Member-only story
I Don’t Care Where They Are
Progression of Jealousy
I used to obsess about where my estranged husband was and who he was with. It bothered me to think of him with his girlfriend when we opened the marriage almost five years ago. I’ve known him for 40 years so thinking about him is like a bad habit that is hard to break. I’ve made a lot of progress since he had that first girlfriend.
There were layers of bad feelings when he was with her. In addition to traditional jealousy related to my man being with someone else, I felt awful about how they were able to hike, ski and scuba dive together. She wasn’t just ten years younger than me, she had an intact central nervous system which allowed her to be physically fit. I have an acquired brain injury from a stroke I had when I was 35 and 6 months pregnant with my second child. I had a mommy body that had also been broken by a serious injury. The girlfriend was childless.
I used to sit home and stew thinking about them hiking, camping or skiing in the mountains of Colorado. I also thought about them being in bed together. Ugh. I remember suffering with this relentless rumination over the course of their 5–7 day visits with each other.
That went on for 2 years. I couldn’t seem to break the habit of ruminating about what they were doing.
