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We prove that there exists a weak solution to a system governing an unsteady flow of a viscoelastic fluid in three dimensions, for arbitrarily large time interval and data. The fluid is described by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations for the velocity $v$, coupled with a diffusive variant of a combination of the Oldroyd-B and the Giesekus models for a tensor $\mathbb{B}$. By a proper choice of the constitutive relations for the Helmholtz free energy (which, however, is non-standard in the current literature, despite the fact that this choice is well motivated from the point of view of physics) and for the energy dissipation, we are able to prove that $\mathbb{B}$ enjoys the same regularity as $v$ in the classical three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. This enables us to handle any kind of objective derivative of $\mathbb{B}$, thus obtaining existence results for the class of diffusive Johnson-Segalman models as well. Moreover, using a suitable approximation scheme, we are able to show that $\mathbb{B}$ remains positive definite if the initial datum was a positive definite matrix (in a pointwise sense). We also show how the model we are considering can be derived from basic balance equations and thermodynamical principles in a natural way.