Help - Insecure/Emotional Girlfriend

[jks]

I have been dating my girlfriend for about 7 months. She has had emotional hurts from her family when she was younger (orginated from a divorced family). She herself is an emotional person and the separation of her parents has emotionally scarred her. She lives her life in anxiety especially in relationships. Fearing that her future husband will leave/cheat/lie/hurt her in some way or form.

She has placed this anxiety in our relationship. She uses her negative emotions to judge everything I do such as my behaviour, the way I talk, my body language, etc... and she would imagine a motive ... a motive to leave, cheat, lie or hurt her, etc... She says she uses her "feelings" to figure out these things and her feelings are not often wrong. I feel like I am guilty at first then I have to prove myself innocent...and everything I say, would be used against me. I'm always in a no win situation.

I pray to our Heavenly Father to heal her emotional wounds, to let her think positive motives rather than negative but I don't get an answer.

We are both Christian... but no matter how much we pray for help, we seem to fight about the same issue every 2 weeks.

I don't want to leave her but I have place our relationship in God's hands. I promised to trust him when i got baptised...so I told her that we should go on a break.

I told her to think about what she is afraid of, if she loves me and does she feel i love her and if i'm the type of person that will hurt her.

Please provide opinions... I turned to God but need your feedback

Thank you all and God Bless

 

[tonya]

I HAVE BEEN IN THIS SITUATION MYSELF...FIRST AND FOREMOST YOU ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING BY TAKING IT TO GOD...WHAT IF ANYTHING DO YOU DO TO HER TO MAKE HER FEEL INSECURE?? ANYTHING...OR JUST NORMAL STUFF AND SHE TAKES IT OUT OF CONTEXT?

 

[jenptcfan]

Has she considered getting some counselling? Sometimes that's what it takes to reason through deep emotional hurts from the past. I just hate to hear of someone who is letting something from long ago still have so much control over today. That's a miserable way to live, but it's something that you (or anyone else) can't fix for her--she has to be the one to deal with it internally and rise above it.

Hooray for you for giving it to God and taking a break. I know that doing that is never easy, and I do feel like God blesses us for handing him the things that are difficult to let go of.

May He bless you with wisdom and understanding, and her with peace and release from those strongholds in her life.

 

[Warrior Poet]

My ex was very similar, mother divorced and remarried three times, Dad no where around, her home life had molded her into a very self reliant individual, but a very emotionally "unstable" individual as well. She was negtive, always found the worst in all situations and in all people, if she shielded herself soon enough she couldnt get hurt and allow someone to get close just so they can leave.
Your girl is insecure nothing has ever been stable, so why would your relationship be any different? When an occurence like this happens IMO the more secure you try to make her the less she really becomes, i wouldnt be surprised if when you try to comfort her she feels patronized like you are treating her like a kid. This usually allows resentment to build up towards people, or at least certain people the ones that are around her the most. I found myself shouldering a lot of blame that in all reality wasnt mine to hold, her three days of frustration exploded in my face. Every few weeks same fight same outcome.
My initial response would be to allow her to grow herself, and a break might be the best thing. If she is how I am precieving her, as you have described, correctly she will look to the next thing to "ground" her. A new job, a new friend, a new hobby, something to keep her very busy and something that has a normality to it. If you feel you need to stick with her through this then I say by all means please do so, but do it for the right reasons. Dont do it for her, or for "us", as someone said you cant rescue her, she may have insecurities and emotional problems the hard part to understand is that those are HER problems you cant shoulder the wieght, but you can do your best to rub her shoulders when the weight seems to much to for her. Cases like this dont just go away and dissappear, its a long process to heal oneself, in this particular aspect you are nothing more then a spectator, you must know this and more so then know it accept it and what comes with it.

Warrior Poet

 

[LifeInYou]

I am one who is like your girlfriend... deeply hurt by past relationships and by not having a Father around. Maybe you could encourage her by pointing her to little Bible verses to meditate on, ones that have God saying 'Find rest in me' or 'you are beautiful my child' or 'call me Father'. I also love to read and reread the scriptures that have God saying 'I will be your groom and you will be my bride', or 'return to me and put your trust in Me'. Or maybe you could recommend/purchase self-esteem building books for her. WP was right when he said that there's really nothing you can do to change yourself to make her feel more secure, the change must occur within her. This is a really delicate and difficult situation, I everything works out for you both. For girls/women who are deeply emotionally cut I recommend staying out of romantic relationships until you've fully healed. It can become a dangerous cycle if you don't heal and then enter into a relationship: i.e. you're hurt so you live in fear, therefore you cannot fullly/truly love your partner which in turn pushes your partner away from you, causing more separation, division, and pain, and the cycle begins all over again...

 

[SirFei]

I agree with whoever mentioned counseling above... not with just any counselor, but with your pastor if possible. And I know your struggles, brother. My fiance struggled with insecurity constantly, and it was an uphill battle for me to keep her happy and snap at my every word.

The problem was that I found that everything appeared negative to her. Her mind was trained to think negatively because of her father. She thought negative, so her reactions and emotions were negative. I tried desperately to changer her in this one way, or trying to find a way to change myself to make her happier, but it failed everytime. It wasn't me, and I had to find that out. I then confronted her--one of the hardest things I've had to do in our relationship--and told her that she needed to stop being so negative towards everything. I explained to her the best I could, although I've never been one to mince words well, but she understood--a bit. And she did get better.

We've since been through counseling--mariage counseling, and the same subject came up: negative thinking. Reading it and hearing it from our pastor helped improve my fiance now even farther than I ever thought she would ever be! I will help you learn what I have learned here in that.

It starts with our "self-talk", or what we think automatically when something happens around us, and it doesn't matter what it is. However, whatever that is changes our moods and our attitudes. Through those then instances, we become unhappy and blame it on the situation. It really is not the situation that makes us unhappy, it's ourselves. Take for example Mary and Joseph's situation when trying to find a place to give birth to Jesus. Here, Mary is pregnant and about to give birth at any moment. At the same time, Joseph and Mary are having to get adjusted to each other, trying to establish a home, and run a business (carpenter). Suddenly, they have to close down the business and move to Bethlehem when Mary herself is far into pregnancy and has to ride a small donkey (which I hear isn't very comfortable for a pregnant woman). To add to that, not able to find an inn to give birth in, and instead staying in a barn with the animals. Now, just think how the story of our Christ Jesus' birth would have been if Mary and Joseph had let the situation get the best of them? I'm sure I haven't even described all the pains they probably had to go through.

We can deal with what this world throws at us. Think about your own self-talk and what you would say when something bad happens? For me, I hate traffic--especially slow traffic--and have a tendancy to get rather mad during the situation. I now stop and listen to myself and think "Why am I getting mad?" Because I'm letting myself get mad. The same with my fiance, and your girlfriend. The answer lies in taking responsibility for our own feelings.

JKS- In your situation, your girlfiend thinks of her past and the hurt she's seen felt or even felt herselves and fears it. Her first thoughts aren't going to be positive because she's adjusted herself to expect the worse to happen when in fact its more than likely going to be far from it. The negative self-talk emerges, and her feelings change to reflect them. For her, it's habit, and although habits are hard to break, neither one of you are going to be truly happy till both can think positively. Nothing ruins relationships quicker than negative thinking because soon the blame game becomes the common game at the table. "You always make me feel unwanted when you come home and just want to sit down!" (for example).

So, what can you do to change? First you have to listen to yourself. Sit down with your respective other and work this out together. Think of one thing that may cause negative self-talk, then think what could I say to myself INSTEAD to make me not react so negative? It's not going to be easy, but it's a first step. Next, start taking certain instances that really tick yourself off and inflict it on yourself to help change yourself.

An example (and I love using my fiance because she's become so much better because of this) is that my fiance HATES, and I mean absolutely loathes getting wet when she's wearing anything other than her bathing suit or is in the shower. I would sprinkle just a couple drops of water on her, and she would burst at me with rage! We talked about this and she's realized that it's really stupid and she needed to get over it. So, now she has me splash her with water so she can think over her own self-talk and how she can change herself to better. At first, it was little: just a few sprinkles. Then pouring water (just a little) and a little more till she was laughing at herself now instead of screaming her head off.

Well, I've rambled on and on here... I hope I was clear on some points. The bottom line is we make ourselves who we are. There is no one else to blame but ourselves. We just need to remember that we can change! And with God's strength, we can do anything! God bless everything,
~Marc