Is He Cheating Or Am I Paranoid? – Learning To Trust

Relationships are, by design, supposed to make us feel loved, happy, and secure. Most of the time, we feel just like that, but there are seasons in our lives when we feel like it’s all falling apart. Making a relationship work can be wild and wonderful or extremely frustrating, especially if we start to doubt our partner.

Trust is the backbone of any relationship. Without trust, fear runs rampant in our minds causing disrupting thoughts to manifest like, is he cheating, or am I paranoid? Constantly worrying about your partner cheating on you leads to feelings of insecurity and can cause the relationship to fail.

If your partner does cheat on you and you find out, your trust in the relationship will be destroyed, and you could develop insecurities preventing you from trusting your next partner. Learning how to recover from a broken relationship is possible, but you will need to learn how to trust again and deal with the debilitating effects of paranoid thoughts.

Should You Worry About Your Partner Cheating On You?

Sometimes in a relationship, you get a strange feeling that your partner is cheating on you. You might feel that your feelings are justified because of recent happenings, or you might have no reason to suspect any cheating is going on at all.

If you have a constant nagging feeling that something is wrong, investigate and trust your gut. By not doing anything to prove or disprove your feelings, you are not helping your own state of mind and are only contributing to your own fears and paranoia.

Having these emotions swirling around your head and your heart can be very stressful and lead to trust issues in the relationship. Constantly worrying about your partner cheating on you could signify that you struggle with your own confidence issues. You could be projecting your own fears and behavior onto them.

The constant fear of a cheating partner can lead to a deep feeling of paranoia. Generally, there are three potential root causes which cause people to be constantly paranoid and living in fear of finding out about a cheating partner.

1. You Struggle With Your Own Trust Issues

Struggling with your own unresolved trust issues will make you believe that your partner is cheating and lying behind your back. This could stem from leftover childhood issues of parents being unfaithful to each other or being cheated on by an ex, setting the tone for future relationships.

If we don’t deal with past experiences, the bad experiences impact how we view our relationships and interpret any other situations, whether good or bad. As a result, we could create trust issues that don’t necessarily exist.

Often, trust issues can manifest into an emotional response, leading to panic and anxiety and ultimately feelings of paranoia.

2. You Feel That You Are Not Worthy Of Love

If your self-confidence has taken a knock due to previous relationship issues, you may develop low self-esteem and look for any reason to destroy your current relationship.

Paranoid thoughts contribute to the feeling of not being worthy enough to be loved by anyone, not even by yourself! By not loving yourself enough, you will not invest in your new relationship as you are waiting for the hurt which will inevitably arrive – according to your own paranoid thoughts!

3. You May Have Cheated During A Past Relationship

People who have cheated on a partner in the past find it difficult to think of anything else but cheating when in a relationship and wonder if it will happen to them. So they project these thoughts and feelings onto their new partner and decide that their partner is cheating on them or is going to cheat!

 So often, paranoia is a subconscious way to justify your own cheating, whether physically or just as a passing attraction to someone else.

How Do You Know If You Are Just Paranoid?

There may be times when your partner is not as attentive as he should be, and you start to feel that something just isn’t right in the relationship. You worry that something is going on behind your back and that he is cheating on you. What if you are just paranoid, and there is nothing amiss?

Being paranoid is a mental health struggle that you can address on your own without confronting your partner about his behavior and possibly causing relationship issues that don’t exist.

If you can identify with the statements on the below list, you could be developing symptoms and signs of paranoia. By learning to identify and recognize these signs, you will understand the difference between your own paranoid feelings and the actual signs that your partner is cheating and behaving differently.

  • Feelings of intense fear and anxiety consume you constantly
  • Insecurity is a constant friend
  • Not trusting him even when there is no cause
  • Being hypervigilant and checking on him constantly
  • Looking for proof to satisfy yourself one way or the other of his fidelity

How To Stop Being Paranoid

As mentioned earlier in this post, paranoia can be a mental health issue, or it can simply be a temporary affliction due to an unreasonable fear that your partner is cheating on you. Either way, you need to deal with the problem before it gets out of hand and ruins not only your relationship but possibly your life.

Try these practical ways to fight paranoia. Talking to a professional therapist to help you cope is a better way to overcome this affliction.

  • Look after your health and practice self-care – sleep at least eight hours a night, eat a balanced diet, and limit your caffeine intake. Caffeine can contribute to paranoia in some people.
  • Don’t act on your suspicions – speak to your partner about your doubts and fears.
  • Trust your partner more.
  • Don’t focus on the past, instead focus on the future and develop a good, trusting relationship.

What If You Find Out He Is Actually Cheating?

If you have become paranoid about his movements and the lack of attention you receive from him, perhaps he is cheating. It’s time to confront him for your own peace of mind.

What you decide to do after confirming that he has indeed cheated on you is up to you. You can make it work or walk away. Either way, check out our list of suggestions on what to do next.

  1. Acknowledge that this is not your fault – he made his own decisions and choices, no matter how much he would like to put the blame on you.
  2. Talk to him – you need to know what is happening and how it affects your life if you try and save the relationship.
  3. Take some time apart to decide what you want to do.
  4. Decide the best solution for you and stick to it.
  5. If you live together, make him move out.
  6. If you are staying together, counseling is mandatory.
  7. Expect to feel sensitive for a while. Wounds hurt but do eventually heal.
  8. Realize how much you are worth and learn to love yourself, no matter what!

Conclusion

We all deserve a happy life with a loving partner, but if something happens to change that beautiful picture, what should you do? Living in constant fear of your worst fears coming true and discovering that your partner is, in fact, involved in an affair could break your trust in an instant.

Suspecting a partner is cheating will always cause feelings of paranoia for a time. Still, dealing with the problem in your relationship before it overtakes your every waking moment and turns you into someone else is the best way to resolve the issue. Learning to trust again after a heartbreaking time in your life is not easy, but you owe it to yourself to live and love again.