Last November, I ended a six -year relationship because I fell in love immediately with my current boyfriend (actually fiancé). We met in a psych ward. Since our relationship began I have had no life outside of it. I got so caught up in the new feelings of it all that I neglected friends, family, and hobbies. The beginning felt like the stuff of movies, but that deep passion has turned into deep jealousy
The part of his past that bothers me the most is the last serious relationship he had before me. He says he only "thought" he loved the girl, but even that he thought so bothers me. Anything I consider special or sweet, I ask if he had done it with her. To reassure me he tells me so many sweet things, which really should make me feel better, but I know that is something I need to cure myself of. My self-esteem is lost. I have focused only on this relationship. Yet I still feel justified in my hate of his previous relationship.
I do childish things like tell myself and him that how could he love this superficial, non-pretty girl (one factor of her leaving my bf was because he did not want to finish law school. Also, I love my bf to death, but I don't believe she did. I am sure she initially only wanted him for his looks.). He has her name tattooed on his thigh, and I realize that I am trying to punish him for it. She is the least pretty girl he has dated. She sounds vapid and superficial. He thinks it's ridiculous that this is the ex-gf I focus on since he says it was the dumbest relationship he has, and thinks nothing of the girl now. The funny part is, the jealousy of this relationship is making me superficial. For example, he wanted tattoos dedicated to me in the beginning of our relationship. I talked him out of them. But now, with my jealousy, I want him to get my name tattooed on him just because I have to compete with this ghost of his past. wtf.
The worst of me comes out in relationships. I act like I did when I was three years old and my brother was born and I just couldn't stand the idea of my parents caring for someone else.
I try to tell myself the sweet things that he tells me. He is always forgiving. He is often patient, but there are times I make him very angry when I do this. Then he is the one to apologize saying that he loves me so much and never wants to get so upset with me. I want to transform my jealousy into some kind of pure love. I hate that whenever he says something darling, the first thing I ask is if he ever felt that or said that before.
I am certain that we have is more special than what he had with his ex-gf. This isn't typical jealousy, she certainly poses no threat, and I don't envy or admire her in anyway. Very superficially, she used to be a little bit pretty but now she is just very unattractive. There is no threat. I have decided there are two sick components to my jealousy. 1.) I want to punish him for having ever felt anything for anyone else, especially a person whom I find to be worthless 2.) Since she left him, I don’t like knowing that she probably thinks that she “got” him in some way. Especially since she left him with the tattoo of her name on him. I want her to know how much happier he is with me than he was with her. WTFFF AGAIN 3.) I hate that he did anything she told him to -- the tattoo of her name for instance. Yes, he would do anything for me, but I wish that I was the only person that was ever the case for. In my previous relationships I thought it was dumb that girls thought jewelry meant anything. Now, however, I know he spent pretty pennies at Tiffany & Co., and all of a sudden I want jewelry. It's pathetic. Where is my identity? He tells me that he always did a lot for girls, but that for me he would do anything. I ask what the difference is and that's where it starts to get to some metaphysical and MEANINGFUL level. Like his saying he never felt this way before and grand statements of being willing to die for me. I know too many things about their relationships. I even made him tell me their nicknames once, and to hurt myself I repeat them in my head. This jealous person is not the person I love. It's not the person he loves. I just don't want it to exist. I want to be happy. Maybe I will never “lose” this person that I love. In fact, he thinks that I can go find someone better, so I will just continue to do what I want because there is no loss I can suffer in this relationship. I am not worried about losing him. I am worried that I won’t make the person whom I am meant to be with the happiest they possibly can be by being jealous.