What do YOU feel when you think of jealousy?

The gnawing feeling of jealousy. Who doesn’t know it? While we’re lying awake at night, sweating with fear, we know there is someone out there who is getting all the love, attention, respect and admiration we crave so much, from the very person we love the most and don’t want to lose.

We would do everything possible to please our beloved partner, to be seen and taken seriously, while the other person out there doesn’t seem to have to do anything except be in the same room to put a smile on our favourite human being’s face.

All of a sudden, our supposed deficits come hijacking us, deficits which seem to make it impossible for us to keep up with the perceived qualities of the other person. Suddenly we think we are too fat, too thin, too old, too young, too stupid, too poor, too boring, too exhausted, too unsexy, too insecure, too difficult, too this, too that and too something else. We are simply not enough. 

And start to claiming our rights. If the other person really loved us, then… they wouldn’t put themselves and therefore us in this situation in the first place. We refer to promises of love and marriage vows and try to get the affection that is owed to us back by generating feelings of guilt.

We get carried away and reproach our loved one, threaten the unwanted third person, want to control our partner and make them suffer. Deep down, we feel ashamed about it. That we are so insecure and do and say things that are anything but kind acts of love. But we can’t help it, and at the same time we regret what we have done. 

Where does jealousy come from?

I often compare jealousy to a disease (mind the word: dis-ease) that is so difficult to cure because we hardly know its cause or only know it superficially. There is our lack of self-esteem, we don’t think we are worthy of being loved. And our lack of self-confidence and trust in our own abilities, which make us believe that we cannot cope or survive without the other person. 

And then there is a more hidden reason. Christian religions have been teaching the jealous and vengeful God for around 2000 years. Jealousy is therefore a divine quality. It is considered a sin if we share something with someone else that only God is entitled to. And it is similar with human jealousy. 

Jealousy assumes that another human being belongs to us. They become objectified, property over which we have exclusive rights. Being jealous when someone belongs to you according to the biblical God, is seen as good, perfectly appropriate and an expression of love. This can also be applied to parents and their children. If you were not jealous in that case, you would be going against the biblical God and THAT would be sin.

Even if you are not in church or practising some Christian faith, the belief system is very deeply anchored in our culture and society and runs largely on an unconscious level. I don’t know anyone who wakes up in the morning and likes to be jealous. Just look around what happens every day. The statistics on relationship crimes or the jealousy dramas that serve as basis for movies and books. These are very old, inherited patterns, a kind of software that has been programmed into us by patriarchy, but fortunately this programming can be replaced. 

If you had the chance: Would you like to heal jealousy?

Our soul knows that love is the child of freedom and that we cannot and do not want to imprison the person we love. Love wants to see the other person being happy. That’s it. We are part of this happiness and even if others contribute to it, this does not diminish our worth, which we regularly question. No matter what, we are enough. 

A person who gives us love and attention out of a sense of obligation is simply fulfilling that – their obligation. It certainly is not love. You can then feel confirmed in your right to be with the other person, but you are not loved.

If you had the chance: Would you like to cure jealousy? So that you could have happy and truly loving relationships in the future?

© Peggy Vogt 2024