[jp13370]

I got a question for everyone.

My ex husband was very insecure and jealous over everything. This drove me nuts and I divorced him because he couldn't trust me (I was completely faithful our entire marriage and gave him no reason to doubt me).

Now I'm engaged to a guy who is the total opposite. He's cocky and arrogant at times - does and says things to intentionally try to make me jealous.

I don't understand why my fiance tries to get me jealous - is he testing me? At first I would react to the things he said or did but realized he got a big thrill seeing me react.

Now when he says something like "This girl at work is so sweet - we just talk about everything and she's helped me learn alot...". I just ignore him or change the subject and show no interest. Most of the time I know he's just saying stuff to get a rise out of me.

When we were first dating casually he went out to play pool one night and called me later from his cell phone. He'd had a few drinks and proceeded to tell me that some girl at the bar kept buying him drinks.

I remember thinking to myself "this guy is so in love with himself" barf..... Of course the next day he swears he doesn't remember saying that (yea right).

Here are my questions. When he says or does things to try and provoke jealousy in me why would he do this and what is the best way to handle it? Most of the time he's a wonderful guy but when he does and says things to make me jealous I get so turned off and disgusted with him.

One way to kill my desire and passion for a guy is to try and make me jealous. But yet he turns around and says I'm the love of his life and he can't wait to be married to me. I told him his little ploys to try and make me jealous would only work against him. He has been playing it cool because we're supposed to get married but this and a few other things are weighing heavily on my mind and I'm having doubts about marrying him.

Why would he enjoy trying to make me jealous? I'm open and honest with my feelings and he should not doubt my feelings - I'm loyal.

When he does things like this what is the best way to react?

[amerikajin]

I think you're right to have doubts about this. No person worth his or her salt ever gets his jollies by making the other person riled up in a jealous flame. It shows a great amount of immaturity (not to mention insensitivity) on his part, and it's not going to go away once you're married to him.

Exactly why he would do this has several possible roots.

He could just be a real cocky jerk, though I'd have to know more. Does he act cocky with his friends or just you?

He could be tremendously insecure in his relationship with you. Maybe he hasn't gotten over the fact that you've accepted him, Maybe he feels the need to somehow humble you or "keep you in your place" by giving you the impression that he can have any woman he wants, when he wants.

Either way, sounds like he's got issues. The only way this is going to resolve itself is if you make it clear to him that this has to stop or that there will be permanent consequences if it doesn't. Now, how you approach him in telling him that is important. You have to be both hard and soft at the same time. Hard in the sense that you're letting him know that you've reached a point in your relationship that you've seen enough of the games; "soft" in the sense that you want to be of help to him in whatever way you can; that you'll be supportive; that if there's an issue between you two, you'd like to resolve it with open communication.

If he doesn't change after that, he never will and you'd do best to call it off. Why waste your time with a guy who's too proud to stop such childishness? That's my take on it.

[moimeme]

Could be he thinks he needs to remind you of what a prize he truly is. This would be a self-esteem issue and these are not that easily purged. I agree you should discuss it with him.