Jealousy and Possible Separation Anxiety in my Relationship

I'm 22 and have been dating my boyfriend (24) for 5 months and have been good friends for 2 years. Neither of us have been in any serious relationship before but are both grounded, mature adults with college education, good jobs, and are quite serious about each other. We do plan to get married within the next few years.

Well...I should say grounded and mature in MOST ways. I'm by nature a bit of a jealous person. In gradeschool I always felt that slight twinge of jealousy when my best friend was spending the night at someone else's house over the weekend but it never lead to any fights or issues and I'm still good friends with her to this day. I felt that same slight jealousy when my bf and I were still just friends and coworkers. Since we started dating and I really fell in love with him, it has been magnified x1000.

I have NEVER mentioned this to him as I am very good at outwardly controlling my feelings and would be mortified if he knew how obsessive my thoughts have become. He's never given me any real reason to be jealous or to not trust him. It has not caused any fights or disagreements and frankly I don't think he has any clue at all. I have done a lot of introspection and recognize I am jealous, clingy, and have separation anxiety feelings that I believe stem from my own insecurity about my appearance and several past experiences of basically being taken advantage of due to my loyal, trusting nature. My greatest fear in life is abandonment/being alone.

First of all, the jealousy. I get extremely jealous when he hangs out with his male or female friends without me. For example, yesterday he said he couldn't hang out because he had something going at 4pm. When I was on my way home from riding my horse, I compulsively drove around to his usual haunts to see if his vehicle was there. I found him at his best friends house with several of his other friends for game night. I had been invited twice in the past and had a blast, so I was hurt that I am no longer invited. On the other hand, it is incredibly nerdy (and I am normally not into that stuff) so had no idea what was going on and really didn't care about the game at all. I was just having fun with him and all his friends. In his defense, he could think that I'm just not into it and wouldn't want to come. Either way, I circled the block twice and was nearly in tears the rest of the way home. Any time he mentions doing anything with his friends that doesn't include me, I feel soul crushing jealousy.

And that brings me to the clinginess. I want to be with him all.the.time. And if I can't be with him I want to be texting him. I check facebook probably 100 times a day to see when he was last active, if he posted anything, messaged me, etc. Last month we took a trip and were together 24/7 for 8 days and I still didn't want him to leave (for the record he really didn't want to leave either and said several times about how great it was that neither of us were sick of each other). Our schedules are sort of opposite but we do have every other weekend off together and most days that he has off we do get together but I still find myself sad if he doesn't spend every day off with me...and I know that's not right.

As far as separation anxiety goes, the *only* time I can relax is when he's with me or when he's at work because I know his hours and the building is across the street from my house. I can look out and see his car there. The rest of the time? I constantly wonder where he's at, who he's with, what he's doing. Again, I don't so much fear that he's cheating on me (although the idea of another woman so much as looking in his direction makes me FURIOUS--but not at him.) I don't know why I feel the need to know. I just do. If I message him, see he's active on fb but hasn't responded to my message, I get incredibly anxious and agitated. I also hate when he goes home for the night. We do not live together and every night he's over, especially if he leaves a little earlier (like before 1 am) I am completely crushed. I "know" he has to go but this is one thing I have a hard time hiding. I must be visibly saddened because he often reassures me that we'll be together again soon and how much he loves me.

So far my coping mechanism has been to work out and do yoga when I feel myself getting too worked up and anxious. Going to the barn and being with my horse helps, but not as much as it used to because there's a lot of time for my mind to wander. If I automatically start going through yoga poses I can focus all my energy on that and relieve some of the physical tension in my body. The upside to all of this is it has helped me lose weight and get fitter because the anxiety motivates me to exercise.

I never blame him for any of this and do not feel the urge to get angry or snippy with him. I do a good job of recognizing if I'm coming off as clingy or jealous and controlling my behavior. Infact he's even said I'm not clingy (ha! If he only knew!) It's mostly just this internal torture that I would like to get control of. Some days, or weeks, are better than others, but I have a feeling this will be an ongoing struggle for me.

Sorry for the long read, this has been weighing heavily on me and I do not have anyone to tell. I appreciate any helpful responses and thank you in advance.

I'm sorry I don't have a helpful response. I just wanted to let you know that I read your post. It's good that you can recognize your behavior and can control it. Yoga is a good coping mechanism. Have you considered seeing a therapist to talk with?

I can give you the perspective of one who has experienced a jealous partner, it's a very destructive emotion. It's exhausting to have to defend yourself, explain yourself when there's no cause for concern. It made me feel like I was not trusted or believed when I told him I loved him, it was incredibly distressing and exhausting.

Good for you that you recognise this and want to take action.

Some thoughts:

1) If your partner is going to leave you they will leave you, none of us can control another person. We all take that risk when we commit emotionally.

2) His friends add something special to his life, they help make him who he is, they likely support him in many different ways according to their own personalities. They enrich the life of man you love, in turn that helps support your relationship. No one person can be everything in another's life, that would be unrealistic, but you are his girlfriend and as such you are his number 1. Believe it.

3) If you haven't already, then maybe organise some group time together with his friends, get to know them a little. This may help you trust him and them more.

4) You don't really mention your own friends, do you also have people to spend time with? If you do then spending time with them will not only divert your attention into something positive, you will be investing in relationships other than your partner and that could take the pressure off. If you don't have too many friends then maybe look at widening your own social circle.

I will try to be concise about this. I speak from experience, in that I have been exactly as you are right now and how you feel with past relationships. What I have learned is that as prefabsprout said, it is destructive behavior.

That being said, I am glad that you are where you are right now and that is reflecting on this and analyzing it as you are. This is a great place to be because knowing what it is that you feel is off or wrong in your behavior causes us to want to change. As long as you act on this feeling that you know the way you're thinking and behaving (even if only internally right now) is not right, you'll be able to improve.

One thing to think about. Obviously if you act out of these feelings, it will be hurtful to your mate and relationship. Indeed it is already affecting it in a bad way. Not only that, you know all too well that it makes you miserable. Being in love and with someone should not make us miserable and feel tense, stressed or anything like that, no, it should give us feelings of security and comfort. So all jealousy does is throw that out the window. I would assume that on some level you know he cares about you. Thing is that jealousy itself takes that for granted and assumes the opposite. AT the very worst, his time with friends in your mind through the filter of jealousy is saying somehow he is betraying you. find your way back to the reasons you know he cares. ponder and think and force yourself at the hardest moments to argue with jealous thoughts with the truth. Jealousy is rarely based on reality, it's an internal emotion and thought pattern based on lack of trust and feelings of security.

If necessary, get help. find a t to talk about why you feel so insecure and figure out ways to fight it. I say do it now before the wedding or even the engagement or it's not going to be a good relationship going forward.

I express the sense of urgency because frankly I know how bad it can get and you're showing signs of this with your stalking behavior. I know this is a hard thing for you to grasp but driving around to find him, figure out where he is, is stalking, and to me this is a warning sign that you should get help.

Mind you, I hope you know I realize you probably do care deeply for him and I hope the best for you both in your relationship but that is even more reason that I am adamant that you nip this in the bud now, so you can go on to have a great life together

Hope this helps.

Please speak to a therapist.