What I did not understand is that no matter how much we loved each other, she still wanted to hear it and feel it. Seeing a little healthy jealousy is reaffirming. It is bonding and ritualistic. It makes her feel good because it soothes her insecurities, even if showing jealousy does nothing directly for me. But when she feels good, I feel good, so indirectly it does benefit me. I totally agree with this paragraph Cobra. My H used to drive me nutty with his TOTAL lack of jealousy. I think there is such thing as "healthy" jealousy vs. "dysfunctional" jealousy. But I'm sure he being the intellectual that he is probably thought that was "beneath" us. Unfortunately, it came across as him either not caring (which I don't think was the case) or him being so arrogant/confident in his belief that I would never do something No Matter What that it was unbelievable. I think arrogant/confident is not really the right words there, I think it was really ignorance and a poor assessment on his part as to how I was feeling (undesired, unwanted, etc). He was blind to my thoughts and feelings which was so scary. I would fantasize all the time about being with someone else. Maybe I should have told him that before the separation.
