The biggest problem in our dating world are jealous and possessive men. While they are desperate to find a woman they can love and adore, once they have found her possessive men most often do not believe they can keep hold of her due to a lack of self-confidence, self-respect and self-belief. They don't truly believe they deserve the girl so they try and subjugate her to rely on them and increase the woman's sense of dependency. It is all too common these days as more and more men feel uneasy about who they truly are and lack self-esteem.

The first hurdle a woman faces is in not being able to spot a jealous and possessive man in advance. He is charming and good-looking, he has the world at his feet so it appears and you have absolutely no reason to think he isn't prince charming. And maybe he is Mr. nice-guy at this stage. But if you know then what you later discover things would be much easier.

I first spotted possessive-man-syndrome whilst working for a few years in a regular job in an English city. At the end of day I would walk home to my apartment and was always impressed as to how many boyfriends sat patiently in their cars waiting to pick up their girlfriends and wives from work. I dare say in retrospect a few were genuine but it took me some months of seeing the same faces before I cottoned on to the fact that these guys were not there for the best of reasons. The cat was let out of the bag by a woman friend who said that she could never go for a drink after work because her boyfriend didn't like it and always insisted he picked her up from work at 5pm on the dot. If she needed to go anywhere she had to let him know in advance.

This shocking revelation may be will known to many women readers but for a guy I hadn't realized at that time quite how large the problem was. The key issue it appears is a man's low self-esteem. Usually the possessive and jealous guy believes his lady will be stolen away from him. He doesn't trust her or her words of love and ignores the fact that she stays with him. He feels she is plotting to escape at any turn, looking for a way out and doesn't really love him at all. Why? Simply because he feels he doesn't deserve her and deep down believes she could do far better than him.

This causes the possessive man a dilemma. If she would really like to run away then how can I make her stay. Easy, what I will do is make her dependent on me, make her need me and want me and have no need to be anywhere but with me. Even if I go out every night with my male buddies. The man doesn't love himself so he doesn't understand why she loves him either. But he needs to feel she does, so he needs to have demonstrations as to how far she will go for him. He will promote the positive attitude of staying at home together and group social activities will be extinguished. At home you are where he can see you.

As a relationship develops the possessive man will find ways of ensuring you are there for him. He will create fictitious scenarios where he needs your help and assistance which affect your social routine. Rather than meeting friends you will be assisting him. Of course at first this is all part of romantic relationship building. After all you want to spend as much time as possible with the man you love. Bit by bit he will divorce you for your everyday friends and activities, even spending time illustrating how your friends are not really your true friends. He is isolating you for his own needs.

Once he has done that he will also then criticize you and make you feel bad about yourself to ensure that you too have low self esteem. If you don't feel good about yourself then how will anyone else ever want you. He will tell you how lucky you are to have him and he will always love you for who you are. And eventually he will build up that degree of dependence (and fear) so much that you will truly believe that what he says is true. Your own identity becomes a thing of the past and your friends will make many worried comments to you that you will ignore or make excuses for.

At this stage you are now where he wants you, isolated and dominated. He feels better about himself because you depend on him, but he will never trust you, because he will always believe that there is a conspiracy that you will escape. That you don't really love him after all. He needs constant demonstration and proof that you do. Your friends and his will not know any of this though they may suspect. He will still be the great social guy in groups. Bit it can get to the point where you dread going out socially in case you get a hard time when you get home. This my friends, is not what your life is all about. This isn't why we date and have relationships. Yes we all want to feel desired, wanted and loved in our lover's eyes. But not like this.

A little jealousy, ironically can go along way. Women (and men) like being loved and wanted and a secure arm round the waist drawing you in can be great fun. Small amounts of jealousy (very small in a playful way) can be attractive and sexy. But its knowing when things have gone too far that matters. Many women have admitted to me that a man who has not a single jealous bone in his body cannot really love her. A man needs to show he cares by drawing her in occasionally. Both parties feel good from this. But it has to be kept under control.

There are many reasons why men are becoming more possessive in today's society and we all have our own theories. It is possible that with the rise of women in the workplace and in determining their own independence financially and socially, that men feel increasingly threatened. Their traditional role as husband and father, the dominant voice in the household, is increasingly archaic and has little place in current society. Instead they are desperately attempting to reposition themselves in a relationship and find out what their new role really is. But old habits die hard and men still try and cling on to the ways in which they were brought up. It will take time for men to learn that they are not always the primary focus in a relationship and must give as much attention to the needs of their partner, as they give to him. And to be honest I do not expect miracles overnight.

Men who don't feel good about their own domestic roles, their lack of masculinity, their frustrations with their own poor career, their lack of financial success, their dominant parental influences and their general lack of well-being can all assist in the progression of possessive tendencies. To own someone is not to have them. To be loved is an open invitation, not something to be captured and kept imprisoned.

A happy, confident, self-assured man doesn't have issues about possession and jealousy. No although many aspects of a relationship may be shared, he also treasures his girlfriend's independence and her assured separate set of values, as she does in him. Relationships are about sharing but also about retaining freedom of self expression and personal identity. Realtionships are also about innate trust.

There was an interesting article recently in a national newspaper about how dominant career women with great success and financial wealth often still had very dominant partners at home. Let us not confuse manliness and masculinity with possessiveness. Jealousy and possessiveness is about stripping away confidence, esteem and dignity. It is about subjugating and decrying the needs of the injured party for the wishes of the stronger force. That has no place in our modern world.

Jealous and possessive men are sad and pathetic creatures who are all too common today. As a woman you do not need ever to put up with them and neither do they really deserve you. The huge irony involved is that had the guy been relaxed and self-assured he would probably have never lost you in the first place, but his low self-esteem meant that he forced to happen what he most dreaded. You leaving him. If you are reading this and have yet to leave, then you will need your friends and family to assist as you are dealing with a person with serious psychological issues. He will try and keep you and will use any psychological measure he can to make you need him and come back. He will work on the weak spots he has already created in you.

But do try and take heart. Many women have been in the same situation and moved on. Even if it is very hard. As women become increasingly confident in their own lives, so some men fall away into lesser self-esteem. There are lots of really nice guys out there to date and love and the one you have is not the one who will make you happy, whatever he says. It can take a long time to heal some of the trauma you have been put through, but the fact is, it is your life and your world and if you want to do whatever you like to make yourself happy, that is 100% your prerogative to do so. We don't need jealous and possessive men in this world and the sooner they sort themselves out without your help, the better.

Danger Signals:

• Dismay and suggestions as to how you should dress
• Overly concerned about where you are going when socializing
• Insistence on escorting you to mundane places
• Interference with your social plans
• Excessive phone calls to know your whereabouts
• Overly intense nature to anything
• Inability to communicate and discuss
• Putting you down and anything that makes you feel inferior
• Lack of outlook and poor self-esteem or lack of confidence
• Dominant overtones in domestic arrangements
• Aggressive temper and unreasonable attitude to minor details