CPTSDGirlCasual Contributor
Advice please
I was diagnosed with CPTSD about 7 years ago. I was a victim of long term sexual and emotional abuse from the age of 11 to 25 (now 36 years old). I have also been cheated on in my adult relationships. I am currently in another relationship (been together for just over a year), and I am very paranoid about him cheating on me. I have thought long and hard about whether he has given me any real reason to doubt him, or if my doubt stems from my previous experiences.
He had a close friendship with a female manager we both work with (we both have separate full time jobs, but work a side job at the same place). He was texting with this woman most days of the week, and sometimes in the middle of the night. Although this woman and I were also supposed to be friends, she started excluding me from invitations to social events and only would invite him. She stopped texting and speaking to me, but kept up her communication with him. She also started excluding me from work within the company, and would only offer to him. I then got upset and assumed that something romantic was going on between them. He was very angry at this suggestion, and showed me all the texts that they sent each other. Nothing romantic, but still quite an emotionally intimate exchange. A few months passed, and he decided to express dissatisfaction about some conditions at work, and then she stopped talking to him as well. THEN he was able to see that she was not a good manager and that a friendship with her was conditional. I admitted that I was wrong to assume he was having an affair, but asked him if he now understood that the main issue was that he expressed no loyalty or support of the issues I was experiencing. He said yes. Although this particular issue is now resolved, it has left me with general trust issues. Now every time some random girl pops up in his chat or social media, I immediately get into a panic and think that's going to happen all over again. And when I say panic, I mean I can't work, can't think straight, don't eat and am often frozen for hours. I spend hours researching the women I am worried about, or researching signs of infidelity, or how to find out if your partner is cheating etc.
I've asked him if he needs validation/attention/flirting from other women, he has said no. I've asked him if he needs to have emotional affairs, he has said no. So my question is, how do I take him at his word and trust him after this rather unpleasant and frightening situation? Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
