Jealous
My girlfriend flies off the handle if I even say another woman’s name
DEAR DEIDRE: My girlfriend’s jealousy is driving me up the wall.
She seems to think that the moment I’m out of her sight, I’m sleeping with any woman that moves . . . even the elderly women in the sheltered housing I do repairs in.
I’m 28 and she’s 27. We’ve been together for two years. She has been cheated on in the past, which she was keen to tell me soon after we met.
I’ve learned not to mention other women’s names, especially ex-girlfriends or female friends. If I do, she flies off the handle and accuses me of wanting them or even of having sex with them.
I’ve pretty much come off all social media because it’s too much hassle. A simple like on a woman’s comment causes a huge row.
But lately, it’s become worse and her jealousy is now off the scale.
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I’m a self-employed handyman and one of my big contracts is with blocks of flats for the elderly.
When I say I’m driving over there to mend something, she accuses me of lying. She says I’m making up a cover story to mask an affair. But I’ve never been unfaithful or even looked at another woman.
However many times I tell her it’s not true, and the only women I see each day are old and frail, she won’t believe me.
Once, she even followed me to make sure I was telling the truth about where I was going.
I love her, but I am at the end of my tether and I don’t know what to do.
MORE FROM DEAR DEIDRE
DEIDRE SAYS: She has irrational jealousy and is out of control. No relationship can work without trust.
She needs help to deal with it before it wrecks your life together. You are entitled to have female friends and to go out to do your job without constantly proving your honesty.
Clearly, she has been very hurt in the past. That does make it hard to trust, but she needs to realise that not all men are the same. And she needs to deal with what happened in the past.
Tell her you want to help her. Let her read my Dealing With Jealousy support pack and suggest you have couples counselling, which you can source via tavistockrelationships.org.
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