site banner

Wellness Wednesday for January 10, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.