Peter Griffiths Daily Herald Column 1992

What Is Jealousy?

Jealousy is destructive. It destroys trust,, love and relationships. What is jealousy? Is it normal? Is it healthy? What can you do about it? This is the first, of a series of articles about this deadly virus of human relationships. Jealousy differs from envy. Envy is wanting something that belongs to someone else. Jealousy is different from envy. Envy is being upset about something you don't have. Jealousy is being afraid or anxious that something you already have may be lost. Envy focuses on material things or abilities, such as "I wish I had..." or "I wish I could be like " Jealousy focuses on emotional needs, such as affection, recognition or love, and the fear of these needs not being met. Envy lies behind the message "I WANT to have." Jealousy lies behind "I NEED or HAVE to have". Envy says "I need to have this to feel good". Jealousy says "I must hang onto this or I won't feel good".

When you're jealous, you base your happiness on what is outside of you, not inside of you. If I need to have someone love me in order to be happy, who's in charge of my happiness? Not me! So who do I blame when I'm not happy? Anyone but me! And when I'm suspicious, possessive or jealous towards the person who is supposed to make me happy, I end up worse off than before.

Jealousy is the fear of losing someone. Jealousy feeds upon itself. It quickly grows into obsessiveness, possessiveness or paranoid behavior. Jealousy is unhealthy for you and your relationships.

If you believe "someone" (and "someone" is usually undefined) is going to take or steal away a person you're afraid of losing, you'll build up walls around that person. You'll become controlling. And controlling is abusing. Eventually, the very thing you're afraid of, will happen. When the person you're afraid of losing reacts negatively to your jealous behavior, you become more anxious and afraid. You then become more jealous, possessive and controlling. They react by pulling away from you more, and the vicious circle grows.

Jealousy is hard to manage. It's a perceived threat, even though it feels real to the jealous person. Jealous people don't usually realize what they're afraid of. For example, the fear that your partner will leave you, is more likely a fear that you don't know how to take care of yourself emotionally, or the irrational belief that you can't live without the other person.

Jealousy can be triggered by any action. The trigger is not the problem, and can easily be innocent behavior. But jealous people react to triggers, not to their own feelings and fears, which are the real problem. Your partner talking to a person of the opposite sex at a dance is not the problem. It's only the trigger. The problem is the your anxieties and insecurities about yourself and your relationship. Jealousy is a major living problem. But it's seldom looked at closely.

In the next few weeks, I'll look at examples of jealous behavior and ways that people can take acknowledge their jealousy, own it, and do something about it.