Over my 1.5 year marriage and reflecting on previous relationships, I’ve realized how much my fears of abandonment have shown up in my insecure behaviors over the years. I go to therapy to work through it on my own, but it’s not an overnight solution and some days are harder to cope with than others.

I’ve shared my struggles with my husband but he doesn’t really understand it and even though he tries to remind me that I’m the most important thing to him, the repeated reassurance, understandably, frustrates him, which leads to fights where he shuts down and ignores me, amplifying my fears.

I’m wondering and hoping for insight on how you deal with the day to day things that crop up and trigger fears of insecurity. Do you address them head on, knowing it might push away your spouse, frustrate them, or turn them off? Or do you try to ignore it, distract yourself, or talk yourself down from the fears?

A little background before giving examples: my husband is very quiet, not very expressive, and gets super uncomfortable with questions and conversations. This, in addition to my issues, has led me to snooping in his phone (I already know how this community feels about that). He told me many times he didn’t care if I looked at it because he has nothing to hide, but when I questioned him on something once, he was super angry because he didn’t know I was doing it. I kind of understood but I felt confused because he told me he didn’t care. So he changed his password on his phone and laptop. That inherently bothers me but it’s been since October and I’ve tried to just trust him.

Anyway, so recently I switched over my cell service to get on the same phone line to save money. To do this, I had to use to his phone (the carrier was having issues in the store, so they told us to call from his phone when we got home). He unlocked his phone, I walked to the office to grab something, and when I came back, he was tinkering around on it. I felt like he knew I would look and was deleting stuff. I didn’t plan on looking honestly but he went outside and I decided to check his Instagram because of what he appeared to be doing. His search history was clear. I’ve asked him about people he has searched before (including a long time ex) and he lied about it (thinking I didn’t know how the “recent search” on Instagram worked) and just all around seems to search random girls but can’t explain why. I get looking up exes out of pure curiosity and that would’ve been fine, but the lying part bothered me. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that he searches women on Instagram. They aren’t models, he isn’t disrespectful to me or our relationship as far as I can tell. He tells me when I’m struggling with this stuff that he promised me he would be faithful so he will, physically and emotionally. We’ve had conversations about boundaries before but this searching feels off. Like I never search guys on mine, so I don’t get it. Also, he was showing me his texts once and a girl he works with, who works remotely from another city texted something like “sorry I forgot you were in a meeting, talk to you later.” Pretty benign, but why wouldn’t she use his work phone? I was looking at phone records and they talk about once or twice a week during the workday for 20-30 minutes. It just seems weird. I want to ask about it but with our track record for these kinds of conversations, I’m reluctant. But I also don’t want my feelings to grow because it’s not addressed.

Also, random, but he found a job he wants to apply for as a professor (not currently a teacher). He’s excited about the schedule with the summer time off, and has brought it up a few times over the past month but hadn’t done anything to pursue it. Then this weekend while checking out at Costco (I was in the bathroom), the cashier apparently told him she liked his sweater and he looked like a professor. He asked me if I thought so. I made a funny joke about how I never wanted to sleep with a professor until now, but also tried asking if she was hitting on him and he said no. The next day, he stayed up late to work on the application. I kept supporting him with it, so not sure why it took a random girl flirting with him to push him into it but now I worry about young college chicks trying to get into his pants.

Ultimately, I recognize these are my fears manifesting in my mind, and I know they’re probably irrational. But I’m looking for advice on how to either just ask him without making it a big thing or finding a way to truly release it and trust him.