Dear Ylva:

I think that it is okay to not read his novel. On the other hand, the issue of your distress over other women and your boyfriend has been ongoing (“Jealousy is my major weakness. He might point out the attractiveness of another girl (completely innocently), and I will somehow feel threatened by this”, you wrote May 2017)-

-and so even if you don’t read the novel, the same distress will continue, attaching itself to the next time an attractive woman is in his vision, capturing his attention for a moment.

Maybe reading his novel is an opportunity for you to reduce your sensitivity to the issue, maybe you can read about his experiences with other women (not very sexually detailed, I hope!), women who are now in far away lands,  and say to yourself: it is natural for a (heterosexual) man to be attracted to women, he was born that way and this attraction is not going anywhere.

He will continue to look at women. I can’t prevent it any more than I can prevent him from ever being hungry again. It makes as much sense to expect him to not desire food ever again as it is to expect him to experience no attraction or no appreciation of a woman ever again.

You can say to yourself, if it is true: he has proven to me that he is loyal to me. I trust him.

And as you read and come across the next description, take a moment, breathe deeply, talk sense to yourself and continue.

What do you think?

anita

Dear Ylva:

You are welcome. I didn’t understand parts of your recent post and would like to understand, therefore I ask:

1. “ever since the me too movement I’ve had a hard time with that”- what do you mean by the me-too movement?

2. “How can I navigate myself in such a shallow concept”- can you define the “shallow concept” you are referring to?

3. “I do also feel that he can consider my emotions and since he haven’t done so in the past”- how did he not consider your emotions in the past, what did he do or say that was inconsiderate?

anita

Dear Ylva:

You are welcome. I still do not understand #1 but maybe I don’t have to.

“It hurts to feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t think it’s natural to look at attractive people. I don’t see the big deal. To me, it would be so much more understandable if people were attracted to personality traits”-

– you are not the only one. I too do not see the big deal in appearances. Cleanliness, yes, I care about that, but otherwise, not much. But you and I are women. Men are different in that most are very visual, they are simply… bamboozled by the sight of a physically attractive woman. It has to do with the biological mating instincts of a man, nature saw to it that males (of many species) will be so attracted, so excited by the sight of a female, that they will work very hard to gain access and mate with her.

In nature, the female wates as the males compete, the one who works the hardest, tries the hardest wins access to her. What motivates the males to work so hard (doing those complex mating rituals and fighting competition) is the excitement that they feel. Nature sees to it that emotions motivate animals to perform activities that promote survival of the individual and the species.

Regarding your boyfriend having kept in touch with a former girlfriend and  arranged to meet her, that would distress me too, absolutely. Hopefully it was a one time attempt on his part and he learned to not repeat it. Did he?

anita

The best thing would be for you to like the novel first. I think it’s not necessary to read it but the most important thing is that you are convinced that you like it enough to read it.