A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I am 22-years-old and I'm in a relatively new relationship with a guy. We are going on 4 months together, and we've already said "I love you" to each other and I really feel like it's true. My question is about his possesiveness. The other day I went to a night club with my best girl friend of 14 years (she's basically my sister) and her boyfriend of 7 years. I invited my boyfriend, but he couldn't go for two reasons, 1) because he lost his ID and wouldn't be able to get into the club, and 2) because he had work the next morning at 8 a.m. and wanted to be responsible. When I brought up the fact that I would be going, he seemed okay with it, but kept making hints and remarks about other guys hitting on me. I tried to reassure him that I was only going to keep my best friend company and that I only have tunnel vision for him - no one else. He let me go and even said "have a great time tonight" so I went and did have a great time. Not even once did I dance with another guy, talk to another guy, look at another guy, or flirt with another guy. No guys even came up to me! I was just content dancing and having fun with my best friend and her boyfriend! It wasn't about going to look for guys at all. The next night, my boyfriend and I had our Friday ritual date night and he said "Man I wish I could go out tonight, my best friend invited me to go on a party bus with a girl we used to know back in the day and her sorority sisters, it sounds like so much fun!" I was a little peeved at that because it sounded like he would much rather go hang out with a bunch of sorority girls then hang out with me, so I joked around about it later when he asked "What should we do later?" I said "Oh I thought you wanted to go hang out with all those sorority girls, I bet they are all so hot and fun to hang out with." He then laughed and said "I thought it would be fun, but why are you getting jealous? You went to the club last night, it's basically the same thing!" I said, "No it's not, because I went with my best friend and her boyfriend, I didn't go hang out with a bunch of frat boys and my best friend." Then I said, "And I'm not jealous, I'm just giving you sh*t!" He said "You are too jealous!" And I said, "Well I wouldn't be jealous if I were invited but I wasn't" And he said "Well it doesn't even matter cause I can't even go! I don't have an ID, remember?" And then we dropped it and had a great night just the two of us. Yesterday he didn't text me all day until really late at night and asked what I was doing. I said I was with my two girl friends and we were about to make homemade sushi. He said "Nice, I'm with my best friend and we're just hanging out at his house." Then I didn't hear anything from him for at least 3 hours when he asked what I was doing again. I said "I am about to go to bed, what are you doing?" He said "I'm just leaving the club and I'm on my way to your house." He came over and I asked him what club he went to and he said, "Oh I didn't go... I just dropped off my friend there." Then at least 10 minutes later we were cuddling in my bed and he said something about going to the club again. So I said "I thought you said you didn't go?" And he said, "I did." And I said, "But 10 minutes ago you said you didn't... why did you lie?" And he said, "I love making you jealous." I was kind of shocked that he said that because dispositionally, I am not a jealous girl. I am very confident and comfortable in my skin. In fact, I admire beautiful women, I am not jealous of them. The only time I would get "jealous" is if he mentions sorority girls like they are a big deal, or says things like "And this bangin girl talked to me tonight." In those cases, I just think it's disrespectful to me. When he goes out with his guy friends, I honestly don't care, I trust him, and the way I see it, if he would rather go for the girls who are easy and try hard to get him by approaching him and acting slutty, then he doesn't deserve me anyway! Back to my point, he said he likes making me jealous so I asked, "Why?" And he said "Because it makes me feel like we're on the same page." I asked him what he meant by that, and he said, "I was pretty jealous the other night when you went out to the club, I'm not gonna lie." And I said, "You were? You didn't have to be, I didn't even talk to other guys or dance with other guys" The minor detail I forgot to mention earlier, was the fact that I ran into my ex-boyfriend at the club and he tried to dance with me for a split second before I walked off and away from him. I guess it was stupid of me to tell my boyfriend, but I always feel like I should tell him the truth about everything. So after I said that he said, "Yeah what about your ex-boyfriend?" And I said, "It was for a split second and you don't have to worry about that, he doesn't mean anything to me. You do." Then he said, "well that's why I like making you jealous, because I like knowing that I'm not the only one who gets jealous." And I said "But why do you get so jealous?" And he said, "Because you're mine and I hate thinking about anyone else talking to you or dancing with you." Then i reiterated, "But no one even talked to me once, I honestly just danced and talked to my friend and her boyfriend the whole night." And he said "Liar" And I said, "I swear to God. I swear on my grandmother's grave I didn't." And I think he believed me. My question is, should I be worried that he enjoys making me jealous at the onset of his own jealousy? Is that a sign he is possessive of me? Should I have not told him about running into my ex-boyfriend? And should I have not gone to the club with my best friend in the first place? I don't want to make him jealous, but then I wonder also, is it possible that if he is possessive, will there be nothing I can do to reassure his jealous feelings about me and other guys?
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reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2010): I completely disagree with GermanMan that is the most insecure post I have ever read. You sound worse than her boyfriend. She can't go places where guys might look at her? Are you high? She doesn't live in Saudi Arabia.
OP to be honest with you, your situation doesn't sound good at all. Jealous and possessive are traits that don't go away and the 'bad relationships' thing is a big red flag. Especially because it's more than one. That shows a pattern of behaviour, a string of bad relationships. People that have a series of bad relationships are not relationship material when it is their excuse to why they're needy, jealous and possessive. Now we've all had relationships that broke up but we move on and don't let what happened effect our lives for very long. I'm sure you've been hurt by exes and you've hurt exes, or you've broken up amicably because it wasn't going anywhere etc. Such is life but you don't bring your crap from your past relationships into your new ones.
I bet his exes "cheated" on him and "hurt" him according to him but if you were to talk to them you'd find out a different story, my opinion is those relationships failed for the same reasons yours is going to with him. It is simply impossible to live the way he's expecting you to, to constantly be on guard, not allowed to talk to other guys, not allowed to be looked at by other guys. Constant texts to find out where you are, if you don't reply to a text soon enough, then another text asking why you haven't, asking you if you met another guy or causing an argument over it. It's only been 4 months, you're still at the stage where he can say those things "jokingly" and you'll think it's cute. Or that the constant checking up on you is cute because he's interested in how your day is going. The fact is though he's checking to see if you're in any situation where you could be talking to a guy or alone with another guy.
He's going to get ever more restrictive the more comfortable he gets with you, pretty soon he'll be going nuts over you talking to a guy for more than 5 minutes. Or getting a lift from a male co worker, or some other innocent inane event involving another guy.
It's going to get worse because you can't exactly avoid talking to guys they're half the population of this planet, and why should you anyway? This the first of many big blow ups about other guys, this is the first in a long hard struggle against his insecurities. This is going to get very old pretty soon. Pretty soon something will happen, something innocent on your part. Some guy will buy you a drink without you asking or even talking to him or other such event and your boyfriend will explode. It's going to happen, that's how guys like him work. Because he has an obsessive personality and is a "loser".
Have a read of this OP and have a look into your future. Just to make sure you know. You can't change this guys behaviour, he will always be like this and you know it's just going to get worse.
http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/IdentifyingLosers.html
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2010): Well your bf is jealous and possesive, but he is also honest with you at least. He admitted to you openly that he was jealous. This jealousy and possessiveness is a result of a lack of trust, not that you are untrustworthy, more that he does not have enough trust in you. That is not something you can change or do anything for, it is his trust to give. Its not unusual for people to have issues around trust, people do bad things and make mistakes that they regret all the time which gives rise to it, but its also damaging to a relationship to not be able to trust your partner, kind of a catch 22 that your bf will have to come to terms with. But his honesty is helpful.
What's not helpful is that in his jealousy, he manipulated you to make you jealous and lied to you. That is a breach of his trustworthiness. In other words, if he feels hurt enough by something, even if you haven't done anything wrong, how far might he go to hurt you back? Its not a healthy way to go about a relationship, and you might want to chat to him about it so you can improve your relationship.
Incedently, if you do not trust him to hang out around hot girls and be faithful to and respetful of you, there is another trust issue there - either you don't trust him enough or he is not trustworthy enough. Worth thinking about which one it is, and what the implications of that are.
Good luck.
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A
male
reader, GermanMan +, writes (22 November 2010):
you brought this on yourself. It's called respect, not trust. If you 'love' this guy then you wouldn't go to a club where guys would be looking at you when he could not go. Yes you didn't dance with anyone or do anything with anyone but you did create yourself a double standard. Now when he wants to go out where chick are and if you can't go, he's going to bring up you going somewhere without him every chance he gets. You hurt his ego.
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reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2010): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI think you have a valid point. I thought it was a red flag too... I will definetely remember to be careful. What's crazy is that it's almost like you know his personality spot on! He does text me throughout the day asking what I'm doing, but I like that he is interested in my day. I think the only thing that could potentially worry me is what you said, the mind games.
I never meant to intentionally make him jealous, I just enjoy having fun with my friends. I'm very independent and I think that scares him. He's had bad past relationships with girls, and he tells me I am the best girlfriend he's ever had. So naturally I think he's just scared that he fell so hard so fast, and he doesn't want to lose me. The hardest thing is reassuring him that he's the only man I want. Always... you know?
Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for your post, and thanks for being so honest, it's really helpful
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reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2010): Jealous, possessive, control freak. Those are the three words that best describe your boyfriend.
They're not good traits by the way. I bet he texts you numerous times a day to find out what you're doing. Especially on weekend nights that he's not around.
He doesn't like the idea of you talking to other people or dancing with other people, that's not a good sign.
Him making you jealous is stupid game playing too, it's a horrible emotion to feel jealous, why would you want to make someone feel horrible just to make yourself feel better. This guy is very insecure and controlling. I would be very careful with him, this is not going to go away and might, as often happens develop into a serious source of conflict and maybe even abuse.
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