[AnyAlliteration]

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, it's hard for me to determine where this belongs.

OK, so a bit of backstory. I've only been in two relationships, and my very first one, my boyfriend cheated on me. With two different girls that I was aware he was attracted to. I have no idea if that actually affects what's happening to me now, but I feel it's important to mention. I wasn't jealous of my boyfriend being attracted to other people before or after he cheated, I was just upset that he did cheat on me. It also didn't help that he never bothered to ask me for sex or anything, he just went out and did stuff with other girls right away.

So now we get into my second relationship, the one I've been in for three years now. At the beginning of this relationship, I still didn't feel jealous even when he told me he still had feelings for his ex and was trying to remain friends with her.

I asked my boyfriend about his sexual history and regretted it. I had an extreme reaction and he knew this. I went on living and my boyfriend proceeded to tell me more and more about everyone he'd been with. I asked him to stop bringing up his exes, but he didn't stop until about a year or two after me asking him each time he brought them up to stop. He kept telling me more details and I felt sick. I still feel sick. It makes me so jealous. I can't get the images of him with other people out of my mind.

Then I found out he'd been watching porn the entire time we'd been dating. I felt awful. I'm asexual, and totally incapable of feeling sexual attraction. Because of this, I had to assume based on accounts I've seen about why people watch porn that he was watching for the same reason as other sexual people. That reason was that they would fantasize about sex with the person in porn, as I've heard this is a very common thing.

I felt awful, just awful. I felt like I wasn't good enough, why watch porn when you can ask me for sexual things, I'm not attractive enough. He assured me that no, he was not attracted to anyone besides me, but I honestly can't believe that. Everyone in my life, and everything I see, they all show clear attraction to other people even when they're in relationships. They think there's nothing wrong with it so long as you don't act on it, and I disagree. So does my boyfriend, but thinking something is wrong hasn't stopped people from doing things before.

Then something else happened that I don't feel comfortable talking about sometime before or in October 2015. This event caused me to lose all my progress with my jealousy issues, and actually get worse. I felt totally and completely betrayed and devastated by something my boyfriend did. Now my jealousy is so incredibly bad.

I avoid so many things, so so many. It's destroying my ability to enjoy things. I go right into a suicidal meltdown from things like masturbation to things as simple as common names. I can't watch one of my favorite genres of movies and shows anymore, I can't listen to my favorite songs anymore, I'm on constant guard because I know the tiniest thing sends me right back to that terrible state of mind. I can hardly stand to be around family and friends because more often than not they say something that reminds me.

It's affecting my relationship with my boyfriend. He's tired of me being jealous. He gets angry because of it and gets mad because I don't trust him. He often leaves me when I'm having an episode because he's tired of dealing with it.

I feel weak and stupid. I feel like I'm the only one who has this problem. Not even my therapist knows what's wrong with me. Does anyone know what's wrong with me? What IS wrong with me? How do I deal with this? Has anyone been through anything similar?

[melanie6291989]

In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong with you, but you could benefit from trying to accept the fact that if your boyfriend is going to cheat on you, then there is nothing you can do to stop him. But most importantly, him choosing to cheat on you is NOT your fault and does NOT mean that there is something wrong with you. It means there is something seriously wrong with him. If he wants to be a deceitful liar who can't man up and doesn't respect you enough to break up with you BEFORE he decides to have sex with someone else, then he does not deserve you!

I was in a relationship much like yours and I always thought that he cheated on me because I wasn't enough for him and so I ended up becoming very jealous all the time. But I had every right to be! He would not stop cheating on me! Yet, he would profess his love for me after every time I found out he cheated, so I would forgive him. But he didn't love me. He loved the fact that he could do whatever he wanted and I would still be loyal to him. It was a completely dysfunctional relationship and it was literally causing me to become this insanely jealous mad woman.

After wasting 2 years of my life, I finally decided that I have had enough of the fights and the constant emotional turmoil and I got rid of him. Now, almost 8 years later, I still have moments where I think that there is something wrong with me when a man treats me poorly or cheats on me or lies to me. Then I realize that I have done nothing to warrant such behavior and I stop blaming myself for other people's behavior. You are NOT responsible for his bad behavior, so please try to give yourself a break.

Lastly, maybe try to find a better therapist. You pay them to help you work on your issues and to provide support, not to make you feel worse. It took me a long time to find the right therapist, but it was completely worth it!

Never forget that you deserve nothing but respect and kindness from the person you're dating. And if you are being mistreated, take it as a lesson learned and move on! There is someone out there who will treat you like you deserve to be treated and who will truly love you unconditionally. Sometimes it just takes awhile to weed through all the idiots to find that someone.

Stay strong!