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I have one big problem with my current relationship and I'm desperate. Basically since it has begun I've experienced constant low level pain and discomfort that increases when alone.
Before I've always had near perfect mental health which makes it worse. It's even made me consider breaking up with my girlfriend over it, despite everything else being great. None of my normal coping strategies work.
I'm having negative thoughts surrounding her previous relationships. Specifically that she has let herself be fucked by and been emotionally intimate with seemingly pathetic dudes and dudes in generall(very few though!!). It goes beyond that though and into general thoughts of inadequacy that make me want to receive constant reassurance that I'm the best she's ever had. Which I do know is true cognitively (I'm a chadlite, and have no trouble getting on dates with the rare Woman I actually meet and who interests me), but it's something I emotionally “forget” about. Again before this I would have considered myself an extremely self assured and level headed person.
These negative thoughts are plain making my quality of life worse and are a huge distraction.
Additional context: were both in our early twenties, this is my first serious relationship, not hers. I know we have great sex but for some reason I always desire assurance that it is the best she's ever had. (Which in a moment of weakness where I asked for it, she has given but it still leaves me feeling that even so the other guys did one particular thing better than me.)
Assume I'm not an idiot. Im fully aware I sound like an insecure wet noodle. Trust me, I'm not. I try my best to avoid annoying her with this and to communicate my feelings clearly. Despite successfully avoiding thinking about it, accepting the feeling and therapising myself, the disconnected pain still lingers
I'm looking for personal anecdotes and advice to help me understand what is happening.
High Fidelity is an entire novel dedicated to navigating this specific male insecurity. It's absolutely hilarious and you'll have the whole thing read in a day or two.
Speed read the whole thing in a couple of hours. Focusing on the bits that interested me the most.
Made me feel pretty terrible. Very triggering to read.. But it did give very good reasons to stop being a whiny bitch around my gf.
The author was amazing at capturing the exact feeling i got when it comes to this insecurity.
Maybe i also got it because my first girlfriemd left me for a different guy too.
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Well, its sounds like a fairly normal story about burgeoning young(ish) love, which tends to arouse strong emotions. But for the sake of all that is good, somebody needs to point out that you painted a textbook picture of insecurity. This is not a pointed insult, but something you need to face head on. I suspect avoiding this label is part of why it lingers because "general thoughts of inadequacy that make me want to receive constant reassurance that I'm the best she's ever had" is practically the definition of insecurity. But at the end of the day... so what? So you feel insecure that you might not be the best lay your girlfriend ever had, and something about this causes you distress. This is not uncommon, but it is no reason to even entertain the idea of ending an intimate relationship with another human being. It is clearly not a 'her' problem. So maybe you are or maybe you aren't; maybe you will be or maybe you will never be the best sex she's ever had. Date her long enough, love her, and make her feel loved, and you probably will be, but that's besides the point. This is not important in the vast majority of long term relationships. As for solutions, the wisdom that comes with age will eventually dissolve your current concerns, but don't let that stop you from getting wiser faster than the rest. Self therapy, google, and philosophy can certainly help. Best of luck.
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Tactical advice:
Don't bring this up with your partner. Insecurity kills relationships. If you don't talk about it, will it still manifest in other actions and behaviors? Maybe. But actively talking about it is certainly a powerful catalyst.
But forget the Tactical advice. When you start seeing relationships as a game with tactics you're missing the point. Sure, you can "win" them, but you're no longer in a relationship. This is what the Tate-style redpillers don't get.
My more earnest advice is to start the long, gradual, and difficult process of ceasing to look for personal validation from other people. That's an emotional addiction cycle you don't want to start. This does not mean falling into the grotesque postmodern mindset of demanding the world accept and celebrate you - warts and all. You need to continue to use the feedback from other people as a gauge on your own behavior or decision making. But not essential self-worth I know it may sound a little squishy and almost like a semantic quibble. The distinction is powerful. You have intrinsic value as a human, and you have control over your behavior and decisions. Use feedback from others to improve that behavior (according to your own well defined moral code) while maintaining a base level of self-validation based mostly on personal adherence to a virtuous moral code. This will take you through even the craziest extremes of poverty/wealth, sickness/health, social esteem / banishment. (Side note: I'm not recommending anything like the "Sigma Male" bullshit. Be a responsible and productive member of your community)
The old adage is that "women like a man with confidence." If you're constantly opening that core level self-validation in hopes the world will support it, you have zero self-developed confidence. If, on the other hand, you're an obstinate, arrogant asshole, you're failing to incorporate meaningful feedback from others and continue patterns of behavior that are anti-social, exploitative, etc. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a girl (ironically, that I wasn't sleeping with ...and never did);
"I can call you on your bullshit and you'll acknowledge it, but you won't immediately change up because I said something. You know who you are."
If you're worrying about your sexual performance in relation to past lovers, then you don't know who you are absolutely; you're seeking validation in a relative-identity way ("where do I rank on this list?"). You can get to the place of "I do sex real good" without reference to anyone else. If you truly do believe that, it'll show through in your behavior.
Wow this is a great write up with genuine and classic advice. Love to see it
Make sure you smash that like button.
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If it helps, you can try reframing things mentally as you being a step up from the previous losers when she realized her worth/understood that they weren't good enough for her. Which might well be true, I knew plenty of women who were with boyfriends who seemed frankly subpar, and I even loved some of them (the girls, not the boyfriends).
I have the same thing in reverse (not that I experience the same degree of mental suffering, more mental groaning) when I learn about the kinds of guys my ex (amicably separated for unavoidable reasons) dated/slept with after me. 40 yo divorcees, 35 yo men who suddenly asked if she was OK with an open relationship, broke-ass starving artists. But that's more from concern about her wellbeing and future happiness, and only slightly because it makes me feel like she lacked standards when we were together (she was actually rather picky and turned down loads of guys, including my best friend at the time). It did, however, convince me that women do have a harder time than you might naively think finding decent dates or longterm prospects even after dating apps offer an endless cock buffet. I would be much happier for her if she found a decent guy to settle down with, though I can't really offer myself. Even if it couldn't work out in the long run, she deserves better.
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“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” - Shakespeare when asked about your girls partner(s)
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In addition to what @FiveHourMarathon and @2rafa said below, which I endorse fully, one other thing that might not exactly be helpful to think about but is grounded in reality is that one of those guys might have done one particular thing better than you, and it might have been sex. There are plenty of people that are complete losers, but actually very good at one thing - playing a guitar, shooting a basketball, fixing car engines, or fucking.
While it's completely normal to want to be just plain better than previous partners at everything, and especially at fucking, the reality is that this just doesn't matter very much to the long-run success of the relationship. As FiveHour correctly notes, time together will ultimately trump whatever natural predilection she (and you) might have had for another person's style and effort in bed. You'll get better together, but it will also just be entirely clear that there simply is no hangup around how one time, five years, someone else was good in the sack. I'm not saying that this can't possibly cause a twinge of insecurity, even years later, just that this insecurity is so utterly unimportant compared to all the good of a successful relationship that you won't care very much.
As corny and cliche as it may seem, I think the biggest thing you can do when you have these kinds of thoughts is to remind yourself that she's with you because she wants to be with you.
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First I want to assure you that this is normal. I've had a lot of friends who felt this way, I recall a buddy of mine telling me specifically that he would only ever date virgins for that reason. Everything @2rafa said.
Second, do not bring this up to her. You will end up in a weird morass. Don't ask her to tell you you're the best, you won't believe her anyway, you will convince yourself she is lying, that you're actually mediocre. It is too definite a statement to believe. Instead, focus on making sure she's letting you know that you're special. That you have value, that you do this or that really well. That's a normal human desire to carry, for both men and women.
Third, time is really the answer here. As y'all are together longer, the past will seem smaller, less important. I once woke up in college, still drunk, and called my now-wife by my ex-girlfriend's first name. Oh boy howdy did she get insecure about that. At the time, I'd dated the ex for a a year, and been with now-Mrs. FiveHour for two weeks. 12 years later, that year seems kind of insignificant. Especially with sex: a year from now your sex life with your partner will be better, you'll know the combination to that safe, and you will have time to play out fantasies and have experiences that neither of you had before. You won't need to ask if you are the best, if you're special, you'll know.
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You’re experiencing something that happens when you actually really like the person you’re with, which is fear of loss. Many people voluntarily (if subconsciously) stay in middling relationships for years because they’re more comfortable, because it doesn’t really matter what happens, because there’s a voice in your head saying “well if he cheats, or if he leaves me, I don’t really care”. This was me years ago, too.
The alternative is what you have now. Something where you care so much you actually experience the dread of loss. Where your partner getting sick and having medical tests done that could be something serious is as scary and painful as it happening to you, where being away from them hurts (at least at the beginning), where your mind is only happy to conjure up a thousand awful scenarios that result in your imminent or eventual heartbreak because it knows how invested it is and you are. That’s love. 🤷♀️
I do have a bad habit of trivializing the relationship around (non-mutual)friends, and implying I'm not that close to her, pretending that I might break up eventually soon. In actuality, I am however very committed.
I think the comments to my post are bringing me to the conclusion that these new and powerful emotions are just whizzing about waiting to be expressed in whatever way they can to be. Be it painful neuroses or positive feelings of longing and affection. So I guess it's back to waiting for the tide to wash over me. It has been slowly and steadily getting better, I think.
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I’ll just say, you may find that a serious relationship is the most intense crucible of your life to this point. Committing to someone and hoping to be with them for the rest of your life, or perhaps even start a family, is no joke. It should be taken seriously emotionally.
It sounds like you’re in the mindset that you shouldn’t be feeling weird about it, that you should stay as cool as a cucumber throughout the whole process. Unfortunately that’s just not how these things work, unless you’re a sociopath. Expect to have more emotions down the road if you continue with this lady, and get used to dealing with them. There are all sorts of tactics out there, personally I’d recommend prayer.
I forgot to mention it. Yes, prayer actually helps me a lot of thanks for reminding me, maybe there's something ominous in how I keep forgetting that.
Yes, I am finding this my most emotionally challenging time of my life. I don't intent to shop around, and I've told her as much. The goal is a lifelong bond and something I give utmost spiritual significance too. Other women will cease to exist.
Then why have sex which is causing these troubling issues at present? It seems to be you're not only putting the cart before the horse, but adding a ton of chaos and noise to a serious process. If you take the fun of sex off the table, you're going to spend more time, effort, and attention on the real transcendental parts of each other that must be present for a lifelong bond. It's pretty easy to eat your vegetables when you get a chocolate bar after every other bite.
If you (or her, or both) become less interested in each other because of a lack of sex, well, you've kind of a got an answer right there, don't you?
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Well you certainly have the right mindset towards a relationship, kudos to you.
In terms of ominous distractions from prayer, I’d say that’s a 100% certainty. Modern Western societies are essentially gigantic temples to gluttony, greed and other sins.
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Sounds to me like you're hoping for your relationship to bestow status upon you which isn't happening because of her (apparent) low standards. Thus the need for verification that you're better than her past encounters. If she chose them and you, you must have something alike.
So the obvious prescriptions (pick your poison as appropriate to the details of the situation and what you can stomach):
a) get your status from something else, your relationship is something you extract resources from/trade with, not something you are proud of
b) realize that nobody else is going to know about her past, they'll just see you with this hot and successful gf. Doll her up and show her off.
c) convince yourself that her past encounters were actually high status. Get to know and respect her exes.
c) convince yourself that she has changed, made mistakes in the past, but now recognized her value. Help her find God/Self Confidence/her talents.
d) find someone choosier or more conventionally attractive.
I think I am above average status conscious, but I don't think this is a status thing. It's mostly my ego being bruised about what it means for her to be with me after those guys.
What is ego but your perception of your status? Oxford Dictionary: Ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. Self Esteem: confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self Importance: an exaggerated sense of one's own value or importance.
I think your response to 2rafa clearly shows it is a status thing, but it may be best to drop the status framing even if it is accurate because a lot of people lose the ability to cooperate when thinking directly about status. They can only see villains maneuvering and thus act that part. WalterODim and FiveHourMarathon have some great advice in my opinion, so if my model of relationships grinds with you I'd recommend trying out theirs.
Ego is your importance in your own eyes, status your importance in others'. Very closely related, but in this case importantly different; e.g. to successfully "realize that nobody else is going to know about her past" would solve status-based anxieties but not ego-based ones.
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This kind of specific neurosis sounds like something that CBT or therapy in general is good at treating.
YMMV. I have struggled with similar thoughts in my relationship, and therapy didn't do a damn thing for me. Truthfully, nothing has helped and even after 6 years of marriage I still have the thoughts with some regularity, and it still hurts. I just do my best to try to not think about it.
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You asked for it.
I had a thing in high school where, when faced with the attention of females, I would become so emotionally fraught that I would vomit. You may feel that this is unrelated to what you've written here, and I realize I am being somewhat vague when I say "attention of females," but just give me a minute.
The neurosis--if that's what we can call it, and maybe we can't--plagued me for some time. I can remember exactly when it started, when it ended, and when it threatened to return, which is the part of the story relevant to your situation, probably. But let me try and tell this properly.
I will begin, or, rather, continue, by making a statement that will probably come across as extremely arrogant and un-self-aware. Moreso than even the usual Motte dude waxing philosophical about women. That statement is: I am an attractive man.
Okay now that you've done your spit take, let me qualify: I know that I am not everyone's cup of tea, I cannot imagine I am anyone's version of a 10, and I am not particularly wealthy. Plus, now, I am older, or, relative to many on the Motte, just old. Nevertheless, I in my life I have turned heads, caused women to get nervous and awkward just by my speaking to them, etc. I have been on television and modeled for magazines as the "cool guy," blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. All this prelude to suggest that I have had, in some ways, an advantage over many males. But in the days of which I am writing, none of this mattered in any way.
The first time I felt the slow-rising bile was not the first kiss of youth, or any similar situation where you might imagine a callow young manboy might get bent out of shape. No. It was a rather benign moment where I was sitting at the bar counter of my then-girlfriend's kitchen, being served a plate of I think Stouffer's spaghetti. Why that dish, memory does not reveal. But I remember she served me a single portion (she herself wasn't eating) and I sat there and ate it. It probably tasted fine or at least not so bad that I would have wanted to immediately regurgitate it. Let's even say it was good, for after all she served it to me and why be ungrateful? The same is true of the apple crumble she served me as dessert. I believe her mother had made that herself. A nurse, she was, the mother, which isn't important but informs what happens later.
So I ate the crumble. It was good. Hot and very sweet and something I have never had since, though I had always liked it. But something about the sensation of fullness in this moment collided with whatever else was going on in the warring of my para- and sympathetic nervous systems, and I knew immediately what was to happen. I managed to croak out "excuse me for a second" and may have even said "I need to go to the bathroom." I remember she, my girlfriend, a lovely green-eyed stawberry blonde daughter of a university professor, looked at me with an expression of confused worry, but said simply "Okay" and turned back to her mother, who by now had come into the kitchen to perhaps see how I liked her apple crumble.
I made it almost all the way to the toilet. The key word is of course almost. What happened next is disgusting to relate (this isn't askreddit, after all) so I won't. Suffice to say I threw up, albeit quietly, there in front of the bathroom door. They had hardwood flooring, I recall. Oddly--well, the whole thing was odd--but oddly now that my stomach had relieved itself of its contents I was no longer nauseous. Which of course did not mean that I now had any idea what to do next. After a moment of standing there in baffled shock in the hallway, I stepped over it, rinsed my mouth and face, and returned with as much dignity as I could summon to the kitchen, saying "Can I possibly have a paper towel or something? I just sort of threw up."
They were kind people. As a nurse, the mother's instinctive, first reaction was to stabilize. They sat me down, they fetched me a glass of water, they adopted furrowed brows. There was no lip-curled disgust. No "Eeww" or similar. The mother instructed her daughter to lay me down on one of their couches in a dim room, and dispatched herself to the hallway for the unenviable task of cleanup.
They both seemed to suspect illness. My temperature was taken. I was worried over and pampered and urged to just relax, sip the water, don't worry about a thing. Only I knew the unspeakable truth, one that I dared not tell--the truth all males in such a situation know and have known throughout time: I was not physically impaired. I was just fucking scared shitless.
Now. While I say men throughout time have realized this about themselves, it's true that they have had such moments of purging panic fear in extremely different circumstances: When confronted unexpectedly with a woolly mammoth, or at the call of "Charge!" or in the ball-turret at 30,000 feet, or when about to storm a fucking beach under mortar fire. These men have puked in abject fear. And so be it. I, though, maybe because I had never been tested, maybe because I wasn't much of an athlete, or maybe because I had just watched too much goddam TV--I puked in the warm kitchen of a beautiful girl serving me comfort food. The heart is a lonely hunter.
Fast forward weeks, months, to prom night. She was wearing one of those strapless dresses where her shoulders were bare, as if she were rising up like Aphrodite out of it, and the moment arrived when I was supposed to do my thing as we lay there on yet another dark couch, and pull the dress down. I mean even in my state of chode-hood I wasn't incapable of reading signals. And so what, then, gentle reader, do you imagine I did?
At least I made it to the bathroom this time.
Let me be clear here in my description of what was happening: I was not revolted. There was no feeling of disgust, which is what is usually associated with vomiting or the urge to do so. Quite the contrary. The cause, as I have suggested, was panic fear. A normal reaction to stimuli thrown into bizarro world.
I lived with this for some time. I eventually broke up with the kind green-eyed girl. She married a close friend of mine. Then divorced him. Anyway the experience of wanting to puke any time I felt a tingling in my loins or flutter in the heart did not just go away. I was to feel this in many instances as I got older. Probably I should have drunk alcohol or ingested some other substance to lubricate my social self, but I was raised in a teetotaling household and wasn't equipped with the wherewithal. And although I came to drink eventually, and, eventually, even get high from time to time, this was always in a very specific context with a specific friend (who I've written about in a separate, equally rambling post).
I can remember moments poised over the porcelain dry-heaving, praying audibly as we are said to do when at the end of our respective ropes: "Please, make this stop." And it didn't, and wouldn't, for a long long time. Until it did. A time for all things, I suppose.
Now we move in time. Now in the story I am early twenties. I am still a virgin. I have left home and moved to Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. In my training group I meet a leggy brunette with bookish glasses and doe eyes, and I fuck her in a tent as we camp in a dark gorge away from our training group. Accidentally. She laughs that I am a virgin, but not in a mocking way. I am, to her--she a wild artist a few years older from Huntingdon Beach--I am like someone from a Harper Lee story. I embody a southern gentlemen fetish she never knew she had. And she shepherds me patiently through my belated sexual awakening--and Christ looking back on it how insatiable are young men, or at least we were then. Surely it wasn't just me.
So what does any of this have to do with your question or issue?
After I returned to the US I had changed. Many events far too numerous to write out or even summarize occurred in the interim, but suffice to say I came of age, whatever that phrase means for you. I left a boy and returned a man. I began to be the guy who threw parties. I organized social functions. I became gregarious, at least for a time. And in short order I met a new girl (the woman in tent I had long ago left behind, and then she had quickly moved on. Other entanglements had followed.) This new young woman I have also alluded to in these threads. She was a very attractive, confident, intellectual Jewish girl (not that that last part matters except that she was the only Jewish girl I was ever intimate with.) And we had sex and then she stopped answering my calls. And then the old familiar feeling returned.
In those days we still used answering machines. I'd call hers and leave messages I hoped were funny. And some of them probably were. It didn't matter. I saw her in a Camaro next to some buff dude who looked like his idea of good conversation was talking about Bama football, or bong types, or titties. And she was hanging on his side like a nymph to his Apollo.
Next time I saw her was at a bar. Two seconds later I felt like hitting the toilet. I didn't . Instead I spoke to her, had a laugh, and took my leave . I decided I wouldn't care about anyone enough again to be that worried what they thought. This required a considerable amount of bootstrapping for me to convince myself. But apparently, I did. A time for all things.
Is there any advice in here? God knows. But it's an anecdote, and you asked. Good luck man. I'm rooting for you.
This sounds like a great time to talk about our panics when dating.
Here's a fun one for you. Have you ever been out for a drive with a woman, limp as a wet noodle, and it is only after she leaves that you get erect? This happened with one woman who I met while hawking meats at a grocery store.
Have you ever had your leg suddenly shake uncontrollably when both your pants are off? This happened with a woman that I used to know back in my freshman year of high school, that I reconnected with in my early 20s.
Have you ever accidentally eaten so much at a date, all your blood rushes up into your stomach - leaving you unable to escalate the rapport? This happened after meeting a woman on a flight home from a job interview.
Guys, I have fucked up so much due to anxiety and inability to predict my own biology. It's kind of a wonder I managed to have kids at all.
If you're failing, at least it means you're trying.
These are unfamiliar phenomenon to me, but also vaguely reassuring. I am also married now with two sons, and would not have imagined that possible once upon a time. I am also regularly in front of crowds of 120+, and don't feel nervous in the slightest, where at one point the prospect would have sent me bowl-ward. Life's a romp.
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How do you accidentally fuck?
I'll answer that with a riddle.
What's easy to do, when quite hard?
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Our resident poet laureate.
A candle among torches.
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Thanks man. I guess that's one way to overcome things. I'm attempting to keep my heart unbroken, though, fearless in love and all that. So your strategy is not something I will try to pursue...
I enjoyed reading your story!
Thanks Don't take me wrong Love above all else, etc. It's the neediness one wants to avoid. There's the rub.
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I wonder how common this feeling is, especially outside the west (less impacted by the sexual revolution), say in the Arab world and maybe India. I wonder how much this plays into the various cultural and religious mandates that people are virgins going into marriage, ensuring emotional and sexual security within marriages. Then there is something to contrast with their marrying of widows or widowers.
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