When you know your partner is attracted to somebody else...

[Greedynan]

Hypothetical question here. You've been together a long time. You've got kids. Things can get a bit predictable, but life is ok. From time to time somebody catches your eye, somebody catches your partner's eye. That's just human nature, of course. You know you're not going to act on anything. You're pretty sure your partner wouldn't either (can we really ever trust a person 100%, really).

But do you do when you know your partner is attracted to another person, but unlikely to act in it? How do you reconcile that in your mind? What is the key to accepting this but not allowing the green eyed monster to get the better of you?

Just curious 🙂

I wouldn’t recommend staying with someone like this though, or trying to help them. People who are like this are black holes and the only way they can become fully human is by healing their holes themselves.

Thank you @offred my mum has said something to me along those same lines before re him being insecure and projecting it into me.

I've just reread some of my posts. Clearly there are underlying issues in our marriage. I get really threatened by OW but DH takes me for granted and is not particularly 'present'. He is most definitely selfish, critical, condescending and he can be pretty cold at times too. He is also capable of lacking boundaries and, as I said, I can envisage him forming an intellectual closeness with another woman. But he hasn't done this yet and I wouldn't have a problem if it was a man. So I need to take some responsibility here. I need to sort out my self esteem.

At the same time, he needs to stop being so neglectful of our relationship.

I think it will be, at the very least, incredibly difficult for you to build your self esteem whilst you are still living with him and his behaviour (which is designed to ruin your self esteem).

It is also important for you to recognise that it is not the person (OW) or thing (work) that is threatening - it is him. Him and his manipulative use of people and things to undermine your self esteem.

I really don't know how to spot it. To be fair I couldn't even tell whether my DH and I were dating until he kissed me so I may just be a bit special in this respect, or he is. Either way, either I cannot tell when people find other people attractive or my husband should just quit working and become a poker player.

If you can and are interested, get a copy / ebook of ' not just friends', by Shirley Glass. It's a good book in that it can identify potential issues and can help with nipping then in the bud. It can help identify symptoms and offers good suggestions to try and work with your partner. Worth a read imho.