Couple do not trust each other

Hello, Carolyn: After two years of dating and now nearly two years of living together, my boyfriend can’t seem to stop ogling women. Almost from the beginning, he has taken to giving women in his line of vision a good up and down look – sometimes in the middle of our conversations. He thinks it’s jealousy that makes me so upset when watching him in ogle mode. But it has occurred so often that I feel disrespected, and I’ve told him so. He says he loves me, but with this ogling, I’m questioning if he cares for me.

What’s a woman to do with a man who likes to look so much? – Sad in Chicago

You take him – as-is – or leave him, that’s what. You’ve got four years of experience with him to tell you whether he is a good person, whether you suit each other and whether he treats you well overall, so make up your mind.

However, once it was clear to you that he wasn’t going to change, the onus was on you to figure out whether you could accept this aspect of him. I also suggest you read this:

Hi, Carolyn: My girlfriend forwarded me the question she sent to you, and I would like to add my perspective.

One time excepted, for which I have apologized profusely, I haven’t been ogling women. Case in point: We were riding a bus together on a three-person bench seat, near each other but there was some space between us. Although there were numerous seats available nearby, it appeared that an elderly woman was moving to sit down between us. I moved my arm to block the space. As she moved on, I watched her pass. Girlfriend went ballistic.

Girlfriend monitors me continuously when we’re in public together. I’ve learned to become a student of my shoes!

While breaking up might seem like an obvious solution, I love her totally, and generally she tells me she feels the same about me. Help! – A.

If your account is accurate, then she’s calling you rude, inappropriate, a dog, even though you’ve policed your gaze so severely to protect her feelings that you’re at risk of walking into a pole. If her account is accurate, then you’re a creep.

And that means I can’t figure out why either of you has stuck with the other this long. She is sure. You are sure. And what you’re both sure of is bad.

Each of you is choosing to be with someone you don’t trust.

The next conversation I hope you have is to figure out whether you’re willing to trust each other. It’s easy to say, hard to do, but essential to making this work. So start small: See whether you both can get through one evening in public with your defenses down. That means being in the moment and being yourself, versus using your behavior to try to change what the other does. Try one evening, then another, then a next.

To pull this off – or to walk away from each other if you simply can’t get along – what you’ll need above all is to trust yourselves.

You, Ms. Sad, will have to trust that you are enough, not just for this man or any other, but for yourself, so that you don’t see every purse or ponytail as an existential threat.

And you, Mr. A., need to trust that if your heart is true, then you don’t have to prove and reprove yourself to anyone. Not just because people who really know you will believe you, but also because, with that self-trust, you’ll realize there’s no place in your life for people who are on constant alert for definitive proof you’re a pig.