My boyfriend and I have been dating for about a year and a half. From the very beginning, I told him about my bad luck with overly jealous guys, and I explained about how that is awful, smothering, and hurtful. He understood. As the relationship has continued, he has become increasingly jealous. He began asking me to not talk to guys if he thought they had a crush on me. Okay. I understand. Then it turned into him not being okay with guy friends that I had long term. They suddenly, in his opinion, had a crush on me too despite one of them having a long term girl friend or something like that. Guys who I've had no sexual history with whatsoever. Although I expressed my discomfort with dropping friends like that, I eventually was guilted into giving them up. HE had no female friends, so why do I need guy friends? Not that I had that many, and not that I talked to them very much. But the couple of them that I did have were good friends, we did theatre together all through high school. But I digress. Eventually, my boyfriend would begin guilting me about my past. My oh so horrible past. (He had sex with 12 women before ever dating me. I gave my virginity to him. My past includes various promiscuous things, like skinny dipping or a sexless threesome... I express my regret at some of the things like the threesome, which was a one time thing for me that I had experience just to see if that's the kinda thing I was into. In my defense, we all do things along these lines when were growing up and exploring our sexuality. Obviously, I had a lot of exploring to do but I had managed to keep my virginity for Mr. Right).

Anyway, it then evolved into the fact that he is jealous of my best friend. My best friend is a gay male. Very gay. Very flamboyant. Obviously gay. The problem is that once, I kissed my gay best friend. It was to prove that me and him are actors and that if you pretend you can kiss anyone. He was trying to get a guy to kiss him, and we proved to the guy that if my best friend can kiss me without being straight, then the guy could kiss him without being gay. So that's where that came from. My point is, is that is wasn't lust. It wasn't curiosity. It was to prove a point. But my boyfriend is jealous of that kiss, even though it happened a good two years before we ever met, and it was something strange that me and my gay friend decided should never happen again. And it never did. But every time I try to hang out with my best friend, my boyfriend gets all bitchy. He guilts me for hanging out with him. It is relentless. He makes me feel like a stupid, lowly, dirty whore. Yet when I try to defend myself and explain to him that he's hurting me, he can suddenly do no wrong. It will go on for a couple days, these fights.

I don't yell at him, I don't insult him. I'm trying to find inner peace, you know? I tell him how much he hurts me though, and how utterly unfair he is for not letting me see my friend. I bought tickets to a concert for my boyfriend and I to go to, but he can't go because of a show he's in. 120 bucks for the two tickets to this concert. My back up was my best friend. My boyfriend told me to throw the tickets away instead of bring my friend. He says I have to bring a girl.. but none of my girl friends like the band were going to see... but it's just stupid petty stuff like this. He tells me all the bad wrong things I do to him, yet he wont leave me. He tells me I owe it to him because I apparently am too sexual with my gay friend.... where did this come from? I have no idea. Sure, when you're best friends with someone for 6 years you talk about your sex lives and stupid stuff like that, but to me, my gay friend is a girl. Really. How can my boyfriend not see this? And how can he make me choose between the two? And then tell me that he's not going to give me the "easy way out", and that if I hate it so much I have to leave him. It's constant manipulation and mind games. But I can't leave him.. it's so much to throw away. And I do love him.

I know this was a lot to take in guys, and if you got this far I already thank you.
My question is.. is when is it too much? I feel like dung most of the time because of him, but I can't tell if I'm being a drama queen or not. It's been months of this, but where do you draw the line? I know it should be a personal choice but I can't tell if I'm exaggerating, or if this seems like a real problem and that he has issues to iron out before he thinks about dating again. I just wish I could be more objective about the whole thing, but when you're in this deep in a relationship, it's hard to do that. So I'm looking for outside opinions.

Hi,
I think that you are not exaggerating because the problem with jealousy and lack of trust, false accusations etc can be really very unpleasant. I would say that I can understand your point as well as the point of your boyfriend. He probably loves you very much and if he has some kind of insecurity problems plus he thinks that all boys are potential seducers etc (in some cases this can be true) and moreover if his personality has some predisposition to similar reactions (insecurity), then his reactions are an understandable result of these factors.
When is it too much? It is impossible to say in general, because it depends on personal boundaries of both partners. For example, if both partners are quite jealous and insecure and if both of them are quite introverted, then it does not have to lead to serious problems, because they can understand these jealousy issues as both of them have experience with them... But if one person´s dispositions and reactions are in sharp contrast with his/her partner´s personality or way of life etc, then it can lead to destructive outcomes.
The situation can be made even worse in the case of extreme jealousy because it is literally impossible to give him some proof or evidence that his worries are groundless. It is logically impossible to "prove" that I have always been faithful to my partner and that I will always be faithful... So the jealous person should realize that there is no point in trying to find such a proof by some investigations, conflicts, accusations etc. The more you will try to defend yourself, the more paranoid he can become.
So what to do with this? First step can be to try to understand that his extreme jealousy can be a part of his personality, it does not mean that he is "bad" or tries to harm you by his illogical behaviour - it is more a form of "illness" than a form of bad character. So if you try to understand him in this unpleasant feature, you can try to cope with it easier, preferably without taking his reactions too personally. But I do not want to say that you should tolerate it and put up with it forever and suffer in silence. The next step should be made by him, of course, and he should try to understand the problem from your perspective. Maybe it could help if you agreed on a "rule" that you will not discuss these matters when he is feeling bad or angry, try to talk about it and discuss it only when both of you are in a good mood, calm and when the atmosphere is friendly and peaceful. In this emotional atmosphere there is a bigger chance that the message which you try to convey to him will not be lost in his blindness, fear or insecure feelings and that this message will get to him in a more effective way.
I wish you good luck.
severin