Hi, first let me fill you in on some facts so you can understand my problem. I am in my 40's and I am divorced with 2 children. I have a relationship with a man in his 30's, divorced with 1 child. He is nine years younger than me. We have been together for
7 years, living together for 3 years. We met while we were both married, and both had troubled marriages.

Anyway we fell madly in love with each other and I truly believe that he is my soul mate and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. He is a wonderful man and boyfriend, he has never cheated on me, he is not a womanizer and is very devoted and loyal to me. He treats me like a princess. We get along so well, we both have great senses of humor and laugh alot together.

And now the problem: In my life and past relationships including my marriage of 15 years, I was never the jealous or possessive type. Well with my boyfriend discribed above, I became very possessive of him, very jealous and very controlling to say the least. He has not done anything to warrent this. But I must be honest about how bad it is.

It is to a point that I can't even stand some of the T.V. programs he watches that involve woman in skimppy clothing. I want all of his attention at all times. He cannot tell me if he thinks another woman is good looking without me getting very jealous.I don't like him helping any females or even men, I am jealous of any relationships he has with males and even his sisters at times. I din't want him to get a second job, because the jobs involved interaction with other woman. I worry if he is having interaction with woman at his job. I don't ever believe what he says to me. I think his sister's don't like me and would like to see us split up. The list goes on and on. It is hard for me to even write this .

Most of the things that go on with my possession and jealously are too embarassing to go into now.
. I know for a fact that I am destroying this relationship slowly, but it has come to a point that he told me either you change or he is leaving me. I know he loves me, but how much can a man take. Logically I know I have to stop, but I have fighting this problem for so long with him, and now I really need help. I don't want to lose him. I went to counseling a year ago and it helped but only a little.
I hate this horrible trait I have it is so ugly, and I am in a professional job, I take pride in working out everyday to stay in shape, I am a very loving Mother to my boys and a likable person. But this part of my life is destroying the one relationship I want to stay in and I don't understand why it is like this. I could see it if he were a womanizer and went out all the time, but he's not and he dosen't.

I am lost and I need advice soo desperately. If anyone can help, I would appreciate any advice that you give.

Thanks.

The problem is U. Please read the book his needs/her needs and see where the give 'n take in the R is a requirement designed to please all involved.

L.

Peg, there has to be some reason WHY. Are you sure he treats you like princess? Are you insecure because he is younger than you? Are you comparing yourself to younger women? Or all women? Is this from your insecurity or do you SENSE that something is wrong?

If there is not a rational explanation for all this, why are you allowing your sick emotions to overcome your logic? Sometimes I get irrational notions about things, but I screen them through my logic and discard the notion once I see the logical fallacy in it. Are you not able to discount invalid emotionally driven thoughts in this way?

And further, when you have a jealous fear and you KNOW it is irrational and completely unfounded, why would you carry through with it since you know how damaging it is to your marriage? It is a major lovebuster that is destroying your marriage. Its not like you can't control yourself. You can.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We have been together for
7 years, living together for 3 years. We met while we were both married, and both had troubled marriages.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Is this the reason? Did he have an affair with you while he was married to someone else? And now you are worried he will do the same to you?

I get the same impression as MelodyLane does from your post.. That the two of you had an affair while he, and maybe you, were still married. If that is the case it may be the root of your problem. I’ve known people in that situation and they never really trust each other because of the way their relationship started.

Hi first of all thanks to all who replied, I appreciate so much. I would like to clarify a few points which are important and have been brought up by some of you.

Yes we were both married when we started our affair, so while it is possible that this may be part of my insecurity, he cheated on his wife so why not me? But the truth is he was in a very abusive unloving relationship (her to him )(as was I in an abusive relationship which caused me to have affairs.

We were friends at work and I pursued him. I saw how he interacted with woman when we were just friends and co-workers , even when woman flirted with him he paid them no mind and was nothing but professional.

I don't suspect in any way that he is cheating, the man is home body and loves to spend all his free time with me. He goes to work and comes right home.

Anyway, the problem exists, I have a horrible green monster in me and I need it to stop, before I ruin this relationship, I need advice as to how to stop these feelings, I try so hard to control them, and sometimes I suceed and other times I lose the battle.

What can I do? I'll try anything to stop these horrible nightmare feelings.

Thanks for listening. Peg22

See the issue of your relationship starting as an affair and it breading distrust is that you know something about him.. he has learned that instead of dealing with his issues it’s ok to avoid them and have an affair. You helped to teach him that. I would not be so quick to down play this as part of the problem.

What do you do? There is a possibility that you are just neurotic and out of control. But there is a greater possibility that you have a gut feeling that you need to pay attention to. I’m not implying that he is cheating on you.. but instead that there is something wrong with your relationship and from your history you are getting frightened of loosing him.

My bet is that there is something that you are ‘feeling’ and not put into words yet. This makes you feel insecure. So, from his history, it only makes sense that his ‘looking at other women’ would take on another light right now. You told us some of how his actions are bothering you. Are there things he is not doing that bother you? Has your relationship changed in some way?

When did you start feeling this way? Look back to that time. If your feelings of jealousy increased, then that means something happened to trigger them. What was it?

I am also not sure that your feelings are all that inappropriate. Ask yourself how he would feel if you did the exact same things…

You know that thing about watching woman in ‘skimpy clothing’? Well when I was dating I had guys take me to all sorts of places where the waitresses were in ‘skimpy clothing’. Some less than others. Some took me to very racy x-rated movies. Even had some stupid guy take me to a strip club on our first date when I was 18. I was very uncomfortable. My ex-husband watched a lot of that stuff too. Well between marriages I had a date… this time I was treating. As an experiment I took him to a restaurant where the men were dressed in ‘skimpy clothing’ ( g-strings). The guy did not stay long, he got upset and left. I have a few more stories that got similar results but will not bore you with them. You see, generally men will not put up with their women ogling other men. Why should women put up with it?

Most women are not overly enthusiastic of the SO (significant others) looking at other women. I also do not like my H to do favors for other women. Why? Be cause he’s a knight in shinning armor (KISA). He loves to rush to the rescue and he loves the praise and admiration he gets from them. And it was this as much as anything else that led to his affairs. Through all of this I’ve learned that a married man (or a man in a committed relationship) should not be doing favors for other women.

You probably benefit a lot from reading the material on this web site and then the MB books, “Surviving an Affair’, “His Needs, Her Needs”, and “Love Busters” to start with.

Do not assume that the problem is only with you. If you were never jealous before, then there is something about this relationship that needs to be fixed.

<small>[ June 05, 2003, 03:18 AM: Message edited by: Eleonora ]</small>

Peg
I believe from a women's view, you are in need of help with your own self-esteem. It sounds like you may feel your wonderful relationship is to real to be true and you are dreaming. So, instead of just enjoying every mintue of this great R, you look for problems to create a sense of "I knew it was not real" belief. This may be to protect yourself if anything ever does go wrong in R.
I can only suggest that you get help with your self-esteem to help you feel better about yourself, then it will not matter if you loose the R or not. It appears your R may be a co-dependent R, where you feel good about yourself cause he shows you or makes you feel that way.

These feelings also arrise after being in a poor M and getting a D, so try to love yourself more.
I hope this helps, I am no expert. I have went through co-dependent counseling myself.
NR

Peg,

Sorry to say, there is a good chance he's off telling some other woman what a terrible marriage he has... just like last time.

-AD

If the problem is on your side, then the challenge is how to rebuild trust and security. This site has lots of stuff both in the forum, and in the rest, dealing with this issue. My guess is that radical honesty could be of some help. If you both risk to expose your inner thoughts, fears, hope and joy to the other, then you will replace fear with knowledge. When you find there is no basis for fear, you are a long way to regain the feeling of security. Besides, you may find that the feelings of love benefits!

Thanks for all the responses, now he is definately not telling another woman about me, that I am sure. But I do agree that I need to build my own self-esteem and trust this man who has given me no reason to suspect anything. I just need some concrete ways to stop my controlling jealous ways, how do I walk away from these feelings? How do I turn them off? I just need to know if there are exercises one can do to stop these feeling?

I changed my name from peg22 to pony22 for all those who are listening

Pony, you screen those feelings with your logic. Ask yourself if they are valid feelings that can be supported with reason, evidence and logic. If not, then you discount them.

If you get a raging urge to go buy some expensive furniture that you can't afford, what do you do? Do you give into your emotions and rush out and buy it? Or do you reason that it might not be a reasonable urge because you can't afford it.

On the other hand, if you have a GUT INSTINCT that something is wrong, then you should take steps to investigate. But you SHOULD NOT EVER act on those instincts unless you can validate them with FACTS. Making a false accusation against an innocent person is a MAJOR LOVEBUSTER.