Abandoned at Infancy and Childhood

by Rob
(Raleigh, BC)

I struggle with Jealousy in my marriage. In particular my wife's friendships with certain people and a particular man friend.

Recently, she said she thinks I have abandonment issues that color the way I view her and that she loves me, but that I live with some sort of expectation of future abandonment..so I try to protect myself, by protecting my relationships and my stuff.

I put my name on everything.

I was adopted between the age of 1 and 2 from an orphanage in NY, so right at the start there's a problem. Wet the bed and sucked my thumb until around 9 or 10.

Sadly, at 10, my adoptive parents split up and my dad left my mom for a younger woman.

Deep inside I always felt he left because we were not his real children, so who cares!

I have a lot of security issues.

I never really knew them, saw them, or understood them, but had to face the possibility that my wife's assessment was right concerning abandonment and insecurity and that I was projecting it on her.

I just don't know where to draw the line. Where do my issues come in and color my perception, and where do her relationships cross over appropriate boundaries, if there even are such things.

All I know is that jealousy, fear, anger, sadness, and even paranoia seem to be patterns in my life that are destroying my marriage of 27 years.

I don't know how to fix me.