My boyfriend used to lose his mind if I talked to another guy at a party. By 25, he was asking me to flirt with them while he watched. This is how that happened.
I was 23. We'd been together about a year. He was sweet, attentive, crazy about me, but possessive in a way that felt flattering at first and exhausting later. He didn't like my male coworkers. He'd get quiet and sulky if I mentioned a guy's name twice. If I went out with girlfriends, he'd text constantly, and if I didn't respond fast enough, I'd come home to a fight.
We fought a lot. I loved him, but I was starting to feel like I was managing his anxiety instead of living my life.
Then came the work party.
It was a Friday. Product launch, open bar, the whole company blowing off steam. I told him I'd be home by midnight. By 11, I was tipsy and laughing with a group that included Fred, a guy from another department, tall, older, confident, the type my boyfriend would absolutely hate. When someone suggested an afterparty at Fred's apartment, I knew I should go home.
I didn't.
I told myself it was innocent. A few more drinks, good music, interesting people. My phone was buzzing in my purse. I ignored it. At some point I looked: six missed calls, a string of texts escalating from "where are you?" to "I'm seriously worried" to "this is fucked up, call me."
I was too drunk to deal with it. I told myself I'd explain tomorrow.
The apartment emptied out slowly. By 3 AM it was just me and Fred on his couch, talking about nothing, my head heavy. He asked if I wanted to crash instead of getting a cab. I said yes. He gave me a t-shirt. We got into his bed, him on one side, me on the other. I passed out immediately.
Nothing happened.
I need you to understand that because it matters for what comes next. We didn't kiss. We didn't touch. I woke up with a headache and called a cab and went home with a pit in my stomach, knowing what was waiting for me.
He was sitting at the kitchen table. He looked like he hadn't slept. The moment I walked in, he started, not yelling, worse. That quiet, controlled fury.
Where were you. Who were you with. Why didn't you answer. Do you know what I thought. Do you even care.
I told him the truth. The party ran late. I was drunk. I crashed at a coworker's place. Yes, a male coworker. Yes, I slept in his bed. And yes, he was in the bed too.
But nothing happened.
He didn't believe me. Or maybe he did and it didn't matter. We fought for an hour. Voices raised, tears, accusations. At one point he said, "I can't even look at you right now," and went into the bedroom and slammed the door.
I sat on the couch and cried and thought, this is it. We're done.
Twenty minutes later, he came back out. He looked different. Confused. Almost embarrassed. He sat down across from me and said, "I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest."
I braced myself.
"When you were in his bed. Were you attracted to him?"
I didn't know what answer he wanted. I decided on the truth.
"I mean... he's good-looking. But I didn't—"
"But you noticed."
"I guess. Yes."
He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "I've been in the bedroom trying to be angry. And I am angry. But there's something else and I don't understand it."
I waited.
"When I picture you in his bed... I feel sick. But I also..." He couldn't finish the sentence. He looked mortified.
"Also what?"
He shook his head. Stood up. Sat back down. Then, very quietly: "I'm hard. I've been hard for twenty minutes. What the fuck is wrong with me?"
I didn't know what to say. I'd expected rage, ultimatums, maybe a breakup. Not this. He looked genuinely distressed, like he'd discovered something about himself he didn't want to know.
I moved to sit next to him. "Nothing's wrong with you."
"This is wrong. I should want to kill this guy. Instead I keep thinking about..." He stopped. "Did he see you change?"
"I... yes. I mean, I wasn't trying to hide."
"What were you wearing underneath?"
The questions weren't accusations anymore. His breathing had changed. His hand was on my thigh, and he wasn't aware he'd put it there.
We didn't have sex that night. We talked for hours instead. He kept circling back to it, ashamed and aroused in equal measure. He told me that when he'd imagined me with Fred, imagined more than what happened, he'd felt jealous and turned on at the same time, and he didn't know which feeling was bigger.
I asked him if he wanted me to have done something with Fred. He said he didn't know. Then he said, "Maybe. I think maybe yes? But that's insane, right?"
It took weeks to untangle. We'd be having dinner and he'd suddenly ask, "When Fred looked at you, do you think he wanted you?" We'd be in bed and he'd whisper, "Tell me what could have happened." At first I resisted, it felt like a trap, like he was testing me. But every time I gave him a little more, described a little more, he responded the same way. Shame and arousal, tangled together.
Eventually I understood: the jealousy and the turn-on weren't opposites. They were the same thing, just experienced differently. The part of him that couldn't stand other men wanting me was connected to the part that found it unbearably exciting. He didn't want to control me because he thought I was property. He wanted to control me because the thought of me choosing someone else, even for a night, even just in his imagination, was the most intense thing he'd ever felt.
Once we both understood that, everything changed.
I started telling him when men flirted with me. Instead of hiding it to avoid a fight, I'd come home and describe it. What he said. How I responded. Whether I'd felt a spark. My boyfriend would listen with that look on his face, the one I now recognized, and afterward we'd have the best sex of our relationship.
It escalated from there.
What I want to say is this: that night when I came home expecting our relationship to end, it actually began. The real one. The one where we stopped pretending and started exploring what we actually wanted.
And it started with him sitting across from me, terrified and hard, asking, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Nothing, baby. Absolutely nothing.
FUCK MY WIFE!
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