I am jealous about my wife going for dance competition

[Przemyslaw]

We have been married for 20 yrs. We started dating by going to dance classess together. Over past 20 yrs we took dancing classess intermittently. Our dancing became more regular/serious over past 3 yrs. My wife is very passionate about dancing- it is her hobby and she is very good dancer. I do love spending time with her and eagerly learned new dancing steps. 2 yrs ago she started taking individual lessons since my progress was "too slow". She goes once a week and dances with a teacher/pro. Recently she informed me that she wants to participate in dance competition with her professional partner. I must admit that I was surprised. I did see her recently dancing tango with him during regular club dances and my heart "sank". She dances at high level and is able to follow lead very well. The closeness and intimacy she had with her partner surprised and shocked me. In my naive imagination I thought that this level of intimacy was reserved only for me, for our marriage.... needless to say my male ego suffered significant hit. As you can imagine I am not as young as used to be and live thru my own insecurties as well. I also felt as a looser who was left behind.... I was progressing in my dancing skills and learning new steps as often as I could. I was hoping that if I improve my dancing skills she may want to go for some amateur competition with me somday... I do enjoy dancing very much but significant part of my dancing motivation was to improve my skills to be a good partner for my wife. I really enjoyed the moments when other people were complimenting our dancing skills as a couple. I want to mention that during regular social dancing we change partners and I feel quite relaxed about it. The professional competition style brings it to level I cannot accept. I shared with my wife my my concerns and insecurities. I told her that I am jealous person- she knows me too well for 20 yrs anyway- and that kind of bond and intimacy she has with another man while dancing makes me anxious, sleepless, sad and jealous. My wife told me that this is all my imagination and completely baseless. She considers dancing as relaxation and exercise and there is nothing to jealous about. I did go to psychologist to discuss my jealousy issues. He aknowledged my emotions as natural and understandable but did not offer any specific advice beside option for couple therapy to resolve our differences (my wife was not interested). Despite my deep concerns she is getting ready for the dance competition. Recently I saw her sizing her new competition dressess- she looks gorgeous and very sexy. It fueled my worst emotions. My mind and imagination is playing constant tricks on me. I cannot sleep and feel sick. Because of this all situation I am loosing sense of intimacy with her and I am afraid that if it continues unchanged, our so far succesful marriage will implode. Please give me some advice how to save my mind and marriage.

 

[lucia_l]

Is your concern body contact that occurs during ballroom? I dance that way with my pro. I don't consider that "intimate". Are you seeing something else you consider intimate?

You could consider continuuing solo therapy to discuss your feelings with a therapist. That might help you learn to deal with your reaction to seeing your wife enaged in what is almost certainly not intimate behavior with her pro dancer.

 

[raindance]

Reconsider the joint counseling. Let your wife know that you are having serious issues that may affect the marriage, and that you would like the chance to work through this with her. I know she has refused this once, but perhaps she may change her mind if you let her know you really value the marriage and want it to become stronger and not weaker.

You probably have nothing to fear about her relationship with her pro (teacher) aside from the time and money she puts into dancing. Dance can look intimate, but with pro-am relationships that is normally acting and nothing to do with true relationships or feelings between the two people. But you clearly have an issue with it that needs to be worked through to save the marriage. You seem aware of your jealousy issues and willing to work through them.

Many women would love for their husband to be interested in dancing with them and being a good partner to them. It is true, however, that your dancing skills may never compare to that of a pro. So there are dance issues to work through as well. You see dance as something to share in the marriage, she is seeing dance as a goal for herself away from you (at least for the competitive side of dancing). So working through your various goals and figuring out what works for both of you for your marriage and for your dancing could also be part of the joint counseling.

I hope she will join you in trying to work through this.

raindance

 

[fiesta0618]

Hi @Przemyslaw, and welcome to the forums.

I deeply sympathize with your situation. I have been in both your shoes and your wife's shoes at different stages in my life. For context, here's my story.

*******

I began dancing with my wife six years ago. We mostly just dance for the love of music and motion together. However, while she was working on her PhD, she felt that she couldn't handle the added work of dance practices and late-night dance parties. For her own good, she quit dancing.

I did not want to stop dancing, but my nature is such that I need a goal to work towards in order to maintain my motivation. So I struck up a competitive partnership with another student of my main coach. It turns out that she and I share the attitude towards dance that your wife seems to have; namely, an insatiable appetite to master the skill of dance. As a result, we've also developed a strong friendship and a competitive career we're quite proud of and excited about.

Two years later, when my wife finished her PhD, she decided to start dancing again, which I was very happy about. But I was unwilling to give up the competitive partnership, because as much fun as I have with my wife, she just doesn't have the same interest in competition, mastery, and the appetite for difficult, monotonous work that that requires.

As a result, I dance with both my wife and my competition partner in different contexts. I find both partnerships enormously fun and fulfilling, but I derive very different kinds of satisfaction from each. Because of this, I believe I understand your wife's position.

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The tricky thing abut my competitive partnership, though, is that she has been dancing much longer than me, and so has achieved a far greater level of skill than I. Not only that, but she started at a much earlier age, and so has attained a deep intuition for dance that I will likely never attain.

Because of this, I believe I understand how you feel to be "the loser" in a partnership.

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Before I met my wife, I was in a serious long-term relationship with a dancer. At the time, I did not dance, had never danced, and had no interest in learning to dance. I felt just as jealous about her partners as you do.

**************

The hardest thing to reconcile, I think is that both of you are right, and both of you are also wrong.

You are right that dancing involves intimacy. But you are wrong to think that the deep level of communication between competitive partners bears any resemblance to the emotional connection between life partners. By contrast, she is right that you have nothing to worry about, but she is wrong to think that the difference between a competitive relationship and personal one should be obvious to you, and that she does not need to put special effort into demonstrating this.

Here is how I coped with each of the above three situations.

Jealousy about my dancing girlfriend.
I did not actually resolve this at the time--we broke up for unrelated reasons first. My problems here were not solved until I started dancing competitively myself. That showed me very clearly that competitive dance is hard work! There is just no time or mental space for emotional intimacy on the floor.

Maintaining a harmonious marriage while dancing competitively with someone else.
My central approach here is openness. I tell my wife everything that my partner and I work on and talk about. This emphasizes two things.

First, that there is nothing to hide--my partner's and my friendship is pretty ordinary.

Second, that, while my partner and I have become extremely well-integrated and communicative in the context of dance, our emotional connection is quite shallow. We are co-workers that happen to get along well together, not lovers sharing an passionate embrace. If either of us stopped dancing, we'd probably never see one another again...and while we'd be sad about it, we'd be missing the shared dances much more than the other person.

Being the "loser" in a partnership.
This one involved a measure of soul-searching. What is it I wanted from dance? Connection? Expression? Mastery? Recognition? I needed to know what I really wanted in order to decide how to address this.

In my case, what I decided I wanted most was mastery of the skill. My approach, therefore, had to be simply to work hard and work smart, so that I could narrow the gap--or, at least,get a a point where I was a positive contributor to the team instead of a hindrance. If I were not willing to do that extra work, I would have had to choose a different goal.

You will need to do the same. If the skill gap between you and your wife bothers you, you need to decide whether you're willing to do the work required to narrow it.
(and yes, I confidently say that you CAN narrow it, even knowing nothing about you. Until you reach the very highest levels, skill is primarily a function of time input, not innate talent. Some folks learn faster, of course, but most people do not achieve anything completely unreachable to others.)
If that kind of work doesn't sound fun to you, then you'll need to look for a different motivation. Being the best, most sought-after social partner in your community, for example, or developing the deepest possible connection with the music.

 

[fiesta0618]

In the end, you only have full control over yourself, so if I were to give specific, actionable advice, here's what I'd say.

• Try dancing competitively once or twice, if only to see what all the fuss is about. It is a massive adrenaline rush, but isn't emotionally intimate. That may give you some context into why your wife is so excited to do it, and why dancing socially with you--while very fulfilling and fun in its own right--does not scratch exactly the same itch.
• If you don't relish the idea of "catching up," try learning a new dance style with your wife, one that you both know little or nothing about. This is what my wife and I did, after she fell behind me by two years worth of practice.
• Think very deliberately and carefully about what you want from dance, and then talk with your wife about what she wants. If your goals differ, you'll need to compromise in how you approach dance as a couple; and both of you may benefit from having a portion of your dance life that the other is not involved with.
• Do keep up with therapy. Much of the difficulty here is really inside of your own mind, through no fault of your own. It is very good to have some help when wrestling with that kind of problem.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Your feelings are completely normal, and even if they are baseless - and note the caveats like "probably" and "normally" and "almost certainly" in some of the other responses - even if they are baseless, this is not the kind of thing where rationality easily overwhelms emotion.

You need to get to a good marriage counselor. Find one. Then go by yourself if your wife is unwilling to go with you. Good marriage counselors can offer useful advice even when they're only talking to one half of the couple.

You could also consider taking pro-am lessons yourself, but in this situation you'd need to find one of the rare female pros that will actually follow you and not just teach you to lead the way they dance anyway. And to really help, you'd probably need to find a pro that is good enough, young enough, and pretty enough to make you feel a bit guilty taking lessons from her, since it's that guilt that would help assuage the jealousy.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

You will need to do the same. If the skill gap between you and your wife bothers you, you need to decide whether you're willing to do the work required to narrow it.
(and yes, I confidently say that you CAN narrow it, even knowing nothing about you. Until you reach the very highest levels, skill is primarily a function of time input, not innate talent. Some folks learn faster, of course, but most people do not achieve anything completely unreachable to others.)

I think you're mistaken here. Pro-am instruction can improve female students faster than it can improve male students. Also, if standard dancing is involved, the wife's following style is going to adjust more to her better partner - the pro - leaving the connection between the husband and wife here less than fully satisfactory, which will impede the original poster's progress. I don't know if it works the same in Latin.

 

[lucia_l]

And to really help, you'd probably need to find a pro that is good enough, young enough, and pretty enough to make you feel a bit guilty taking lessons from her, since it's that guilt that would help assuage the jealousy.

If he's been married 20 years, young enough and pretty enough will be the rule, not the exception. My husband is taking lessons with my pro's wife!
I don't think he feels guilty though. He is such a perfectionist, he's always more worried about impressing her with doing things right vs. wrong and having improved enough since last time and so on. Besides, we take 1 lesson together, and then he takes one with her while I take one with her husband. So all four of us are in the studio at the same time!

 

[lucia_l]

- the pro - leaving the connection between the husband and wife here less than fully satisfactory, which will impede the original poster's progress. I don't know if it works the same in Latin.

Well... I'm not so sure the wife's follow so much adjusts to the pro as more so much as with the pro, she can get away with being lazier and likely will do so even if the pro works on correcting that. Yes, the pro can correct it-- but there are many priorities for dancing, and he might focus on something else she is weak on.

The lessons my husband and I take as a couple benefit my following a lot.

By the way: Yes. I tend to be lazier with connection with my pro both in latin and smooth. (Yes. It's my fault. But it's true. Yes... the pro correct me. And then... I get lazy again while we work on something else.)

 

[Dancer Bob]

Nothing has been said about money, is this a financial strain?
The idea of women as property and her being happy not making him happy may be the norm in his culture, but it doesn't inspire much sympathy from me, but he says that's what she signed up for, 20 years ago.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

we take 1 lesson together, and then he takes one with her while I take one with her husband. So all four of us are in the studio at the same time!

That's pretty much ideal, assuming your pros are also dance partners. That way hubby will be taught to lead in the same style as your pro, so you won't have to make much adjustment. This largely avoids the issue I was talking about.

It's not just about being lazy. For example, when I was competing as amateur but taking pro-am lessons, my amateur partner felt more comfortable to me than did my professional instructor, even though the instructor was clearly a better dancer. This was because my amateur partner had adjusted finely to my lead, whereas the instructor obviously had to dance with a variety of students.

The idea of women as property and her being happy not making him happy may be the norm in his culture

It's not so much the idea of the woman being property as the idea of the man not being property. In this culture marriage is generally considered a two way street; imagine that!

 

[Cal]

Przemyslaw,
Another approach to consider is to take lessons with your wife’s Pro. Two thoughts about that:
(1) you can “go directly to the source” and can see for yourself that wife's Pro isn‘t being intimate when he teaches and dances with students; and
(2) (I’m assuming that you are interested in the Leader role): you can learn Leading from someone who presumably has a great deal of experience in actually Leading. Some of the insights that experienced Pro Leaders can teach a student Leader are far more valuable than what an experienced Pro Follow can teach a student Leader. So, that might be something that could help you “speed up” your progress in learning - but your mileage might vary.

I hope you find a solution that helps you.

 

[Przemyslaw]

Thank you for all comments
They are very helpful. I also wanted answer some questions posted in responses. Money is not the issue at all. I do not feel that I " own " my spouse. She is very smart and independent person and I admire it.

As far as intimacy I have read many opinions in dance forum and most of them conclude that physical closeness/intimacy (as separate from sexuality)is necessary between partners to achieve high levels of dance art.

I am just torn inside between two opposite emotions. One is that I am happy when she is happy- and dancing makes her very happy. The other emotion is deep psychological pain when I see her so close to other man- chest to chest, hips rubbing against hips, his leg between her leg, she moving her body in such beautiful and sensual way... I when I see this I am ready to cry. All this feelings get worse/amplified when she gets ready for competition to go on dance floor to show off her skills in arms of her partner (the other man). I feel like she is going on a date - my most primitive deepest subconscious male instinct cannot get over it.

I will follow your advise and will look for additional psychological/psychiatric help.

Once again thank you for your time,thoughts and suggestions.

 

[opendoor]

....will look for additional psychological..

- NO !... ... let us put everything in the right order, Przemyslaw :

- Do you draw fulfillment from dancing, self-affirmation and translation?

- I fear not, but your wife does.

- Likewise your marriage may break up, if you should withhold her.

- The only degree of freedom left is your own attitude.

- Do not pathologize yourself.

- Find a hobby to put your whole dedication into, likewise to draw fulfillment and self-affirmation from.

- My suggestion, start learning Argentine Tango, and do not tell her.

- In six month your wife’s dreams will shatter.

- Inbetween, you have learned the basics of an effortless posture, intentional leading and improvising.

- You will be able to catch her emotionally in a very difficult situation right on the dance floor.

 

[lucia_l]

- In six month your wife’s dreams will shatter.

Why do you think Przemyslaw's wife's dreams will shatter in 6 months? According to the post she started taking lessons 2 years ago. Her interest has deepened. It seems to me someone whose interest is 2 years deep will often stick with dancing.