I am at a loss at how to keep myself in check at times. I do have some trust issues that I'm working on. They're not detrimental to our relationship and we know how to handle it when the need arises. I guess it stems from certain abandonment issues, even though my boyfriend is super supportive, reassuring and overall a solid guide. Sometimes I just get this overwhelming need to be emotionally independent, which makes me sad because I don't want to be. Defense mechanism, as said, working on it.

Part of that is to identify triggers. Over the past week I've identified two of them.

  1. I overheard my boyfriend telling his friend not to talk about drugs around me as I'm against them. They've done various stuff and my boyfriend claims he considers it part of a youthful past. I believe him, but hearing him hush things down and not keeping an open dialogue made my heart skip a beat. I brought it up calmly, apologised for semi-eavesdropping (overheard it through an open window while they were smoking outside)/breaching his privacy and just asked about his reasoning. He assured me it was just to prevent any tensions between me and his friend (not wanting me to judge his friend) and I clarified that I have no issue with drugs, just drug use in a serious relationship. End result made me feel good because it was conflict-free and mutually understanding/respectful.

  2. Just now I sat down at his PC and he left his facebook up. In the chat pop-up, there was a messaged that grabbed my attention. Essentially his other friend is abroad and was bragging about all the girls there, asked my SO to come down and help him fuck them or something like that. My SO just said "nah, fuck that, I have all the pussy I need". Initial awful feeling that this guy is a bad influence who could urge my SO into infidelity (I won't even start on why, but he's like a beta-wannabe RPM. My SO agrees but reassures me he isn't influenced and I do sorta believe him. I have my reasons to be reserved, but it's a childhood friend of his.) I pushed those feels away and instead tried to find flattery in my SO's devotion to our active sexlife... :p Besides, I guess it's common guy banter and it was of course not intended to be seen by me.

I feel that my way of coping with these things is to stop looking for reasons to mistrust my SO - a huge step for me. I'm proud of myself, I constantly try and twist initial heart-skips into a positive light rather than a distrusting one. It works, but I still want to kill that initial feeling of upset/sickness from that split second of doomsaying our relationship. If I'm not in a good place, they could eventually be too tiring to shed positive light on and I'll become alienating. I don't feel it's a tactic that holds water in all situations.

So the tl;dr question, I suppose, is: besides improving our own game (I believe by being the best I can be he won't want much else), what tools can we use to calm ourselves in regards to the nature of men and their biological drive for infidelity. Beyond being the best I can be, how can I trust my SO will grow 'wife goggles' with time? I just need some coaching in calming my mind and soul because it's far too jittery for my liking.