In The Wings

For the past two years I have been in a wonderful, committed relationship with a great woman and it keeps getting better. When we first started seeing each other, she was seeing someone else.

While she initially downplayed the importance of that relationship, I came to learn it was more serious than she led me to believe. This man still contacts her frequently in hopes they can resume where they left off.

She replies to him when he e-mails asking how her life is going, and she gives him enough information about where she will be that he shows up to plead his case. She assures me he means nothing to her and is committed to our relationship. I believe her.

Here’s my problem. Despite how great everything is, I find myself tormented by thoughts of the two of them together. I fantasize about confronting her, or spend hours thinking about confronting him.

So far I’ve been able to keep these irrational feelings to myself for the most part. I never thought of myself as the jealous type, and I have no similar feelings about anyone she was with prior to us dating.

In your articles on jealousy you take a pretty hard line, saying it is more about power and control than love, and it is the jealous partner’s issue to deal with. I agree with that intellectually.

My question is, how can I make these irrational feelings and tormenting thoughts go away? They are making me miserable. Several times I have come close to saying things I know I would regret.

Robert

Robert, psychologists believe human beings have two systems of reasoning. One system is rule-based and rational, while the other is associative and emotional.

Both systems yield results. The main difference between the two is that one system gives results expressed in feelings, while the other gives results plus a line of reasoning.

Most of us, of course, look at this in simpler terms. Some things we know in our mind, other things we feel in our gut. Intuitively we know that the most reliable guide to action occurs when both systems agree.

You see your distress as a clash between rational thought (I shouldn’t be jealous) and irrational feelings (but I am). We disagree. We think you’ve come to a conclusion you would rather not face.

Your partner dated you and another man. Fair enough. We understand how that could happen early in a relationship. But, and it’s a big but, she continues to tell this other man what she is doing and where she will be doing it.

This man is not a friend. He is a past lover ardently pursuing her. She is enabling him. Your rational mind has drawn a reasonable conclusion: beware.

And your other system of reasoning, feelings? Well, feelings evolved for a simple reason: to give us a quick answer to a problem. Are they always right? No. But in a healthy person they can be as reliable as reasoning.

Your emotional warning system went off for good reason. Your gut knows her behavior is wrong, just as your mind reasons it is wrong.

If a woman’s whole focus is one man, why would she fool around with Mr. Runner-up? Every woman knows not to do this, certainly every woman in love knows this. It would be contrary to her feelings.

We don’t see you as a jealous man. Instead we see both systems of reasoning in agreement. This “great woman” is acting in a way inconsistent with a “wonderful and committed” relationship.

Why are you biting your tongue? Because you fear if you confront her she will leave and go to the other man. She says he’s nothing to her, but it’s not nothing to him. And it’s not nothing to you.

It’s time for a truth or consequences conversation with your girlfriend, a conversation which will determine if this relationship has a future.

Wayne & Tamara