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Therapy?

Why are you saying negative things about yourself ? Are you fishing for compliments and reassurance or…?

Stop talking negatively about yourself.

You can share your vulnerabilities without being a mess that you expect him to clean up.

Stop saying negative things about yourself. It you’re struggling with low self esteem and you want his support, tell him. But say what you mean and mean what you say

How do I know if I’m a mess or not?

That’s a good question. I’ve struggled with this sort of thing too personally by the way but I’ve gotten better about it.

When I’m feeling very bad, I feel like a mess. Like I don’t know where to even start untangling what’s going on in my head and my heart. And it feels terrible and I need help. This is the hardest part. But at least for me, this is the part where I have to clean myself up a little. Cleaning myself up a little means asking what’s really wrong, doing some basic self care (making sure I’ve eaten, slept, gotten sunlight, hydrated, showered, etc…).

Once I’ve done the basic stuff, then I ask my partner for help.

The last time this happened went a little like this, actually. I ended up telling him basically “I feel awful and I need help”. That’s being clean about it. I’m telling him what I need from him and he knows what to expect.

Being messy about it is saying for example, “I’m X and Y and I’m sorry I’m like that.” But being cleaner about it is if you can say “I’m feeling like im X and Y right now”

As an example it may feel like a really small distinction, but it makes it more clear what you’re looking for from him, and if this is coming from the idea that he believes things you say at face value, it would make a night and day difference

As far as untangling the situation where it looks like he believes the bad things you’ve said about yourself in the past, you might want to have a conversation with him where you basically say “hey I sometimes struggle with insecurities. I often phrase it as just saying bad things about myself, but I know they’re not really true or they’re exaggerated. I’ll try to do better about being clear when I’m looking for support, but it would mean the world to me if you met me in the middle and helped give me some encouragement and a reality check if I’m feeling bad about myself”

I hope my essay was understandable

I'm confused. .

>I’ve noticed that if I [f30] say anything negative about myself to my long term partner [m30] when I’m in a rough place, he actually goes in his head like “oh she’s right, she IS blah blah”.

So why are you lying to him about your insecurities? Why are you trying to get him to say "no no, you're not.."?

> If I say something about myself, he won’t say “oh that’s not true”,

Why would he belittle your feelings or reject them? And why would you want that?

>. This makes me feel that I can’t share worries or vulnerabilities with him.

How are you phrasing your worries or vulnerabilities?

>This does trigger my abandonment issues, and I don’t know what to do

You have issues. Seek therapy.

> I’m being ignored

How is he ignoring you? What triggered him to start ignoring you?

>And it’s triggering me.

And what happens when you're "triggered"?

Thank you so much for your wonderful response!