When you feel like blogging but don’t know what to blog about, “your problems” is always a good topic to fall back on. Right now my problems are cramps and jealousy, and I’m guessing that jealousy will be a more interesting/tolerable subject to read about. I’m actually not feeling intensely jealous right now, but it’s a recurring problem and I know my craziness will cause it to flare up again.
I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, heavy on the obsessive part, and one of the manifestations of my disorder is obsessive retroactive jealousy, or jealousy of a partner’s romantic and sexual past. Apparently it’s pretty common for retroactive jealousy to be associated with OCD, although I haven’t discussed this with my shrink yet.
This jealousy is completely irrational and not based on any logical fears or concerns. I’m not afraid that my partner will leave me. I’m not afraid that I’m unattractive (usually). I’m not really afraid of anything. I’m just jealous of every girl he’s ever had any sort of intimate relationship with. For no real reason.
Of course, I make it worse by actively seeking out information. One of my favorite hobbies is looking at pictures of him on exes' Facebook or MySpace pages. That’s pretty sick and masochistic. I get a huge adrenaline rush from seeing photos of him wrapping another woman lovingly in his arms or rereading the exchange of dirty e-mails that somehow ended up on my computer. My heart races, my face flushes, I sweat and shiver. I get so worked up to a point that I feel feverish, and then I crash into a horrible depression. Sometimes I cry in bed by myself. Other times I start fights with him. It’s a vicious, fucked-up cycle, and no matter how much reassurance he gives me, I can’t stop obsessing and suffering the resultant depression because it’s part of a psychological disorder.
Honestly, I think it’s extremely rude and disrespectful for me to treat him this way. It’s not fair to pry into his past—which is over—and then to have bad reactions that negatively impact our relationship and make him feel guilty. Totally, totally not okay. I worry I’m going to lose him if I keep this up.
I've always had this problem, but it's so much worse with him because I really love him.
If anyone reading this has had success treating retroactive jealousy through therapy, medication, or other means, please share your story.
I have the EXACT same problem with OCD and retroactive jealousy (and some of the same habits you describe). Not gonna talk about it in public, though. You can email me at gmail the address is RetroCompulsive.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response. You can also e-mail me at onewaystreet73@yahoo.com.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you writing again! If you want maybe I can get you to use Formspring again, although I haven't chequed in ages so maybe you are.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you say the jealousy is irrational (and in one respect, of course it is. (Like, "How/why could he ever leave someone like you?!?!")), I think it's very natural for a lot of people to 'FB-creep' a lil to look at images of another's past. I think it's also common to have the rush and depression. Prolly wouldn't read those emails though, that might be a bit much.
Don't people use third-party attraction to rekindle (better as 'spark higher') their own attraction? Like, people will allow their significant other to be hit on in public, so they can watch, get jealous, and then wear each other out better later. I understand this is a little different, and that kind of thing has always been a little strange to me (what if it gets out of hand and someone breaks a bottle and starts a bar fight?!?!), but if people aren't jealous, that means they don't care.
Can I share somewhat related stories? So I'll hear guys all the time will look up their girlfriend's or prospective interest's past, and be like, 'that guy was/looked like such a tool.' I think most people cheque pasts to feel more secure, so it's a good sign I guess that that's not the reason you do it.
One of the funniest things I've seen was someone try to serenade my girlfriend with THAT ONE FUCKING JOURNEY SONG. I'm of the opinion that most guys won't talk to girls unless they want something from them, so I can see right through their transparent efforts. Afterward, if I ask too many questions about the whole thing, she'll be like, "Oooh Chris, are you getting jealous?"
I did what should be called the FB background cheque on my other girlfriend, uh, it was probably as constructive as your hobby ('Did she sleep with him? Or him? Did she sleep with her prom date?'). I find it best if you don't bring these kind of things up, let it come out naturally. Although it sounds like he's been very gracious.
Doing the background cheque on Jaclyn gave me similar feelings to the ones you described (haha, minus the crying in bed of course!). This is kind of childish, bu it's a little intimidating when someone has 500 friends and 1,000 pictures (usually I set my sights much lower on the social ladder). It helps that I've met her previous boyfriend and me and everyone else thinks he's a tool. Sometimes it sucks to think they have a lot else (or whatever causes the awful feeling), but they chose you for a reason!
Side note: haha, did you take down the images of Steven on your FB? I have to say I applaud the move, I often wonder why people don't do that sort of thing more often.
I do think "FB creeping" is normal and everybody does it. But most people are able to let it go after a couple hours or so, and I'm not. Everybody feels sad afterwards, but they forget about it and move on. The whole "he chose me" thing is no comfort, because before me, he chose other girls. So who cares? And no matter, I don't have to read those e-mails because the words and resultant images are so deeply burned into my mind for the rest of my entire life. There's no undoing that shit. You just can't forget the vivid details of another girl's experiences with your loved one's cum.
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely a morbid curiosity related to ego-boosting when it comes to checking out exes. It's not just a guy thing. You want to see if they're hotter and/or cooler than you. But for me, more than that, I just want to find out everything I can. I want to know every detail so that I can obsess over it. Funny thing, though--when it comes to looks, I actually seem to be more bothered if the girl is unattractive. Weird, right? But my friend tuesday said something similar a while ago. Like, if her boyfriend's exes were ugly, then that must have meant that she was ugly too. So it's better if they're pretty.
Was this guy serenading Jackie in front of you? That's a dick move. I do think that a degree of jealousy in a relationship is good, because otherwise you must not really care. So even if Jackie calls you out for being jealous, she probably actually thinks it's sweet (as long as you're not beating guys up and stuff). I can't believe you met her ex and survived. I think I would go into cardiac arrest. Actually, when Keith and I first started dating we awkwardly ran into some girl on the street, but I can't for the life of me remember who it was now. For all I know, maybe it was his neighbor. Anyway, it's great that you were cool about it overall. Do they have a long, involved history together?
Yeah of course I took down pictures. I think it would be inappropriate not to. Does Jackie have photos with other guys? You should tell her it bothers you. In my case, where I'm finding these photos, I know it's just that the girls forgot they were there.
Fuck, I wrote a lot and it got deleted. Let's see if I can remember.
ReplyDeleteUh, why did you go through those emails if you already had a pretty good idea of what they would entail? I'm not questioning the ethics (even if they had been on his computer or something; apparently couples are allowed to go through each others' phones these days) because I'm not above doing something like that, and once you knew (shrugs) it would have been difficult to resist the curiosity. Maybe it's the way you phrased it, but even I cringed a lot when I read the last sentence of your first paragraph. That's something I often wondered about with Bethany, like, 'If I can get her to do these things, what else did she do for others?'
That's interesting about attractiveness of exes. I always considered hot worse because there's a greater risk of them going back, but now I see what you're saying. I dunno, there's no accounting for taste. Something that's funny is I've showed like one or two third-party girls pictures of Jaclyn and Bethany, and they both were like, "You did much better with Jaclyn," and I was like, 'what does that mean?' Response: "Bethany looks meh."
The serenading was some random guy. I was very worried about Curt, her ex, because they had dated for 1-2 years, seemed like everyone liked him, he's more Christian, etc.
I decided it would be bad optics if I asked her about him, her especially since it was more likely she wouldn't want to go into the past. Me being me, I would sneakily ask her/our friends. Sometimes it's funny when people consecutively date essentially the same person, and people will often see similarities while ignoring the differences... but they all found it hilarious how similar I was. Not just in appearance, but he's a grammar dick, movie-ruiner, kind of a know-it-all. One thing I was determined not to do was repeat his mistakes, so I got Shayma to tell me what went wrong. She told me he was overbearing, just really critical, 'he got to be too much, you know?'
Ok, so the time we met, it was like Halloween or something. No one had told me him and Jaclyn were dating, to like 'make it not weird' or something. But being a Christian, he's kind of a nominal Republican, so however it came up, he mentioned that teachers are overpaid, don't deserve tenure, all that nonsense. Jackie's mom is a teacher, one of the other girls is going to be a teacher, so I was like, wow is this kid an ass, but I was enjoying it, because for once, Republicans doing their damndest never to get laid again paid off for me. So when he was leaving, he pulled Jaclyn outside for like 2-3 minutes, just to talk or something. Haha, Shayma and another girl were looking at me like, 'that's weird, sure you don't want to do anything about it?' I shrugged like, this ain't the movies, punching people out for minor slights creates a scene more than anything.
Yeah, so I wonder why more people don't scrub their photos, because it just makes a lot of sense, but I find it to be really uncommon for people to do that. Maybe because they see their ex more often and are worried about creating a rift or looking petty. I actually credit Bethany's aversion to FB (she never uploads photos and cheques her page maybe once a week) as a reason my duplicity went so long unnoticed.
Yeah man, I can't ask Jaclyn to take them down, even I think that's petty, "I want you to remove evidence of previous events in your life because I'm insecure." Actually, reading through what you said, you just recommended telling her it bothers me, not asking for something to be done, but I'm pretty sure she'd be like, 'tell you what, just don't look at them.'
I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS! I always copy my responses before I post because I assume that they will get lost somehow.
ReplyDeleteI opened the e-mails by accident. Or rather, I opened one e-mail by accident, while I was angrily opening every random file trying to find a specific one, and then I kept reading because I figured the harm had already been done. Plus, like you said, everybody reads everything, and he reads my stuff too so I figured it's all fair game. Ha, if you cringed, you can only imagine how I feel every second of every damn day.
As long as your similarities to your lady's ex are positive or at least neutral (I don't necessary think of being a grammar dick or movie-ruiner as negative qualities, but more like quirks) then you don't have anything to worry about. Some of it is probably coincidence and other things indicate that you're "her type." I think it's a good thing that you have resources to let you know what not to do. By knowing how her ex fucked up, you'll have a better idea of how to keep her. Nothing wrong with that. And I applaud your ability to keep your cool while she was hanging out with him on Halloween. I'd probably feel weirded out.
Side note about me and my personal life: The other day I remembered that I actually met Steven's ex once. It was at a party, and I felt pretty strange about it at first. I was kind of jealous, and also I couldn't help thinking about the fact that he'd slept with her even though she wasn't hot. But I didn't have any out-of-control reactions like I'm prone to now. She actually sat down next to me and we chatted for quite a while. I thought she was really cool, and everything was totally fine. So yeah, I'm dealing with something totally different now, and I think it's just because of the difference in how I feel about Keith.
Haha well, I suppose Jackie has a point about you not having to look at her pictures. But why is she leaving them there for everyone else to see? That's a little strange in my opinion. I wouldn't want pictures of me with my ex floating around the interwebs, much less on my own Facebook.
Normally I also copy, especially being the overly wordy and verbose individual that I am, but for some reason my computer stiffed me this time.
ReplyDeleteSee, that's really strange, me and Jackie NEVER go through each other's phones. But I'm told it's expected, acceptable for people to do that. Guess I'm just old-fashioned. Do you want to hear something I find strange in myself? I can't stand it when she friends a guy on FB. Like, I know it's insane, and I know 9/10ths of people on FB you never have any substansive contact with... but for like 5-10 seconds, I'm like, 'another suitor must kill them!!' very Osysseus style.
I think I told you this... this might sound stupid, but they say women are concerned about the emotional aspect of cheating/previous others ("Does he still think about her?") while men are more concerned with the physical ("Did she let him put it anywhere?"). This is probably why that polygamy thing, while a good idea in theory, always got very messy (bloody, not you know) and it fell out of favour. So I dunno, I just find it strange you're so concerned about his past exploits, like, he's an amazing man, it's only natural girls would write emails to him saying such. I'd be more concerned with them still having feelings for him. I wanted to say something like, 'let it go,' but I suppose that's why everyone is always so concerned with history and number. The advantage of having a (literally) virginous (virginal?) girlfriend I guess. It's true, when I was with Bethany, I was always self-conscious, 'am I doing better than the ones before (in bed and otherwise)? For a while since we weren't officially dating, 'is she seeing other people/how many?' I think for guys it's easier since there's so many fucking tools out there, like, I'm convinced half of men have never given a girl an O. Shayma told me her expectations for sex after having some, and I felt so bad for her (of course, in a charitable, 'I'll show you what it's supposed to be like' way). She was like, 'maybe someday it'll feel good for me and not last 3-5 minutes,' or like, 'why does he always want to 'do it again' I'm not a record-player and it wasn't very fun the first time anyway.' See, the standard for men is... competence, I guess, while for women, the price of pussy is nearly at an all-time low, the girl has to at least give oral and with at least some consideration of putting it in the a.
I was gonna ask, did FB take your racy note down all on its own? Did they send you like a sternly worded email, "Please, no titties in your notes"? Do you think someone snitched and flagged it? I thought all of your friends were cool and not uptight, clearly not.
About the whole take down pictures thing, I was thinking about it, and I hate to use a name here but 'Peter-face' is a good example of this, she still has all of her times with her ex up, like not just pictures of him but of them having fun etc. Not significant in itself, but when you realize the context, it becomes much funnier/odd. She's also someone consecutively dating essentially the same person. So both her boyfriends worked at DQ (still might) where they KNEW EACH OTHER AND WERE FRIENDS (this is actually why she hated me for like two months, cause I was like, "so, are there any managers at DQ that you aren't going to date?" She was pissed, not because I implied sloppy seconds but it was just a very sensitive subject. Cause she would always be like "It's really cruel of FB to show pictures of me and my new boyfriend to my old boyfriend." (you know how FB will show your friends' photos on the right rail?). And I would always be thinking, take them down then you dumbass. I'm just fascinated because she consecutively dated people who were/are friends, and that sort of thing usually destroys the friendship in movies, you know, they fight over the girl. I feel like she's too busy to read your blog otherwise I am so going to get de-friended by her again. You know how I was saying I frequently scrub my recent activity on FB just because sometimes I say mean things? I was researching on Google how effective scrubbing is, cause I'm skeptical (rightly so), and all the responses were like "Scrubbing doesn't really work. You have two options: 1) Find new friends because they are too sensitive/don't like you now that you've talked about them behind their back or 2) improve your own character because you're a dick talking behind your friends' back like that and then expecting to remove it from FB and everything be cool.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to echo an earlier joke, just because you took down the house-warming event doesn't mean I'm not going to know when I'm not invited.
WV: grasmsid- sadly missing an o, otherwise would have been topical and anagramish.
I just sent you an invite to the party. I changed the settings to private right after I posted it because we hadn't confirmed the date and I didn't want people to get confused, but now it's public and I sent invitations. Try to get Allen or Sara to go.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that you and Sara were fighting for a while. From your perspective, it sounds like she needs to loosen up and have a little sense of humor about the fact that her current boyfriend is so similar to her ex. Then again, let's face it, you have a tendency to insult people while you're trying to be funny, so...
If you're only jealous for a few seconds after Jackie adds a guy on FB, I don't think that's a big problem. It's normal to have that fleeting flash of panic, like, "Who's that guy? Does she like him?!" But it only becomes a problem if you start obsessing over it, getting depressed or tell her not to be friends with males anymore. That's just too much. Then again, it's also not a bad idea to tell her how you feel, so that way, when she befriends a new guy, she can discuss it with you in a calm manner. You know, "It's no big deal, he's just my friend's brother." I'm not saying it's okay to interrogate her about every new man she meets, but if one in particular was bothersome to you, I think it's okay to bring it up and ask for reassurance.
I've done a lot of reading about retroactive jealousy and I have both the typically male and female responses--jealousy of the emotional and sexual aspects. In a way, though, sometimes the sexual stuff is even worse, because love is abstract and it's not something you get a concrete image of to obsess over. Of course I feel jealous of other girls he's loved, but I don't know much about it so it's a little easier to push out of my mind. It definitely does still bother me, though. With sex stuff, there are so many specific scenarios and activities that I can easily visualize (especially because of those e-mails), and those images stick in the mind pretty well.
Contrarily, I'm not concerned about other girls still having feelings for him. In fact, I really, really wish they did, and it disappoints me that they don't. I want them to love him forever and ever and be totally miserable and heartbroken for the rest of their lives because he chose me over them. I want them to suffer and have sad, loveless lives.
So on the other hand, I would love to bang a virgin, but only once. Physically it would be a total letdown, but it would be good in the emotional/romantic sense. After that, I'd get really bored of his inexperience and want somebody who knew how to fuck.
I absolutely agree with you that most guys, or at least young guys, have never given a girl an orgasm. But I have to blame women for that too, because they fake it so the guy can't learn. For one thing, I read this stat that only 1/5 women can have orgasms from intercourse alone, but I bet if you ask any guy who's been with 5+ girls, he'll tell you that all of them did. Guys need to educate themselves on how to please women, from literature rather than porn, and girls need to give them honest feedback through their responses. Faking it is bad for everyone. It's disappointing to hear that your friend seems to have never had a truly enjoyable sexual experience. Maybe you can hook her up with a nice guy who cares about that stuff.
Oh and about my casting call, I don't think anyone reported it. I'm guessing Facebook has filters that scan people's posts, probably to check for spam mostly, and when it found certain keywords, it deleted my note. At least, that's what I assume happened.
More later, but I had to read one paragraph over again because the first time I was sure I didn't get it right. You say you want them to still love him. You mean in like a satisfy your jealousy way, 'I'M the one he's with, not you!'? That makes sense.
ReplyDeleteBut then, "I want them to suffer and be miserable." I at first wanted wanted to say that's really messed up, man. Everyone deserves somebody, Crystal! But I guess this makes sense too. You mean like to punish them for doing the things in the emails? Just more general revenge for loving him?