crazy jealous

[michelle2003]

Hi,

 

I'm incredibly jealous when my boyfriend looks at other women. We've been going out for three months and I know he's crazy about me and loves me. But when he looks at someone else it feels as though he doesn't appreciate me, or that I'm not good enough somehow. His friends go places specifically to look at other girls (even though a lot of them have girlfriends), and my boyfriend doesn't go because he knows it bothers me. I feel as though I'm restricting his freedom, but I can't stand the thought of him going. I know that he'd never leave me because he's crazy about me, but I still feel this way. Even to the point where we'll fight if I see him glance at someone else. I hate the way I feel and I dont' know how to change it. He's jealous too but doesn't let it show, whereas I do. I'm not really sure how to control my feelings.

 

Michelle

[cowgirlforget]

I kind of know how you feel but I have worked a lot on it. We are married and I still have an issue with it. It is a natural thing for men to look at other women. I don't know why but it doesn't mean that they love us any less. I am working so hard on that and my jealousy so that it doesn't ruin my marriage. You don't want to push him away just like I don't want to either. I hope that maybe we can help each other because I have a lot of trust issues and hope that I can be there for you. Talk to you soon.

 

Karen

[paul475]

...I've been on both sides of this issue before. I have feelings and empathy for both.

 

First of all, there are two things going on here. The first is the natural tendency all animals have to want to keep their "kids" in the gene pool at both ends -- the shallow and the deep end.

 

The appropriate response for a higher mammal to have in this situation depends on the frequency and intensity of the encounter with the competitor.

 

I'm sorry, ladies, but a passing glance at a knock-out while in the company of one's partner is completely artificial. However, glaring and gawking and drooling and fawning over any competitor to one's mate is mean, nasty, angry and cruel. Likewise coming home to your partner humping, or about to hump, someone else is a pretty intense encounter with the competition as well. The first I think I'd tolerate maybe twice. The second I would tolerate only once, and boy would I pitch a bitch.

 

The other thing going on here is an inappropriate (read: out of time sequence) reaction to a triggering event. The appropriate adult behavior was described above. It is thoughtful and should be moderate.

 

Going ballistic because your partner becomes sexually aroused by seeing other women who get their jollies arousing and teasing men is just plain infantile. In the first place, a woman who teases and sexualizes all men indiscriminately in most every encounter with them is a very angry woman, indeed, and would hardly be suitable relationship material for any stable male. This is emotional rape designed subconsciously to avenge the rape the woman experienced by a trusted authority figure very early in her life.

 

Secondly, a peek at the natural world finds that the male always gets aroused by a female in estrus, or close to it. Arousal does not a coupling or partnership make.

 

Finally, if you want to control this behavior, you are barking up the wrong tree. The behavior is perfectly appropriate for a person who is experiencing a present-day stimulus that is triggering a past traumatic experience of abandonment or betrayal. You are living in two or more time zones, in other words, and given that mindset, it is entirely understandable that you would go ballistic and feel threatened. So it's not the behavior that can be controlled because it is doing what it is supposed to do, which is protect you and your best interests.

 

What needs to be unwound are the beliefs and values that underlie these feelings and experiences of abandonment and betrayal and triangulation.

 

And the irony of the whole process of awareness is that if you have experienced such things, your first reaction will be to deny its importance or to discount it. In effect, you repeat the abandonment and betrayal by visiting it upon yourself as was done to you during a crucial developmental phase.

 

Children experience feelings and events far more intensely than we adults do. It is not valid to look at your childhood history with an eye to adult values and interpretations. For children their relationship with their caregivers is about SURVIVAL, LIVING AND DYING and SAFETY.

 

And this is why it feels like your are DYING when confronting these demons first hand, and you rationalize and justify excuses for not revisiting these old misplaced feelings and re-experiencing them with the abandoned and betrayed child within you.

 

Stick with yourself and don't give up no matter what. You CAN be the person you have always intended to be, but just couldn't behave like, if you simply commit to yourself.

 

You are all you have.

[L]

 

 

Hi Michelle

 

I have been going out with my Boyfriend for 10 months however, we first met when I was 17 and I went out with him for 4 months while I was seeing my then boyfriend (now ex) My partner that I am seeing now found out that I was cheating on him and finished it so I stayed with my other partner for about 5 years after we split up 2 years ago and I was out one night and met my partner that I am with now and it is the guy that I went out with when I was 17 he took me back and we are madly in love the only trouble is tho I am extremley jealous like you when he looks around I always shout at him for looking but I know he worships me he must do for taking me back after cheating on him, but it is driving a wedge between us and I dont want that

What shall I do?