Jealousy

Recently I had a conversation with a woman who is going through a relatively amiable divorce. I say relatively as in my experience no break up is ever amiable- throw in issues of child custody and money- in the end its all a cluster fuck even in the best of circumstances.

So she hasn't worked in nine years as she has stayed at home to raise their two children (9 and 6). He has maintained the spacious home they bought several years back, and she has taken residence in a small rental.

Although he is paying her support she is still struggling financially, she hasn't been able to find solid employment and her 9 year old son is being bullied at school.

"I have the support of my family, and my children know that I really love them," she said in mitigation of her current plight.

In talking about her relationship she told me her soon to be ex-husband was disconnected, he didn't care what she did or who she did it with. I didn't ask her but I got the feeling she didn't think he ever really loved her.

He wasn't jealous....

I have been through my share of break-ups. At this point I would say I would much rather be the dumpee rather than the dumper, although I certainly have been on both ends.

Once I dated a woman who I was exceptionally crazy about. There was passion, and with that a level on intensity and subsequent jealousy I had never experienced.

When I began seeing her I had just been dumped by another woman with whom I was maintaining a "friendship", mostly out of my desire to not feel completely discarded.

Predictably this became a huge issue in our relationship. At first I found it somewhat flattering, reeling from being the dumpee, it felt as though her jealously was a source of security- she wouldn't leave as the mere thought of me being with another woman was intolerable to her.

In order to maintain a degree of harmony I would update her at the beginning of the week with my schedule.

This seemed to work unless there was an unexpected change. One time after a visit to the dentist to repair a crown that had come loose , an event which was on the schedule, I had to have a unexpected root canal.

In my life I have had two root canals and these procedures are at the best painful and unnerving, understandably through the course of the afternoon I didn't have an opportunity to call the woman I was dating.

Once I was finished with my long hellish afternoon, the multiple voice mails she left told me every thing I needed to know.

The first one was pleasant enough- just checking to see how it went at the dentist- by the fourth message she wasn't quite as friendly- as in where the fuck are you.

Panicked I called her the minute I left the office.

"You don't sound right, you sound like you have been drinking," she said.

No shit- I had a root canal. But I didn't say that, because it felt as though her jealously was somehow linked to her desire for me and only me.

After a few minutes on the phone I was able to convince her I spent the afternoon in the dentist chair not in the bed of another woman. After being satisfied I was really where I said I was the subject of my root canal and subsequent recovery was not revisited.

Once I recovered from my dental trauma and had an opportunity to reflect on the event I came to the realization that this woman I thought loved me- really didn't.

Her jealously was about her, not about how she felt about me at all...I happened to be the person in that specific place in her life. I was no different from her last lover or the next lover...I was merely a space holder in her life at that particular moment in time.

Although it took me a while to disconnect myself from my feelings this sobering realization set me on the path.

Inevitably the relationship cooled, and at lunch one day she told me she was dating another person she thought she really liked and needed to stop seeing me completely, which I understood, but it still felt like a loss.

So at the moments I found myself missing her- I just thought about about my tooth....