I’m a 26-year-old girl, and my boyfriend is bi. I assumed he would be less jealous than the average man. After all, a lot of bi men have faced irrational jealousy from women. But my BF is more jealous than average. He accuses me of having slept with my male friends in the past. He makes negative comments about how many people I’ve hooked up with. Whenever I won’t divulge something, he says, “Well, obviously that means you did hook up with that guy before we met/you do think that waiter was cute/you were looking at porn on your phone.” If I do admit I was involved with someone (or even that I think someone is cute), he gets really upset. He knows he’s insecure. He says he’s working on it. But do people grow out of this kind of thing? Also, this is especially unfair given that I don’t object at all to the shirtless snapchats he gets from guys he used to hook up with.
—Torn In Re Envious Drudgery
Your boyfriend is not insecure, TIRED, your boyfriend is an asshole.
You shouldn’t have to put up with slut-shaming or emotionally abusive behavior, TIRED, not even when—especially not when—it comes disguised as “jealousy and insecurity.” Your boyfriend is not, as he would have you believe, the tormented victim of his own psychic demons. He is tormenting and victimizing you—he is abusing you—and conning you into giving him a pass by crying to you about his bullshit insecurities.
While some people do overcome these particular strains of assholery, it usually takes being dumped several dozen times before a guy like your boyfriend starts to do the hard work of unpacking and dismantling his assholery. The longer someone like your boyfriend gets away with this kind of assholery, the longer he’ll be an asshole. So do your boyfriend and yourself a favor, TIRED, and DTMFA.
Lastly: I have a hunch your jealous, controlling, emotionally abusive boyfriend is playing a “good offense is the best defense” game with you. By which I mean to say: He’s probably doing more—a lot more—than just swapping shirtless pics with guys he “used to” hook up with. His jealous fits about your imaginary infidelities may be meant to distract you from his actual ones.
I’m a 23-year-young woman, and I’ve been with my boyfriend for more than five years. We have a toddler together. We are best friends, and I love him very much. However, when we got together, I hadn’t had many partners and he’d already been around the block. And now he’s just not doing it for me in the bedroom. The things that used to make my toes curl now just make them twitch a little. I think I want to have sex with other people. It’s not that I’m not sexually attracted to my boyfriend anymore. I just want something different. But I don’t want to break up with my boyfriend. I love him and I love our family. I’m just too damn horny. What do I do?
—She’s Horny And Growing
You start by telling your boyfriend that the things you’ve been doing in bed for five years—the shit that used to curl your toes—isn’t doing it for you anymore. Tell him you don’t want to break up, tell him you’re still attracted to him, but also tell him you’re bored by your routine. Get to work on expanding your repertoire, developing some new moves and sharing your fantasies. One fantasy you can toss on the table: your desire to have sex with other people. If he’s opposed, SHAG, ask him how feels about you two being with other people together, e.g., threesomes, sex parties and swingers clubs.
On the Lovecast, a scientific study on Facebook creeping: savagelovecast.com.
