One of my friends texted me recently and asked if she could ask me a personal question. She asked me if I ever felt threatened by her relationship with my boyfriend Nick. She has been friends with him for many years. I met her though him and me and her became really good friends that way. She wanted to do a vlog on the topic so I thought I’d blog about it because I think it’s a great topic that a lot of us have dealt with at some point.
Everyone has friends of the opposite sex and when you’re in a relationship those friendships can sometimes come across as threatening and make you feel insecure. I myself am a jealous person and have had my issues with this before and I still do now. I know where it stems from and I think I did a previous blog post on the matter. So how do I deal with it, get past it, etc?
To me the most important thing is to communicate it with your partner. I talk to my boyfriend anytime I’m feeling insecure about one of his female friends (or anything in general). I talk to him anytime I let my mind wander and create scenarios about the subject (thanks anxiety). We simply talk about it and are open and honest with each other.
I’ve also gone out of my way and talked to one of his female friends about feeling insecure about their friendship. I’m glad I did because her and I are really good friends now. I think just being honest and telling someone what’s on your mind makes a huge difference. She is also cool as hell and could totally relate to how I felt so that made it much better. If the person you’re going to talk to is a crazy bitch good luck! lol
The third thing I do to help with insecurities is redirect my thinking and reassure myself. I let my mind wander way to often and sometimes it gets me into thoughts that I wish I would have never allowed myself to get into. Redirecting thoughts is difficult but it can be done. Honestly if my mind didn’t wander so bad I don’t think I’d have the problems that I do. I also reassure myself at times I’m feeling insecure. That usually kills any insecurities I’m having in seconds.
So why do we let these insecurities get to us? Why can friendships of the opposite sex be so intimidating to us? I think it boils down to insecurities in ourselves or in our relationship. For me personally I think it boils down to being insecure in myself and having trust issues. These trust issues developed a long time ago and don’t reflect my relationship right now but obviously those issues can carry on with you for years and years. I mean sure maybe you are dating a scum bag that cheats on you constantly and theres a reason to feel that way but in my opinion you should leave that relationship if that’s the case. That is not however the case for me. My issues are all internal and I’m always trying to work on them. I think a lot of other women and men feel the same way, at least the ones I’ve talked to.
It’s hard to trust anyone these days with all the different forms of social media we have. The many different ways to message a person to talk. You don’t just have to pick up a phone and call someone anymore. You can simply download an app and add friends and whah la you’re able to chat and share with whoever you’d like in an instant. I think that can add to a lot to people’s stresses. There can be so many thoughts running through a person’s head…Who just sent them a snap chat, who messaged them on Facebook, does he/she still have a tinder account, who are they talking to through twitter, are they messaging through Instagram, etc. It’s endless and it can drive you crazy if you let it. This is where being secure in yourself and in your relationship comes into play and of course trusting your partner!
So maybe your partner has friends of the opposite sex and sometimes it makes you feel uncomfortable. That’s totally normal but bottom line is you have to trust them, be confident in yourself and in your relationship. It shouldn’t matter if someone messages your partner and confesses their love for them, etc. You should trust your partner would respond in a way that wouldn’t compromise your relationship in any way. Because after all we can’t control what others do or say what counts is how your partner respond to the situation at hand.