Living with an insecure man is not only hard work, it can have a devastating impact on your well-being and emotional health, as well as your marriage.

There are few things more emotionally defeating than to know that you are a faithful, loyal, caring and motivated spouse, yet you have a partner who is continually suspicious, untrusting and rarely stops questioning many of your actions and motives.

Many women simply work harder to jump through the hoops to keep their insecure men happy. At some point in time, the task simply gets too frustrating, tiring, overwhelming, and the resentment has grown too excessive to contain. 

When a woman has had enough and is finally at the end of her rope, she will sometimes announce that she is done trying. She feels that the demands are too great. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries; he will always find a new area in which she does not measure up.

If you are trying to diagnose your partner, the signs of an insecure man may include:

1. He questions your motives all the time.

You know that you are working hard to take care of you family and your man. You know you rarely have time to take care of yourself or do something that you would like to do.

No matter how hard you work at things, he still finds ways to question your motives and expresses doubt that you really do care like you say you do.

2. He keeps score.

You find that an insecure man never forgets the time you were able to go out with your friends or stop by to visit your mom. He has recounted to you numerous times how often you had the opportunity to out or got away compared to how many times he was able to do so.

If he gets out more often, there is always a reason why most of his outings don’t count, but yours always do.

3. He believes you always have a hidden agenda.

No matter what your reasoning is behind your actions and the things you have to say, an insecure man consistently reads between the lines. He may read things into the look on your face, or the tone of your voice, or the words you choose to use. 

He is quick to assign negative motives to you and accuse you of things that you would never say, do, or think. It happens so often that once in a while you begin to think, “I might as well do it since he is always accusing me of it.”

4. Arguing almost always becomes defensive rather than problem-solving.

Sometimes you try to defend yourself when the accusations start. Sometimes you just try to get through it.

If you do defend yourself, it just spirals down into a quagmire of finger pointing and blame. An insecure man is quick to find the cracks in your explanation about what you really meant and continues to place blame on you. He often makes you out to be a liar when you know you are telling the truth.

There is almost never a way to solve a problem and get it behind you. You end up feeling guilty and unloved no matter what you do.

5. You are often in trouble for not complimenting or thanking him.

The two of you may be preparing to go to a special event. He comes into the room and compliments how you look and even before you have a chance to compliment him you are in trouble for not doing so. If you do not thank him immediately for something he has done, you never hear the end of it.

He will let you know that you had plenty of opportunities to compliment or thank him, but as you recall the situation, you know that you never had a chance to do so before you were attacked.

6. He wants to know about every conversation you have or text you receive.

You find that before you are even one sentence into answering a phone call, an insecure man might demand to know who you are talking to. He can’t stand it if you get a text and respond to it if he doesn’t know who it is and what the conversation is about.

He then may pout because someone else is getting your attention or assign a negative purpose to your text or call. He may accuse you of complaining about him to others or even having an affair.

7. There are many assumptions made on his part that you “should just know.”

He often becomes angry because you did not catch on to how he was feeling or what he needed. You may respond by letting him know that you can’t read his mind, but he doesn’t hear it.

He counters by saying that as long as the two of you have been together and as many times as this has happened in the past “you should know this.”

8. He gets very jealous of the time you spend talking to or hanging out with your close friends.

You know that you place a priority on him and your relationship together. Because he is so insecure, you are sensitive to his concerns about the time you spend with your close friends or family. You have already cut way back on the time you spend with them and you limit conversations and texting to them, but he still complains and hounds you until you eventually have no friends to talk to.

If this is happening to you, and you can no longer sustain it, it will be up to you to initiate change. If you decide to “draw a line in the sand” and require certain actions or changes on his part, you must be prepared to follow through on whatever you tell him you will do if he doesn’t follow through.

This is the time to enlist the help of a wise trusted friend to help you determine your next steps and to help you follow-through. This is also a good time to begin working with a counseling professional. Change can happen, but this kind of change takes time and outside help. It can pay big dividends for both of you.