Dear Wendy: Boyfriend’s Crazy-Jealous Of Girlfriend’s New Boss-Man
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
relationships
2:30PM, Wednesday September 2nd 2009
I have a girlfriend of eight months who I have not been able to see for three months due to financial issues and concerns. She recently started a new job in mid July 2009. Things appeared okay at first, but I noticed that things started to change quickly between us after she returned from an out-of-state training she went to with her (married) male boss. She started telling me she has to attend weekly lunch meetings with her boss at least 2 - 3 times per week. She’s stopped answering her cell phone during the day when I call, she refuses to respond to my text messages, she has been deleting e-mails from her computer so her children won’t be able to see them, she has been hiding text messages on the cell phones she is using (both the company’s and her personal). She removed the house phone and placed it in her car stating that she was concerned that her children would abuse it. She leaves the room when she gets a phone call that she does not want her children to hear. She calls me on her company issued cell phone as being private caller. When her boss calls her she quickly gets off the phone with me to talk with him. Today she referred to him by his first name three times. She told me that we could not see each other until she is able to lose 40 pounds. And she said that her boss told her that he cannot wait for them to relocate into their new office building so they’ll be able to share an office. What is going on that I am not accepting or seeing? I feel in my heart that they are having an affair. I need to know if I am justified in my feelings.
What’s going on that you’re not accepting is that your girlfriend is trying to avoid you. She’s started a new job she wants to be successful in and she doesn’t have time or the inclination to chitchat on the phone with you during business hours, or reply to all your text messages throughout the day. Has it occurred to you that you’re suffocating her? That you know that she’s been deleting emails “so her children won’t see them,” that she hides text messages on her cell phone, and that she “leaves the room when she gets a phone call she doesn’t want her children to hear” is a little, well, stalker-ish. And so what if she doesn’t want her kids up in her personal business? It’s normal and healthy for a grown woman to keep some things private from her children — it doesn’t mean she’s behaving illicitly.
You’re upset that you can’t be with your girlfriend and you’re jealous of the man who does get to be with her — even if their relationship is strictly professional (and, by the way, it’s common for colleagues to call one another by their first names! It’s also common to have lunch meetings, especially if a company is in a state of flux or transition as your girlfriend’s seems to be). Your girlfriend is only fueling the fire by telling you how often she meets with her boss and how excited he is to share an office with her. She’s being manipulative and you’re being clingy. This isn’t a healthy relationship for either of you. Break up with her and find someone in your own town who doesn’t insist on dieting for three months before she’ll agree to go out with you.
*Do you have a relationship/dating question I can help with? Send me your letters at dearwendy@thefrisky.com.
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
skywalk
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 01:44 pm: [report]
Good thing I’m not an advice columnists, I think she is up to something, but the end result I agree ‘This isn’t a healthy relationship for either of you. Break up with her and find someone in your own town who doesn’t insist on dieting for three months before she’ll agree to go out with you.” So in the end I maybe that is all that matters?
Raugiel
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 01:53 pm: [report]
I’m with skywalk. This sounds like a lot more than regular boss/employee bonding. Hiding the landline? Come on.
Jillakiss
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 02:43 pm: [report]
I read the teaser and was thinking, “Oh come on guy.” But I really like the author, Wendy’s approach. Very M. Night Shyamalan. And also quite possible. Good article. Best wishes to the letter-writer. Sounds like he could be a very tolerant, kind person.
SillyFool
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 03:41 pm: [report]
Worst. Advice. Ever.
Can’t see each other until she loses 40 pounds? Please.
Dude, go with your instincts. Normal people don’t hide things as a matter of course. Extract yourself from this relationship and move on. It’s a shame that kids are involved with a such a messed-up woman.
OutOfLine
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 04:04 pm: [report]
I think is terrible advice. If a woman came to you saying these same things you would be telling her to run as fast as she can. Hiding anything and everything from your “children” just seems like a front to keep things from her guy. This makes every intuition and instinct i have scream.
Lynn
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 04:21 pm: [report]
I think she’s cheating too…he is suffocating her, she is manipulative, they need to break up…but also, she is cheating.
karmakaze
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 04:47 pm: [report]
Some of it sounds work related but the rest sounds like blatant CHEATING. The relationship is doomed, he just needs to leave her and find someone else.
powplz
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 05:02 pm: [report]
Yeah, if she isn’t cheating, whatever her reasons are for being so secretive/evasive sound like a dealbreaker. And it might just be that she’s trying to break up with him but doesn’t have the ladyballs to do it? Either way, continuing this relationship just doesn’t sound like a good idea.
lostrun
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 06:15 pm: [report]
Yeah, I’m w/ the rest. Bad advice. She is doing something wrong, whether it be cheating w/ the boss or something illegal, and that is why she is being so secretive. Who puts their house phone in their car b/c the kids may abuse it? Run away from this relationship!
Wendy Atterberry
wrote on September 2 2009 @ 08:05 pm: [report]
Um, you guys, I advised that they break up. Not sure how that equals “bad advice.”
tnd065
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 01:47 am: [report]
Wendy…it equals bad advice because you justified the girlfriend’s cheating behavior. Justifying the behavior as pure jealousy is terrible advice! If this isn’t CHEATING in your book, then my God, what is?!
Wendy Atterberry
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 03:39 am: [report]
I’m not convinced this woman is cheating. I think she WANTS her boyfriend to THINK she’s cheating, but people who are cheating don’t typically want to be caught. I think she wants out of the relationship and doesn’t have the balls to break up with this guy, which is why I advised him to break up with her.
tnd065
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 03:58 am: [report]
Really?! Do you really think someone would go THAT out of their way TO convince someone that they’re NOT cheating?! I mean, come on! It’s black and white! There’s no gray area, here! I do agree that MOST people don’t want to get caught, however, some people JUST DON’T CARE!!! Ever think of that possibility?! Yes, true she doesn’t have enough balls to break up with him, BUT that doesn’t exactly EXCUSE her from cheating!
BlueVibe
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 08:43 am: [report]
I think she’s got at least one foot out the door, but I also think boyfriend might have had a hand in pushing her away. I don’t want to be called for chatty stuff while I’m at work, and I sure don’t have time to reply to text messages.
I’d like to have known her side—it might have been that the guy was calling and texting constantly and freaking her out, and now can’t accept that things are over.
(For the record, I’ve had plenty of bosses who wanted to be called by their first names, and several who would have been supportive if I were being harassed by an obsessive ex. Her seeming overinvolvement with her boss might be self-protection from a stalker.)
Wendy Atterberry
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 09:15 am: [report]
@BlueVibe yes, exactly. I also got a follow-up note from this guy and he said that his girlfriend made a point of TELLING him that her behavior is like a woman who is cheating. He writes: “She acknowledge that the woman in your article is probably having an affair. She stated to me that these are some of the things she has been known to do.” This is a woman who WANTS her boyfriend to believe she is having an affair…not necessarily a woman who IS having an affair. Regardless, though, the relationship is completely unhealthy and needs to be ended.
skywalk
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 09:22 am: [report]
Why the mind games, this what I hate about relationships. You know the drill once you’ve been cheated on, it opens that door a little wider to Jealousy/trust issues. This guy could have already had jealousy/trust issues but if not it just creates problems for his next SO. Why do people feel the need to mess with peoples’ heads, they obviously are not married, these kids are likely not his by the sounds of it, and he LIVE IN ANOTHER TOWN just break up with him! What a psycho, this is worse than cheating if you ask me.
bogart4017
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 10:09 am: [report]
...sigh…yet another toxic relationship. Any other woman i know would/should have told him to back off and any man i know would/should have been gone.
theoldman
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 02:39 pm: [report]
C’mon this guy is a control freak and sick. His conduct on the checking phones is now a FEDERAL FELONY after the Hewlett Packard board of directors mess. She may or MAY NOT be cheating but I can sure understand her being fed up with his controlling. When my ex went overboard on me, I would take my laundry from out of town trips straight to the cleaners just to piss her off. For those of you not smart enough to figure it out, if she is going to get yelled at any way she might as well get some satisfaction out of it. My paralegal started taking all unknown calls to try and control her calling 4 to 5 times a day. I was supposed to have out of town girl friends in DC, Chicago, Denver, and New Orleans.
Wendy you are too kind to the SOB and to the readers who are foolish enough to believe everything he says when it has the obvious taint of jealousy all over it.
majicksand
wrote on September 3 2009 @ 03:54 pm: [report]
I just can’t do mind games, and it sounds like this relationship has plenty of it on both sides. End it.
retro chic
wrote on September 4 2009 @ 12:30 am: [report]
@theoldman: I think you come the closest. I held off from going there (and beyond), and I wondered if we were we all reading the same letter…
We’re getting half a story and a very skewed accounting of events that raises more questions and even more disturbing scenarios:
* What relationship (except for the one in his head)!? *She stopped seeing him* 5 months in – at least 2 months *prior to the new job in July.* It was over then.
* What are these money/“other” concerns he glossed over… yet obsessed in detail about her shabby behavior and excuses? [I could swear the word “other” was edited from the letter today]
* Where does it say it’s an LDR? Just the job training was out-of-state that I can see. Maybe she’s just telling him not to come around and he’s not saying, ie, the “other” problems. Like, it’s not distance, but the threat of a protective/restraining order that keeps him away.
* Perhaps he was financially supporting her (too embarrassed to say), has control issues, is obsessed and in denial.
* If she is still taking his calls, she is participating and perpetuating the madness.
* And, to take it further, if she’s not the innocent victim (and who is?), perhaps she’s a manipulative user that no longer needs him. That is, until she got a new job and meal-ticket boss. If he’s married, she’s not interested in a boyfriend at all, just an upwardly-mobile affair. These people find each other quite often.
* Red flag: manipulators don’t end relationships, they leave the door open for future re-entry as she might be doing if this job-boss-fling doesn’t work out.
Also, @theoldman, the only thing we part on is that no *sane* mother/parent of younger children would play these head games that could potentially endanger them. *You* might be too kind to *her.*
Wendy, if none of those extremes apply, the real story lies safely somewhere in between, but they’re both messed up. Advise him to seek professional help. It is long over, or never was – the way he thought anyway.