Insecurity caused by hurt from past? Too Needy?

[mspandaroo]

My boyfriend and I broke up from a very serious relationship where we lived together and dated for practically 4.5 years. While dating, we were practically married. His family lived downstairs (we lived in a pretty big place), and his mom called me the "daughter she never had". When we broke up, I felt like I lost part of my family — it was very hard.

So I decided to move across the country and started a completely new life — new apartment, new job, new friends, etc.

Before I moved, I had a few rebounds. They were fun and I ended up becoming friends with the guys, but nothing serious.


The first week, after I moved here, I met this wonderful guy, who seemed perfect for me in every way, but because I was so nervous about getting serious, after my long breakup, I decided to wait it out and keep dating. My plan didn't work as expected — I went on about 9 different dates and kept seeing the wonderful guy and to make a long story short, we decided to become exclusive.

I have been really happy since committing to him, it's been about 2 months, except I have one serious problem, which really bugs me.

There are some times when he is into his own life and does not pay any attention to me, where I think "oh well, what if this doesn't work out? i can always meet someone else". I feel SPACE is really good for a relationship, but for some reason the space makes me feel SO insecure. I wonder if I rushed into the relationship too fast, but honestly I felt like I didn't want to give up someone so amazing, so smart, so wonderful.

Maybe it's because I work freelance fulltime and can basically do whatever I want with my time and work whenever i want. I need a life outside of him, but I know that I am needy and want to be with someone who devotes their entire life to me.

I can't figure out if I am ridiculously insecure, an attention wh0re or need to be with someone who will give me everything I want. Nobody is perfect at all, but it would be nice to find someone who I felt 100% content with — is that impossible? Is imperfection in a relationship meant to be? Should I end this relationship and work on myself until I am ready? Should I have waited to get into a new relationship?

[1averagejoe]

Have you taken any time off of dating?

You need to learn to be happy with yourself before jumping into a relationship. You need to learn that you don't need anybody to make yourself happy. You are in a relationship not for someone to complete you and make you happy, but to share your happiness.

I feel that you still have a lot of insecurities, and you're needy because of it. A lot of which probably has to do with your lack of being single and jumping from one guy to another. Whether or not they were just quick flings. My guess is that you never took the time to transition from being in a relationship to being single and learn that you don't need someone to make yourself happy.

The fact that you keep emphasizing that this guy makes you so happy, further proves my point.

Now you're probably wondering, what you can do?

Well either you get it in your head that you don't need his attention 24/7 and things will hopefully work out. Or you'll say that you won't need his attention all the time, eventually start coming off as needy, which in turn will lead to problems. Or you break it off, and take time to yourself. I honestly think you really need time before dating someone again. 4.5 years is a long time you were together, and what you needed instead of rebounds was to experience the transition to being single and learning to be happy with yourself. Which I don't think you did.

[Cain]

You definitely sound too needy. Not many guys are going to devote 100% of their time to you. Everyone needs their own space, which you admit, but it sounds like you want a guy that will spend every second of his life with you.

You need to work on that, because that's most likely not going to happen.