Jealousy ... friend or foe ?
Here's what I think. JEALOUSY - a little goes a long way.
I like to think of myself as a pretty laid back girlfriend/wife. I have one simple rule.... I treat my significant other the way I would want to be treated. For example.... I never raise an eyebrow if he wants to go out with friends and have a beer or five.... I wouldn't ever, unless of course I was planning an evening out with my friends and he had a problem with it.
He has lots of friends online (mostly) that are women, and they don't bother me... well okay ONE did... but that was for personal reasons.. I disliked her for a myriad of reasons most of them what I considered "character flaws". - the main flaw being that in my humble opinion... she had no character =) I have since gotten past that ... and they still talk but I am okay with it now.
A little jealousy I think is healthy for any relationship. It reminds the person who is jealous, to not take the person they are with for granted - because regardless of how we feel about someone, there is always someone else out there that could take our place. It also reminds the person we are with that we care about them, and that we love them ... and that we think they are attractive, funny, smart and good enough for other people to want.
Having said that, the flipside of that coin is that too much jealousy can eat away at a relationship like cancer. Festering and contaminating every aspect of the relationship until there is nothing left to save.
I came close earlier this year to allowing the tiniest spark of (healthy) jealousy errupt into the full blown cancerous type... luckily the practical side of my personality won out over the emotional side....and I managed to pull it back in before my own personal insecurities pushed my husband away...
That's the funny thing about jealousy, you get nervous and insecure, and the thing that ends up being the clincher in the end, is your own emotions. It's extremely hard to live with an overly jealous or insecure person sometimes so much so that people will leave a relationship rather than fight through the jealousy issues.
So... what do you guys think? Any brushes with jealousy ?
I like to think of myself as a pretty laid back girlfriend/wife. I have one simple rule.... I treat my significant other the way I would want to be treated. For example.... I never raise an eyebrow if he wants to go out with friends and have a beer or five.... I wouldn't ever, unless of course I was planning an evening out with my friends and he had a problem with it.
He has lots of friends online (mostly) that are women, and they don't bother me... well okay ONE did... but that was for personal reasons.. I disliked her for a myriad of reasons most of them what I considered "character flaws". - the main flaw being that in my humble opinion... she had no character =) I have since gotten past that ... and they still talk but I am okay with it now.
A little jealousy I think is healthy for any relationship. It reminds the person who is jealous, to not take the person they are with for granted - because regardless of how we feel about someone, there is always someone else out there that could take our place. It also reminds the person we are with that we care about them, and that we love them ... and that we think they are attractive, funny, smart and good enough for other people to want.
Having said that, the flipside of that coin is that too much jealousy can eat away at a relationship like cancer. Festering and contaminating every aspect of the relationship until there is nothing left to save.
I came close earlier this year to allowing the tiniest spark of (healthy) jealousy errupt into the full blown cancerous type... luckily the practical side of my personality won out over the emotional side....and I managed to pull it back in before my own personal insecurities pushed my husband away...
That's the funny thing about jealousy, you get nervous and insecure, and the thing that ends up being the clincher in the end, is your own emotions. It's extremely hard to live with an overly jealous or insecure person sometimes so much so that people will leave a relationship rather than fight through the jealousy issues.
So... what do you guys think? Any brushes with jealousy ?
posted by Lisa at 2:49 PM
<< Home