I (32f) am relatively confident in my self, my looks, my place in life. I do find I still have some leftover abandonment stuff, usually when in sick (my exes both left when I had breast cancer), so I ask for reassurance he (29m) has no plans on leaving, which he gives, but I can tell he’s a bit annoyed I have to ask.
I’m wondering, at what point is reassurance OK and valid, and at one point does it cross the line to being needy?
5 comments
I think reassurance is normal in a relationship, especially when you have abandonment issues from people leaving you for something out of your control. As a man, I understood when my ex or people I’ve briefly dated would look to me for reassurance. As long as you don’t take it out of proportion and it’s something you’re looking for often, I think it’s okay. I think if you’re looking for constant reassurance, there are other issues at play and you need to work on trust and loving yourself.
I think it’s about frequency, if you ask him to reassure you about the same topic over and over it begins to feel like you don’t trust him. You should be able to reassure yourself after he has once or twice “he told me he wasn’t leaving, he’s not leaving”.
The times when asking for reassurance is reasonable is if he acts different or gives you real tangible reasons to believe something has changed. If you need to be reassured even though he’s treating you the same way and has already reassured you, that should be between you and your therapist because it has nothing to do with him at that point.
People differ in how much they tolerate other people’s insecurities. So for your boyfriend, it seems you found his limit. When he acts annoyed then he’s at his limit.
If you dated someone else, they may be annoyed at an earlier stage than your boyfriend or have a higher tolerance for insecurity than your boyfriend.
Try to not exceed the limits of your partner.
If it happens once, that’s fine. Twice, ehh ok, I can live with that. Third time will be a big turn off and makes me question the whole relationship.
This is very personal and I have gone through this if you would like to chat. 26M