The Incredible Sulk
I'm a married lesbian working on having another baby with my fab wife. My new best friend is an attractive straight girl who lives in another state. We talk and text every day. It isn't sexual or romantic at all, but my friend gets me in a way that, I'm sorry to say, my wife does not. My wife seems jealous. I've noticed her moping around when I'm on the phone and sometimes rolling her eyes when I'm laughing with my friend. How can I reassure her without giving up my new friend?
--Concerned
Spouses can't meet each other's every need -- and shouldn't be expected to. Like, if you're doubled over in pain, you don't just hand your wife some dishwashing gloves and a knife and be all, "Kitchen-floor appendectomy, babe?"
Still, it makes sense that your wife is getting all green monster-y. Human emotions, including jealousy, are a tool chest for solving the mating and survival problems that have kept popping up throughout human history.
Jealousy is a guard-dog emotion, rising up automatically when we sense that our partnership might be threatened -- like by an attractive rival moving in on our boo. Research by evolutionary psychologist David Buss finds that our jealousy, in turn, triggers mate-retention behaviors, such as going around all hangdog mopeypants to try to guilt our partner into spending less time with their sparkly new friend.
Now, it seems like you could just reason with your wife: "Come on...my friend's fiercely hetero, she lives in another state, and I'm having another baby with you." However, though we each have the ability to reason, reasoning takes effort, while emotion comes up automatically, without mental elbow grease. So it turns out that emotion does a lot of our decision-making, and then we dress it up as reason after the fact (maybe like a little Socrates action figure).
Your best bet is be extra loving to your wife -- basically to lovey-dovey her off the ledge. Psychologist Brooke C. Feeney's research on the "dependency paradox" finds that the more an insecure partner feels they can count on their partner for love and comforting the less fearful and clingy they tend to be.
In other words, you should consistently go a little overboard in showing affection, like by sending your wife frequent random texts ("in supermarket & thinking about how much i love u"), caressing her face, doing little sweet things. Basically, stop just short of boring her to death with how much you love her. This, in turn, should make her more likely to yawn about your friendship than go all junior prosecutor: "Did you just shave your legs for that phone call?!"
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
My wife seems jealous. I've noticed her moping around when I'm on the phone and sometimes rolling her eyes when I'm laughing with my friend.
I suspect lots of people have stories like that one, and the wife's jealousy shouldn't be even remotely surprising. As Miss Alkon states, a little more sensitivity might be in order.
A Socrates Action Figure? No? How about a Socrates plush dolly?
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at August 14, 2019 5:31 AM
Whatever - the LW knows what she's doing. She just likes stirring sh*t up and flirting w/ a straight girl.
And if the 'attractive straight girl' ever indicates she's interested, the LW will probably go for it. And then she'll claim they were always soul mates and meant to be together - why is her ex so mad that she's finally happy?!?!
Lesbian relationships are typically a total shit show of dysfunction. I hate to say it, but most Lesbians are just neurotic women who would be straight if they thought they had a better chance with men. I feel sorry for women who truly are homosexual because they end up dealing with the worst of the worst when it comes to choosing partners.
LesbiansAreAwful at August 16, 2019 7:43 AM
The LW is making her future ex wife (FEW) jealous. Here's a hint: your best friend should be your wifey.
Alternatively, how would you feel if your FEW found a hot little straight chick and was talking and texting with her a lot? no jealousy? well, then you're a better man than I, Gunga Din.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 16, 2019 10:54 AM
Which of them is having the baby?
NicoleK at August 18, 2019 10:42 AM
I'm betting it's the wife, being that the LW is 'working on' having a baby with her. IIRC women can't inseminate each other, that suggests to me that her wife is the one who will bear the child. Also I doubt the LW would be so cavalier about this situation if she were the one expecting to carry a child for her partner.
Maybe I'm getting more conservative as I get older, but I've grown to be very skeptical of lesbians having children. They're just too unstable and if they have a boy, they're likely to abuse him. Hatred of men is endemic in that community, it's part of their identity and something many are very proud of.
Morgan at August 18, 2019 2:12 PM
The issue is social media infidelity. LW is spending too much of her charm on a stranger, not on her spouse. It's fun to fall in love, and even more fun to do so while one already has a loving partner as a fall-back. Romance novels sell to married women as well as single women. However, as the spouse who is left out, this effect is distancing. In my case, I got pissed off when my husband was texting his friend instead of interacting with me on our vacation. Fortunately, our cruise took us out of cell phone range, or I might have given up on him. Partners especially have an obligation to share the good times, because they have to share the bad and the dull much too often. "For better" is required to put up with "or for worse".
Kathleen Duvall at September 23, 2019 11:08 AM
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