Is this normal thing for my boyfriend to do?

[Anonymous]

I notice he sometimes stare at attractive women. I also notice if there are four girls in public he will sit beside the most attractive one. But he also claims to be so in love me and all that and asks to see me almost everyday

[genericname85]

so you have to understand that people in general will always be attracted to other people. whether they're in relationships or not (unless for rare nonstandard sexualities). so since men are more visually fixated, they'll enjoy looking at other girls. that does not mean he's not in love with you.

so i think the point of "loyalty" is not to just never ever have a single feeling of attraction for anyone else. i think the point of loyalty is to actually have a lot of that but still decide to stay with your partner despite of that. like personally i feel like if my partner is really attracted to other men and i can see that she is, that makes me feel even better, cause the fact she's still with me means i'm the better choice and that makes me proud :D

[genericname85]

like if he's a gentelman, he'll try to keep it to a minimum around you and not just blatantly stare while you're right next to him. but i don't see anything wrong with just enjoying a brief glimpse while it presents itself.

[Asker]

Yes that makes sense. I don’t know how to deal with it though. I feel like it’s not jealousy but feeling disrespected cuz he says he loves me and all that. Last time we saw this pretty librarian and I think he just sat there and stared at her. Also we were on a full bus and he there were four girls with empty seats beside them, and he sat beside the most attractive one. I don’t know what to do about this situation and we got into a fight because I pointed it out. He said he didn’t notice what she looked like but that’s clearly a lie

[genericname85]

ok so you're feeling jealousy. that's a perfectly normal emotion to have with a partner, cause obviously it's not guaranteed that he'll stay with you forever and you may want that, so you're insecure about the loyalty of your partner.

one adice i can give, if i may, is: do not take your feelings for facts that are set in stone. feelings can be usefull or they can be detrimental. never try to change the world around you according to your feelings before questioning your feelings. like what is your jealousy doing for you? is it improving your relationship? is it gonna make you more secure with your partner? is it gonna help you bind your patner?

think about this emotion you have and ask what it does for you. sometimes just doing that disperses an emotion, cause you realize it's harming you more than doing any good for you.

and most important of all: your jealousy is your problem. making your partner adjust themself to accomodate for your emotions will always drive them away from you. cause everyone loves an easygoing partner that doesn't bring them a lot of hassle. nobody wants their partner to be a burden or someone they are gonna have to walk on egg shells around.

so look at how he's treating you in your relationship. judge his actions towards you. is he treating you well? is he loyal? like if he isn't treating you well or isn't loyal, he isn't worth keeping anyway so trying to make him act so you feel that he's loyal does nothing for you..

so yeah. i hope the more you think about this, the more the logical conclusion leads you to just lose that feeling of jealousy. or maybe he is not loyal. in that case your jealousy is the tool supposed to drive you away from him.

i guess that was kind of a lot and maybe not the most coherent that i could have done but i hope it still helps.

[genericname85]

oh. one thing you can sure do with your partner is just tell them how you feel straight up. tell him how you feel when he looks at other people but do NOT ask him to change his behavior. instead ask him if he can maybe come up with an idea or strategy, how you can feel less jealous when he does it.

[Asker]

I don’t know how to feel :( because I see the reactions from those girls. They are attracted to him too, which makes me feel even worse. He then tells me how much he loves me and cares about me

[genericname85]

sometimes it does make sense to set boundaries. like you wouldn't want your guy to kiss or have sex with another girl right? or to have dates with other girls while he's with you. these are perfectly fine boundaries to set. but i think setting the boundary "don't look at other girls" is not ok. it's unreasonable to expect that. i mean if you're honest with me, you'll check out another guys sexy ass or strong chest and shoulders when you see a particularly appealing one out in the wild right? maybe you wouldn't in the intial puppy love phase but certainly you'd do sooner or later.

so yeah. i tried to give you my spin of how to feel about this. i mean the fact is that the guy is with you right? not with these girls he's looking at sometimes. so you're better than them. good for you. and i'll say that generally speaking, people "looking" at other people isn't an indication that they're not gonna be loyal. so yeah. try to set your internal boundaries, so you know when it is reasonable to feel jealous.

can i ask you if you have a history of being betrayed by men?

[Asker]

Yes I understand, I guess i am jealous because sometimes attractive girls look at him and I feel uncomfortable. And I also think he is the more attractive and social one in the relationship. He also gives me this bad boy vibe but he said it's because he was always on the streets when he was younger. He is younger by two years. Yes I was betrayed a lot in the past. I was in two relationships where the guy was flirting and talking to other girls, and for some reason I was made the villain lol. Then I dated somebody abusive as in he we punch walls, and scream at me on the top of his lungs infront of strangers lol. And sometimes when you date someone yourself find attractive, you just feel more insecure

[genericname85]

so there you go. you have been betrayed in the past and that is why now you feel jealous in inappropriate situations. this is completely normal for a person who suffered betrayal, cause betrayal wrecks all your internal values and boundaries, can wreck your self esteem and pains you a lot emotionally. it is very normal for people who that happened to, to overcompensate so that they won't have that happen to them again. and that's exactly what you're doing. you're shifting your internal boundaries to be unreasonable because you wanna avoid going through that pain again. it's counter intuitive but this will drive partners away and make you even more likely to experience it again, cause your partner will feel that he's not trusted, even tho he's really trying his best to be a good partner for you.

[genericname85]

so i think for you if possible it would make sense to see a therapist, cause i'm not an expert on this but what i think you have to do in this situation is: you gotta have to go to external sources, cause your internal ones got fucked by betrayal. think of it as your leg being broken from a fall and now you gotta learn to walk properly again. so be it good friends or reputable internet sites or even better: psychological resources to try and figure out effectively how to best reduce the risk of being betrayed. because what you need to learn is that you gotta do risk propper management. you can't get rid of the risk. your jealousy is trying to reduce the risk because you're not secure in how to properly reduce that risk. it reduces your risk but also reduces your chances of being happy in a good relationship at the same time. the painful thing is that you have to accept and come to terms with the fact that he may still betray you even if objectively you're doing everything right. you can not ever have a "good" relationship without that risk. so learn to manage that risk. you shouldn't be naive but you also shouldn't overcompensate for your fear of being betrayed by someone who never betrayed you.

gotta re-learn when it makes sense to feel jealous.

[thearchjoker]

This is completely normal. He will forget those girls the moment they exit his sight.

[avery58]

It's normal. We all look at people we think are cute. But if it bothers you that he stares at other girls in front of you just let him know that you feel weird about him looking at other girls while he is out with you.

[DrPepper12]

So he admires attractive girls. So what? This has much more to do with your anxiety and insecurities than it does about him finding women attractive