u/lswans

Pictured. Chicken, egg whites, broccoli, sweet potatoes. Recomp meal

For context, I (26M) have been dating my girlfriend (25F) for 10 months. She’s the most consistently loving person I’ve ever dated, she respects me, we have the same hopes for our future, and she consistently reminds me that she loves me for who I am. We do have conflicting attachment styles, her avoidant and me being anxious, but we’ve still been able to communicate very effectively. She is, however, friends with several of her exes, which she was upfront about from the very beginning and has reassured me whenever I’ve expressed anxiety around it.

One of those exes (let’s call him Sal) is older, in better shape, and has a much higher paying job that allows him to travel the world pretty freely. He is now in a relationship with a different woman, and has not been involved with my gf for several years (according to my gf). Before being with me, I know that Sal took my gf to Europe on an extravagant trip, bought her fancy jewelry, and expressed interest in marrying her, and my girlfriend does have a taste for fashion. She’s never made me feel like I need to buy her things, and has even expressed concern when I’ve offered to buy her things that she perceives as irresponsible.

Nonetheless, this knowledge is eating at my own self image, and I’m trying so hard to not let it impact my relationship. Whenever I take my GF out to dinner, my inner monologue tells me “yeah, for Sal, this $200 dinner bill would’ve been a drop in the bucket. This is insignificant to her.” When she says I’ve been making progress in the gym and am looking good, my inner monologue says “she was probably frothing at the mouth over Sal’s abs. You’re pudgy in comparison.” I’ve never once taken this out on my gf consciously, but I’ve definitely been depressed lately because of these thoughts.

I moved away from my hometown and ended up moving again to be with my GF, and with all my family + long-time friends elsewhere in the world, I’m feeling like I have no avenue to distract myself except self improvement (reading, working out, looking for side gigs outside my 9-5), which feels like feeding the insecurity fire. Either I slow down, do the things I enjoy and buy my gf nice things every once in awhile (while feeling like I’m living in the shadow of this on-paper perfect man my GF used to love), or I buy my gf nice things that I can’t reasonably afford and obsessively workout / diet in the gym to get fit at the expense of my friendships and my own desires.

I know that none of this is fair to my GF. It’s putting words in her mouth, as she’s been nothing but supportive whenever I’ve expressed these insecurities. But my emotions simply don’t believe her when she says she loves me despite me being less affluent on these materialistic metrics, and I haven’t been able to shake these thoughts for months. I’m in therapy, and I know logically that this all probably has nothing to do with the ex and everything to do with my own lack of self-confidence, but I just can’t see how she isn’t settling for me if she’d enjoyed a certain standard in the past. Me being depressed over this is turning me into a less fun partner, and I’m watching this self-fulfilling prophecy play out in real time. I’m so anxious that I’m not enough for her, that I’m actively becoming not enough for her because I’m losing my sense of self amidst this race against a man 4 years my senior. I just need somewhere to get

these thoughts out. Thanks for reading.