will not express it much verbally. So I somewhat miss the "I Love You"s and "you make me feel X". Can someone share their thoughts about it.

[whatever1607309243]

I'm so confused, it's really eating at me, I feel I don't have the tools to distinguish healthy distance and irrelevant details from red flags and I feel that I will relive the rejection I lived with my ex all over again. Can someone point me to some resources to look at or something?

[Ms Darcy]

Perhpaps you can look into cognitive behavior therapy.