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.
So when he stated jealousy over an ex partner, I took his concerns seriously and with respect. That was a complicated ex relationship that involved substance use, so a lot of gas lighting; ultimately that ex ended up staying a dear friend and one I rooted for- along with his beloved community- in his fight for sobriety… My ex brought up jealousy over this ex, often unprompted and without cause. I always answered his inquires with complexity and thoughtfulness. Until I noticed- a year or two in- that these inquiries were always brought up in anger and with no basis of suspicion and never showing that he ever heard me. He then started accusing me of changing my answers and never once showed compassion to me for even dating a substance user, curiosity about how I grew from that, or apologies for this jealousy that- eventually I told him was pathological, toxic and offensive to our trust. I iterated boundaries over the topic several times but which were never respected…
For two years he stayed relatively silent over the jealousy- I became so angry or utterly silent at the topic and repeatedly reminded him of my boundaries and told him to do the work himself…
Then he cheated on me when I went on sabbatical and blamed it on my unavailability. Mind you, I was a new doctor and had 7000 patients in the most nightmarish of conditions one could ever imagine- my sabattical was an effort to regain my sanity in between jobs… I kept dating him for another year until he ultimately left me for that woman. Mind you he also has 2 kids.
He left me right after our anniversary and my birthday. And I didn’t find out about the other woman until 3 months later… By then he was unapologetic about her and still blamed me for his different jealous beliefs (I didn’t share the other randoms he got jealous over).
There’s so much more to say than what can fit in a comment share. But I was left with a lot of traumatic cognitive dissonance after he repeatedly questioned my truth and lied about his own infidelity. The rage I felt ended up being pathologized and criminalized by his teensy community and therapist, although my community shunned him. The healing path has been a deep journey that ultimately led me to Codependents Anonymous and a leave of absence. My nervous system is permanently scarred from this cotrolling treatment, and I still love all the good things about him…
Leave when you can. I wish I had done that - when I saw the trend and then noticed my boundary getting repeatedly crossed- before it devolved in the way that it did. But also - if I choose to make it so by focusing on my own growth, then all things happen for this reason to help me love myself and trust my intuition more 💛
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.
My ex partner was the love of my life.
So when he stated jealousy over an ex partner, I took his concerns seriously and with respect. That was a complicated ex relationship that involved substance use, so a lot of gas lighting; ultimately that ex ended up staying a dear friend and one I rooted for- along with his beloved community- in his fight for sobriety… My ex brought up jealousy over this ex, often unprompted and without cause. I always answered his inquires with complexity and thoughtfulness. Until I noticed- a year or two in- that these inquiries were always brought up in anger and with no basis of suspicion and never showing that he ever heard me. He then started accusing me of changing my answers and never once showed compassion to me for even dating a substance user, curiosity about how I grew from that, or apologies for this jealousy that- eventually I told him was pathological, toxic and offensive to our trust. I iterated boundaries over the topic several times but which were never respected…
For two years he stayed relatively silent over the jealousy- I became so angry or utterly silent at the topic and repeatedly reminded him of my boundaries and told him to do the work himself…
Then he cheated on me when I went on sabbatical and blamed it on my unavailability. Mind you, I was a new doctor and had 7000 patients in the most nightmarish of conditions one could ever imagine- my sabattical was an effort to regain my sanity in between jobs… I kept dating him for another year until he ultimately left me for that woman. Mind you he also has 2 kids.
He left me right after our anniversary and my birthday. And I didn’t find out about the other woman until 3 months later… By then he was unapologetic about her and still blamed me for his different jealous beliefs (I didn’t share the other randoms he got jealous over).
There’s so much more to say than what can fit in a comment share. But I was left with a lot of traumatic cognitive dissonance after he repeatedly questioned my truth and lied about his own infidelity. The rage I felt ended up being pathologized and criminalized by his teensy community and therapist, although my community shunned him. The healing path has been a deep journey that ultimately led me to Codependents Anonymous and a leave of absence. My nervous system is permanently scarred from this cotrolling treatment, and I still love all the good things about him…
Leave when you can. I wish I had done that - when I saw the trend and then noticed my boundary getting repeatedly crossed- before it devolved in the way that it did. But also - if I choose to make it so by focusing on my own growth, then all things happen for this reason to help me love myself and trust my intuition more 💛
I am 4 months out of a 32-year relationship, and seeing now a lot of behaviours that were verrry dodgy.