Is jealousy always a bad thing in a romantic relationship? I don’t think so. Sometimes it lets you know your partner is still invested in being with you. When I was dating a guy who never got jealous, it really did make me wonder where his head and heart were at. Turns out, I had every right to be suspicious.
- At first I thought he was just chilled. He didn’t seem like the type of person to get jealous or compete with people in his life, which I was actually glad about. But then it started to become a problem for our relationship.
- When I got hit on, he barely flinched. It started one night when we were at a party. A guy hit on me in front of my boyfriend, and my boyfriend didn’t even react. WTF? Let’s be clear: I’m not saying that I want the guy I’m dating to go all Fight Club on some dude who’s flirting with me and beat him up. I don’t find that attractive at all. However, I am saying that a bit of jealousy or even concern over what was happening would’ve been nice.
- It happened all the time. I thought that incident was a one-off, but he never reacted when a guy showed interest in me. Even when I was hanging out with a male friend all the time, my boyfriend barely even said anything. That’s when I realized something else was going on.
- He didn’t care. Of course he noticed that I was hanging out with my male buddy all the time. How could he not? In the same way, he noticed when guys flirted with me but he just didn’t let on that he’d seen it. It was like he didn’t care, I realized. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw that he didn’t really notice much about me in general. If I was down or moody, for example, he seemed to overlook it instead of talking to me about it.
- I confronted him about it. Once, I asked him if he ever worried about other men in my life or the guys who hit on me. He said no and insisted that it was because he just wasn’t jealous by nature. I didn’t believe it.
- I got jealous instead. Maybe he was really chilled and that’s great, but it was problematic that we treated those situations so differently. When a woman flirted with him, I did get a bit moody and showed him that I was jealous. That was the biggest problem we faced: we were totally different when it came to jealousy. When I saw someone else was interested in him, my radar got switched on and I paid attention because I didn’t want anything to interfere with our relationship. I didn’t want to lose him.
- He wasn’t afraid of losing me. He told me he never feared losing me. Yikes. Really? He was clearly so confident in our relationship that he didn’t get scared of losing me to someone else. I couldn’t help but feel like even if he did lose me, he wouldn’t give a damn.
- I deserve to feel needed. I’m not saying the guy I date needs to show me he cares by being jealous of other guys, but if he’s never jealous at all, it can lead to other problems like just not caring if he has me or not. I want the guy I’m with to be clear that he’ll fight for me and that he won’t take me for granted. This guy wasn’t doing that at all. I didn’t feel special around him.
- We needed to be on the same green-eyed level. This relationship showed me how important it is to have jealousy (or a lack of it) in common with my partner. If one person’s really jealous and the other never is, it can cause resentment and issues. That’s what was happening with me and this guy, and it was clear we had a problem.
- I don’t want to be invisible. When my ex and I argued about the jealousy issue, I took the opportunity to tell him straight up what I want. I want the guy I’m with to see me—really see me. I want him to feel things for me and dread the thought of losing me. I want him to feel a spurt of jealousy when other guys are interested in me, just to show me that he knows what he’s got by having me in his life and he doesn’t want to lose me. Is that really so much to ask?
- I really don’t think I’m being unreasonable here! My ex just didn’t get it. For the duration of our relationship (which was about three weeks), all I could think of was that he’d meet some other woman someday who made him feel those things. He’d feel a bit jealous and protective and want to fight for their relationship. Sadly, it just wasn’t meant to happen with me.
