A Word of Advice... on jealousy

By Joshua O'Connell
Posted Monday, July 16, 2007

I’ve been with my girlfriend for almost a year now things went great for the first 6 months and then she started saying I was flirting with girls. The girls she speaks of are some of my best friends in which I’ve known for half my life. She gets mad if I talk to them so I stopped and now she talks to random guys she has just met and she gets their phone numbers gives hugs and I haven’t spoken to another girl in a good 2 months. Should I watch this?

I also had a friend that would come over. One day I fell asleep (not really but they thought I had) so they took off because they were supposedly hungry. I told her that bothered me and she acted like I was crazy. Am I?

--Jealous rage?

Should you watch her? Yes. If someone’s controlling enough to not let you even hang out with long-time friends, there’s an issue. You shouldn’t have to disconnect to friends you’ve known for many years just to have a shot at a good relationship. Jealousy is dangerous, because once one cedes to the girlfriend or boyfriend, like you have, it shows that you can be controlled, and it can evolve into something worse. Be careful.

Are you crazy? No, but it’s never a good thing to deceive and use evidence gleaned from that as a way to catch someone in a trap. You intentionally acted like you were sleeping to see what she would do. That leaves too much ambiguity. We don’t know what they were hungry for, so we have to leave it at that.

Ultimately, should you be able to see girl friends without your girlfriend getting involved? Yes. But if she’s got issues, you can try to allay them, showing you care, while still having some semblance of a social life. But if she won’t let you even see your friends, at some point, you’ve got to hold your ground and fight this fight. Otherwise, eventually you’ll just get fed up and show her the door.

--Ex hell

You should make new memories, but not now.

Your problem, and it’s understandable, is that you’ve got two forces, both unobtainable. You’ve got “old memories,” which is euphemistic for your lingering feelings for your ex. He’s going to date someone else; he broke up with you because he wants to see other people. Your “new memories” euphemism is possibly true, honest-to-god feelings, but with the break-up so fresh it’s going to be very hard to keep them from it turning into a serious rebound situation.

The other issue with the best friend as a new beau situation is, if it isn’t seriously true feelings, you might blow a good thing with your best friend just to get over your boyfriend. The hurt you feel now will be replaced with later hurt when you’ve lost your best friend too, just trying to quickly move on. Plus it’s sometimes easy to misinterpret genuine care from a best friend during a rough time as emotional interest in you. Tread lightly there.

I would give up on the ex and take some time to lick your wounds. And if you’re looking for a quick rebound possibility, head online or to the bars.

--Bad break

This is a bit interesting to me; she wants you to break up with your boyfriend so her friend can have him. Are you sure she doesn’t want your boyfriend directly?

Most good friends don’t take this kind of action at all, so it’s really unusual that she would take this action for another friend. There’s two reasons why she would do this at all: she either doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore, so therefore the other friend takes precedence; or she wants your boyfriend, and is just using the guise of another friend as a way to justify her disgustingly bad-friend actions.

What I think you should do is easy: don’t be her friend anymore. Get the hell away from her, or at least don’t hang with her when your boyfriend is around. Why would you want to be near someone who’s just going to try to create friction, and do it for her gain and your loss?

Good luck, and thanks for asking.

 E-mail this page
 Printer-friendly page