At what point does jealousy become paranoia?

[Targeted]

Knowing that pwBPD get jealoussuch as other people explained with their exes when it comes to being accused of checking out a girl who was a cashier in a store or a waitress in a restaurant, my ex took this to the extreme, she would check me for erections in a restaurant if I saw a waitress, she would check me for erections watching TV, she would lose her mind if you noticed a magazine with a pretty face on it, you did not have to pick up the magazine and look at it either! She would lose her mind thinking that you locked inside of a another vehicle while driving on the freeway, going out in public, any half decent looking woman was a whore, she said people go online and plan to meet in public places for a face-to-face meeting to see if they just want to have sex, at one point she had to check the bathroom in a public place before I went in thinking that I was going to meet somebody in there! We would argue for hours if we were driving down the road and a female was jogging or walking on the sidewalk! She actually thought that I would get turned on over my own daughter and niece!  At what level does this insecurity and jealousy become a paranoia?

[NYMike]

Funny how mine was not Jealous at all.At least she did not act it out.She may have been thinking it.

I was the one who became very Paranoid and Jealous.Her bizarre behaviors,manipulation,pathological lies and her ability to disappear nearly killed me.It was so unstable and got me scared.I could not handle it anymore and started asking so many questions.

I ended up wanting to check in on things.Well once I did that,i was shocked.She had a whole other life.Almost like a double life.

I ended up with an OOP and the truth.I ended up being called a stalker,a jelous man and an insecure man.

That was true.In her mind it was ok to sleep with other men and I was just suppose to not be insecure or jealous.In her mind I was the parent and I was to tolerate all of this crap.More than that I was suppose to Love Her and co-sign all this crazy making decisions.In her mind I was to accept this is just how she is and how she operates.

Once I caught her she told me ''see NYMIKE you don't love me and never cared''.LMAO.

If I did not tolerate this then somehow I was a terrible man and it was all my fault.I am sure she has cheated and ran game on every single person she has been with and her 2 ex-husbands.Who by the way are happily married again.

It is her and her Mental Illness/BPD and Cocaine addiction she refuses to own up to.

[Tim300]

I think it can be healthy to have some jealousy.  Also, it can be normal if there are some reasons for it.  

I think what's troubling is the completely unreasonable and unjustified examples of jealousy.  At one point my ex was supposed to meet me at a random bus stop (not anywhere near where I live) in the middle of the day because a close mutual friend had an unexpected emergency.  I arrived at the bus stop 5 minutes early and didn't see that she was already there in her car across the street, so I went into a convenience store to buy her something as a "thank you" for picking me up.  When I came out of the store she was honking repeatedly and I got in her car and she said "Who were you going to see in the store?"  Another strange example was when she was fearful that our marriage counselor would sabotage our engagement so that the marriage counselor could pursue me or have one of her daughters pursue me.      

I think some of her jealous episodes were a projection (e.g., "Your co-workers want you, don't they.", but there were a few times when it was more similar to the convenience-store example above.  The convenience-store example is just so bizarre that it's disturbing and perhaps indicative of one thing only: this person is mentally ill.  At times jealousy can be very flattering, but if it gets so unreasonable like this, it's just weird.  

Facebook now has a feature you can activate where you can share with someone your exact location at all times.  I proposed setting this up for ourselves thinking that this would solve some of her jealousy issues, but she rejected my idea.  I think she rejected it because (1) she was cheating, and (2) perhaps even because she for some reason enjoyed having these jealousy feelings.  

[Targeted]

I agree that the right amount of jealousy keeps a relationship alive and can show somebody how much you really care, I could see getting jealous over why are you getting so many phone calls from this person? I could understand jealousy over why is this person texting you so much? I can understand jealousy over why do you want to spend time with this person? But jealousy over magazines, TV, everybody that walks by, billboards, people in traffic? Crazy hidden Internet sex rings? 

[Tim300]

I ended up wanting to check in on things.

This happened to me only in the last 6 weeks or so of our 2.5 year relationship.  I for the first time started getting jealous.  I felt like I was putting a lot in to the relationship and her behavior was getting increasingly sketchy.  I started wanting to look at her phone, etc.  A couple times she said that I don't have anything to worry about, but then another time she said "I don't want to be with a guy who is insecure."  I think that's a very emotionally abusive thing to say.  If your SO has a legitimate reason for questioning your behavior, you should just show your phone or do whatever to give your SO comfort.  One of the annoying parts about all of this is that sometimes I would say "I'm OK with having an open relationship if that's what you want," but she would always reject this suggestion and often get angry at me for suggesting it.  Another solution I had was to propose an "open phone access" policy (which I had seen a couple of Non friends do) but she said "No, you are clever and will figure out ways to hide cheating on your phone."  I think in the last 6 weeks or so she was just in the mode of replacement searching (while continuing to intermittently love bomb me).  Yet even in these last 6 weeks she seemed to be on edge that I might be cheating -- it's like she wanted the relationship to end but had to be the one lining up a replacement before I did -- who knows.  

[raisins3142]

Funny how mine was not Jealous at all.At least she did not act it out.She may have been thinking it.

I was the one who became very Paranoid and Jealous.Her bizarre behaviors,manipulation,pathological lies and her ability to disappear nearly killed me.It was so unstable and got me scared.I could not handle it anymore and started asking so many questions.

I ended up wanting to check in on things.

This was me also.

She never expressed much jealousy.

She had a need and love for male attention and if a male was giving her attention, she acted like a thirsty fool with no concern for my feeling or how I might view things or feel.  For instance, if we were alone in public and a strange male started a conversation with her, she would leave me by myself/ignore me and talk alone with them for extended periods.  She thought this was normal and making friends.

Her phone went off all hours of the night and she would not check it in front of me, comment on it, or mention anything about any conversations.

Literally, in the first 3 months I saw her receive 100s to 1,000s of messages and she never once mentioned whom even one was from or what they were discussing.  I had no idea even what her phone's desktop screen looked like.

On days off, she would often go no contact and not respond to me at all, or very shortly, and stated that when I text her on her day off she thinks I am snooping.

She never once answered a call from me, but would call back a few minutes later.

Then her history of cheating and weirdness came out (tons of exs and tons of casual hook ups).

And then she just told lies anytime she thought I wouldn't like the truth, and I would catch her.

Then of course, she hid me somewhat on social media, and had a flock of "male friends" from another state that would fawn over her posts. 

So, I slowly descended into paranoid madness and when not with her was thinking obsessively about what she was up to, not eating, and drinking more than I should.

But she thinks I'm just a naturally jealous guy.  Nope, never been like this except with her.

[NYMike]

Funny how mine was not Jealous at all.At least she did not act it out.She may have been thinking it.

I was the one who became very Paranoid and Jealous.Her bizarre behaviors,manipulation,pathological lies and her ability to disappear nearly killed me.It was so unstable and got me scared.I could not handle it anymore and started asking so many questions.

I ended up wanting to check in on things.

This was me also.

She never expressed much jealousy.

She had a need and love for male attention and if a male was giving her attention, she acted like a thirsty fool with no concern for my feeling or how I might view things or feel.  For instance, if we were alone in public and a strange male started a conversation with her, she would leave me by myself/ignore me and talk alone with them for extended periods.  She thought this was normal and making friends.

Her phone went off all hours of the night and she would not check it in front of me, comment on it, or mention anything about any conversations.

Literally, in the first 3 months I saw her receive 100s to 1,000s of messages and she never once mentioned whom even one was from or what they were discussing.  I had no idea even what her phone's desktop screen looked like.

On days off, she would often go no contact and not respond to me at all, or very shortly, and stated that when I text her on her day off she thinks I am snooping.

She never once answered a call from me, but would call back a few minutes later.

Then her history of cheating and weirdness came out (tons of exs and tons of casual hook ups).

And then she just told lies anytime she thought I wouldn't like the truth, and I would catch her.

Then of course, she hid me somewhat on social media, and had a flock of "male friends" from another state that would fawn over her posts. 

So, I slowly descended into paranoid madness and when not with her was thinking obsessively about what she was up to, not eating, and drinking more than I should.

But she thinks I'm just a naturally jealous guy.  Nope, never been like this except with her.

Sounds exactly like my ex and it was Frieghtning to come out of the FOG and the Fantasy I made her into... It is a lesson to get to know someone first... I went to fast with this one.

[Pingo]

A women's perpective: My ex was jealous right from the start. And I knew it was a red flag right from the start. But I kept thinking that if I just lived openly, without anything to hide, he would trust me.  4 yrs and he never did.  He snooped my text messages, fb messages, anything I left open. He checked my computer history. He read my journals. He stalked me while at my friends. He would text me incessantly while I was at my friends, wanting me to take photos of what was going on (never admitting it was to make sure I was where I said I was). He would inquire about every text or fb message I would receive. He'd ask me about my conversations with my friends. He's get mad if I went upstairs to talk to my friends, giving me the ST afterwards if I did so.  He'd show up at my workplace unannounced.  He wouldn't tolerate me having any male friends, I had to let go of the few I had.  I wasn't allowed to even mention I had been in previous r/ss. He even got jealous of my r/s with my grown daughter, trying to sabotage it.  Jealousy was our biggest problem in our r/s. And now that I have learned about projection, I understand why he was so jealous. Because he was the one hiding things. He was the one being secretive.  I have to disagree with the other posters. I don't think there is room for any jealousy in a r/s. There was no jealousy in my first marriage.  He would never have betrayed my trust and I would never have betrayed his.  There was no need for jealousy.  There was no projection.

[clydegriffith]

I think it's all about control and you can't let them get away with it. In retrospect, the person i was involved with is a habitual cheater and she would accuse me of doing things that either she did to me or to someone else. I remember i went out to the store one night and when i got back it was WW3 because she said i went to go bang some chick that lived in our area that i had dated before meeting her and still kept some sort of contact.

She added every female friend i had on facebook, even the ones she had never met. I confronted her about it and she turned the tables on me asking if i had anything to hide. Such a freaking nightmare. The funny thing it turned out that she was screwing half the neighberhood for most of the time i was with her.