Relationship Advice

My brother broke it off with his girlfriend recently, partly because she was extremenly jealous. He was never allowed to even talk about his previous girlfriends and he felt like he had to look away from television and movies when a beautiful woman came on the screen, etc. It made him really uncomfortable.

Jealousy is a weird thing. I think it is human nature because all species of primates get jealous. I saw this documentary once about the sex lives of chimps. They live in fear worse than we do. Think about it, there is no law in the wild. If you are a weak male chimp, you’ll die a virgin or get killed because you had sex with one of the females that you weren’t allowed to touch. And the females have no choice about who has sex with them whatsoever. Pretty brutal. I guess you could say, it’s a jungle out there. : )

But thinking about it like rational civilized people… There are only two genders, so half the people in the world are guys and the other half are girls. So if you tell your boyfriend he can’t be friends with other girls, you’ve effectively cut off half of the people in the world he could have been friends with.

Most people would agree that it is fine to have friends even if they are of the opposite gender. But then the fear factor comes in. If the boyfriend socializes with other girls, he might decide to leave you for one of them. Then it snowballs into a big issue and it seems like every girl you see is flirting with your boyfriend and it seems like he is flirting right back.

Here are the key factors. If your boyfriend is going to leave you for another girl, then it isn’t going to matter if you don’t allow him to talk to other girls. In fact, restricting his social life would probably make him leave sooner. But if he is going to stay with you, then it is because he loves you and it would not matter how many girls he is friends with or if they flirt with him or not.

Jealousy comes from fear and insecurity. We all want to be secure in our relationships. The best form of security is in knowing that you have placed no restrictions on your boyfriend and he stays with you anyway. If you lay down rules and laws that prevent him from socializing with other girls, how will you ever know if he is with you because he loves you or simply because he is afraid of meeting other girls. Would it really make you feel loved to know that your boyfriend is only with you because he feels like he in not allowed to leave? Probably not. But think how great you would feel if your boyfriend was free to do whatever he wanted and he had lots of female friends and he still chose to be with you.

The most healthy relationships I have ever seen have been the most free and open ones. And those people always sem to be the most secure and happy people in the world.