| A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes: Should i stay or should i go? my boyfriend of 1 year doesn't trust me at all. i don't give him reason not to trust me, i'm very faithful and loving and wouldn't dream of cheating. he accuses me daily of cheating, he genuinly thinks i already have cheated (though i haven't) and he always questions everything i do when we're not together. he reads my fone, i don't mind that cuz i got nothing to hide, he checks the computer history and he goes through my bag and stuff to try and find evidence! but there is no evidence!!!! i've never cheated, never lead another man on and i don't want any other man cuz i love him and him alone! i asked him a dozen times why he does this to me and he says it's because i'm so beautiful he can't believe he's with me (he has low self esteem even though he is a very handsome man and women are hitting on him all the time, he's just too blind to realize it) and i am in a male orientated work place and am into more male things than girly things (i'm a motorcycle mechanic) but it's driving me crazy! everytime i have time to myself where he's not around i like to relax and play xbox but he thinks i'm fooling around! i have to tell him every deatil of my day that we're not together to get him to trust me. i'm even getting him to teach me ju jitsu so that if a man tries to take advantage of me i can kick butt. i love him to bits, he's my soulmate and i can't imagine life without him, but this is driving me bats!!!!! help, i've tried everything!
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female
reader, HereAreMyTwoCents  +, writes (24 September 2009):
 You are in a very difficult situation. You must think very hard about whether or not you want him in your life, GIVEN the fact that his suspicions will only get worse and worse as time wears on and you will constantly be under the stress and torment of having to fend off his fears. (And this is a given, his fears will only increase with time, guaranteed. If they were groundless fears to begin with, you will have no way of assuaging them EVER, and time will only provide more and more opportunities for him to DOUBT you instead of TRUST you... because he is wired to DOUBT not TRUST, very insecure). In order to be with him you must ask yourself how much of yourself and your personality you are willing to give up. Because the first thing that I see you will have to give up in order to make life with him minimally bearable, is your pursuits that put you around a lot of males. You will have to find a job where there are more females than males around. A place like a daycare or JoAnn Fabrics, you get the point. And if you love him dearly and have been faithful to him, you are a goodhearted person so that means that in your heart you will have to be willing to subject yourself to the nerve-wracking and painful loneliness of knowing that he does not know and will never know the real you, the one that would never do such a monstrous thing to him. And you will have to subject yourself to his daily verbal attacks of suspicion, because he will always be trying to get at you, break you down, try to see how you react, and it will drive you insane and up the wall, and he will interpret that reaction to mean that you are guilty. He will not understand that the reason you act like that is because your heart is being broken, and he is driving you insane with the conflict and struggle he is creating. Everything you do will be interpreted as guilt. He has your guilt already decided upon, and everything will be used against you. You can try going to therapy to work on his issues, but it will be a very difficult road. Good luck to you whatever you decide to do!
A
male
reader, softtouchmale2003 +, writes (24 September 2009):
 This is a real tough one. Your boyfriend as others have said, is insecure and he's failed to learn to trust you.
You have to sit down with him and tell him that the fact that he doesn't trust you is hurting you. His constant spying, snooping and rifling around has become a nuisance and its making you very unhappy.
Its obvious, at least it should be to him given what you've said, that there is no one else.
No relationship, no marriage can exist if there isn't complete trust between you and your partner. If he has these issues, then its his problem and he has to move on and leave you alone finally.
Now, you can offer to help him and this is important. He needs help here. The fact of the matter is that he's suffering. And this is something deep down inside of him that needs to be satisfied, and he has to believe you when you tell him that he's the one for you, and no one else; and he needs to stop this already.
To do this you need to know why, despite your looks, he's acting this way. Did someone cheat on him before? Does he need that special talk about how it was wrong of the other person to hurt him, but you're not doing that to him?
Somehow, it seems like you've got a very hurt, very insecure teenager inside of him, and that insecurity has to be lifted out of his heart so he can start trusting you.
One way to do this is to tell him that if he starts trusting you and stops looking for evidence the way he's been doing it, that you have no problem loving him and rewarding him for all of his efforts. But he needs to be able to show you that he's changed his behavior.
When he gets the hankering to look, stop him and tell him that he doesn't need to look anymore. Look him in the eyes.
But all of this can't work unless he's willing to let go of this insecurity.
If you break up with him, he'll take that as proof that you did cheat on him (its a defense mechanism), and if so you'll have to avoid him a great deal. Its easier to try and break his insecurities now, and get him to the point of being trusting.
With that out of the way, believe it or not, he can focus positive attention on you, and you can do the same for him.
Its all a matter of behavior. And in his case, the behavior has gone way out of control.
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A
female
reader, old-spinstah  +, writes (24 September 2009):
I went out with a guy just like this and the anonymous female reader is right - there is nothing you can do to change him. He can only change himself. You have two choices - stay and put up with the stauts quo or leave.
If you stay, be aware that his behaviour may gradually worsen. Pumping you for information about your day may eventually turn into "dropping by" your workplace to check up on you, having you followed or worse (getting into fights with innocent male colleagues/friends for "hitting on you") etc etc.... May ex eventually became convinced that I was having affairs with all my female friends as well
If you leave, be prepared for the possibility that he will be convinced that all his suspicions have been proved. He will probably think that you are leaving because you've met someone else.
My advice is leave him - men like this do not change.
Good luck
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2009): When a man is like your boyfriend, the problem is them and there is nothing you can do. You can go to all the lengths of the earth to try to show him that you have never, you could never, you are not that kind, you would never, you will never, etc etc etc... He never trusted you to begin with, you were guilty until proven innocent from the start. The problem with that is that you can possibly prove guilt, if there is guilt. But you cannot prove innocence. If the alleged act happened, there may be evidence to show that it did, but if it did not happen there will of course be no evidence. The even worse part of the matter with men like your boyfriend, is that because by default they fear and believe the worst about you from the start, they are always on the look out for evidence of their suspicion, so every thing you do is under constant scrutiny and in interpreted in the worst possible way, thereby further validating them in their own mind. This sort of fear-driven bias makes it to where as time wears on only more and more "evidence" can amass in his mind, to where eventually he says to himself he is convinced that you did do something. So basically in the end you can be "proven guilty" if a) you are guilty or b)you are not guilty. And you can be "proven innocent" if a) under no circumstances, except maybe a lie detector test, if your boyfriend is willing to overlook the margin of error inherent. (Close to but not 100% accuracy).
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A
male
reader, CaringGuy +, writes (24 September 2009):
You are who you are. You haven't cheated or done anything wrong. This guy is insecure and controlling. Tell him either he has to trust you, or you'll have to leave. And mean it. You haven;t done anything wrong and you know it, so if he can't take it, end the relationship and move on. There are other guys out there who will trust you and have respect for you. lots of luck
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