Dear Clarissa,
My boyfriend is obsessed with his college professor and it bothers me to the point of breaking up with him. Recently it has started bothering me because I realized that he looks her up online very often. I’ve started feeling like I have to share him with her. I don’t know if we have value differences that cant be reconciled or if I am just a jealous person. I have good self-esteem and I don’t’ feel like she’s better than me except that she has a large part of my boyfriend’s attention. We got in a huge fight and broke up over it. He said he won’t stop being her fan and if I didn’t like it then I could leave him, so I did. He changed his mind and said he would stop following her if it meant we wouldn’t be together. But now I feel like I’m changing a huge part of who he is. I don’t know what to do. Are we too different? Does he have a problem? Do I have a problem? Is it reconcilable?

Signed,

Jealous

Clarissa says

Dear Jealous, Many men and women get crushes on public figures; a professor does fall into this category. Unfortunately, a college professor is not as inaccessible as say a movie star; so I understand your initial concern. However, your boyfriend is a self-described “fan” of this professor which may provide a clue regarding his intent.

This sounds like a case of admiration rather than ardour. The problem here is not his crush but your irrational jealousy, relationships are based on trust; if you do not trust him, you need to figure out what that is about and make a choice.