Need objective advice about relationship

I have been with Jerry for about a year and a half. We are both in our early 40's and divorced. For the most part the relationship has been great...we communicate very well, we are very much in love, and generally just really enjoy being together.
We don't live together but we will be soon. We spend a lot of time together.
The problem is, I am a very insecure person. I have been through a series of relationships all of my life and other circumstances that have caused me to develop deep seated abandonment issues and general insecurity.
I work very hard to keep my insecurites in check and not be clingy, needy, dependent, as I am well aware that this behavior drives people away. So a lot of the time when I am feeling very insecure and needy I keep it to myself and try to work it out within myself.

I go out of my way not to make demands on Jerry, not to call him excessively when I am feeling insecure,etc. He is very independent and a great deal of the time he is out here and there, just a very mobile person who really doesn't want someone keeping track of his every move. But he almost always comes home to me (he stays with me most nights or vice versa). So I was always reassured and did not worry that much about where he was and what he was doing. He is a much more social person than I am, He is very outgoing and I am reserved.

Ok, heres the problem...I guess in the past few months I have been more open about my insecuities, and I have shown him how vulerable I am. Not by acting out (such as being jealous and posessive) but by just being honest about how insecure I am.
I realize now that I have been putting a lot of pressure on him, asking him for a great deal of reassurance, etc.

He was very patient about it for a long time. However very recently he is showing signs that I have gone overboard. I have been moody with him, and constantly needing his reasurance. I didn't realize how much until a few days ago when we had had a disagreement of sorts and I was feeling very insecure. I picked up a really sweet card he had recently given me that was very romantic, and said, " See, for example, this means the world to me" and he said something that stopped me in my tracks: "" But it is never enough". Wow, talk about a reality check!

Now I am looking back, and seeing just how much I have been making demands, in a quiet way, asking him to meet needs that are not his resonsibility but my own. I know it is not his job to make me feel more secure. I think he has reached his limit with this behavior because right after that talk he started avoiding me (totally uncharicteristic). In turn, this has fueled my insecurity to the point of near panic. I am just realizing that if I don't do something right now about my overly dependent behavior, I will lose him forever.

Right now I am caught in this nightmare between desperately trying to figure out how to resolve my abandonment issues and trying not to panic about his avoiding me. I keep trying to tell myself it is just temporary and that if I can pull myself together everything will be fine once he starts coming around again. The past few days I have not really seen him at all, and just one or two brief phone calls a day. I have found myself on the phone alternating between being somewhat demanding, "'please come over, we need to talk" and trying to pretend I am fine and everything is normal.
He is definitely avoiding me right now which has thrown me into a tailspin of intense fear and near panic. I have been WILLING myself NOT to call him, not to sound clingy when he calls. I think he can see right through it though.

I don't know what to do....just sit here in agony and don't call him until he is ready to come around, just act like I am fine? Or next time he calls, tell him calmly that I really need him to come over so we can talk. I guess I should leave him alone and give him the space he obviously needs( which I have been)....but it is tearing me apart, I guess I need that reasurance fix that he is not going to abandon me.

I am going to try to keep busy and get out and do things so that I am not sitting here at home waiting for him to call or show up. I have been there so many times in past relationships I don't even care to count.

I know I need therapy...and I was in therapy until a few months ago to deal with these specific issues, but it wasn't helping much so I stopped.

What should I do....I am in this awful pit of fear right now, the thought of losing him is extremely painful, and the child in me wants to cry out to him, please stop avoiding me, come here now, I need you right now, don't leave me, etc...but of course I don't do that, I just sit here silently suffering and waiting to hear from him.

I am so caught up in this unhealthy frame of mind right now that I am having an extremely hard time seeing things objectively. I want to "snap out of it NOW" but I don't know how. I am not always like this, most of the time I am fine and I have a fairly busy life. Most of the time I am able to keep my insecurity in check (or so I thought) and I am basically a stable person. But when that fear of abandonment monster wakes up in me like it has now, I turn into a scared child who wants to desperatly cling and wants reassurance desperatly. It is only the adult in me that holds that child back...but it is very painful.

Sorry this is so long, I guess I needed to get it all out. Should I leave him alone until he is ready to come around, and when he does come around, (I pray that its not too late) should I be honest with him and tell him I realize now just how much pressure I have been putting on him to make me not feel insecure? Or shoud I just work on this internally and just let up on the pressure without saying anything to him about what I am going through?
I find it so humiliating that I am that needy...I don't want to be needy and I want to feel secure about myself.

Do you have other support people in your life?

I know from personal experience it's unfair and always leads to problems when you rely on one person to "be there for you"

It's good you realize that you're problems are because YOU are insecure and that you acknowledge he's doing everything he can to support you.

I for the longest time was always wanting more, more, more and thinking "what a jerk."

Basically the less needy and insecure I become, the more forthcoming he has become with compliments, affection, etc.

It really is one of those things where if you KNOW how wonderful/hot/funny/blah blah you are, he'll know it, adore you more.

If this isn't what you want to hear, I'm sorry, but seriously, just start the chain reaction.

I'd write him a letter or an email. Apologize. Thank him for all he's done for you, and tell him that know you'll do your part, because it's wrong for you to rely on him for your self esteem.

Then set up a date or whatever, and just before you meet with him, sit down in front of a mirror and say, "I am beautiful, I'm fun to be around, and he wants to be with me. He's still here, that means he loves me."

Hi, thanks for the advice, it is very good advice. I have a question...how did you learn to overcome your insecuities?
I want to so badly. I know it repels people not to mention it makes me feel terrible.