Hi everyone. My husband and I have been married for a few years. He has always been insecure and has trauma surrounding cheating. His ex wife cheated on him for more than a year with his friend in their shared home. My husband has always been anxious about being cheated on. It started off as small reassurances that would help him, he’d ask if there was anyone else or if i loved him and Id tell him how much he means to me. Over the last couple of months though he has become more and more anxious and insecure. Some highlights from the last month include:
-searching all messages in my phone and freaking out over things that are innocent
-sniffing me when he went down on me and causing a huge fight saying I smell and taste different
-accusing me of leaving my phone at home and sneaking out our back door to cheat
-if he tries to go down on me and I say no because I haven’t showered or whatever he acts like it’s because I had sex with someone else
We have a ring doorbell and sensors/cameras on our front yard. I have life 360 on my phone. He has tabs on me at all times. He insisted those actions I described aren’t inappropriate they’re a call for help and all I need is to spend more time offering reassurance. I’m starting to feel smothered, like every single action is analyzed to the point where I have no freedom. I can’t take a new way home, or buy different grooming products, different foods etc without it leading to questioning. I need help. I don’t know if I’m crazy and he does just need help overcoming his insecurity or if this is abusive? I don’t know if we need counseling or if I need to run while I still can. I feel like my brain is in a fog and I don’t know which way is up or down.
30 comments
Girl, this is textbook abuser shit. Please, PLEASE leave. It will never get better, only much, much worse.
Leave. He will only ever get worse, not better. These issues are issues he should have dealt with and got help for when he was single, before you two ever got together. He’s gaslighting you, manipulating you and controlling you – he is an abuser and he’s using past experiences to justify it. There is no justification for this behaviour.
Also, he is the one cheating. I bet all my life savings he is cheating. I would leave. This is crazy and abusive as fuck. And he can be by himself if her doesn’t trust you
His behavior would make anyone fall out of love with him and grow to resent his insecurities. He is actively pushing you away, ignoring the most basic of human boundaries and yes humiliatingly abusive in the most intimate ways. Wtf.
How does one discover they are being abused and have no power? Today, tonight, tomorrow, sometime when you feel brave (and SAFE to do so) try to draw a boundary to him. Any boundary, any small thing. Does he get angry, scary, manipulative, begging, pleading, bossy? Then try another boundary on a different day.
Journal your thoughts and his reactions. Maybe your small boundaries will add up over time and he will amend his ways of treating you in all the things you describe. Or maybe he ignores/tramples those boundaries and nothing changes. First rule is stay safe and move your important beloved belongings and important documents to a friends house just in case. Sometimes creating a boundary can cause the other person to try anger and further abuse as a means to keep in control. Stay safe.
He needs counseling. Intensive counseling. Perhaps a long stretch of singleness to truly heal himself. I won’t say he is necessarily cheating, and I’m sure he doesn’t WANT to be controlling or abusive, but he is. But you as his intimate partner will never be able to tell him about himself without him thinking you have different motives or not fully listening. Because he clearly already has no trust or faith in women, you , or people he loves. You are treated and seen as an enemy far to much. And sometimes the love of a new partner can help reassure, but most times it can’t.
You have tried to be reassuring and more than accommodating. And it’s getting you no where so that tactic isn’t going to work.
It’s sad because if he really stepped back he could see he is his own worst enemy and self sabotaging. And I’m truly sorry for his Trauma he went through but it’s not for you to pay the price or “fix” him. You DO NOT DESERVE this. This is only going to get worse and worse. The journey he needs to take is LONG and honestly may not be something you can walk with him in. He will never be a healthy member of this relationship until he is healthy himself.
Does he have a mental health issue? Because this sounds like psychosis.
Yes, this is abuse. Also, he is dangerous!!! This is extremely bizarre behavior that can turn violent very easily and rapidly. Please get out OP.
You’ll never be able to do enough to fix this because it’s coming from within him. Not you. In fact, I suspect that by pushing your boundaries to this point and getting away with it, it may have exacerbated his behavior.
When does it stop?
That insecurity will throw your marriage in hell .. he’s having pas traumas which makes him controlling you and expect the worse from that person .
You should not have to pay for his ex wife’s behavior. He should not have gotten into a relationship until he healed.
You are not crazy. You are also not his therapist. His insecurities stem from unresolved trauma from being cheated on before, you are not responsible for what other people did or the emotional fallout it caused.
Proving a negative is particularly exhausting and very difficult. Your own body biology changes how you smell depending on hormones and environment so there is that. Wanting to be clean before sex is totally normal, especially if he smells you first……
He sounds smothering and irrational, making up reasons to be suspicious to prove his theory.
Again none of this is anything you have done or not done. This is anxiety and past trauma affecting your current relationship and it is abusive at this point as it is affecting your life all the time. He needs help, a lot of it.
You need a break, that I do know.
Source – well I had a friend who was married and she found him hiding in a downstairs large cupboard one night when he said he was going away, so he could catch her out. She was scared that someone was in the house so she called me and we found him hiding in the cupboard, he forgot he would need to pee…… That was the death knell on that relationship. Nothing she did to make him suspicious, she did everything right and he still was not convinced. To my knowledge that was very traumatic for her as well.
Quite sincerely, what part of this sounds healthy or reasonable to you?
He doesn#t need reassurance, he needs therapy.
Also….uhm…check his phone for messages, get him life 360 and so on, because usually people that accuse others of cheating are the ones cheating themselves.
He’s crazy. You’re living with a crazy person. Living with a crazy person can make you a bit crazy too. He’s beyond paranoid. Obviously needs medical attention. Are you willing to live with a crazy person and risk your own sanity while he gets medical attention/diagnosis? If he doesn’t want to get medical attention, get the fuck out of there – living with a crazy person makes your sanity leave you very slowly, you don’t even notice it.
My ex was watching me on my phone map and would constantly say extremely inappropriate things. I should have left him long ago. I am now stuck paying the mortgage on a home that’s only in his name with a child because I believed he really did love me. He has no idea what he wants but refuses professional help. That’s why he is my ex. I just have to move. Leave while you can.
You should run while you still can. It does not get better.
I also tried to reassure my husband and let him see everything he wanted. Nothing changed. We went to councelling. He doesn’t see how controlling he is and used councelling to shift the blame on me. He started recording me and watch every move i make. He stalks me and spies on me.
You are not crazy, it is controlling and abusive. You are not the one to help him overcome his insecurity. He himself has to see he needs help and start a therapy. Maybe then you could stay with him but seeing how my husband only got worse the last years I think you better leave now and don’t waste your time.
Wishing you all the best!
You are being TOO accommodating and he’s developed an insatiable reassurance-seeking gremlin on his shoulder. Basically nothing will ever be good enough because he gets a little hit of security when he thinks he’s finally found The One Way to be safe… until he realizes there is something he missed and the cycle starts again. By giving in to all these things, you’re enabling him.
There comes a point where it is on HIM to manage his anxieties, whether he needs to work through that with a therapist or medication and picking up new hobbies. YOU turn your location on your phone off, and if he ever takes a whiff of your undercarriage to accuse you, sex is off the table until he can act like a freaking adult.
I would tell him, all card on the table, either he trusts you or he doesn’t. If he trusts you, he needs to find something other than basically stalking you and making his feelings your problem, to convince himself – or you’re leaving. If he doesn’t trust you, then it’s time to talk about how to divorce amicably because it’s not fair for you to live your life under a microscope.
Please leave this abusive relationship now, don’t allow him to use you, him being cheated on in the past as an excuse, he was most likely the same way to her, many people are cheated on & don’t act like this GET OUT NOW PLEASE
girl, run
Leave him, block him and delete him…….
Yes, this is abusive. He either needs therapy to deal with his shit properly or you need to run like hell.
Why does he do that it’s free in Archive.com.
It will answer any and every question you have. Then leave.
He needs therapy. A lot of therapy. His paranoia and trust issues are going to kill your relationship, if they haven’t already.
You are not his therapist. Which he needs DESPERATELY!! You have it right…RUN while you still can. He needs to work out his shit before he can be a partner to anyone.
Leave him. It could escalate to a more dangerous situation. He seems unstable.
You need to leave. It doesn’t matter if he’s doing all of this because he’s insecure or because he wants to control you on purpose: the end result is that he’s smothering you, confusing you, making you walk on eggshells all the time, and he won’t listen to reason. Also I’m not sure if his ex cheated on him, did you actually talk to his ex and did she admit on cheating on him? Because based on how he treats you and how he’s sure that you’re cheating on him even when you’re not, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the ex in fact didn’t cheat but he’s sure she did. In any case, what he needs is therapy to manage his own insecurities and that’s something you can’t provide, he has to first recognize that this is a him problem, then he was to want to solve it (by himself, there is nothing in the world that you can do to convince him, nothing at all, not a thing) and he was to want to go to a therapist. But you need to leave now, because if you suggest therapy he will say that you want to send him to a therapist for the therapist to convince him that you aren’t cheating when you are or some nonsense like that. It will have to be something he realizes on his own that he has to heal before his next relationship. The most probably outcome is that he will be like this all his life, and ask yourself, do you want to live like this for the rest of your life?
Why did you marry him? Sit him the fuck down and have a talk!!
You are not his therapist . What happened to him was horrible that his partner AND friend betrayed him. But that’s the thing , it happened to him. Not u. So he should be the one to heal. And you are not his therapist so it is not your responsibility to help him heal. Leave him and find someone who treats you as a partner and not a potential traitor.
Leave now and tell him to see a therepist if he does and it helps great start rebuilding your marriage at that point. If it doesn’t or he won’t go see someone divorce him. The answers are simple the action is a lot harder but if you don’t the next question you will ask on here will be “is it still rape if your married?”.
I’m sorry this is blunt but I’ve seen my sister’s go through this and even my wife with her ex. It all can get real bad fast and it sounds like your heading in that direction.
He’s damaged from his past and seems like he didnt get any individual counseling.
Tell him he needs to see a therapist. Or go together to marriage counseling.
You need a divorce, a new phone, new car (he probably has a tracker on it), and to tell him to fuck off.
You don’t belong to him. Leave.