I was in an abusive relationship, which ended violently - the cause being MY jealousy.
Weeks away from buying a house together, he'd bumped into another ex and was arranging to meet again, when I challenged him and was met with angry resistance.
He issued an ultimatum - say you trust me and will stop behaving jealousy towards my exes, or I'm not going through with the house.
I wasn't prepared to sign up for that, given his ability to coercively control my every move already.
I was expected never to have issue and let him lead his life freely without feeling owned or my possession.
Double standards -
Only, for me it wasn't about jealousy, it was a respect issue, as opposed to jealousy, because why should anyone in a healthy relationship, especially after 3 years, have have to make themselves scarce when an ex partner is coming round?
Open to debate, I suppose.
However, his behaviour, especially when assertively and controllingly justifying his right to maintain connections to other women, had caused me to become suspicious, and stop trusting him.
I doubted that his lies were to protect me, but rather to protect his open options. I never once tried to stop him, but calmly point out that I felt disrespected, keep being hidden. He didn't disclose our relationship to his exes - he protected them, and not me. I never felt like that was right. It certainly wasn't right for me.
He ended our relationship to protect his right to have those connections - as 'meaningless' as he said they were - without a second thought.
Violently assaulted me because I wouldn't leave (home, job, relationship all went in this explosive outburst - walked away with just the clothes I was wearing).
Given what was at stake, I would rather have sorted the issue out , like adults, but I wouldn't have been heard no matter how many times I tried to explain. We had already gone round in circles so many times.
He was never going to change.
In his world, I was jealous, and he would rather throw it all away than be with Me.
I think I would have become the person you're describing in the article and I feel bad about it, but it's not my default setting.
This article has hit me harder than I expected.
I was in an abusive relationship, which ended violently - the cause being MY jealousy.
Weeks away from buying a house together, he'd bumped into another ex and was arranging to meet again, when I challenged him and was met with angry resistance.
He issued an ultimatum - say you trust me and will stop behaving jealousy towards my exes, or I'm not going through with the house.
I wasn't prepared to sign up for that, given his ability to coercively control my every move already.
I was expected never to have issue and let him lead his life freely without feeling owned or my possession.
Double standards -
Only, for me it wasn't about jealousy, it was a respect issue, as opposed to jealousy, because why should anyone in a healthy relationship, especially after 3 years, have have to make themselves scarce when an ex partner is coming round?
Open to debate, I suppose.
However, his behaviour, especially when assertively and controllingly justifying his right to maintain connections to other women, had caused me to become suspicious, and stop trusting him.
I doubted that his lies were to protect me, but rather to protect his open options. I never once tried to stop him, but calmly point out that I felt disrespected, keep being hidden. He didn't disclose our relationship to his exes - he protected them, and not me. I never felt like that was right. It certainly wasn't right for me.
He ended our relationship to protect his right to have those connections - as 'meaningless' as he said they were - without a second thought.
Violently assaulted me because I wouldn't leave (home, job, relationship all went in this explosive outburst - walked away with just the clothes I was wearing).
Given what was at stake, I would rather have sorted the issue out , like adults, but I wouldn't have been heard no matter how many times I tried to explain. We had already gone round in circles so many times.
He was never going to change.
In his world, I was jealous, and he would rather throw it all away than be with Me.
I think I would have become the person you're describing in the article and I feel bad about it, but it's not my default setting.
Cause and effect.
Powerful and necessary. Your framing of jealousy as control rather than love cuts through a lot of confusion. Thank you for writing this.
I am 4 months out of a 32-year relationship, and seeing now a lot of behaviours that were verrry dodgy.