I'm too jealous, can anyone relate?

[Lobster]

I made an account specifically to ask this, does anyone else have really bad trust issues? Just my girlfriend having her legs on top of her male cousins lap makes me want to punch a wall. It's gotten so bad in the past but I really like this girl and I'm just bottling up most of my feelings because I don't want her to go away because of it. Can anyone relate? Should I seek help? In my opinion I need help. So far I don't let my girlfriend talk to any guys at all, mind you it's mutual so I don't really talk to girls either. I also won't let her use drugs or alcohol because I don't want her doing something dumb, however she's really trustable. On the other hand, doing drugs and alcohol isn't a good thing so I don't see why me making her not do that is a bad thing.

[Melodic]

I get pretty jealous too in relationships, trust me.

However, putting all these rules and control in your guys relationships won't help. It will make you both miserable. You both just need to trust each other and hope things will work out. If you don't trust each other, there's not a point to even be together. Trust is probably one of the biggest keys to maintain ANY relationship. Friendships, family, relationships, anything.

[Lobster]

I get pretty jealous too in relationships, trust me.

However, putting all these rules and control in your guys relationships won't help. It will make you both miserable. You both just need to trust each other and hope things will work out. If you don't trust each other, there's not a point to even be together. Trust is probably one of the biggest keys to maintain ANY relationship. Friendships, family, relationships, anything.

How can I build this trust though? See, I feel secure, I feel like she won't break up with me, she's happy as well, immensely because she's been through a lot and I help lift some a lot of weight off her shoulders. And she understands everything I tell her not to do, she's okay with it all. But I'm not, I'm mentally destroying myself. There's times where I'll just go on her instagram because I miss her, see that a guy liked her photo, and my heart feels like it's on fire.

I just want closure with this, I don't wanna be uncaring, but I want to know if theres way to fix how my brain is wired. I'm only hurting myself.

[GoodIntentions]

I actually joined this site for this exact situation. I am an only child and my boyfriend of 7 months has a little sister about 3 years younger than him. I envy their relationship and anytime she texts him even if it's just for advice or a favor I get insane jealous and my mood is pretty much killed for the rest of the hour.

[StacyD]

You have to realize at some point that it is a horrible trait and will so nothing other than make you (and those around you) miserable. And particularly with regards to your bf/gf's family members, family will, 99% of the time, win over you.

As long as you realize the problem lies with you and no one else, then you can work on it. But know that it likely stems not from "trust" issues entirely, otherwise you should just do yourself a favor and have no one in your life at all. No people, no one around to have to "trust." But rather, the problem is in your self-confidence levels. Perhaps you do need professional help, not qualified in that regard. But I do know that if you don't believe in yourself and have enough confidence from within, all the professionals in the world can't help you; you'll need to slay that dragon on your own. But you're capable of doing it, you just have to want it. Good luck.

[BuryYourFlame]

I've said this a couple of times in different threads but I'll repeat is now because this seems pretty out of control.

It may sound childish but try a thought process diary kind of thing. Write down what you're feeling, what happened to make you feel that way, why the situation made you feel exactly that way and whether that is an appropriate reaction to have. Hopefully by adding extra thought to this the jealousy will become less of an issue. You may arrive at the conclusion that it won't go away in which case I strongly recommend not having a girlfriend at all for a pretty long time (like, 2-3 years) until you are comfortable being single and are more secure in yourself.

You really need to think about what's going on in your head. I don't just mean recognise that these things make you jealous and that's a bad thing, but think about why they make you jealous and stuff like that. Most of the time people who have intense jealousy issues are simply not comfortable with themselves and require another person to 'complete' them, so much so that the fear of losing this drives them to do pretty crazy things. With male cousins, dude, you really need to actually think about what thought process is making you angry about this. Do you think they're going to run off and start a relationship without you? or do you feel that by doing that she's taking away attention that she should be giving to you. I hope I don't have to say why both of these are pretty unreasonable.

A final note about jealousy, from personal experience, the more jealous you are (especially if it's over a specific person) the more you are going to push them towards that person that you're jealous of them being with.

[Rallo]

Forcing or manipulating your partner into not talking to people of the opposite sex almost never is healthy.

In my personal experiences, it resulted in her talking to guys behind my back and being extremely scared to tell me about it. She used to be a very trustworthy, honest girl; she would tell me everything. It resulted in her being too scared to tell me that a guy had said hi to her in science class... I mean, it resulted in her feeling that bad about that and that scared it would hurt me, that she couldn't tell me for a fair while.
You'll think you're bettering the relationship now, though it simply results in hiding things from each other, feeling as if you can't talk to your partner about certain thinks and ultimately worsening the trust issues once such things are found out.

Best I can say is just talk to her about it without any 'rules' or anything. I'd avoid saying directly that her talking to other guys makes you jealous, though state that any flirting, physical contact, etc does. Her talking to other guys you'll just have to 'bite the bullet' on, soon as you tell her she can't or say it makes you jealous it'll cause problems. A girl that age (assuming about 14-16?) will always talk to other guys, the trick is simply telling her how jealous and hurt you would be if it went any further than talking with another guy (ie flirting, physical contact, etc etc). The rest (and trust me, I know how hard this part is!) is all trust.

[Plasma]

I know the feeling. I used to be like that. Honestly, if you think something is up, you might just be right. You shouldn't ever feel the need to be that way in a healthy relationship