The circumstances and the manner in which the jealousy is displayed could play a big part in each individual’s answer, I would think.
Here’s my situation:
I’m old and fat and have been married for 20 years now. I love my husband to pieces except for the days I’d like to murder him in his sleep.
My commute to work is 2 hours long. For the past month or so I’ve been carpooling 3 days a week to work. My ride, liking the fact that the HOV lane cuts his ride by at least 20 minutes, has offered to pick me up from work on the same days he drops me off. My husband’s response to the news of my good fortune? “The only ride he’s offering you better be in his car!”
I was torn between flattered amusement and murderous annoyance.
Now you. Are you flattered or annoyed by your SOs displays of jealousy?
Depends. If on occaision, your SO reacts to something like “hey, I’m going to start carpooling with a coworker of the opposite sex” with a jealous remark, then meh. If your SO is always doing that; accusing you of blowing the meter reader or whatever every time you turn around, then it’s pretty damn annoying and belies an unhealthy amount of insecurity on the SO’s part. If you actually have been blowing the meter reader, then maybe your SO is on to something…
You’ve said this before. For Og’s sake, I hope she loves you, and I sure as hell hope she’s good for you, because paranoid jealous possessiveness would drive me INSANE.
What are you talking about?
Where did she say she had an admirer? Or that he liked talking to her?
Biggirl stated that this is a commute thing–that her being in the HOV lane cuts this guys time by 20 minutes. That is all she said–she never intimated that this guy was an admirer or was checking her out.
I am a male too. I think that her husbands comment is odd, especially if he was serious. Now I don’t know the man–many he jokes about stuff like this. I do with my spouse–but she and I both know it is a joke. If after 20 years you can’t trust your partner–seems you have some jealousy issues. Worldly wise my ass!
To me it would be a deal breaker. You either trust your partner or you don’t.
I don’t want to hang out with someone who doesn’t trust me.
Mine isn’t jealous enough. The situation you describe doesn’t warrent jealousy, but guys have hit on me right in front of him and he doesn’t care. I want him to be more possessive (rare complaint I know), not in a bad way but if I tell him someone was flirting with me, I’d like him to at least be a little annoyed by it.
As everyone else has said, it depends on the frequency and intensity of his jealousy. But it sounds like it wasn’t too intense, and you only mentioned this one instance, so it doesn’t seem very frequent.
As such, I say you need not be either annoyed OR flattered. Just rational.
Your husband married you because he thinks you’re beautiful (in many ways, I’m sure). As such, he’s aware that he’s not the only one in the world who would think so. As such, when a member of the opposite sex starts offering rides, and those rides will put the two of you in a captive audience with each other for 2-4 hours a day… well, I think he might get understandably nervous. Especially if you’re mentioning your carpool’s name more often.
Give hubby a hug and tell him you think he’s just as handsome as he was on your wedding day. That ought to fix it.
Actually, SWMBO gets a laugh when she sees me checking out the young hotties. She says it reminds her of an old hound dog on the front porch. The fire engine comes roaring by and he raises his head and thumps his tail, 'cause he knows he’s supposed to get up and go chase it. But then he drops his head back down with a sigh, 'cause he knows his chasing days are over, and he probably wouldn’t remember what to do if he actually caught it.
Overt jealousy would be a deal-breaker for me now. When I was a young girl, I laboured under the misapprehension that jealousy=love. That soon became the conviction that suffering=love. Not good things to overcome.
I’m older now, and the one consolation of all those decades is that I just might be a little wiser.
If it is not usual for him to say something like this, be flattered.
As someone pointed out already, he knows something women do not. Although I am coming to the realization that women are just as horny and are likely to cheat then men, men still have less morales when it comes to having sex with a married woman.
If he commonly says stuff like this, than be murderously annoyed and go out of your way to make him extra jealous. That will show him!
My wife is jealous by nature. I have found it pretty normal with latinas and it never bothered me. When she comes to my work she will see me with a pretty attractive girl/lady and will say nothing. She comes up and smiles and will say hi to my client. But afterwards she might say “That bitch better not have been hitting on you”. But she does not really say it directed at me, nor with accusations. She knows women might hit on me, just as I know men hit on her. We both trust each other and that is it.
I get jealous, too. When she goes out, I know guys hit on her. How else does she get free coffee from the kid at Starbucks or can somehow manage to get her 1 hour photos for free from the cruise (damn kids saw those naked pictures of her, I know it!).
So personally I think jealousy is normal, although many will argue and say it is because of low self-esteem, etc. It is just in our blood.
Mild, joking jealousy is sort of cute. If he’d ever threaten to kick someone’s ass for smiling at me, and actually mean it, that would be scary. But no, he jokes about having to come see me more often (we’ve got a long-distance thing going on), to defend me from these guys hitting on me, and I think it’s nice. Something sort of primally sexy about a man who wants to keep other suitors away from his woman.
