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I am discovering that untwisting my thinking is harder than it seems. For the first time today I was able to identify where my thinking on a particular subject is twisted.

When it comes to my husband I am extremely jealous. I don't know if it is justly so or not at this point. But it doesn't really matter because what it boils down to is that I assume that he will cheat on me with another woman. And I predict that if he does he won't want me anymore and then I will be really depressed (and quite possibly suicidal). I am allowing a fear to pollute my thinking and making myself rather miserable because I assume things.

Okay, so I am undoubtably guilty of making assumptions not based on actual facts. I was making assumptions and didn't even know that was what I was doing. I feel some relief in the discovery. But at the same time I am scared. I can't seem to figure out how do I recognize I am making assumptions at the time I am doing it? How do I untwist it and squash it before I impulsively do or say something stupid based on twisted thinking?

Any suggestions? Anyone else struggled with assumptions and jealousy that figured out how to recognize and dismiss unhealthy assumptions?

I understand exactly where you are coming from. I am one of the most jealous people I think ever walked here on earth.

Recently my gf became friends with one of the new players at a club we are associated with. This girl would ring my partner and they would chat and laugh and I was driving myself insane with jealousy. It was eating away at me so bad that at one point I nearly self harmed over it.

Anyway, I am new to all this stuff, but what I did was in my journal I wrote down the reasons I thought my gf would cheat on me with this person. I then went down one by one and put a positive response to each of the points I had written down.

What came out of it was I realised that my gf is very experienced at the sport we are involved in, she has the right to have new friends, she loves me and if she cheats on me then all the worrying in the world aint going to change that.

You have to trust yourself and who you are. Basically my therapist told me that my jealousy comes from my own bad feelings about myself and has nothing to do with my partner. I feel I am not good enough, not pretty enough, too fat, too this, too that; whatever I am telling myself is not true because, like you, my partner chose to be with ME.

I automatically assume when someone new (or sometimes someone old) is in our lives that my partner will be attracted to them. You just have to stop and realise that you were the one he chose and not anyone else on the planet. Which makes you special.

Hope this helps, as I said I am only new but reading the boards has helped heaps - why dont you try looking at some of the old posts - that helps me heaps.

I like the journal idea. I think I will try it. I have also posted on http://www.beliefnet.com and one of my supports gave me a link to a very positive website about affirmations. I used to think they were a bunch of bologna, but am willing to try it out for a while. I mean after all if it wokrs I'll feel better about myself. If not then I'll only feel silly. What've I got to lose but a bunch of bad feelings right?