I’m sick of jealousy

Hello there, I’m new here and will probably never post again, truth is I’m feeling very desperate and in need for some good advice since I don’t really have any good friends I can trust, so I created this thread in hopes of finding some enlightening, so this is how it goes;

I’ve been married for seven years (almost 8) and have a wonderful kid with my husband. We are a very good and strong marriage, we do a lot of things together, love each deeply and never really experienced any problems related to our relationship until now, these past few months I have been experiencing the most excruciating pangs of jealousy towards a female friend my husband has. I’m generally not a jealous wife, I have never started a jealousy scene or anything like that, so this just kind of takes me off-guard, my husband is usually the jealous one in our relationship, but I don’t think he’s ever been as jealous as I’m currently feeling.

This female friend, who I will call "Elly" is my husband’s best friend’s girlfriend, so we met her through him, at first she became sort of close with me as we would normally double date with her and my husband’s BFF, back then my husband disliked her a little because she is the "drama queen" type and would often involve her boyfriend (my husband’s BBF) in a lot of dramatic situations. At the beginning of this year my husband decided to start a musical project (he’s a guitar player) and he needed a vocal in his band, and Elly happens to sing beautifully, I was the one that pushed him to include her in the band when he wasn’t sure about it (***** me, right?), so he did. The project started and so did a lot of rehearsal sessions, my husband was very happy with Elly and her singing, I could notice that they started to become close but I didn’t really mind, I was happy my husband was finally accepting my friend. He started telling me how talented Elly was, how funny she was, how clever she was, etc. I thought nothing of it at first, but eventually I started to feel pangs of jealousy every time he would mention her, I tried to get rid of them without making a fuss, I really did, but they wouldn’t go away. I started to notice that they had inside jokes of their own every time we hung out, and that they would talk for the longest time in complete confidence, every occasion we shared with her started to cause me some serious pain.

One day I checked my husband’s phone conversations while he was in the shower (I shouldn’t have, I know, I regret it now), and discovered that they were closer than I’d thought in the first place, they would talk every damn day about a lot of things, telling each other the dreams they had (he even confessed dreaming about her, nothing sexy but still), their insecurities, praising each other and else, they even had pet names for each other, names I had never heard in public. I felt sick to my stomach after that and couldn’t hold it anymore, I told my husband how I felt and he was truly startled, he tried desperately to make me understand that he didn’t feel absolutely anything romantic about Elly, and that he saw her just like a very good friend. I tried to explain to him that I was sure of that, but I still felt the way I did and couldn’t help myself, but he couldn’t understand where my pain was coming from and got angry saying I didn’t trust him and that he had never given me any reason to doubt him. In the end I ended up asking him, almost imploring him to end his friendship with Elly since it caused me so much pain and I couldn’t think of a way of stopping that. It was such a selfish thing to do, I feel very ashamed about it, but it made me feel a little better to see that he was willing to do it.

A few days later, I checked my husband’s phone again, (I’m horrible, I know), but I couldn’t stop thinking about his friendship with Elly and whether he had ended it or not. I found out that he hadn’t. Elly and him would still text each other every day. I felt horribly hurt by this, and got into a huge fight with my husband about it, he told me that he tried to push her out a little bit, but she kept on pursuing him, texting him about the silliest things, he didn’t tell me as to not upset me, he doesn’t want to hurt me but he is not sure about what to do since he feels that he’s not really doing anything wrong. At the end he agreed to stop talking to Elly, but he feels that by avoiding her, he is starting to avoid his friend (Elly’s boyfriend) and all of the friend they have in common, which makes me upset since he suffers from depression and has the hardest time making friends.

I’m feeling like a flat tire now, I’m very used to being my husband’s one and only best friend, he’s not much of a ladies man and I’ve never seen him act like this with another woman, I never thought this would transform into this horrible situation and making him feel guilty is making me feel like crap. He is right, I have no reason to doubt him, he has never ever done anything that I could consider suspicious, but I can’t help feeling this crazy jealousy, it physically hurts and I’m obsessing over it, I can’t stop thinking about ways of snooping on my husband’s private things, and this is driving him crazy, he has even erased text messages on his phone and is bitter at me for my lunatic reactions. And the truth is I don’t think he could ever cheat on me or something like that, but I desperately want him to stay away from that other girl, I hate the closeness they achieved.

Please, what can I do to feel better? how can I get over this horrible feeling and just let this go? This is seriously taking a blow on my happy marriage and I’m worried it can ruin it completely. I’m sorry for the long post and bad English (Spanish is my mother language). Cheers.

This whole situation is not going to be easy to put behind you. It will be painful but perhaps keep talking to each other about it? I think I would feel jealous too if I knew my husband was having conversations like these with another woman.

It’s not really about jealousy.
You are very dependent on your relationship with him, and seeing him go to other people means he could lose touch with you and you became worried. Worried that he’ll invest less in you.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling jealous or bad about this, otherwise you wouldn’t be feeling the way you do. That’s my personal opinion.

But with that, I get you. I can be very dependant on relationships and because of that I can end up feeling behind at times.

Yes, I agree with this, I am very dependent on my relationship, I never thought it would hurt so much to see that he cares so much about another woman. But I feel very bad, I can’t help it, I don’t want to be such a pain for him, I wish I could just get over this.

Hello. Welcome to PC. I agree. Maybe therapy if you continue to feel this pain? I think I would feel the same way. Your feelings are valid. I don’t think her boyfriend would be too thrilled either. I’m really sorry you’re having this experience.

I will disagree kindly with most of the responses here related to you doing something about the pain that seems to imply your feelings are unjustified.

Your husband from your descriptions is carrying on far more than he is letting on. The truth is, that no man that is devoted to his wife will 1. carry on with another woman and share pet names, personal details that he would normally share with his wife (dreams, etc) if there is nothing going on. He's full of crap that there is nothing there. I'm sorry but very few people give pet names to people that they are not somehow very attached and fond of. That's a truth I hate to give you but I think you may be trying to deny something that is very obvious to me.

2. would carry on further with the woman after having been found out and acting like it's all the woman's fault for continuing to pursue. You've looked at the conversations that followed, does it really look like he's trying to avoid or push her away? You never really said what was in those texts that followed, so I ask you to honestly look at it and evaluate whether it seems like he's trying to change the relationship as he said or if it seems like he's continuing the same culture of conversation with her.

Please take a step back from beating yourself up for being a crazy jealous wife and realize that you have justified feelings for something that is clearly wrong and is a betrayal of you, your trust and your marriage.

To be completely honest, if he were trying hard to make amends and win your trust back or make sure you know it's nothing, he would be instantly cutting her off from these conversations. His bs as if it's her pursuing is completely untrue, it's not really difficult to shun behavior from someone when you're committed to just that. he doesn't seem to take this seriously and is playing you for a fool.

Honestly it's not your feelings that need changing, it's your husband and his very possibly cheating ways. even if not a physical cheating, he is, without a doubt, having an emotional affair with this woman and it NEEDS TO STOP.

You may be right, I don't understand why he is acting like this. The new messages I read were meaningless, in all of them she texted him asking about stupid stuff or commenting something out of the blue, like commenting a book or a movie they both like, in the messages he always texted back but in a disinterested way, but she always insisted in having a conversation. My husband told me she does this with a few more guys, she even has pet names for some of them, I wonder if she has some kind of special interest in my husband or if this is just how she acts around men.

I’m still sorry you’re having to deal with this and that it’s causing you distress. From what you’ve just said she sounds like an insensitive clod. Have you thought about how you might proceed?

I do find that it's an important step that you addressed it when you've addressed it. That draws a line. That is saying that you aren't appreciative of such attachments developing in your marital life. It's better to address it than remain silent which leads to your heartstrings being trampled all over.
Maybe to him in his mind it's innocent, yet, there's obviously a part of him gravitating to the newfound attention. His ego is involved hence his own reaction.
She probably adores the attention? Consciously or not there's a lack of traditional boundaries going on.
It's tough the moment one realizes that the relationship that they thought they had has been triangulated in any way.
Hoping that your husband finds some sense of sensitivity to how it must leave you feeling.

The fact that your husband continues to talk to "Elly" is a bad decision on his part. He needs to consider your feelings before Elly's. As a wife, you are #1. You told him to stop communicating with her, yet he continues to entertain her. You cannot let your husband treat you like this.

Also, there is no such thing as "jealousy" in a marriage. You both are husband and wife. Everything he owns is yours, especially his cell phone. You have a right to look at it whenever you wish. Only a suspicious husband that is cheating would object to you looking at his phone.

I find it funny how some men want "privacy" in their marriage, just enough to cheat on their wives. Please don't let your husband have this power over you. You are equals. You can talk to him and resolve this. Remember, "Elly" is a drama queen. She cannot be allowed to orchestrate this drama upon your lives. Just like she entered your lives, you can make she leaves just as quickly as she came.

I have no idea on how to proceed. It’s a hard situation since I cannot get away from her even when I really want that because she is my husband’s friend girlfriend and the lead singer in his band. We have talked about the subject in a more relaxed way recently and I believe he is truly trying to get away from her, but I still feel really uncomfortable and have the unshakable need of spying on him, even though I know this would make him very mad. I have the feeling that the trust we built throughout all these years of marriage has crumbled down and all because of this stupid situation in which I feel the need of controlling him and he feels watched and hates it.

Thanks a lot for your supporting messages. I actually feel better after reading some of them and realizing I’m not a lunatic like I thought I was lately. I’m a very shy and insecure person, so I don’t really have friends I could talk about this with and I desperately needed to discuss this with an outsider and gain some perspective. I think the best thing I could do now is move on and just get over the whole thing, I wish I knew how to do that.

I think that moving on as if it's over with is a bad idea. It's far from finished until he chooses to actually cut off ties with her related to anything outside of what would be necessary (assuming she still sings for him?) I will be honest, it helped when you clarified that he is trying to show disinterest in her texts but she's persistent, adn that's a problem. I feel if I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he's trying, without burning the bridge with her as a friend. When I say giving him the benefit of the doubt, I mean that this would be assuming he was being honest when it comes to the idea that she pursues. This may be the case as there are women like this. Well, I'm not going to single out women because it's not exclusive to the gender. But anyway, here's my take from this point.

Your husband could have made the mistake of "enjoying" the playful attention from her, since he figured he wasn't "doing" anything (which is not true it's him being in denial really) but anyway since he figured he was not pursuing, he just let it be and enjoyed the attention. It's a temptation for a lot of people to have this kind of flirtatious person paying attention to us. Still wrong but that's established. I think he got caught in the situation and since you didn't know it was easy to ignore until such time he was caught.

You cannot just let this go. That would be making the entire ordeal, and his behavior minor and inviting further transgressions later. You need to make it clear right NOW and let him know this is not to be tolerated and although having female friends is ok (clarify this), female friends that pursue like this and flirt hard with him are not. You really should demand he make it clear to her very overtly that her behavior and pursuit of him needs to stop and he needs to, show his devotion to you adn loyalty by complying.

I'm somewhat in the opposite boat. No friendships with men, but my husband is often suspicious of me and checks my phone records. Just from experience, I'd like you to know that the snooping will drive your husband away from you emotionally. I do understand your jealousy and your hurt that he is so close with another woman, but snooping will only make it worse. I think that counseling may be needed here.

I agree about needing to let go of the compulsion of wanting to check his phone and I also agree to not be dismissive of this nor to minimize what it means in the scope of your marriage.
It takes some renewal of your bond to him. At the same time, going forward it's important for you to know there's some lines that cannot be crossed. They interact professionally in a way and there just cannot be any blurring of that.
It comes accross through your posts that there's a sense of you being in the wrong? Maybe I misunderstand? The interactions bother you. That needs to be respected. Trust can only be rebuilt with time, compassion and sensitivity. If he's toning it down, it will show and be clear overtime.
I'll repeat the letting go is of the compulsion to look at his phone not letting go and accepting their interactions as they have been.

You are right, I do feel that I'm a bit on the wrong side, sometimes I get the feeling that I'm exaggerating and blowing things out of proportion since he feels that he is not doing anything wrong, he truly sees his friendship with Elly as purely platonic, his reactions made me feel like a lunatic, he was so surprised and so ofended when I hinted that he may be having an emotional affair that I felt like a mad person only for suggesting it.

The fact that he lied about not texting with her made me suffer beyond limits, but I realize that he did that because he doesn't see it as a big deal at all, he doesn't seem to notice what is bothering me so much, he thinks I'm being paranoid and obsessive over this, and I'm also starting to believe it.

Even though, he stopped the texting, he still doesn't understand what was the big deal, he stopped because I asked him, and he makes me feel guilty about this all the time, maybe that is why I keep feeling the urge of spying on him, he is not really trying to gain my trust back, he doesn't feel he has to, he talks about the subject as if it was MY problem, something I did, something I have to overcome, he acts as if he was the one helping me cope with the situation I created. What I mean is that he is not sorry, he is willing to eliminate that friendship from his life and fix things with me, but he still feels he did nothing wrong, and that is what is making me feel so miserable, because I feel like a typical *****y and jealous wife, that wants to control her husband's every movement, which I'm not and never was, this the first time in our 10 years together that I acted jealous about something, he's had girl friends in the past and I never felt the need to act like this, I honestly don't know if my actions were justified or not, sometimes I feel like he's right and I exaggerated about nothing and created this horrible situation out of insecurity, making things uncomfortable for everybody for no reason at all, and it is making me feel awful.

I don't believe that the full weight of all of this rests completely on your shoulders.
It really bites that something so uncharacteristic of you isn't having an ounce of compassion or understanding.
Maybe say, I'm not trying to get you to claim responsibility for wrong doing. That you aren't being accusatory. What you do need is some objective compassion, some way of saying he can value how upset it makes you. That you aren't looking for reassurance just some inkling to understanding why such a thing would rattle your nerves.
There's no real wrong on your part and that you value that he honestly believes he wasn't doing anything wrong. His heart for you may have been in the right place but the way the boundaries/lines blurred it was unsettling for you. Doesn't make you crazy. Dismissiveness of your feelings or your side of seeing it would drive anyone mad more so than the circumstances.

Hi BirdCatcher!

I think this admission is an important one....

You should really try to direct your focus/attention to your preexisting feelings of insecurity. I know it's really challenging to do, but this is what lies at the heart of the matter. Your husbands interactions with this woman are serving to remind you and reconnect you with your preexisting insecurities. This is one of the reasons why the feelings you are experiencing are so intense. To the rational/logical mind - it won't quite make sense why your feelings can be so strong when the external circumstances (that you think are responsible for causing them) do not seem to warrant such a strong emotional reaction. It's because what you are experiencing runs much deeper than the surface level details/circumstances would suggest.

A common occurrence during the course of an individual's healing and growth process is for someone or some life experience to come along which serves to trigger deeply embedded and stored emotional material (energy) from one's past, which had previously been suppressed or pushed away into one's subconscious. That 'triggering' needs to happen so that the emotional material (energy) can be brought to the surface where it needs to be consciously acknowledge/experienced so that it can ultimately be released (purged). When something like this happens, the individuals just needs to 'ride out the storm' and allow themselves to experience the difficult/challenging emotions that surface. Eventually the wave of emotional activity will subside and pass - and the end result is that the individual is changed (in a positive way) as a result of allowing themselves to experience that emotional purging/release.

Keep going... This is happening for a purpose....

I recommend writing down exactly what you are experiencing and feeling. This doesn't have to be done on a forum or sent to anyone else to read, just the act of writing helps you to process what is surfacing in your state of consciousness and allows you to be more of an 'Observer' to what is transpiring. Helps foster increased awareness and insight. You don't have to even save what you write - it's just the act of doing it that proves to be therapeutic.

Hang in there. At some point it's going to become clear why you are going through this...