Am I Letting My Jealousy Ruin This?

"Should I stay or should I go?" In the garden to a man I've been seeing for almost two years.

He and I met on a sort of casual dating app and went into it very casually and learned that he is married and that he and his wife were our no longer sexual or romantic in that way, but they are living together, share bed, they co-parent, an eight-year-old boy. Just like I do with my ex-husband, with whom I do not share that. And she is very open and encouraging the

lot of this and never in one million years what I have seen myself making my way into this kind

of a dynamic. But this gentleman and I have very strong feelings for each other and he and I go on dates every week to two weeks and they're absolutely incredible from our chemistry as friends and humans, not to mention that I'm having the best sex of my life like full stop. And he is emotionally secure and available to me in a way that I've frankly never had in 41 years. I also have been stuck in these endless questions all the time because there's a big part of me that does love

“being single. Like when I first got divorced, I'll never forget that feeling of "I can do what I want."”

I can be who I want to be and yet I crave that idea of stability and marriage again and it's this constant push and pull and I don't even know if I would want to be married to him and yet it does not prevent some real pain, some real pain that I feel around feeling like and just jealous of he and his wife or partner who is lovely. I would just so so appreciate and love the chance to talk through this video so thank you so much for listening.

When is the AI bubble going to burst? How do you AI proof your job? How should colleges handle AI and prepare students for a shifting job market? I'm Henry Blodgett and on my show Solutions, I've been exploring all of those questions and more with experts who have actual answers. We hear enough about our problems. Let's solve them. Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett.

“I think what's very strange to me about all of this that I mentioned is that I would never”

have imagined of myself getting sort of entangled in something like this. I've always when I've

been on the apps and seeing these ethically non-monogamous people, you know, like I always don't swipe on this people because it seems complicated and something I don't want to get caught up in and he did not list himself that way but he was very honest when we met and they're not sexual right so he's sexually monogamous with me and that has been how my brain has been able to sort of make this work, right? Meaning how? Tell me how you put the puzzle together? So I feel like there's

something special that we have together and I realized that that could very much be the case with or without him having sex with other people but it protects some element of it for me where I

“feel like he is committed to me you know and sometimes I think it's so silly because he's also married”

and he's sleeping in the same bed with his wife but they are not sexual so he has family monogamy with her and sexually monogamy with you. Yes. Yes. And it's tied up and a lot. It's tied up and like

multiple parties happens to them but then there's also this but your jealousy is about the monogamy

“of his family that they come first that you cannot enter into that space that tell me a little bit”

what the arrangement is so far and what is the jealousy because it can be about with something very

precise right? So I very much relate to his family coming first so I also have an eight-year-old

and divorced and it's funny because the last person I dated didn't have children and he totally did not understand like my kid comes above all else so that I very much relate to. I get jealous thinking of them sleeping in the same bed he and his wife so that's yeah and also

“their general family life because I don't have it and it's not that I don't have it with him”

but it's that I don't have it you know. So yeah. So when I see the beauty of his family it reminds me of the family that I no longer have. Yeah. Sorry. Now nothing to apologize for. That part is very raw for me and this whole side that is there and gets tied up in what is really a beautiful thing in many ways. What is your arrangement with the father of your child? We are good friends actually we were friends for many years and then we got married

had a child and very quickly had our first fight that became the reason we got divorced

which was you made that one fight standout so special that I couldn't resist make curious about it was oversleep training with our son and it was something very small but I realized I had

“never sort of stood ground and had been contorting myself honestly to prevent any and all”

conflict in our relationship you know there had never been conflict and I sort of just stood my ground and there was a complete unraveling and he wanted a divorce and it was so crazy but we both instantly flipped into we're putting our son first and thankfully my ex has been had the context of his parents having divorced when he was young and did a really good job

of putting him first it's very fluid like our son has never known anything different and I'm

very proud of that but it's also another one of these things where I do like spending Christmas with my son and his dad and sometimes when I play out this idea well what if I were with somebody full-time monogamous again that would be hard right or I mean some people might not like that would it be fair to say when I am with the father of my child and my son and we are in family mode there is no jealousy when I'm alone then I'm starting to think about the family

that my partner has and then I start to think that is what I miss because in fact you do have a family life. I don't feel that because there is some suppressed like emotional pain around my divorce that I just don't surface and yeah I feel like it's other people's intimacy is just hard for me because I'm not intimate with anybody so I'm sorry I didn't hear it's just let them flow let them flow let them stream down I'm not intimate with anybody yeah yeah

I have a very small like extended family where my dad and his strange from my dad which was

have a good relationship with my mom but it has its limits both daughters are estranged from him for her love eight years right before my son was born right after I got married that

was a pretty crazy year but he he basically blew up our lives he and my mom had been married for

four years and he came home one day and said I wanted a divorce and he emptied out their bank accounts and left her with nothing we found out he'd been doing all these horrible things leading a double

“life basically and and hindsight I think he was really kind of a sociopath I don't think he had”

empathy and I spent my whole life trying to get his approval you know it was very much the perfect type a child and my sister was the older rebellious one who he treated worse you know but he played us off each other it was just a really tough childhood I mean not tough as a lot of people but unpacking it as an adult it was very eye-opening to me I learned like I learned about

attachment theory for the first time a couple years ago and I was like no I thought I was over all that

“it's here if you're what you call him partner boyfriend lover lover we call each other lovers okay”

if you love her who'd you say I am not intimate with anyone I would he respond he would probably put his hand on his heart and it would make him sad kiss your right I am intimate with I mean the only person that I really am intimate with beyond sexuality yeah he's the first man that I've ever had difficult feelings around that has been able to sustain it where it hasn't blown up because I had a meltdown or challenge something that was going on or made things

difficult for example well this situation has been very hard for me like grappling with these feelings of jealousy with this wife and I feel like I will have these sort of outburst you know and I don't necessarily get angry but I do unravel and I'm like I can't handle this and sometimes I do contorted into something like you don't even want me anyway and you know just blow up and I

“assume that it's gone and he's gone because that's how it's gone in my relationships and”

I'm very conscious of that with the men in my life and he just keeps coming back for more like a golden retriever he's just there you know he's like that must be so hard and so it makes it like in many ways so wonderful right I feel like it's so good for me to be with somebody that allows me to experience jealousy yes even envy because one is for what we had and have lost

and the other one is for what we've never had or not never but what we don't have but also

experience the insecurity that it's not what you have it's how it instantly connects to what I feel I don't have and so because I don't have one thing I experience it as well then I better have nothing because if I can turn it into I'll be the one to set this up to end then at least I feel a little bit more in control at the home feeling control over the relationship as it is but I can be in control over the dissolution of the relationship and he doesn't let you play with that

that you interpret as they have intimacy they have something I don't have

“you can see how you put the pieces of your puzzle together I talked to me about what is”

their arrangement and who are you for them you're telling me who he is for you I don't know much about her I don't know if your children have ever met I don't know if this is a a marriage or so not just of a marriage coming together more accurately of two people or of two units what is the arrangement what is your relational arrangement at this point and is it

a by default or is it actually by design so there was no crossing for quite a while you know we

met quite casually through this app and I don't think either of us was expecting the level of connection that we developed and he presented himself as as married and described the situation that is he and his wife are wonderful partners and very good friends they lost the sexual spark at some point and decided to stay together in co-parent and raise their child in their home and both of them have a separate erotic life she didn't for some time

it sounded like but now she does and I had not met her for a long time and eventually she's

that she wanted to meet me and so we had coffee together and we all too just me and her and I was like if this is not progress against my anxious attachment style I don't know what is I I had this whole idea of her in my mind you know I've done this whole the ways that she's different than me and she's like the perfect homemaker and I'm not and you know and stuff and instantly was just disarmed by her

“she's also totally warm and genuine and cool and I could see that everything was very honestly”

she was like this is so great like he's in such a great mood all the time it's crazy about you we're so happy to have you in our lives I went to their holiday party look a month or two ago which was hard but also one other weird part of me is like what if like I probably just a part of this fabric I mean do I have this in me to be one of these crazy people that I shouldn't say crazy people like securely attached people that can flex the relationships

and she was so happy to have me there you know so I don't you know he doesn't talk about

“their relationship I think he's very you know protective of that I appreciate that and I don't know”

what the future holds in store for them but this like the jealousy the Raj jealousy and insecurity it brings out is so present we have to take a brief break so stay with us and let's see where this goes support for where should we begin comes from monarch the way things are going they're probably plenty of things to keep you up at night but don't let your finances be one of them instead

try monarch set yourself up for financial success this year monarch is the only one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier it brings your entire financial life budgeting accounts and investments network and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or laptop see the where and in control of your finances this year and get 50% of your monarch subscription with code begin set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with monarch the only one tool that

half your first year that's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code begin

support for where should we begin comes from Shopify the early days of starting a business are equal parts exciting and terrifying it's a big risk but it's one worth taking as long as you have the right tools and if ecommerce is part of your new business here's a tip Shopify Shopify is the commerce platform that powers millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all ecommerce

“in the US they can help you tackle all those important tasks in one place from inventory to payments”

to analytics and more everything is all in one place making your life easier and your business

operations smoother it's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today sign up for your one dollar per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com/estair go to Shopify.com/estair that's Shopify.com/estair as stare is coming back to South by Southwest this year for a special live episode of where should we begin this year a stare will be joined by Academy Award winning

“filmmaker Spike Jones to explore what happens when the being that we feel knows us the best”

isn't a human being the session will be open to all south by southwest batch holders visit voxmedia.com/ssw to get a discount on an innovation badge and pre-register for our live taping you can also learn about all the other sessions on the voxmedia podcast stage which will feature care swisher in Scott Galaway burn a brown and atom grant mark has brown lee vivian two and way more visit voxmedia.com/ssw to learn more and I'll see you there.

“May I meet the part of you that speaks that's insecurity how does it relate to you how does it tell”

it story how does it warn you how does it turn opportunity and to threat tell me what it says and and what it is trying supposedly to preempt for you imagine it's sitting right next to you so it's not inside of you it's actually on the chair next to you jealousy I don't know do you have a name for it sometimes I don't have a name for it the jealousy is so hard to pinpoint okay so you enter into me and I feel under threat I am in like fighter flight all right hold on one moment because you're still talking

to me turn around and pick something any object that you can place to represent jealousy just look on your shelves and then just bring it towards you like physically bring it yeah yeah go get it right can you show me okay it shows my leg oh look he cat all right and the reason you represent my jealousy is because anything any connection now just follow like it just was drawn to it okay all right we're gonna make it lucky okay maybe it'll be memorable that way I thought so like a

if I need a mental talisman all right you don't have to look at me but I want you to talk

to actually it's less you talking to the jealousy first it's about listening how the jealousy speaks

to you how it feels you what it does what it tries to preempt for you what threats it predicts what yeah oh you know that parts of it I'm thinking about it right now and if I'm talking to my

it's very mean it tells me that I am number two and but I'll never be someone's number one

and that I should get out all in my head but it also tells me that that's like very powerful

“that's what I deserve and that is heartbreaking to me you know deserve as in you're not good enough”

to be it it starts to attack and erode your sense of self worth yes and that is what I have been primed for you know like that was my dad's uncanny ability to come in and a moment I started to feel good about myself and take me down but honestly comes up for me as to like I think this negative self talk this like when I'm being really mean to myself I can almost hear him and then I think I don't want to let him win you know like this is not serving me in any way

“who the hell do you think you are that kind of berating person reason standing out to me right now”

this thing said to me one time what I was a teenager he told me I was the last person and he

one never wanted to see walk into a room and I surprised I feel like I just walk around feeling like

and I it was such a otherwise intelligent person that I can conceptually understand so much you know I mean I probably would win an award for the number of hours of pen macho drink talks I've listened to but don't ask me to practice self compassion okay it's like I it's powerful it's like feels it's in my body you know it's so then you go like

am I fighting something that I am never gonna be or am I making it too hard for myself

by trying to do this work so you know I had a wicked thought may I just please tell it with you because everything is kind of most together are you still holding it in your hand jealousy good keep holding it you see in a model of plural love primary or secondary doesn't necessarily carry the same meaning primary worth more secondary worth less it's not a rating system it's an organizational structural idea

with you that interestingly you wear number one in fact your sister was number one on the attack line your experience with number one hasn't been particularly good you wear his number one both of you and he was firing away you know a strangement is a drastic radical decision eight years so we can't go into the details of that but I yet it doesn't happen out of nothing so you have been number one your idea of this

fairytale that the number one is an elevated state is actually not what has been your life experience there is a way of thinking about relationships that is organized around exclusiveness and then you they market what makes this relationship by what it doesn't

“allow but what it doesn't allow in it excludes the other stuff and that's what defines it”

and so then you are the only one and then there is another way of thinking about relationships that

necessarily but whatever you are especially in its own way so you go to this party and these people

“receive you you may not like the arrangement you may say I don't like complicated setups”

or multiple setups that's designed and then you say that's not for me but then it doesn't come from a place of self-loading of being in this relationship is proof that I'm will not be

claimed that nobody will choose me as their first as their one and only and that it is because

I'm the last person people want to see walk into the room so there's a kind of a mixing of two stories here one that was indeed exclusive but vicious and one that is special but somehow activates this notion that if I'm not the only one if I'm not the primary one it's not because we said we have something else that ties us together it's because you don't want to do that with me yes is that a fair description it really is and it's a story

that is not reflected really in the situation you know like I mentioned this in my message that I don't even know if we would be right together as being married or that's not what I even fantasize about really it's weird I mean he would be a wonderful partner and husband absolutely but it's more just this ambiguous here's the reason to feel bad but then I there's so many great things about it like that I've mentioned to you from a

emotional standpoint of things I've been able to work through and then also just the joy of developing some intimacy with somebody that is also not laden with all of the rest of life and it's funny because I've tried to talk about this to some married friends they'll be like whoa that is you gotta get out of that like run don't walk like you must be miserable half the time and like this is the recipe for disaster and then I'm like well how is marriage going

because marriage is really hard to you know you gotta get out of what what is being reinforced

“that indeed you're a side gig yeah I think that's how they”

bring it and from the outside I can kind of see that but that's not how he makes me feel or frankly how she makes me feel this life I feel like they want to bring me into their fold you know

and he makes me feel very special he's the first man I've ever been with that is very

comfortable just like openly complimenting me in this way that is so disarming to me you know what to be kissing or something and it'll sit back and be like you are so beautiful and I don't know what to do with it and I realized that he wasn't getting that before from other people and well what you do with that is first and foremost you say for it

“yeah then you decide how important is this it's an important experience for me to have in a”

relationship he doesn't define a decision yes okay my question to you is do you feel like you need to make a decision or do you feel that other people are urging you to make a decision because you started out by saying you know shall I still shall I go and I'm listening to you telling me I'm caught between two stories two ways to interpret my reality

that's it in one version I experience myself as basically I'm experimenting with a very different

it's new it doesn't involve jealousy by the way that's okay it is also part of the erotic

“charge that there is a sense of where am I where do I fit in etc so the goal is not to avoid any”

jealousy the goal is to learn to live with it yeah the other narrative is I've been exclusive I've actually been many times the number one and my main experiences around that have been not particularly kind which doesn't mean that therefore an exclusive relationship is by itself compromised but there are two narratives here and my question to you is do you feel an urgency to make a decision or do you feel that the people around you are urging you to make a decision

or that there is a sense that you're being naive you're being credulous you're going to get hurt

“what's the context who you know what who is the Greek chorus here yeah it's almost like it's”

these like you know every once in a while I will have a pretty significant meltdown around this and think I can't do this anymore like these feelings are too hard and what's really funny is that this small circle of people I've opened up to about this who were in monochemist relationships when

I first went down this path we're like get out and now multiple couples have opened up their marriages

suddenly they're like go get it you're live at the dream yeah but they don't get a nightmare and the nightmare is that by putting myself in a situation where I experience the need to prove myself

“the need to make myself be more wanted the feeling that I am competing with another reality”

that is better than mine throws me right back into my relationship with my dad in which I hear all these etched inside my body sentences of every time I try to what did you say when his love or be approved by him it only made me feel worse about myself because the whole thing was predicated on it not being possible he needed me to be one down yes so I have a relationship now that evokes that for me yeah are they all do they all do so it doesn't even matter which

boundary system you're living in or which identity system you're living in this at some point the question of am I worthy will I be replaced would you notice if I need you would you be there if I need you can you take it if I am messy you know

I use this example like my ex-boyfriend I dated for three years and I had he never was with me

what I didn't have shaved legs I told somebody that recently and they were like what but I'm like that is something I learned from my mother and the way that my dad commented on our appearance you know my whole life to be to keep it together you know so what is missing me afraid like angry like showing emotions that they don't want to hear that man don't want to hear and you get angry when you're afraid the more you're afraid they would leave the more

you kick them out and you think that when I'm afraid I'm going to scare them they're going to think I'm impossible to be with yes I'm thinking of this I need you to yeah that I you know get if I get angry or you know I felt like this gentleman that I've been seeing I introduced him to a friend of mine and I thought that they were being sort of flirtatious with each other and I am super tuned into that and it actually makes me mental and I melt it down about it you know

difficult for me to conjure that and so when I melt it down about that I thought that's the end

of that that's the end of that meaning he's not going to want to be with somebody who flares up like this who loses her shit yes who is so insecure who sees the slightest thing and starts to turn it into a whole saga yeah and that night I was so elevated like how bad does it get the jealousy thing what I experienced that if I see flirtatious green-eyed monster it is a monster in real life if I see it if I see flirtatious it is a monster and it's crazy it feels like

betrayal it's threat you know and he was like that was absolutely not my intent but I'm so sorry

“and what does it say to you at that moment when it sees the flirtation it is as you should be”

angry at this guy because he is not prioritizing you and he will you know fall at the first

sign of female attention that he gets you know and then and then what are you you know you're just like any other woman in the room to him also like with it it's like also fighting me like why are you feel why are you doing this like you're thinking so small like some women would find it hot that their man could flirt like this and that other women were attracted to him and they would have fun with it so not only are you just like all these other women in the room like you're worse because

“you can't roll with this and give them a fucking break because he's a nice person and it's not”

intentional but it feels like he's stabbing me in the heart like it is so raw it's so powerful

we are in the midst of our session there is still so much to talk about we need to take a brief break so stay with us after decapitation strikes against Iran's leadership what can we expect next in the escalating world the big question is if there is going to be a next strongman in Iran what kind of strongman will that person likely be I don't think that there's going to be another powerful cleric supreme leader I'm John finer and I'm Jake Sullivan and we're the hosts of the long game

“a weekly national security podcast this week we sit down with cream sajapor to discuss what to”

expect in this next phase of the war against Iran the episodes out now search for and follow the long game wherever you get your podcasts our democrats their own biggest problem you know a party becomes defined by who they're central figure who their quarterback becomes democrats haven't really anointed a effective quarterback since Barack Obama pretty much and this week the Atlantic staff writer Marc leave a bitch joins me to discuss the state of the democratic party

in which races to keep an eye out for this midterm election the episode is out now search and follow stay tuned with pre wherever you get your podcasts and is there a connection between the rawness of feeling that bereft and enraged and how much you try to save your legs at home how much you used femininity to call attention how much you worked on appearance and appearance and appearance

as in pleasing that yes and emulating mom or doing the opposite I had my moments it was weird because I also was like a huge feminist when I was younger they used to my sister and had all these I was very entrepreneurial and ambitious which was not like my mom it's more like my dad who was an entrepreneur but the need for approval and how I reacted to men in authority

how to please how to seduce yes yes and so when you see the flirting on the other side

“you are competing with her yes I'm competing with her and her being the other woman yeah”

and at the home you did you look down to your mom as in she has no strength no power no seductive cache I can do better I belong to the group of the people who are on top I identify with the man I'm the entrepreneur too I can best am at their own game that's an interesting thing I it was very complicated because we felt so bad for my mom because he prayed on her too but we didn't want to be like her

no and he was always in my year whispering that I was this favorite like was telling me that

“and so the thing is he put down and she was a stay at home mom so she was not going to go out”

learn languages and get a full ride to college and you know do all that you did you know that still was not enough shocker nothing we that is it's not meant to ever reach the criteria but you feel bad for mom you notice the weakness of mom her despondency but you certainly also know I don't want to be like mom I don't identify with mom so I identify with him and so I internalize his voices inside of me the good and the bad

and you know you've done enough in in our work to know that this is this is a cluster fuck right and a part of you then says I'm going to best him at his game I'm going to become the best seductress that's where the number one comes in I'm going to be better than

“all those other women because to be a number one you need to compete against somebody you don't”

compete against the man the woman is the the pivot of this type of triangular dynamic and they need to

be women that are more powerful so that they keep pushing you to do more more more and they need to

be women who are weaker this is the language of this kind of dynamic it's actually very un nuanced for that matter so there's so many other aspects to each person but everybody becomes just either top of bottom yes do you ever think I could stay with my lover and maybe at some point also marry I do in the creativity of multiple different kinds of relationship constellations you know it's not like this needs to end for something else to start I don't know that that's

what you want but I want you to switch if you can from the default position to the design position from the victimhood from the I'm not chosen from the I'm not worthy to the what actually is the life that I would like to live responsibly creatively and responsibly I really liked what you were saying about the stories like that there's a couple of stories happening here and the story of embracing this path the thing that I like about it is that it reminds me a lot of my

younger self and I have been a very adventurous and vicious person I used to I talked about the different person yeah it's very weird okay because I I could be very brave but emotionally like these interpersonal relationships I feel like I've been very held back by these old demons you know the way I'm imagining on the very little that you that you've told me you see when you have a father in your case it's the father okay who praise

philanders lies and bezels it's a trait etc and you know it's a bad behavior but the status

hundred percent as the daughter you're in the bind you care for mom but you don't want to identify with mom mom being woman mom being feminine but it's the woman it's not just the mother it's the woman you don't want to be that kind of woman and so being number one becomes this kind of the

fault position that says I'm not the reject the second choice that's the way the mind of the

“little girl often develops this narrative is the only way to not be that weakling rejected humiliated”

made fun of cheated on is to be like him in terms of his power maybe not in terms of his society but so in terms of his father he's the number one he makes the decision so it is it's an impossible bind I don't want to be like him because he's not a very attractive person and I don't want to be like

her yes but I want to be with the power that he has in order not to have to be like her

yeah and what is the tool I can use to have his power is the seductive tool yeah

“what do you take with you from our conversation I hope that I would get some different”

looks at this from the standpoint of the stories like the story that is I'm telling myself it's being told to me that I jealousy is telling me and I very much feel like I have gotten that and that puts me in this position of feeling like I can talk back to it I've been conversation with a narrative about what's happening here where would you like to put this jealousy the piece that represents it where should it be put in your house bearing it in the backyard is probably not the

radiance or it either is to get buried in the backyard or put in the mill of the mantle all right would you would you there's a sense which one feels more conducive the mantle yeah when I'd go get up and go put it there and then we'll say goodbye okay we were back yeah all right so it would be there in the middle of the mantle ready for any conversation so we'll our conversation which is now wrapped around this what you call it my lucky cat you lucky cat

“and turn to it when you need to talk or when you need to listen differently but have it be”

outside of you it's so pretty powerful in the living room it was always there but now it has a

different symbolism if you want you can have a little ritual with it on a daily basis or a weekly basis and you come and you know you can reflect with it but you want to sort out the stories they're bleeding into each other and they're making your life too confused thank you so much for this is such a such a joy thank you all right and bye bye this was an ester calling a one-time intervention phone call reported remotely from two points

somewhere in the world if you have a question you'd like to explore with a stare could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call send a voice message and a stare might just call you send your question to producer at esterparell.com where should we begin with esterparell is produced by

magazine and the cut our production staff includes Eric Newsom, destressively Sabrina Farhy,

“Kristen Moller, and Julian Han, original music and additional production by Paul Schneider”

and the executive producers of where should we begin our esterparell and Jesse Baker

we'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller and Jack Saul

“and David Beckham, who are the best in the world. The legendary checkout of Shopify for just the shop on your website,”

which is in social media and over everything. That's a music for your ears.

Videos are also released on Wednesday with Shopify, it can be helped to help a real help. Start your tests today for one of your promo. Off shopping, pay the e-s, let's record.