How do I handle his girl-friend?
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| Fri, 02-27-2004 - 11:39am |
My S/O has a friend that is a girl- they met where we work (part time second job) about one month before I started last year (so no long history between them). From the time I met her, she has been insanely jealous of me- she is a very attractive, but very married young lady. My S/O and her hit it off when they met; she called him constantly, gave him gifts and wanted to hang out with him outside of work all of the time. Keep in mind again, that she is married. He INSISTS that nothing ever happened between them, and I do believe him, but I think that she had motives all along, it's my gut feeling. Why else would she be so cold to me? She even tried to talk him out of dating me, in the very beginning.
Anyway- she left him alone for a long while after we got serious. But lately, she has been surfacing again and it is iritating me. Call me insecure, call me jealous, call me deeply in love and territorial also. Call me on the fact that I plain out just don't like her.
I have never shown him that I am jealous of her; if anything, I killed her with kindness and I feel that it made me look even better in his eyes. He does nothing to make me not trust him; he always tells me when she calls, what for, etc. But deep inside, her presence bugs me, and it will continue to bug me. Only once did I bring up my feelings towards her, and he got sort of defensive and made it clear that they are good friends and that won't change (which I would never expect it to).
I guess my question is- that I think I've been handeling this well all along, how the heck do I continue to do so? I wish that I could tell how I feel, maybe I should when the right opportunity arises, but I'm fearful to make myself look like a typical catty women.

He does it because he wants to, he prioritizes the attention and/or the feelings it inspires in him about him.....hee's continuing this because it feels good to him and he doesn't see anything wrong with it.
So, if you were to "forget about her" - are you going to forget about the "next her" and the "next her" and the "next her"?
You're focusing on "her" as the problem...but the reality is if he didn't interact with her and encourage her attention - she wouldn't be giving it to him.
Erin
quickblade14@hotmail.com
Then I came on the scene and he began to shun her, and he continues to do so. He never calls her, never hangs out with her, never invites her into his life in any way. So she died down for a long while; now she is surfacing again here and there; not a lot, but enough for me to notice.....and he still shuns her invites, etc.
I see what you are saying, that if he wasn't encouraging her in some way, she wouldn't be coming around. I get ya. But who am I to say that they can't be friends because I don't like her?? Do I have a right to say anything (like, why is she coming around so much lately)without looking psychotic?
Am I out of line for not liking this, or is he outta line for encouraging her attention, even subtly?
When you came along he shunned her. I think we'd all interpret that in terms of actions a little differently - but he didn't encourage her attention, he didn't participate in the flirtation -he only had "eyes" for you and time for you. So, she backed off.
Lots of people use "marriage" as the barrier that allows them to flirt, cavort, get sexually stimulated from conversations, and get positive feelings about themselves based on this other person's attraction to them. One or both parties BELIEVES "I won't do anything with someone that's married."
and the flirtation/attention/interaction is "justified" with that rationalization...I don't want a relationship wtih them, they're married and I wouldn't fool around with someone that's married."
Okay, that's right...neither of them want a "relationship" with one another, and there is a very real legal barrier that would make a legitimate, public relationship a problem, if not an impossibility - and that is her marriage.
so whwat he's saying is "provided that it's with someone that is married and that means I couldn't "do them" - I can flirt and get myself all hyped up about myself and how i feel about myself - based on flirtatious interaction with them."
Which, IF contact is limited to public venues - that works. It's not hard to play footsie with a married person under a restaurant table....but it is hard to "do them" on that same restaurant table without getting arrested or at least inteferred with. So, you're going to do the 'safe things' - and get all the flirtation/interaction that you can because of the 'feelings" it inspires. Some people call it an emotional affair - it is in the sense that you're having a love affair with the emotions this other person's actions inspire in you - about yourself. It's NOT an emotional love affair with them as an individual, however, - anybody that paid that type of attention would inspire these feelings and their attention would be sought. Find a common denominator before you go pointing fingers - ad you'll find it is the person who needs positive interaction to feel positive about themselves and you'll find the "problem"..i this case it is not "her specifically".
But quite often, that contact with someone I'd never fool around with because they're married, but this flirtatious interaction makes me feeel so positive I can't get enough of it.....ends up through no "intentional" action - being conducted 1-on-1, without supervision or in the public eye. They needed a ride home from work, their battery died...sort of thing.
And at that point...what you've got is a watched pot that is no longer watched, and boils over. You've gotten yourself so attached to the feeings they inspire in you about yourself...that you can't now discern the difference bewteen how you feel about yourself when around them.....and how you feel about them. And "feelings" have been allowed to be facts, goals, or calls to action...and now, alone in the car, with nobody the wiser....we "could do it" and we're so pumped, stimulated, lubricated, and ready fo rit - we've been having sex with other people in our lives while thinking of this person, and we've been intentionally titillating one another with "possibilities" and now - in a situation unforeseen, unpredicted, unplanned, and not sought - our "option" mateiralizes.
So, one person comes onto the other nad says "who's going to know?" If the person responds positively and they get it on - and they proceed to do this whenever now-planned for opportunities arse - nobody is going to "know" unless they get irresponsible and caught, or just tell on themselves outright.
If that now more physical flirtation is met with "hey, back off"....that FRIENDSHIP ENDS right then and there and everybody is MAD as all get out.
Why, because the "positive feeilngs this person inspired are no longer available to me" and they rejected my advances, they led me on, they tricked me, they put me in a position of jeopardy regarding my existing relationsip - it's all their fault - if I hadn't been so turned on by them because of everything they did, I wouldn't have offered to "do them" in the car, they wouldn't have rejected me and I'd have had flirtatious interaction and positive feelings. WAAAAAAA!!!!
I suspect that his "shunning" her when you two got involved - was a little more "shunning" than you realize. Quite likely there was a little more than just office flirtation...not saying sex...but it wouldn't surprise me to find out they used to do long lunches, or dinners with "rationalizations" of "she needed someone to talk to" or "he needed my input on a project"...and there was lots of leg rubbing under tables, and lots of lingering hugs upon parting, and there was lots of eye contact with "lip insinuation" of what was available "if only".
And you came along, you gave him that same type of attention and inspired the same feelings in him about himself, and in addition - you were the full meal deal. He didn't have to settle for either compromising his ethics if she was willing, or getting blue balls if she wasn't, while still seeking the positive feelings to be had about himself via her attention by his own choice.
And now that your elationship is more established, the comfort zone has set in...and he wants more of the "you're so great, so wonderful, so adorable, so funny, witty, charming, sexy, amusing, intelligent" vibes - and he needs atttention to get it. Attention that you being "de rigeur" can't provide...and that he knows she's a "safe source of" because he won't "do" a married woman.
That's because he's "emotionally driven" - he got into the relationship with you because it made him 'feel' so great - and now that the high has worn off and it's time for either the respect, admiration, acceptance, and affirmation for you two as individuals from one aother - or the relationship to stagnant and really be nothing but a guaranteed source of sex/fun/compaionship with obligations until "obligations outweigh possibilities" and then he's off to somewhere else....he's now "recontacting" her.
If he "cut her off" why would she come out of the woodwork to incur more rejection? She wouldn't....she came out of the woodwork because her attention was sought by him, so that he could get the feelings of a "new person's adoration" would inspire in him about himself, - in a "safe haven" environment of a "married woman".
Let me give you a hint....married people that flirt with people that they see on a daily basis - would "do" anybody that would "do them" if the situation presented itself that it wouldn't pose risk to them and the security of their marriage - security usually being financial and what they're loathe to get up and what they got in it for to begin with and now it's "not enough".
Married people that flirt with the cashier, the waitress, the bus driver...that's harmless flirtation, it inspires self-confidence, it doesn't inspire emotional association/attachment with a particular individal - it's healthy, normal, right, and we'd all be better off to do a little of it because it makes everybody feel better about themselves and treat other people better on a regular basis as a result.
But married people that seek "flirtation" in an individualized format - they're not necessarily "seeking sex" - but they've decided that is an option if this "goes far enough".
I've been him, I've been her...I've been you....I've been all around this block. Not that I purport to know any of their intentions...then again, intentions don't mean crap because intentions don't cause problems or situations - actions do! And actions are justified by the values a person holds...and the values that let them flirt interactively 1-on-1 with someone they have close contact/proxiimity to - they're not "adverse" to sex with this person...and by insuring this flirtatious environment continues, they're at some poitn going to end up in a situation beyond their control and not of their planning where "sex" is atleast going to be offered/discussed and possibly "done".
Don't hold him accountable for what she does...hold him accountable for what he does. In that light, I don't think you will ever stop someone from being friends with someone they're already "friends" with - friends is a loosely used term in this scenario. So you demanding it stop - is just going to drive it underground. HE sees nothing wrong with the friendship.
So it becomes up to you to decide of his values and his actions are someting you can accept, understand, and live with....becaus eyou're not living with her - but with him....and he'll "repeat" this type of behavior in a myriad of scenarioes because "his values justify it."
Erin
quickblade14@hotmail.com