There's Something About Harry

If you have ever studied psychology at a basic level, you have probably been introduced to the theories of conditioning.  There was Pavlov’s dog who was conditioned to expect food when a bell rang, which triggered the dog(s) to drool when they heard the bell ring. 

Well there was a conditioning experiment involving an infant known as Little Albert.  This experiment featured an infant of about 11 months who had been tested and was not frightened of a white lab rate; he even tried to play with the critter a bit.

Well the experimenters started introducing a very loud noise whenever the lab rat was shown to the baby.  The baby could not see the source of the noise.  Eventually the neutral stimulus, the rate, began to instill the emotion of fear in Little Albert due to the combined presence during the test of the loud noise with the rat.  Little Albert was conditioned to fear the rat that he initially liked. 

This experiment was done in the 1920’s, the mother did not know about the experiment and eventually took her baby from the hospital they were in and left.  Today the experiment is considered unethical.  Experiments involving fear with people are generally not condoned.

Text Message from the Other Guy during Sex

So the other night my wife and I are enjoying an intimate moment.  Suddenly her cell phone buzzes and the room lights up as her phone comes to life with a text message. 

The message was from Hobie, her friend, and the source of my recent jealousy after I learned that my wife had befriended a guy she met while we were celebrating our honeymoon. 

For the most part, I have come to accept that my wife has a male friend and that they communicate very regularly via text, email, facebook etc.  I do not think she is cheating on me, I do not think she plans to have an affair with Hobie, etc. 

In the early days, I was surprised and felt a little blind sided by the establishment of this friendship and it hurt like hell, mostly because I was reacting and just didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Its been a few weeks, and I’m mostly over it.  But I still experience triggers that cause me to feel emotional pain.  I’m trying to work through those so that those triggers won’t cause emotional pain any longer.  Essentially I have to find a way for my rational mind to over come the irrational fear of losing my wife, the irrational jealousy of my wife’s friend who happens to be a guy that hit on her quite a bit, and the irrational feeling that I’ve failed my wife a bit since I’m not able to connect with her and communicate with her like this other guy can and apparently does.

Oh, and if I talk about any of this with my wife, it pisses her off, makes her mad, and in general makes the whole situation worse.  She feels like she is being dragged through the mud and punished for doing something she never did. 

Hell I now fear that if I talk to her about this, she will get mad or think more about leaving me for another guy.

So the problem is one of a feedback loop negatively reinforcing several behaviors.

My wife receives a text message from Hobie

When I notice (and I don’t see the majority of these messages, but ever few days I happen to see or hear, like when we are having sex) I feel a little bit of pain from the fact that he has instant electronic access to my wife whenever and where ever she is.

If I exhibit that pain, become morose, sigh deeply, grimace, etc, it makes my wife angry because she thinks I’m blaming her.

When she becomes angry, she clams up and won’t talk to me.  She fears anything she says will essentially be used against her.

When she clams up, she becomes more distant from me.

This in turn makes me feel even further removed from her (even though Hobie gets to talk to her) and that makes it harder for me to remain calm and balanced and feel like everything is ok, they are just friends etc. 

That makes me more distant and makes it difficult for me to give her the physical comfort and appreciation that she needs in the way of hugs and kisses and things.  ergo I’m having a hard time feeling it and then exhibiting it.

FUCK! Why can’t she just stop talking to him? 

That appears to be the obvious simple answer, but I won’t ask her to do that.  If he’s her friend, that’s fine.  She doesn’t ask me to turn away from my friends and I won’t do that to her.  We both need friends to stay healthy and happy , which makes it possible for us to stay connected and love each other.

So I instead have to find a way to de-sensitize myself to things like her texting with Hobie.

That’s what I have been doing, but a couple nights ago when she got a message during an intimate moment, I realize that technology (not becky and not her friend nor their relationship), but technology has created a situation where there are truly no barriers.

We can reach out and touch someone anytime, any day, any where.

My wife and I both use our cell phones for alarm clocks.  The damned devices are with us almost all day long every day.  I get calls late at night, typically for work, from my business partner and friend Joe Klein who is a few time zones away, sometimes from other friends or family, sometimes business meetings setup at late hours with other internet types who tend to burn the midnight oil.  This issue is one that has been felt by my wife far more than it has been in reverse.

She’s learned to cope with it better than I have in part because I was talking to people about business and she HATES talking with me about my business.  Which drives me to talk with others about it even more.  But also, when I talk with people about business it is never someone that my wife has met and seen me flirting with in a very physical way.  That’s because I don’t flirt with people in a very physical way mostly, no opportunity no problem has been my married moto I guess you could say.

She has texted a little bit with some of her friends and coworkers over the years, but it was almost never another guy, until recently.

So I’m learning to cope, but the negative emotional stimulus is still there and in the early days it rapidly conditioned me to feel negative emotions not only when he sent her messages but when her phone twirped at all.  She turned her phone to buzz for a couple days, which gave me a audible break from all the texting going on.  That did help, kind of like removing a person with cat allergies from a house full of cats.

Now when her phone buzzes or twirps, I get that sinking gut wrenching, my wife is leaving me feeling in my belly any more.   . . .  Well, except when the message comes from Hobie.  Then I do still feel something negative, especially when she is spending time with me, especially when that time is later in the evening and we are um  . . bonding.

I feel like we need a cell free zone in the bedroom or maybe in the bedroom after a certain time at night, even if it is just temporary until my Hobie allergies have a chance to completely subside.