What level of jealousy is "acceptable" or "normal"?

[xxazurexx]

wow that sounds stressful.

when it comes to my boyfriend and i, we just have a history of things not being so upfront and honest with this girl he knew and hung out with before me. he actually continued talking to her online every once in awhile. and it always seemed to pop up when she became recently single or was having relationship problems. my bf isn't a mean guy, so when she would message him, he wouldn't ignore her. he would casually bring things up about her and i was just getting suspicious of this girl's intentions. not really suspicious of him, mind you. so i would want to know what they were talking about and all this stuff, and he was getting more and more annoyed with me being up his ass about it. i tried explaining what i thought this girl was trying to do and why he feels the need to talk to her and he would always say that he has no feelings for her. he said he lost interest in her when he dealt with her before me and that he's just strictly trying to be civil. my insecurities about it pushed him more and more and he just ended up not telling me things. then him not telling me to avoid the stress made me feel like he was hiding things from me and it got nasty. eventually in the end he said he just wouldn't talk to her anymore. and he didn't for a long time. hadn't heard anything about him talking to her for almost a year. and just recently he slipped up and said "lisa told me the other day...". and i'm like, "oh so you're talking to lisa again? i thought you weren't going to talk to her anymore?" his response is "yeah, we randomly send each other stuff sometimes when we're bored at work". and he said it in a nice way, no negative intentions behind it, just being honest. and i just can't stop getting pissed thinking "she's back". he said he forgot about what he had told me before. it's just a big pain in the ass. i trust him, but for some reason i just don't trust this girl. it's all my insecurites though! ahhh! so annoying haha...

I've never had that problem you know. This problem of them having an ex gf lurking around, or the problem that a lot seem to encounter, when their gf/bf will have friends of the opposite sex. Nor have I ever had bfs that worked with females, they had previously been involved with, ie f**k buddy situation, etc. So I've never had to deal with these kinds of situation. Likewise, I've never had some ex that remained in the picture, because I don't do friends with exes and to be honest, had no desire to remain friends with any of my exes.... nor do I have guy friends. So that was never a problem for any guy in my life either.

If I ever found myself in that kind of situation and with a guy who was insistent he kept his ex around, then I just wouldn't be with that guy. I've blindly trusted before and I'm not open to just blindly trusting again. This is because I've placed my trust in men before and I was cheated on. For that reason, I wouldn't tolerate any situation I was not happy in, or a situation in which I had doubts or concerns, any situation in which I was made to feel 'insecure'. I'd rather opt out and I'd leave.

The last ex was terrible and was really insecure. But his just all boiled down to paranoia and because he had no reason not to trust. I had no ex I was keeping in touch with, I had no male friends, my nightclubbing days are over and it's rare I go out anymore and with female friends. I spend the majority of my time in the home and looking after my daughter, I also work from home. So I used to wonder, wtf was his problem? He would accuse me of still sleeping with my ex husband and because I'd mentioned one day that he dropped my daughters pocket money off. My ex husband is actually remarried btw and he knew he was remarried....but still, he thought I was still having this mad passionate affair with him. If I said I was going shopping with my sister, he'd ask what time I was going, when I'd be back and he'd call constantly and throughout mine and my sisters shopping trip. He was terrible, absolutely terrible....never known a guy like it. It's possible he was even worse than Kauis....and that is saying something!! lol

[RdHrshyKss]

wowzers. yeah our situations are definitely different. the girl i was talking about was actually not his ex. it was a girl that he met through a mutual friend who he was just "friends" with. they never did anything, but he wanted to. she just strung him along because she liked the attention i guess. when we had started dating in college (about a year after his summer thing with her), we went out to some party with a couple of his friends and actually walked past this girl. she was with some other guy and didn't even acknowledge my bf. at that point, i knew there was something wrong with her. my bf says that the way she acted back then has totally made him lose complete interest in her like that. he keeps in touch with her every now and then just to stay civil and because they are both first born americans with polish parents. plus her dad and my boyfriend's dad have done random business together. it's just an awkward situation. i trust him, but it's the idea that he wanted her in the past and never had her. it sorta scares me. if she was an ex girlfriend, i probably wouldn't be so worried about it.

i don't really talk to any of my exes either, besides for maybe a random "hello, how are you doing?" once a year for those who i have mutual friends with. i'm the opposite of you in that i don't really have many girlfriends. i moved my freshman year of high school and had massive issues making girlfriends. i ended up becoming friends with a couple guys who i'm still friends with today. they are both in serious relationships (one just got married and the other has been dating his gf for like 5 years). when we hang out, it's always a couples thing so my bf shouldn't have anything to be concerned about. they are more like my brothers than anything else.

i don't know if it's me being extremely jealous or if i have a legitimate concern about this girl. she is my problem, not my boyfriend. but i guess if i was completely secure about my relationship with him, she wouldn't bother me? i don't know, maybe it's just that i don't like the girl and i don't want him talking to her period, even if i don't have anything to worry about. but me having that kinda attitude is just going to push him to talk to her without telling me and i don't want that either. so annoying...

[Gigabitch]

I think hiding your insecurities would be a waste of time. This is a serious relationship and you have to be yourself for it to work.

The fact of the matter is, you caught her hiding something from you. She misrepresented her degree of contact with Squeaky Pen Pal Guy and it raised a red flag. Of course it did. She shouldn't be surprised; you are, after all, a known mentally insane jealous freak. She's chosen to stay with you despite this fact, and therefore she's tacitly agreed to deal with it. Part of dealing with a mentally insane jealous freak is the practice of honesty and transparency. She dropped the ball on that one.

I'm not letting you off the hook, Kaius, but your girlfriend should not go forward identifying you as the "broken one" in the relationship, putting herself in a permanently dominant position. That isn't good for wither one of you.

[lahnnabell]

Beautifully stated, Giga.