All About Jealousy Articles

"What to Do When Other People 'Hit' on your Partner..."

by Susie and Otto Collins

Here's a great question from a visitor to our website that many people of both genders have around the topic of jealousy...

"How do I fix my jealousy issues with my girlfriend? I know she's with me and I trust her but it's when other males hit on her that really pisses me off because to me that's not respectful. If they know she's with me and they still continue to do it and I'm scared to do anything because I don't want to get in a fist fight by telling a guy to back off."

This is our answer...

As crazy as this may sound, your problem is NEVER with
other guys "hitting on" your girlfriend.

Your real problem is about what is going on between you and your girlfriend.

We'll give you a quick story to illustrate our point...

Imagine that you are going down to your favorite store and it looks like it's open, the lights are on, there are people inside and so you go rushing into the store and SMASH! As you try to enter the store, the doors don't open and you smash your head on the door that looks open but really isn't.

You think to yourself-- the store looks open, there are
people inside so I'll try again... and again you smash your face and body into the door that doesn't open.

After a few more tries, you realize that the door to your
favorite store just isn't going to open because you finally see a sign that says "closed."

After seeing the sign, you give up and you go somewhere else to find what you are looking for.

In other words, you can get upset and go try to beat up all the other guys you want and that will never solve your problem.

As hard as it may be to hear--the problem you have is that your relationship with your girlfriend isn't built on a solid enough foundation that you both are committed to each other and you are only open to being in an intimate relationship with each other.

We get the sense from your brief note that there are trust issues between the two of you. You've got to work these out and get to the bottom of what these are and determine how you want to be together (or even if you want to be together.)

The truth is that you don't know that she's with you.
Otherwise you wouldn't be reacting in this way. The other guys are not the problem. She alone is not the problem. It's the relationship dance and the challenges and problems that are still present that are the problem.