Expert: Kriss Mitchell, M.Ed, CRC, CNHP - 12/15/2009

Question
Good afternoon. This is my dillima.  I've been with my boyfriend for about 2 years now and we live together.  I have three children from a previous marriage that lives with us as well.  We started out as very good friends at work, discussing our private lives.  I really didn't know that he had feelings for me as originaly he was not my type. But through the course of our friendship I discovered that he was something more.  Anyway fast forward to now. We are in a committed relationship. He works out of state Monday through Friday and I am not working at his suggestion to further my education.  Every now and then he will go through my phone, emails, make a list of numbers he didn't recognize and so forth.  I have given him access to all of my passwords to try to make him feel more secure.  We shared some of our relationship experiences before actually becoming an item and he shared with me about how he was cheated on so badly with the previous one. He had even asked her to marry him.  Things would get really bad between us out of the blue.  He'll come in acting very cold and would reveal that he just doesn't trust me.  All women are the same and he hasn't met one yet to prove him wrong.  If we're intimate and if I've cleaned myself throughly, he will say it doesn't feel the same so I must have been with someone else. It's the constant accusations, the put downs (I pulled you from the ghetto,etc..) I have never once in my life been unfaithful to him.  I don't look at other men, let alone have the desire for another. I don't even put myself in a situation where I could meet someone else. When he is gone, I don't dress up, wear makeup or fix my hair. I don't hang with my single club hopping friends. I don't hang at all.  I've done all I've can to make him feel secure, but in his twisted mind, I'm unfaithful and am a liar.  That's what he believes to be true.  How can I counteract that?

Answer
Dear Brianna,
I'll give you the short version of the answer to your question.  You asked, How can I counteract a lack of trust in my relationship?  Correct?  The truth is that you can't.  This is his problem, his baggage and there isn't anything that you can do to "counteract" his issues.  You are changing who you are in order to be in this relationship, giving up independence for dependence and being controlled by his insecurities.  

Brianna, these are his problems and because of that, you can's solve them.  They don't belong to you.  You can't fix something that's not yours.  It does not sound like you are behaving inappropriately, so it is his fear that is driving the problem.  It isn't healthy for you to take on problems that aren't yours.  What needs to happen is for your boyfriend to get himself into counseling, work on his trust issues, modify his behavior and take responsibility for his fears.  If he chooses not to, this relationship will continue to decline and eventually you will have to get out of it. Control and abuse only escalates over time.  Relationships can't exist without trust so if he doesn't trust you, there isn't much of a relationship there.  To be honest, this is a pretty straightforward fix.  

I truly wish you well and if I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Blessings and Merry Christmas,
Kriss Mitchell
www.livingwellcc.com