I'm so lost in this relationship

I am new to this but I'm looking for any and all advise. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost a year and we've already been through an abortion and his divorce. He had already been separated for a year when he and I first started dating. He had been telling me since we had first started dating that he wants to have children and be married to me, then once I got pregnant he told me the timing was wrong, and he had promised me we would run away and get married the instant his divorce was filed. Well seeing as we had an abortion and that I'm still unmarried I feel like I have been really insecure and been picking fights with him because I still want those things, but I'm afraid that he doesn't. But he is still trying at times, and other times he treats me like one of the guys. I really love him but I have this overwhelming fear that he doesn't love me the same. I don't like the way it makes me act towards him. I get crazy and jealous, want to snoop through his phone, email and facebook. I never find anything that would give me any reason to not trust him, but for some reason I just don't trust him, or any guy that I have dated. I'm not sure if anyone has any advise for me, but like I said I'll take anything that anyone has to offer. I have been doing research on how to tell if people are compatible, and if I am being abusive towards him because of my not trusting and insecurities. Sometimes he tells me he is going to go do the most simple thing after work and I get this really bad gut feeling that he is lying to me and that is not really where he is going. Its to the point that I debate driving by to make sure that he isn't lying. Why can't I just learn to trust?

I'm not sure if I can give you the best advice here. But if you have a gut instinct that this isn't going to work or have trust issues then maybe you might want to reconsider getting married to him. If he's truly divorced as you say then he's most likely emotionally unstable and might not be sure of what he really wants.

You are not ready to be in a relationship. You need to work on yourself first. I too was in your shoes once. I lived for many years like this. It destroyed EVERY relationship I had during that time. It was not until I went to counselling and stayed single for a full year that I began to develop a love for myself and trust in others. It took time but it all paid off when I met my now boyfriend almost 3 years ago. We have a close to perfect relationship. I no longer feel that un-trust that I was so used to feeling. I fully trust this man with my entire being. He has never given me a reason not to trust him and I have never given him a reason not to trust me. Sure, he could absolutely break my heart and destroy me if he wanted to. But without risk there is no reward and this is a reward I am willing to risk it all for. You will know when you meet the right person that can allow you to feel this way. I love life and I don't miss those anxious feelings of always wanting to catch someone in a lie because of my own mental instability. Good luck!

"He had already been separated for a year [ooh, a "whole" year, look!] when he and I first started dating. He had been telling me since we had first started dating that he wants to have children and be married to me ["mentally commit to me, quick-quick-quick!"], then once I got pregnant ["wait - on second thoughts...?"] he told me the timing was wrong, and [so] he had promised me we would run away and get married the instant his divorce was filed ["Toooooo-morra, To-morra, I luv ya, To-morra, you're alwayyys a daay a-waaaay"]. ....But he is still trying at times ["whoops-sh*t, nearly dropped the Mere Maintenance ball!"], and other times he treats me like one of the guys ["I love her, I love her not (albeit still like her), I love her, I love her not..."]. Mind in two halves, fighting one another like crazy, yet 'dump her' not winning any more than 'keep her'. Result: what you're seeing (or simply strongly sensing in terms of two distinctly characteristic behaviour packages) as produces MERE MAINTENANCE - no moving forwards, no moving backwards. Stuck fast (and discombobulated). I don't think you must automatically have trust issues PER SE, Talia (close but not close enough), I think you have 'trust issues' *WITH THIS CANDIDATE*...because *he* is just too damned impossible to trust, certainly beyond the level requisite of casual-ish daters. Look at his emotional on-offing as has YOU going 'loves me (haaah), loves me not (oo-er/eeek!!)' and - nuff said! Because in actual fact, Trust is just another word for, 'I now have witnessed enough to be capable of predicting what this person would think/say/do in almost any pertinent, even ordinarily relationship-threatening situation'. You can't predict someone whose only predictability is their *lack* of predictability, can you. Being subjected to that never made *anyone* feel snug and safe thus relaxed. You're fighting yourself (against your own or other people's wishes for you) as has you knowingly choosing crap candidates that automatically are very hard for anyone to trust - even you! - and cause your gut instinct to start yelling up at you frequently on-and-off ("run! / stay! / run! / no, stay!"). I.e. you have 'can't trust my repeat crap choice of candidate' issues - Diff/all the diff - and no amount of attempted artificial shackling stroke making him deliver the promised goods, like, whoops!, falling pregnant in this day and age of contraception - can work. Because at such an early post-divorcal stage they're not even in a place as makes them FIT to make any real promises or encouragements, despite still do (- gimmie the gun). Analogy time: Martina Navratilova, she who is perfectly capable of winning any grand-slam, chooses as her doubles partner Eddie The Eagle (go google). To the naked eye or the uninitiated, he doesn't *look, sound, talk, walk* like Eddie but, up-close - very subtly all over the shop, certainly to the particularly initiated or experienced or just said person closest to them - he sure as hell plays like him ("Your shot!" / "Oopth, thowwy, missed...didn't mean to, though, honest!"). But at least, that way, she can't possibly win Wimbledon and subsequently have to face whatever greater pressures and workload involved in that level of success...yet can still come out of the cut-short tournament every time appearing free of any obvious fault and culpability on her part ("it wasn't me, Me and everyone who knows me - it were Eddie-the-idiot-Eagle!" / "yeah, you're right, what an idiot HE was!"). Separated is not the same as long divorced, and *anyone* who isn't hell-bent on being seen to try "genuinely" (to shut the grannies and other rellies up?) could realise that if they dared think it over more sensibly and realistically. Separated is 'relationship still on but merely contact paused', which comes with a definite psychological frame of mind. You chose an Eddie and are now still kidding yourself by sitting around scratching your head, trying to work out what the hell is WRONG with the guy. Bruised and unripe. Knocked violently from his tree rather than having fallen naturally out of reaching ripeness. So he's basically hard, unyielding, (and deeper under the skin) bitter, sour ....very bruised and taken up with his bruising ("me-me-me, sod her, just me-me-me!")...to the point where 'trying to eat him' is turning out to be a not nice experience, despite not technically inedible or poisonous (you still keep getting repeated tummy-aches, though, don't you). You know what's wrong, deeper down, and are looking for 'echoes' to help you put it into words... He's still post-liberation crazy and commitment-shy - something that would have hit him only *too late after* having come out with all those 'I-yee-I will always love yoo-oo-oo-ooo-oo-oooou' hearts & flowers gushings back when he was still unsure and insecure and desperately needing a security blankie on-legs. So, yes, he *could* as you suspect by now be secretly sampling other sweeties in the shop, either as a limbering-up to making any lasting choice or because player-type batchelor-dom and no-strings feels like it suits him (right now, yes). And that need to multiply sample 'for free' (once it inevitably hits these guys that that indeed is what's now open to them ...the 'up side' they hadn't considered when still newly out on a panicked limb) is precisely what these dating sites pander to and tempt with. *Or* he might not be dabbling (that's just a symptom) but getting back into the badly missed freedom of 'being a lad'. Either/Or. But not before having got over going through the initial reactive process of grabbing a substitute replacement in said blind and rushed panic....prior to, as I say, suddenly calming down enough to have it dawn on him that, actually, he does *not* need to settle down all over again so instantly. He can enjoy a long period of plenty of fun (and possibly ego-salving conquest) in the interim. 'Oh...But what about what I said to her? Whoops-sh*t, how do I get out of this one without looking like a total flake?! - OOH, IT'S JUST NOT THE RIGHT TIME, DARLING'. So that's why initially he made committed noises that were seriously out of kilter with how long and how deeply you'd known one another. He spoke and acted prematurely out of discombobulated impulse, in other words...because at that point, when he felt unnervingly un-achored and homeless, you felt like the answer to all his problems and prayers...and so you got the words and motions to-suit - "blah-blah-blah-want to marry you/get a place together blah-blah-blah". Obviously, he's at this juncture still mid point between 'All byyyy my...see-ee-eeelf, don' wanna be...' and '...Shee's the ooooone', which means, too unsure about actually finishing the relationship in case all that achieves is finding himself completely company- and sh*g-less of a Satdee night, full of regret. So he keeps you JUST WARM ENOUGH on the side that if his expedition in the sweetie shop proves fruitless (sweet-less), he still has you to 'come home to' and recommence rowing the Love Boat with. He may not be actually *seeing* any other women on the side but (because of how you've been feeling) I'll bet he's trying or at least taking a lengthy browse around the shops (email flirting). (And I say that out of the fact it's still that little bit too soon for having rediscovered his laddish independence to the extent you're 'feeling'). Hence your urge to look for such activity on his phone. After all, it's not another bloke you're suspecting you'd find him with, playing Xbox or something, is it; it's another woman. Adding to the whole problem was this abortion.......POP!, peeeeeeeeee-ewwwwww, went his Cloud 9 bubble. Too much hard, cold reality, NOT SEXY, too much like real, boring, grinding life during a time when it should have still been a case of nothing but dreaming and fantasising and admiring you up on his Honeymoon pedestal (until you were both READY for the bubble to become naturally less inflated). Not your fault, not his (bar the 'speak and act before you think' aspect), just Fate's helping hand where concerns you *not* saddling yourself with someone other woman's (basically) REJECT. He hasn't even learnt how not to be so rejectable, look (or at least, SEMI rejectable in too short a space of time). Because - she divorced *him*, I'll bet (and if not, I'll bet he just face-savingly pipped her to the post). And now you're in *her* old shoes. How are you liking them apples? Answer: no more than she did/wel-come to her wooooorld (bleugh!). (Shame we can't interrogate the exes under truth serum, isn't it.) You really don't like how you feel in this relationship at this point. And THAT, modom, is all you NEED to know or act on, is justification ENOUGH. So - informing, talking and giving him a chance now proven a futile option - 'divorce' Eddie just for that indisputable fact, and send him back to the ski slopes where he belongs for underneath it all not having made it all too EASY to trust and have faith in him and his purported sincerity in terms of any longevity, let alone committed exclusivity (as produces CONSISTENCY/STABILITY of attitude and behaviour). If it turns out the problem *isn't* about you/you and he (some other affecting issue he's kept to himself and not been considerate and thoughtful enough to have informed you about) then - no self-respecting man would allow someone to fire them for no good reason or the wrong reason and *keep* them fired. The gross injustice *and* heartbreak *and* Cold Turkey would just be too strong for allowing the unwanted situation/outcome to prevail for longer than five agonising minutes. Same principle applies where playing Devil's advocate in assuming it *is* you: if it *were* you then - having already raised your concerns a *number* of times, the genuinely serious long-haul candidate should and would have ALTERED said behaviour pattern already so that you DIDN'T/COULDN'T/WOULDN'T end up ditching him or having to get feedback on a forum over whether you should or not (see how that works?). Short version: It's his silent, under-the-table yet still perfectly palpable backtracking that's making you unsure and insecure (and showing or leaking it, even against your own conscious will and intention and regardless of his worthless attempts to pacify you each time). Course you don't find anything. It's because he's not Forrest Gump hence either routinely deletes all evidence or keeps it somewhere completely inaccessible to you out of snooping's reach (secret spare phone, no doubt). But you don't need any more evidence than THE HORRID WAY YOU FEEL (antsy and angsted, mainly) and the fact he hasn't fixed that perfectly fixable. Tangible evidence would just be CONFIRMATION of what you already 'know', admit it. HERE'S the only burning question: *Why* do you 'like' being insecure and having your mind obsess over a person in constantly trying to figure them out or get them to sit still for long enough whereby they don't constantly on-off discombobulate you - what is it you *should* be getting on with and expending your precious energy on but can't/daren't/won't face, to the point of dragging an 'idiot' into your in-tray that, as Scopes said, isn't remotely mentally ready for another marriage? Are you supposed to be changing your job or taking someone in your family finally to task, something daunting like that? That's what you have to figure out because then it'll *remove* the motivation that underlies your 'need' to waste time keeping yourself busy and knackered with a seeming 'conundrum wrapped in an enigma'. Why aren't *you* ready, as sees you time and time again ending up with yet another Unready 'picking on you' (and you not declining or ditching) when it comes to advancing and chatting you up and all that follows from there? Solution: wait until you're ready as will automatically have you *not* willing to trust someone unless and until you've *consistently* witnessed them putting their money - every denomination of currency - coins to notes and bank drafts, postal orders, cheques and IOU notes - where their over-gushy mouths are. You can respond in gushy kind - so as not to discourage and put them off, i.e. burst their little, initially deifying bubbles to where you revert to 'just another normal bird' before time - with *your* mouth. But secretly in your head you should be making like Eliza Doolittle: 'Don't tell me - SHOW me!'. Short version: not trust issues, COMMITMENT BEFORE YOU'RE GENUINELY MENTALLY READY issues (equals just-that-bit-too-chocolate-teapot candidate..."again!"). Here's how to save yourself the cost of counselling: CHOOSE. FINALLY. ONCE AND FOR ALL. Accept the fact that there isn't any such thing as a semi commitment aka having it both ways aka cake and eat it aka best of both worlds (single where it suits yet in a relationship where it suits). Either you're in it - completely and utterly and (at first until you get used to it, yes) 'smotheringly-stiflingly' - as will have you winning it - *or* you're out of it. All Or Nothing. After all, a potted plant sliced down the middle doesn't retain water or Baby Bio and certainly never produces blooms. It inevitably withers and dies, When not If. That simple. 12p please (I'll share it with Scopes, Richero and Willow). :-)