My limited experience with jealousy

[kdt26417]

Hi Spork,

I take it that your thread here is more about, "What happened in the past," than it is, "What's supposedly still happening in the present." In that sense, it doesn't matter much whether this guy can post on your Facebook feed; you are mostly just getting used to seeing his input without being shaken by him at all.

In that area, I am on your side and hope you will gain some interesting info from what lies in the past, info that you can use in the future.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.

 

[Spork]

Thanks. This was not really me fishing for advice about him.

I didn't really pose a proper question, but crunching my thoughts, the question that is in there muddled up with the stuff is this:

My experience of jealousy has not necessarily been spurred into being by another woman with my man sort of situations, but rather when I was experiencing:
-Scarcity (my needs not met)
-Insecurity (didn't feel confident in my place, and not getting clear answers/honest communication with partner...confused, shaken, damaged pride.)

The factors did not have anything to do specifically with competing against another love interest. They were due to dysfunction overall. I can be jealous of imagined or perceived "others" that may or may not even be there if I'm experiencing scarcity and insecurity.

Has anyone else found it to be so, or experienced what they consider a jealousy feeling that didn't fit what they thought jealousy was "supposed" to mean...or looked back on a situation and realized that it wasn't what they thought it was at the time? Any thoughts on the breakdown of these sorts of emotions, based on your experiences?

 

[kdt26417]

Re:

"Scarcity (my needs not met) ..."

I definitely identify with this for all the times when I have experienced jealousy. But I had to learn this over time.

 

[Magdlyn]

Thanks. This was not really me fishing for advice about him.

I didn't really pose a proper question, but crunching my thoughts, the question that is in there muddled up with the stuff is this:

My experience of jealousy has not necessarily been spurred into being by another woman with my man sort of situations, but rather when I was experiencing:
-Scarcity (my needs not met)
-Insecurity (didn't feel confident in my place, and not getting clear answers/honest communication with partner...confused, shaken, damaged pride.)

The factors did not have anything to do specifically with competing against another love interest. They were due to dysfunction overall. I can be jealous of imagined or perceived "others" that may or may not even be there if I'm experiencing scarcity and insecurity.

Has anyone else found it to be so, or experienced what they consider a jealousy feeling that didn't fit what they thought jealousy was "supposed" to mean...or looked back on a situation and realized that it wasn't what they thought it was at the time? Any thoughts on the breakdown of these sorts of emotions, based on your experiences?

Yes. I did. I was in a 2 year relationship with a man who had seemed so great. So charismatic, attractive, intelligent, talented, spiritual, etc etc. The sex was fantastic and frequent and intense.

Then at about a year and a half into the relationship, he started to withdraw and start dating many others. He started to belittle my feelings, laugh at them, gaslight me, speak in word salad when we tried to work on our relationship. He had idealised me, now he was devaluing me. He triangulated me with his new lovers, and even with my own nesting partner, with whom he had a FWB thing (although she withdrew from the sex when he started to get uncomfortably weird, when his real personality came out).

I found I was spending an hour or two, on a regular basis, trying to explain the simplest human emotions to him.

In short, he didn't just have Asperger's (which I had always known and was able to work around), he was indeed a sociopath, a Don Juan Narcissist, capable of mimicking human emotions, but not actually feeling them.

I didn't realise this for quite a while. As I was figuring it out, I experienced jealousy of his new partners. Yet, my nesting partner has had lovers over our 7 years together. And I didn't feel envious or jealous of them. So why was I feeling jealousy around this guy's new partners? Because he wasn't being a decent human being. He was pretending to be one. But it was obvious by what he said and what he did, that he didn't think like a human being, or have any conception of others' feelings.

What he felt and thought and wanted to do, was what everyone else should be thinking and feeling and wanting to do. If we didn't, we got mocked, laughed at, ignored, dismissed.

So, I broke up with him. I didn't take him off FB right away. As I healed, it felt too wrenching to think of closing him off. But after 3 or so months, I did. I stopped going to his OKC and Fetlife profiles. I was done with him, with my ex -metamours, with their whole social circle. I still wonder if he is still stalking and surveilling me here, as he used to, since this is a public board. But I just have to carry on posting. This is my group of friends, my support, and I just don't care anymore if he is pitiful enough to keep stalking me as he sits alone and empty in his room most nights, looking for narcissist supply and some semblance of human interaction.

 

[LoveBunny]

I experience jealousy and envy, possibly the latter more than the former.

For example, I'm not normally jealous of my boyfriend's much-younger FWB, but I'm envious that he has her, while I'm not involved with anyone else.

I experience jealousy when I feel like I'm not getting "enough" of my partner because that energy is going to someone else. For example, my narcissistic ex-girlfriend would tell me she absolutely did not have time to see me, then I'd see her on Facebook on a date with a new guy. Or, recently, my boyfriend turned down my sexual advances though we hadn't been intimate in two weeks, then I learn he just had sex with his FWB the day before. Jealousy ensued.

The more secure, loved, and tended to I feel in a relationship, less likely I am to experience jealousy. When I do start to feel jealous, I tend to exit the situation triggering me promptly. I will unfriend/hide on social media, or if the trigger is happening in real time (boyfriend flirting with ex at the bar) I physically leave the situation and go process on my own. I accept that I feel jealousy sometimes, but I don't consider it a dealbreaker or a reason to default to monogamy.

Typically, the times I have NOT felt jealousy at all, it was either because I just wasn't very emotionally invested in the person/relationship, OR because I was so secure in the relationship and not threatened by the other person, my body seemed to deem jealousy unnecessary. I think a measure of possessiveness and protectiveness of a relationship you care about is normal and healthy. I've never understood people who say the don't get jealous at all. I wish.

 

[Spork]

I experience jealousy and envy, possibly the latter more than the former.

For example, I'm not normally jealous of my boyfriend's much-younger FWB, but I'm envious that he has her, while I'm not involved with anyone else.

I experience jealousy when I feel like I'm not getting "enough" of my partner because that energy is going to someone else. For example, my narcissistic ex-girlfriend would tell me she absolutely did not have time to see me, then I'd see her on Facebook on a date with a new guy. Or, recently, my boyfriend turned down my sexual advances though we hadn't been intimate in two weeks, then I learn he just had sex with his FWB the day before. Jealousy ensued.

The more secure, loved, and tended to I feel in a relationship, less likely I am to experience jealousy. When I do start to feel jealous, I tend to exit the situation triggering me promptly. I will unfriend/hide on social media, or if the trigger is happening in real time (boyfriend flirting with ex at the bar) I physically leave the situation and go process on my own. I accept that I feel jealousy sometimes, but I don't consider it a dealbreaker or a reason to default to monogamy.

Typically, the times I have NOT felt jealousy at all, it was either because I just wasn't very emotionally invested in the person/relationship, OR because I was so secure in the relationship and not threatened by the other person, my body seemed to deem jealousy unnecessary. I think a measure of possessiveness and protectiveness of a relationship you care about is normal and healthy. I've never understood people who say the don't get jealous at all. I wish.

This is the sort of thing that I find interesting. Those who experience jealousy as a healthy function of feeling protective of a relationship. Because I don't think I've ever felt jealousy as part of a healthy relationship. Only as a major signal of a very messed up one that was pretty much doomed. The scarcity and/or insecurity that I feel as the building blocks of my jealousy are usually because in some fashion, I am being rejected, turned away. The writing is on the wall.

Or...there has been a misunderstanding, and we clear it pretty easily.

I do recall one time, with my present quad, where I found out that Fire's mother had been in town and there were posts on Facebook, Analyst had been there to spend time with her and them and I was not invited or included. I felt that she had included the other three out of four to meet her family, but not me. Immediately to follow, what negative view does she have of me that she would exclude me specifically in this way? It was not a huge deal, but felt like a minor sting at the time. I mentioned it, and found out that he just happened to be at a little Faire event that they also were at, they sort of ran into each other there, and he ended up tagging along...it wasn't planned, it just happened. Which pretty much changes everything. Sting erased, instantly, just like that.