Need some advice about jealousy in a relationship

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wendy03 said:
I am in my mid-30’s. Both of us are.
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All the more disturbing! Even if neither of you have been in relationships before, both of you should have been able to observe others’ relationships enough to know what is normal relationship behavior - and neither of you has displayed it. Jealousy to the degree shown is not normal and your accepting that it is is not normal. That both of you got this far not being able to figure this out says to me that neither of you is ready for marriage, I don’t care what your age.

Get out before you regret it. If he displays this behavior now, what will he be like after the wedding? There are no guarantees then that you would not interact with other men. What demands will he make of you then? What will you find yourself having to accept and justify? Neither of you is ready for marriage. :(:(😦
 
wendy03 said:
Thank you all for the advice and opinions. 🙂 I guess just to add, as it has been asked in a few posts, I am in my mid-30’s. Both of us are. He is my first boyfriend, my first love, because like I said I didn’t want to enter into a relationship wherein I didn’t see a future with the guy. We had (still have) a great friendship and when he made his intentions known, when he professed his love, I prayed about it for 3 months before agreeing to be his girlfriend. So just to give you an idea of how seriously I took this entering in the relationship before anything else. It was not like we went on some dates and became boyfriend/girlfriend. We went through friendship then discernment before officially becoming boyfriend/girlfriend. So all the advice about leaving him, it’s not that easy because when I went through my discernment I felt God was leading me to him and that he could be the one.

Unless, I was led to him to be taught a lesson about myself or relationships. 🤷 My ideal has always been, my first boyfriend would be the one I’d marry, just like what happened with my family members. And that’s why it took me so long to have a boyfriend.

Really do appreciate all of your advice, didn’t expect this much responses in a few hours. 🙂 God bless you all
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I think it’s a nice idea that you want your first boyfriend to end up becoming your husband. But I think you need to be careful. The purpose of dating is discernment. You don’t do all the discernment up front thereby making the actual dating portion a mere formality on the way to the altar. When you start dating – even if prayer is involved in getting things started – that is no guarantee that it is meant to be. I know I went through a few such relationships before finally getting it right. :o

I think that as relationships get more serious, we tend to naturally spend less and less time with opposite sex friends. But for a boyfriend to make rules for your interactions with other guys? That is way over the line. If you want to try to talk all this out with him, that’s certainly your decision. But I do not recommend proceeding as you have been and actually acquiescing to his demands. That’s not going to lead to a fruitful, mutual partnership that marriage ought to be.
 
He is “imposing rules” after a couple of months? Wow. The controlling behaviour will only increase if you marry this man. He will rule over you, quoting bible versus as needed to put you into place. Sounds like a lousy marriage.

Run away. This man does not understand what marriage is about and you don’t want to be the poor girl to find this out the hard way.

It seems you have an ideal, along the lines of a modern fairytale, about marrying the first man you date. But as others have said, discernment is a process that contunies up until marriage, it does not begin and end before you even date the person. Don’t make a potential mistake simply for the sake of chasing a romantic ideal, but spend time in prayer and in serious thought about the suitability of this man as a spouse.
 
wendy03 said:
Unless, I was led to him to be taught a lesson about myself or relationships. 🤷 My ideal has always been, my first boyfriend would be the one I’d marry, just like what happened with my family members. And that’s why it took me so long to have a boyfriend.
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While that might be a romantic sentiment - it is just unrealistic for most.

When I asked my grandma how she met my grandpa - she told me how this man came into a dance hall - and saw her across the room. He caught one look at her - walked across the room, and told her that he was going to marry her one day.

But, if i had some illusion that I would be able to find a woman - and decide to marry her with only one look, I think that you would tell me that it is unrealistic. But what if i wanted this so badly because a family member’s story was so compelling?

My only point is that your ideal is getting in the way of reality. It’s like waiting for the proverbial knight on shining armor to come and save you from your life. The dream can become dangerous when you don’t do the things you should do because you are convinced that the perfect situation is right around the corner.

I know you are discerning this because you started this thread. That’s a good thing. And the picture that you have painted of your boyfriend is scary to many reading this.

I’m not sure if you addressed this point - While he is your first boyfriend - has he had previous girlfriends? If the answer to that is yes, do you have any reason why any of those relationships ended?
 
Hi Wendy, i’m sorry to say this to you, but, where’s the respect? He’s treating you like a child, or some sort of simpleton who ‘doesnt know a bee from a bulls foot’ etc. First of all he’s insulting your intelligence by saying that you cannot judge people and situations, & that you need to surrender your ability to think to.him, for your own safety! Hardly! It wont stop just with other males - this will develop and spread into other areas of your life where he has no respect for your judgement and decisions. This is not love; love gives you wings!
 
Read “Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” by Lundy Bancroft (see here). This will give you an in-depth description of what the people in this thread are warning you about. More importantly, it will give you the ability to tell if your boyfriend really is this type of person.

Think of it as part of the discernment process.
 
With all due respect, you did not go through the discernment process, you are IN the discernment process. Until you take marriage vows, and consummate them, you are IN the discernment process. Your desire to marry the first person you date, while a nice story, is ABSOLUTELY the wrong way to date in Catholic manner. Dating and engagement is about discerning not just biding your time until you get married or “getting to know” each other.

This man’s behavior is abusive–he may not see it that way, but it is classic abusive controlling behavior. Jealousy is just a manifestation of our own insecurities turned outward. We try to control those around us like chess pieces on a gameboard so WE don’t get hurt. Quite simply it is playing God. But as Christians, we are called to depend on and trust in God. You cannot be jealous and serving God at the same time…just can’t be done. So while your boyfriend may be active in the youth group, he is exhibiting very stunted spiritual and emotional behavior. Step away…he isn’t ready for a vocation of any sort yet.
 
on_the_hill said:
I only had to scan through the first paragraph or two.

He’s not the right guy. 😦
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I agree. I also only needed to read the first paragraph. Dating should be a time when you fall in love, and everything is truly wonderful all the time. Believe me, from experience, I can tell you it does happen. Once you have an argument, it is time to realize he/she is not the one…sorry 😦
 
The ages of the OP and her boyfriend also change this situation for me a bit more than it would have if they were in their late teens or early twenties. Is this boyfriend her age? Has he been married before? Had relationship(s) before? What has he been doing with his life? You two are far into adulthood here and for most of us we’re really pretty fixed in our personalities and temperaments by this age. It’s much harder to change then when we’re in the transitional stages of young adult to adult.

Even though you’ve waited a long time to find “the one” … this may not be him.
 
samaritana said:
I agree. I also only needed to read the first paragraph. Dating should be a time when you fall in love, and everything is truly wonderful all the time. Believe me, from experience, I can tell you it does happen. Once you have an argument, it is time to realize he/she is not the one…sorry 😦
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OK, disclaimer: I don’t think the OP should pursue this relationship.

But surely it’s OK if people who are courting sometimes argue! That is a matter of certain personal character traits, not necessarily deep-rooted sinfulness or incompatibility. Some people argue all the time, others never argue. We should seek peace in our relationships, but sometimes arguing, in some form, is the best way to peace.

Couples that never argue can be dysfunctional too. 🤷
 
Prodigal_Son said:
OK, disclaimer: I don’t think the OP should pursue this relationship.

But surely it’s OK if people who are courting sometimes argue! That is a matter of certain personal character traits, not necessarily deep-rooted sinfulness or incompatibility. Some people argue all the time, others never argue. We should seek peace in our relationships, but sometimes arguing, in some form, is the best way to peace.

Couples that never argue can be dysfunctional too. 🤷
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Agree with this. If everyone who had an argument while dating decided to split up, there wouldn’t be many people getting married. I always wonder about relationships where people say they never argue. Who agrees about everything all the time?
 
And it seems to me that marrying someone you never had an argument with is a big risk. You really want to know how you will deal with disputes as a couple. As a woman (not that I am one), you especially want to know if your future husband is likely to pull the old “wives submit to your husbands” trick to cover over all manner of unreasonablness. If he’s pulling this one out after a couple of months, you have a fair indication of how disputes will be handled; which is to say, with minimal discussion and expected obedience.
 
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