Reply To: Targeted strategies for dealing with 3rd Party insecurities?

This is a very complex subject so intentionally keeping this brief as possible – Resentment consists of an odd and complex blend of disappointment, anger and fear. If you explore the feelings of your resentment you will realize it is a general feeling of disappointment at the world. You feel resentment because you in some way believe the world owes you something but it gives you nothing and you are disappointed at the world.

On top of that you believe you need to “work hard” to be nice, funny, giving, loyal, rescuing, people pleasing, caretaking, fixing, doing good deeds etc. to get liked, loved (get your needs met by others) and be overly-available and accepting to others (even those who are rejecting you, not making themselves available to you, even outright denying you).

When you see nothing in terms of interest from others – especially women – you feel disappointed, frustrated, and angry that there is no reciprocation. First and foremost you are seeking their approval to bolster your self-worth which is a false sense of external self-worth. Your true self-worth appears to be in the toilet. Normal. You have a sensational opportunity – a gift – to straighten that all out once and for all.

Can you see how this overarching belief system is playing out in the present?

Then women/men become all sorts of nasty things in your belief system, evil, gold diggers, bitches, jerks, liars etc. Then the degradation and resentment just plays over and over again.

Resentment never brings you anything other than sustained pain and suffering to you and only you. There also seems to be some beliefs about rejection and abandonment at play, along with unlovable, shame, embarrassment etc.

You also have the jealousy and envy going there with the 3rd party likely tied to some betrayal and resentments from the the past. You likely have the beliefs that the world is unjust, the world is not fair, the world is rejecting, others are better than me. In particular, a man takes a massive blow to his belief system – which is all false – when he relies on his partner as his sense of self-worth. When the partner compares him to another person in any form it destroys him mentally and emotionally. Some men NEVER recover from this.

Another key thing you also believe here is that others are preventing you from fulfilling your desires, that others are responsible for the way you feel, others are bad people etc among numerous other complicated relationship beliefs that come into play when a 3rd party is involved.

On top of this, it seems that the other person wasn't “truly” available to you which would indicate some fantasy thinking aka “fantasy bond” which then gets into very deep traumatic thoughts, feelings and beliefs. A suggestion is for you to “get real” with yourself as they say aka become brutally honest about what the situation truly is here and through this process come to accept the reality. Then you can use all of the present negative thoughts and feelings to make the desired changes in you.

The average person just avoids and denies their thoughts and feelings and gets into another relationship to deaden the pain. They then carry all of this with them into that and every subsequent relationship. There they replay and repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!

The good news here is you are taking a time out and dealing with this in a useful and life-changing way. I can promise you that it will be the best investment of time and learning in your entire life provided you follow through.

There is a post here somewhere on the forum that give a process – i believe the post is by Jeff Harding – however you have far more going on there than a straightforward “i want this relationship to be over”. That process is great for breaking things off but what it does not address are all of the other issues that got you into the situation. They will certainly remain and happen again if not addressed.

Taking the time to resolve all of this will ensure it doesn't happen again.

Keep going!