My husband (26M) and I (26F) have been married for just about 4 months and have been together for over a year and a half. We are both very much in love and comfortable with each other. We don’t fight much and if we do it’s usually resolved within minutes and we go about our day. Both of us have body image issues and we both lack confidence in the way that we look.
I am going to military training for five months and will be working out non-stop, so weight loss is inevitable (Thankfully! This is my goal)… My husband doesn’t have the drive that I do, which is fine. I love him for who he is and how he looks, that’s why I love him; however, he thinks that because I am leaving and will be much more confident in myself and will be losing weight and will be with military men that he is going to be automatically jealous. I am as loyal as they come and would never cheat on him or even give him the idea that I would push any of our boundaries that we have with each other. He knows this, but just can’t help his anxiety and these feelings of jealousy.
How can I ease his mind before I leave and while I’m gone? Has anyone else ever been in this position? Thank you!
TL;DR, I’m going to lose quite a bit of weight and my husband probably won’t. He thinks this is going to make me look for something better, in short.
Comments
You didn’t make him jealous and you can’t fix it….that’s up to him.
Sometimes jealousy is caused by others, but mostly it’s an internal issue for the person having those feelings.
He’s going to be insecure because he’s insecure, the question is can deal with those feelings or does he make them your problem.
If you haven’t given him a reason to be anxious/jealous, then (by definition) his anxiety/jealousy is unreasonable.
There’s nothing that you can do to reason someone out of an unreasonable position. It’s not as if you can, between now and when you go, be more than 100% trustworthy.
While you are gone, all you can do is be open and communicative about what is going on in your life, so that he doesn’t feel as if you are being evasive or closing him out. But if that’s not enough for him, if even though you do that he still feels anxious/jealous, there’s nothing you can do to solve that, and (what’s more) it’s not your issue to solve for him anyway.
This is a him problem to fix: if you have given him no reason whatsoever to thing that you will step out, then his fear is being driven by something inside of him, and he has to put in the work and introspection to figure out 1) why the fear is there, and 2) how to address it in a healthier way that doesn’t turn it into your problem to fix for him.
Counseling or therapy for him could be a viable way to do that, but it’ll only work if he believes it will, and is invested in the process. If he doesn’t believe in it, then going to therapy won’t make him better, any more than going to a garage will make him a car.
He has work ahead of him. You can encourage and support him in that, but you cannot make him do it, and you cannot do it for him.
His fear is that his lack of ambition is going to be more evident then – and he knows that.
But he does not want to address it, but rather gaslight you into what he deems to be the appropriate amount of reassurance without earning it.
It is up to him to manage his emotions.
Many people struggle to understand that cheating is a choice, there are those that will, and those that won’t, and it really is as simple as that.
If there is trust in a relationship it should not matter what situation you’re in, nor what ‘opportunities’ are presented to you.
Having done nothing to warrant your husband’s distrust this is firmly a him problem, and one that it would be unfair to push onto you.
You need to gently, but also very clearly convey that by his ‘concerns’ he is in fact insulting your integrity as a wife, and how you value your marriage vows, as his behaviour implies that he does not believe you have the integrity to stay loyal, and also that you are shallow, ie, your head would be turned by a pretty face/certain body type etc.
Whatever you decide to do, please do not miss out on this opportunity because you will regret it, and good luck!
Being a military spouse is hard.
He has to decide if he has the constitution for this. When you’re gone for long periods, he will have to be able to reassure himself, and he can’t rely on you to be available whenever he has these fits of anxiety. You can give him verbal reassurance before leaving, you can leave letters behind for him to read while you’re away, but he has to be able to be okay on his own.
I hope he can do it, for both your sakes, but it really is up to him.
He’s 26. What in the world is stopping him from getting in better shape? It would make him more confident and exercise is good for anxiety in general. Complaining about anxiety that your partner will leave you because they better themselves, while simultaneously doing nothing to better yourself, is pretty unattractive IMO.
There are ways you can feed his insecurities (make them worse), but there’s no way you can fix them. Set boundaries, communicate clearly and honestly, and put in effort to communicate while you’re gone. That’s all you can really do.
This is a him problem and not a you problem. You keep enjoying your working out and not cheating on your husband. He needs to work through his own feelings and anxiety.