Jealousy in relationships?

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I've got no definite answer for jealousy. Maybe it's desirable in some fashion as a sign of a connection.

I wouldn't find it tenable in myself, and I'd probably have a limit for it in another person with whom I'm close.

I can definitely tolerate some jealousy in a partner. It's only when the jealousy starts to get in the way of things (like me having male friends or dressing how I want etc) that I find it undesirable.

I just don't understand why someone would like it.

My thoughts on jealousy?

Hrm....ok, here goes...

I'll be perfectly honest: I am an EXTREMELY jealous husband. I look at it a bit differently, though, and I think it's a positive thing. I think more often than we want to admit, we are jealous people because we care about those we are with. My wife, who has more than once been annoyed by something I said or did in jealousy, would ask me "What? Don't you trust me?" I'd say: "Oh, I trust you perfectly well. It's THAT guy or THOSE friends I don't trust." So for me, being jealous has to do with protecting the integrity of our marriage and family. The threat, either real or perceived, doesn't necessarily have to come from other men but can be from "girl friends" who I know negatively influence her or cause some kind of embarrassment to her or us.

I don't keep her on a short leash, or really any leash at all; I know she needs to be with friends and get a break from me and the kids every now and then. I don't have a problem with that. But I do know that, for example, if we discuss something that really is trivial, and later she blows up at me after going out with friends, SOMEONE has been saying ugly things about me and convincing my wife that I'm the lowest slime on the planet. Conflict is extremely rare between us, and I take personal offense that someone would try to get my wife riled up against me. I take offense if someone takes her out and keeps buying her booze until she's too drunk to see straight, and then gets another MAN (don't care if it's a friend's husband) to drive her sloppy butt back home. I find it deeply embarrassing, that it reflects poorly on me as a husband (why could she just call me to pick her up if she was too drunk to drive? And what's another man doing there anyway if it's just a "girl's night out"?), and threatening. Marriages break up all the time over crap like this, and I want my family to have no part of it.

It's a mutual thing--my wife has every right and privilege to call me out for being irresponsible, also. I don't want to let her down. So if I'm "out with the guys," which really amounts to band rehearsal and a couple of beers, I'll have no part in woman-bashing because the temptation is too great to disrespect my own woman when that's not even really how I feel. And I think it's hard sometimes to understand issues of jealousy because fewer people take their obligations quite that seriously. I do think at the end of the day she knows that I am the way I am because I DO care. I think we are happy being together because we aren't afraid to express feelings, even feelings like that.

I get jealous, but I don't think it's the same way most people do. It's not out of insecurity or fear that someone might steal my SO away from me. If my SO has a really close friendship with someone, I might get jealous of that emotional connection or if they are far away I might get upset that other people get to spend time with my SO when I don't.

As for jealousy and aspies, I don't think aspies handle it differently. I've known aspies and NTs, and they have all handled it very differently.

Heh, you were as blunt as I wanted to be, but tried not to be. (Personal feelings.) I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt, though... there's no reason to assume that she would go that far.

OP-- Since you mentioned that your boyfriend is an Aspie, I'll share something that happened to me, that seems to relate to Asperger's symptoms:

I used to be in a relationship with an extremely possessive guy (I found out that he had Borderline PD afterwards). I had never had a boyfriend before (or friends, for that matter). The relationship started a short time after I had finally started to bond with people, and he forced me to stop talking to them, and to formally terminate these friendships. I think I've imprinted on him or something, because finally getting close to someone else has shown me that I've come to expect violent, paranoid jealousy/control in relationships. And to feel unwanted without it. And, of course, to be jealous, too. (I think I can safely say that I wouldn't have been too jealous without this experience.) It's been more than two years since the unhealthy relationship ended, and I'm afraid to have another boyfriend because I recognize that my insecurities and unhealthy expectations may make a good guy miserable and drive him away. Or, worse for me, that I would accept another guy like this.

Also, he turned out to be a serial cheater. No big surprise, in hindsight. But it was worse than the usual scenario, I suspect. I had almost no support because I gave up my friends, and because his "glib, superficial charm" (I keep reading that phrase in psychology texts) allowed him to say things about me that everyone believed. And I know what it's like to be disinterested in friends when you're so wrapped up in a relationship, but I don't think (I learned, actually) that giving them up for someone is healthy in nearly any situation.

And the saying goes that cheaters are the most jealous, right?

And jealousy is probably natural, even among the most faithful, but relationships work because of consideration and compromise. Instincts may even be right at times, but excessive jealousy will screw you in any case.

Maybe you want for your boyfriend to be jealous because you've been hurt like this in the past... I wouldn't know. But it's very likely that letting your issues affect your relationship with your boyfriend would be very traumatic. Basically, the negativity you would create would by far outlast your relationship.

You mentioned that your boyfriend is an Aspie. I think I read somewhere that male Aspies just don't naturally feel or express these emotions as much, even when compared to female Aspies.

...That turned out to be a lot more personal than I had intended to get. But I'll leave it. I have faith that you care about your boyfriend, and that things will get better if you keep his happiness in mind, too. Good luck.

Jealousy = Affection ... to some people.
I toss this into the same pile as "he hits me because he loves me."

I'm not jealous at all and don't understand the concept of being jealous.

However, the women i was with were all more or less jealous and that was bothering me. One even hit me because i was talking and laughing with another one.

If one asks me i flatly answer that i don't care if she has sex with others as long as i can be sure she is practicing proper hygiene afterwards because i don't want to be infected.

As far as i understand it, jealousy was only important in the past to make sure that men wouldn't raise other's bastards, in other words, to determine paternity. But nowadays i see no point in it.

If i have a girlfriend and she's bothering me with jealousy i just hide my activities with other women from her and do it behind her back. No person could ever fulfill another one's needs completely.

What i don't get at all is that some are offended if i say i don't care whether they have sex with others or not.

Sorry if that doesn't help but since i'm incapable to feel it, all i can do is trying to understand the concept.

My wife told me pretty much the same thing. She insisted I give up an online female friend (let's call her P) because, for whatever reason, she thought the female friend was untrustworthy... she said that she trusts me, but not P.

Which of course leads to the question: if she trusts me, why does she think P can possibly come between us even if she wanted to?

My wife said that P was "too needy" (of course if P wasn't, she'd probably already have friends and not bother with me). P is a fellow Aspie and we talked about Asperger's, about relationships (with our respectivce spouses, not each other!) and kids and work and stuff. Anyway, I guess in her mind that gives P a motive to latch onto me and try to draw me away from my spouse emotionally. That still doesn't give me a motive to do anything that I had agreed not to. We never had more than a friendship or even hinted at the possibility of having more than a friendship (no "if so-and-so left one day, maybe..." or any of that stuff).

On my side, my jealousy is far less than a normal person's. My wife had an online boyfriend for a while, with my knowledge and consent, and if he'd gotten off his ass and come visit us, they probably would have slept together. I was more turned on than angry with the whole thing. I eventually asked her to give him up because she kept getting disappointed by him and consumed by him getting her hopes up and disappointing her over and over again and I was tired of hearing her talk about nothing else but him for weeks on end. And the situation clearly wasn't good for her, and she kind of appreciated me giving her a little nudge to pull away like she really wanted to do anyway. A few years on, though, she reports that she will never stop caring about him or missing him, although she knows he's not worth wasting a lot of time on and she does spend comparatively little time thinking about him. If he ever shaped up, though, she'd want to be with him as well as me, and I'd be okay with it.

Yes, there's a total mismatch there. The thing with P was much more recent and she said that just because I was able to let her do what she wanted didn't mean that she could bring herself to return the favor.