At first glance, the jealous boyfriend appears to have an obsessive preoccupation with fidelity—but sadly he’s not interested in his own fidelity or faithfulness but rather, asserting a double standard, his interest is only in his girlfriend’s. In fact, contrary to the idea that jealousy is the byproduct of someone who values faithfulness, jealousy is born from one’s own proclivity to be a cheater. Taking a page from the psychology lexicon, we can call this type of behavior projection—assuming other people act and think the way we do. Thus the jealous boyfriend says to himself, “Since I’m a dog who will cheat on my girlfriend at the drop of a hat, she must be the same. I must therefore keep her under lock and key.”
That the jealous boyfriend lacks the honesty and courage to see the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of his jealousy attests to his arrested development. He is not mature enough for a relationship and in worse cases he is dangerous because his obsession with control too often results in some form of mental or physical abuse. Therefore, if your boyfriend is jealous, do not see his jealousy as romantic or symptomatic of his strong passion. Rather, see his jealousy as a warning flag and consider leaving him sooner than later.
So true!!! I dealt with a crazy jealous/paranoid boyfriend for almost two years. Guess what he was doing the whole time? Cheating on me like crazy.
Posted by: Tee | April 30, 2013 at 06:57 PM
How do you know when he is projecting or whether he actually is just jealous because he loves and doesn't want to loose you... He admitted to being a cheater in the past but really seems to have changed his ways and life. Am I too hopeful? How do I know?
Posted by: gee | January 13, 2014 at 09:44 AM
Too hopeful Gee. Don't believe what you WANT to believe----believe what your intellect tells you is the truth.
Posted by: Angelo | January 13, 2014 at 10:02 AM
My boyfriend has always been jealous, saying it was due to his former partner cheating on him. He would go through my phone and computer while I slept, looking for evidence. After about two years of this, we were considering moving into together. Before doing so, I decided to work up the nerve to look through his phone. I had never looked at his phone prior, as he always told me he placed such a high priority on fidelity and I wanted to trust him, he seemed so believable. Also, his phone nor computer was ever really accessible, he never left me alone with anything long enough to look at it and even though he said I could look at them whenever I wanted, for some reason I felt he would get really angry if he saw me doing it, and I didn't want the fight.
Eventually though, he accidentally left his phone in my car one day and for the first time I didn't have to be nervous about him walking in an catching me. Within 5-10 minutes of looking in his phone, I found him asking another girl out to dinner and drinks, one day before our anniversary. There were two other women whom all the messages to were gone, which was odd as he was always accusing me of erasing my texts to other men. There was a fourth woman he called by a lovey pet name, and he was trying to meet with her on multiple occasions over months.
My heart fell, and I knew he was not the man he had professed to be. He had always told me I was the only woman he was pursuing, but in the texts I could see it simply was not true.
I continue to date him over a year later and even more women have shown up in his phone since. Photos of women, him telling other women he loves them, etc. Yet he still claims he is not a cheater.
Posted by: lisaK | August 21, 2016 at 02:52 PM
Yes, he sounds like a classic jealous guy. Very sad story.
Posted by: herculodge | August 21, 2016 at 03:14 PM