“I have a bone of jealousy.
And I know that I’m going to chase you away
If I don’t learn to let you go.“
– patty loveless
Some people defend jealousy proudly, as if to say, “I love you so much I can’t help but feel jealous,” or “I’m so in love with you that it drives me crazy and I’m jealous.” or “I love you so much I can’t live without you, so my jealousy is a tribute to how much I need you.” He defends himself as if loving someone provokes jealous thinking and jealous behavior. It is as if jealousy is somehow the reflection of true love.
Let’s see what jealousy really represents and how it affects a relationship.
Jealousy is not a reflection of love. Jealousy is a reflection of mistrust.
Jealousy says that when your love object is out of your sight, you don’t trust that person to be faithful to you. He says that you anticipate that your partner’s attention and affection may be directed towards someone else. It means that outside of your control or supervision your partner may behave dishonorably and unfaithfully. It says you don’t trust your partner to be faithful to you (either in thought or action) unless you are present AND in control of their behavior AND can know with certainty the nature of their thoughts. The absence of effective thought control or mind reading means you can never be completely confident that your partner is not having an illicit thought about someone else.
Jealousy means that you are perpetually in a state of mistrust and fear. Jealousy, therefore, keeps you in a state of perpetual pain. As bad as it is, it doesn’t stop there. If being in a relationship means being in a perpetual state of pain, then anger and resentment are created towards the partner who is the perceived cause of that pain. Jealousy creates anger in the jealous person.
Since the love object can never conclusively and satisfactorily prove that he or she can be trusted, and is therefore treated as untrustworthy regardless of the absence of cause, that also creates anger and resentment in the object. of love. A partner who is perpetually mistrusted will feel hurt and resentful. If there has been no objective cause for mistrust, jealousy will be experienced as insulting and hurtful. The suspicious partner will feel that their REAL choices don’t count as much as their imaginary ones.
This creates a feeling in the suspicious partner of not being authentically known. When you feel like your partner doesn’t know who you REALLY are, but instead judges you for imagined behavior, it creates a deep and painful schism between the two of you.
If your partner is a good person you can trust, then jealousy is unnecessary and serves no purpose other than driving both of you crazy and damaging the relationship.
If your partner is not a good person who can be trusted, why are you with him or her? And if you choose, for whatever reason, to stay with someone you don’t trust, there are other problems besides jealousy.
Jealousy is not love; it is a lack of respect. It is not romantic; is insulting Does not create security; causes damage.
For a relationship to be successful, there must be respect, affection and trust. In the absence of any of these factors, a relationship will be strained and damaged, potentially fatal.
Confidence does not come easily or naturally to some people. Some people have learned or been taught not to trust, sometimes with very good and powerful reasons. In the absence of easy or natural trust, And in the absence of reason No to trust, it is necessary to voluntarily and intentionally CHOOSE to trust.
One chooses to trust not out of absolute certainty but out of commitment to the partner and to the relationship.
Trust will not guarantee safety and a good result. Jealousy will guarantee harm and damage to the couple and the relationship.
Choose wisely.