Jealousy is a thing. I was married for most of my adult life to a woman who was (and presumably still is) quite flirtatious. She knew I was jealous of the attention she would give others and that I did my best to keep it under wraps. It was never a source of conflict with us and tbh I think she liked the fact that I was so attached.
I think at heart, in much of our Western culture we as men still have this vision of marrying a virgin who will "cleave only unto him". I know for the early years that I was disturbed about the fact that my wife had been intimate, flagrantly so, with several men before we married. She even kept a box of "trophies" from prior relationships. I hated that box.
One of the things you see here is how infidelity is the ultimate insult. How people can get over theft, lies but get wrapped up in the horror of their spouse "being with" another person. In a new relationship, people can sometimes blur the line between past lives and the present and be jealous of a time and place where they didn't even exist.
As Don points out - for mature people, for divorced people, the reality is that there were other people in our pasts. I am sure that it is true for both men and women that there is a natural tendency to compare ourselves to others. And if we look hard enough, we can come up short.
The best thing you can do is to ensure that CMM knows that he is THE person in your life and that the past was left in the past for good reason without going into details.
Hope that helps.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
I think at heart, in much of our Western culture we as men still have this vision of marrying a virgin who will "cleave only unto him".
Yeah, I guess being a product of my generation this seems so foreign, having come of age in the wake of the "free love" hippie generation. To me this just seems misogynistic, the idea that a man can have a sexual history but a woman is supposed to be "pure".
And it's not like I have some crazy sexual past - in ten years of post-divorce dating I had two relationships, one for a year, one for four. One guy I dated for a few months, and then two guys who were too young for me that were brief flings. ( Mind you lots of men date women that much younger).
I think the difficult thing for CMM to grasp is that I'm still friends with these men. There were no bitter endings. No one is pining after anyone (except possibly crazy ex-boyfriend but he accepts that he blew it). CMM on the other hand does not have nearly as much post-divorce dating history (only 5 years for him and he was sidelined for quite some time with a knee injury) and doesn't appear to have any "friendly exes". No contact with women he dated in his younger years before his wife either.
I, on the other hand, am STILL friends with my college boyfriend from when I was 18 (mostly on FB although I have seen him occasionally over the years) and email every few months to catch up with another college boyfriend (happily married for 40 years and on his way to a Nobel prize in biology I think). So this is a lifelong pattern for me of maintaining friendships. Actually my ex-husband is the only significant ex that I'm NOT friends with, really.
I think at heart, in much of our Western culture we as men still have this vision of marrying a virgin who will "cleave only unto him".
Yeah, I guess being a product of my generation this seems so foreign, having come of age in the wake of the "free love" hippie generation. To me this just seems misogynistic, the idea that a man can have a sexual history but a woman is supposed to be "pure".
And it's not like I have some crazy sexual past - in ten years of post-divorce dating I had two relationships, one for a year, one for four. One guy I dated for a few months, and then two guys who were too young for me that were brief flings. ( Mind you lots of men date women that much younger).
I think the difficult thing for CMM to grasp is that I'm still friends with these men. There were no bitter endings. No one is pining after anyone (except possibly crazy ex-boyfriend but he accepts that he blew it). CMM on the other hand does not have nearly as much post-divorce dating history (only 5 years for him and he was sidelined for quite some time with a knee injury) and doesn't appear to have any "friendly exes". No contact with women he dated in his younger years before his wife either.
I, on the other hand, am STILL friends with my college boyfriend from when I was 18 (mostly on FB although I have seen him occasionally over the years) and email every few months to catch up with another college boyfriend (happily married for 40 years and on his way to a Nobel prize in biology I think). So this is a lifelong pattern for me of maintaining friendships. Actually my ex-husband is the only significant ex that I'm NOT friends with, really.
My XH prided himself on remaining friends with all of his exes, but in reality, he really wasn't. He hated his first XW, never talked to the person who he claimed he thought was the love of his life because she broke his heart. Really, the only person he was still friendly with was his high school girlfriend. On the other hand, mine is more situational. I'm still good friends with some, not so much with others. I say all that to ask this: does CMM have an issue with you having male friends that were NOT relationships? Is his jealousy just about friendships with former flames or is about friendships with males in general?
Me 52, H53 Bomb drop 9/29/2014 Divorce from XH final 12/17/2014 Marriage #2 12/31/2019 5 adult (step)daughters (3 from XH's first marriage, 2 from current H's previous relationships) 6 grandkids
KML - IMO jealousy is not an attractive quality. It doesn't sound like you are spending time with these guy friends in lieu of time with CMM correct? Do you interact with them a lot on social media platforms, etc? My XW never was friends with anyone from her past so IDK how I would feel. I know I wouldn't want to tell her who she could or could not be friends with.
Do you feel like he is controlling you? If it bothers you and obviously him maybe you need to sit down and discuss.
We have discussed but he's pretty stuck in his thinking (and to be fair, I didn't take his complaints seriously before because they seemed silly to me.) He's not controlling in other ways. He hasn't had too many opportunities to meet other male friends of mine who are not exes and not with their wives - last week we did go to see two of my old rock band class mates playing out with their new band, he seemed to handle that ok although I could tell he was on the alert.
I do have some social media contact with the ex boyfriends but not anything excessive. They might post something funny or political to my wall or like a post once in a while. Rarely (maybe twice a year) I might have a FB messenger chat with one of them in a casual "how're you doing?" kind of way or to ask or give advice on something practical.
I'm just afraid that, knowing how CMM is, that if I friended him on FB he would be asking me all kinds of questions about "who is this? " . I have plenty of non-exes male friends on FB who are friends of friends or casual acquaintances who share similar interests. I certainly don't want to feel like I have to explain every one, or for him to feel threatened by every one. Hopefully he'll never ask to friend me.
We have discussed but he's pretty stuck in his thinking (and to be fair, I didn't take his complaints seriously before because they seemed silly to me.) He's not controlling in other ways. He hasn't had too many opportunities to meet other male friends of mine who are not exes and not with their wives - last week we did go to see two of my old rock band class mates playing out with their new band, he seemed to handle that ok although I could tell he was on the alert.
Hmmm, dunno.
I guess it's like you said: how he handles it?
I don't think there's too much wrong with being 'on the alert'. I think I might pick up if the person I was with was feeling like that.
But then the dividing line is maybe what comes from that feeling? If it's just a feeling that passes after a moment/few moments, and nothing comes from it, then I think it's OK?
On the other hand, if the the other person then uses that feeling in some way (consciously or unconsciously) and makes it into something more. Like if they then feed that feeling in themselves and encourage it to grow and turn into something more, and make more of a thing about it - either spoken or unspoken. Then I might not be quite so at ease with the way things were going?
I don't know if it's something along the lines of the kinds of insecurities that everyone has? It's just that some manifest themselves as maybe intellectual insecurities, or physical, or to do with being left, or betrayed. You know, those super deep-rooted ones that were there before all the D stuff happened in our lives. Maybe that's his?
But it's really about what we do with those. How aware we are of them in ourselves, what we do when we feel them, how we handle them so that they don't hurt what is in our lives in the present.
I don't even know if any of that makes sense?
I'd be curious to find out why he's so stuck in his thinking. Does that apply just to this? Or is that one of his character traits in general?
Had an international phone call this morning with someone from a scientific company making a device that ties into one of my side interests. Just reflecting on how nice it is to be respected in my field and recognized for my strengths. My career took a back seat to my ex's and raising my kids for so long. We women sure can gain power in middle age!
