Hello,

Ok, so this is a long one and might seem like a bit of a ramble, or that I might be jumping around a little bit, but please, please bear with me here because it's something that I find hard to put into exact words.

I am in college now, and I've had several relationships before, all of which wound up with the woman cheating on me for a multitude of reasons. Most of which were when I was away for extended periods of time (summer travels, pre-college programs, etc.) so they were due to the fact of me not being around anymore, and they became more selfish and lonely, etc.

Anyway, I came to college and in the first week here I met a girl where we had an immediate connection since the day we met. Over the course of the first semester (I was in a long distance relationship at this time) me and this girl became amazing friends and grew extremely close, and come second semester her and I started to date. The second semester was incredible, and for me and her both, we knew that we have something extremely special. I come to find out that she has been cheated on by her boyfriends before (before I told her my stories), and we have developed this sense of trust that runs deeper than I've experienced.

---Okay now to my concerns, sorry for the delays---

Anyway, it is summer now, I'm still at school taking classes and she's a few hours away back at home, working a lot and taking classes as well. Now that we're away, the communication obviously becomes very different, and some days it becomes slower than others. And this is where I get worried. I've been cheated on several times before, and I recognize now what the signs were back then, and so sometimes those memories creep into my mind and I can't get them away. I become worried, and sometimes I get afraid that I'm becoming overbearing in my messages or something because I feel like I start to try too hard. I know that absolutely nothing is going on in that sense, I mean we've both been cheated on before, we know that it's something that's extremely hard to handle, and it's something we would never, ever do to someone else, let alone each other. But coming from these experiences, how can I detach myself from them and keep them from intruding my relationship?

I think what makes it hard sometimes is that we're fairly busy people living in two different time zones so it's hard to find time where we're both free at the same time. And so I find that there will be longer gaps between text messages, several days that go by where we can't talk on the phone at all or Skype, etc. And she isn't a very communicative person through text/messages/etc. and she isn't obsessed with messaging or any of these things, and it's always hard to gauge how she feels or her emotions unless we talk on the phone which doesn't happen that often. None of this matters when we're together in person because we can see each others' emotions and all of that. And this is when I start becoming worried when I just can't tell things, if that makes sense...

I really don't want to become overbearing, or a worry-holic and push her away. But sometimes I find it so hard to detach myself from these memories of things that have happened and I can't help it.

So the question is: How can I just stop worrying so much about things that aren't there and stop reading into things and just get back to being the person all of the time that she met the first week of school? As a friend to her I was irresistible, and just because we're officially dating now doesn't mean I want to lose that fire I gave her.

All replies are greatly appreciated and if I didn't explain something well which is probably the case through my rambling, please let me know.