Dear Kate:

You are very welcome. The first part of this post will be general and the second part will be specific to your story. Please take your time reading this post because there is a lot in it, and feel free to reply if and when you want to.

First part,  You wrote: “Not sure if I am having trusting issues or I am insecure myself”- probably both, but every adult has trust issues and feelings of insecurity to one extent or another. Sometimes it appears like a person is secure and trusting (and he/she may feel that way at a particular time),  but if you observe any other person long enough- you will detect his/ her insecurity and trust issues- these are in each and every one of us.

The reason for that is that people really are insecure: no one’s life and health is guaranteed, not today, not tomorrow (we get to know this fact as children when observing that people do get sick and die), and by the time a person is an adult, his/ her trust has already been betrayed by at least one person, in one way or another.

We, as people, should have trust issues because many people are not trustworthy. If we trust a person who is not worthy of our trust with something important to us, we’ll get hurt. We need to evaluate a person: is he/she worthy of my trust in this or that area, and if they are- trust them in that one area.

You are not alone when it comes to feeling insecure and untrusting. Be open to see the same in others, communicate about it with others- first just a bit, see how they respond, then communicate a bit more if the response is inviting, etc.- this will help you and them. Do not expect there to be a time when you will feel consistently and perfectly secure and trusting, such an expectation will make it harder to achieve a state of mind that is more secure and more trusting (of trustworthy people) than now.

Second part, when you found out that your boyfriend at the time, and his family had “severe financial problems.. court cases, huge debts”, etc.,  it made you very insecure (“this made me very insecure about our future”)- your feelings of insecurity were valid, meaning: if you married him, your life too would include severe financial problems and legal trouble. But you “couldn’t take a decision” perhaps because you thought love should conquer all, that you will be a bad person if you end a relationship for financial worries (?)

During lockdown you started talking to D, “usually chat all day”, gradually you “started having feelings for him”, didn’t tell him and continued to talk to him, then in Nov 2020, D proposed to you, and in Dec you broke up with your boyfriend and then told D that you liked him too, and started dating D.

Technically, having a boyfriend and privately talking to another man repeatedly and at length while knowing that you developed feelings for  that other man, is a form of betrayal/ cheating. But, look at the bigger picture: (1) you were very, very young then and now, (2) it was during lockdown and I am guessing you did not spend much time if any, in the physical presence of your boyfriend- that’s why you had the time to chat with D all day, (3) you were confused.

You are not a cold-hearted, experienced woman having fun cheating on her boyfriend virtually or physically. You were a confused very young woman, chatting with a guy during lockdown.

“Had my bf had feelings for someone else, it would have really hurt me and wouldn’t, for sure, have known how to deal with that”- like I wrote to you earlier, feelings just happen, and we are not guilty for whatever it is that we feel. At the same time, feelings, when intense are strong motivations to behave this or that way. We need to choose our behaviors so to discourage motivations to behave wrongly. For example, if it happens that in the relationship with D, you develop romantic feelings for another man- don’t chat with the other man privately anymore.

I suggest that you talk to D about what you and D individually should do if and when either one of you develops feelings for a third person. Let him know (in case he doesn’t know) that developing feelings can happen without our choice.. it just happens, but what we do about it is open to our choosing. Then make a plan of action for the time it happens, if it does.

“sometimes currently, when D doesn’t reply (to)  me on time despite being online, I get scared thinking that he might be talking to someone else”- there is a concept in American law that is called “reasonable doubt”. We can always doubt something (example: you can’t be 100% sure that D is not talking to another woman in a romantic way when you are not there with him to observe him personally), but we need to distinguish between doubt and reasonable doubt (is there any real evidence to suggest that D is not worthy of your trust?)

You can talk to D about replying to your messages when he is online: ask him what is behind the timing of his replies to your messages. The more information you have, the lesser your anxiety.

anita