Two years ago my partner had an act of indiscretion that almost ended our relationship. But through prayer and hard work from the both of us, things are better than ever now between us, all except for one thing and it has to do with some of my own insecurities.
At the present time, I often feel like I’m coming up short at what I can offer in our relationship because of all the health issues I’ve been going through. Not having a job and not really even being able to do much activity in life these days has led me to have a decent amount of insecurity in our relationship. Unfortunately, sometimes that has gotten the best of me like it did a few weeks ago when I found myself looking through my partner’s cell phone and into a few other parts of his private life. Why I did this was solely because I allowed my ego and my insecurity to convince me that my partner was probably finding interest in someone else with less baggage.
I know that doesn’t justify my actions, as they were absolutely in the wrong and I definitely didn’t feel good about any of it, especially after I was done snooping and found nothing to satisfy my insecure ego. But thankfully I’m a very honest man today, as I did come clean to my partner about what I did the very next morning and made my amends in the process. But the fact of the matter is that even after I made that amends, I still had that insecurity and underlying fear that I don’t have much to offer my partner at the present time. My deepest concern being my partner might return to another indiscretion or leave me altogether for someone else.
Ironically, I know exactly where this worry is coming from. Those concerns are precisely how I behaved in all of my previous relationships. In each of them, I was on the flip side of the coin. When a partner was struggling greatly with various aspects of their life that ranged from health issues to financial burdens, instead of loving and supporting them as best as I could, I’d keep my eyes open for future dating prospects and did heinous sexual conduct behaviors that ultimately ended each of those relationships. Unfortunately, I’m now projecting these old behaviors onto my current partner and it’s not helping our relationship one bit.
Thus being in similar shoes of those partners I once dated who often told me they felt inadequate with what they were going through, I find myself doing the very same thing by asking myself why my partner continues choosing to be with me. Being that I never unconditionally loved and supported any of my previous partners in all the times they truly needed me the most, I have no healthy grounds to base my present situation on. But so far, my partner has not shown or done anything remotely close to what I ever did, of which I’m extremely grateful. Yet I also know that if I continue to live in this state of insecurity, I’m only going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, I’m going to drive my partner away and that’s definitely not something I want to do.
So the only solution I have at this point is to work on turning this over a lot more to my Higher Power than I have been, especially the next time my ego tries to convince me to do anymore snooping. Because as far as I can see, doing something like that is only going to drive my partner either into doing those actual behaviors I used to do or away altogether. I am thankful though that I recognize these insecurities and can see where it’s stemming from. Now, I just need to walk through these fears and trust that God will help me move beyond them…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
Maybe focus on what you DO bring to the relationship. My husband has health challenges but he’s my biggest supporter, my funny guy who keeps me from taking myself too seriously. I can’t imagine life without him.
Great suggestion Karen! Thank you for your comments. 🙂