Is it jealousy, insecurity or what?

submitted by paleolithicat from self.Lesbians

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[–]soundsituation 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think there are two perfectly normal reasons:

1) You got closer to her and developed feelings. That's part of the reason none of this

When getting to know each other, I heard stories about her ex boyfriends, as well as her only and fairly unsuccessful romance with a closeted bisexual woman who basically encorporated all negative stereotypes about bisexuality. All of those stories didn't make me feel any sort of jealousy - or anything at all, to be exact.

bothered you initially.

2) Learning about something in detail makes an abstraction seem real. It's one thing to know that your partner has a past and a very, very different experience to learn about their exes in excruciating detail. It puts specific images into your mind that are hard to ignore. This is just how humans are, and it's not confined to this type of situation. It's the reason that you can know there's a war going on halfway around the world and not be emotionally affected by that knowledge, but find yourself breaking down in tears and making a donation to Oxfam when you're confronted with gruesome images of it.

I was sure: if it was the same story but with a girl, I would take it with a certain excitement and a positive feeling, even if there would be a little bit of jealousy or something.

As for this, I have a few more thoughts. It could be that you are underestimating how upset you'd actually be if her story was about a girl. Or, perhaps you do have an insecurity about not being "enough", and that's why you feel more threatened by/jealous of men than of other women. Or, it could just be that if this person's first love had been female it would be pretty easy to mentally insert yourself into the story in a way that you really can't when the character is a man.

In short, this all seems pretty normal. Maybe you can talk to her about it. But if you do so, I would stick to how it makes you feel and avoid making judgements about bisexuals. There's a good template for this from a book called Nonviolent Communication that goes like this: state your feelings using "I feel" language (example: "I feel intimidated by your relationship history with men", NOT "I don't trust bisexuals"), express your needs ("I think I need some clarification on how serious you are about me/women"), and make a request ("Could we have an honest conversation about that?"). Obviously you don't have to use those reasons and requests; use whatever feels truest to you.

Good luck OP.

[–]paleolithicat[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for the wholesome answer!

I'd say in my case we are talking about number 2, you gave a very good example with the war situation thing.

I'd add that part of what upset me was the contradiction between what I had Perceived from her talk ("oh no I hope you aren't like that guy" to mean he wasn't any good) vs her book (where he is the perfect man).

Another reason in this regard is that I never gave it a lot of thought whether she is bi or lesbian. I often assume (my problem, I know) that women who came to the conclusion to date women (and have been seeing only girls since XY time) are lesbians, no matter their relationship history. So my shock probably came from the realization she is bisexual, after all.

I am sure about not being so bothered by love stories with other females because as you said, I can relate. "Love stories" between females are still not the same as heterosexual ones - factors like not knowing whether the person is homosexual and likes you, the flirting, the "chase" - they all happen differently albeit being the same thing in its core. So I think the easiness in heterosexual romance often irritates and frustrates me. I am just angry I was stripped of that by being born in a tiny minority I guess.