Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    
    You're 100% correct in that this is a "hot" topic, Phil!
    
    No, I don't feel jealousy is the product of stupidity. In my
    own experiences I find that it tends more to be the result of
    lack of trust and/or insecurity.
    
    When I feel confident about myself and in the relationship I have
    with a lady, I don't find myself feeling jealous of other males
    she has contact with as friends, dance partners (e.g. singles dances),
    or even if she is dating others, provided that we have that
    understanding between us and it is a two way street.
    
    Trust comes into play in those situations and I find that as long
    as we are both clear with each other about our expectations of each
    other, jealousy doesn't rear it's ugly head.  In the singles dance
    situation I mentioned before, if I brought her to the dance and
    am taking her home, the old Drifters song "Save the Last Dance for
    Me" is the only expectation we have of each other, and that has
    worked out fine!  I hope this helps you.
    
    					Joe

    O, Phil, what an emotion - JEALOUSY.  
    
    I have had a run-in with jealousy, and boy what a number it does
    on you.  But sometimes your partner does things on purpose to make
    you jealous.  I used to wonder if maybe he was testing his own
    self confidence or insecurities.  
    
    I guess I go with .1, that's exactly how I feel, too!
    
    	-Dotti
    

    
    I haven't had a steady relationship in so long that I don't remember
    what it's like to be jealous. :-?
    
    People make much of jealousy as a vice, but like any other feeling,
    it's not whether or not you have it, it's what you let it do to
    you and your relationship.
    
    DFW

	RE:-1

	Well said.


	

    If you love somethingset it free. If it doesn't come back, hunt
    it down and kill it.
    
        It tooke me many long years to finally wake up and realize
    that during times when I was in a state of low self seteem, this
    was also a good time to stay away from any sort of romantic
    entanglements, I usually wound up jealous, due to my own insec-
    urity. Gee it's been so long since I even had a date, let alone
    have an ongoing, deepening relationship, that I don't know how
    I'de behave.
        I know my and the other party's jealously have wreaked havoc
    on past developing relationships. I also no longer try to date
    the best looking any more, since everyone and their brother
    will be trying to nudge their way in. 
        Well at almost 40, I realize that jealousy is born totally
    out of lack of trust coupled with insecurity. I haven't felt
    jealous for so long and am not sure I want to try.
    
    Ray

    The contribution of jealousy to the survival of the species seems
    reasonably obvious, yet the general sense is that jealousy is an
    undesirable thing.  Is jealousy an excess amount of something else?
    If so, what do we call the something else?  Territoriality, maybe?
    Or is all jealousy undesirable?

    It's nice to know that there are other people out there that know
    what the "Green-eyed Monster" is.
    
    I strongly agree with .1 in that jealousy stems from lack of trust/
    insecurity.  Everyone gets jealous now and then.  The real test
    is - how do you handle it?  Well, if you are stubborn (and most
    of us are) you will immediately blame the other for your feeling.
    He/she shouldn't have been talking to that person or shouldn't have
    done what he/she did.  If you turn around and just get "even" with
    your partner, what have you proved?  No a hell of alot but the
    insecurities in the relationship.
    
    I have been through a few relationships where I was actually told
    that no one better touch "his" possession (meaning me) or they'd
    find out otherwise.  That I was his property!  How does one handle
    that situation?  Well, I probably didn't handle it well because
    I blew up!  In my mind, and I could be wrong (but I doubt it) no
    one should feel like they are a possession or someone's property;
    that they should jump, run, live, eat, sleep for this person.
    
    You have to identify your own self.  If you want to be possessed,
    you will be possessed.  If you want to be miserable, you will be
    miserable.   You and only you know what you really want out of life.
    If you have to, do some soul searching and find out what you are
    all about, what you want to become, your weakness, your strengths
    and how you would want someone to treat you, as opposed to the way
    you treat them.
    
    Its not easy getting rid of jealousy, but no means!  Its going to
    stay with each and everyone of us, whether we like it or not.  The
    most important part of "jealousy" is learning to deal with it and
    learning to communicate with your partner.
    
    If you can communicate with each other, you have won half the battle.
    If you keep it all inside, its going to follow you where ever you
    go and with whom ever your with.
    
    I don't agree with .5 when he says "I also no longer try to date
    the best looking any more, since everyone and their brother will
    be trying to nudge their way in".  If your relationship is sound,
    you trust each other and have reached a mutual agreement, you
    shouldn't have to worry that someone else will "nudge" their way
    in because of one's beauty or ugliness for that fact.
    
    What has helped me in the past and is still helping me now is to
    be honest with your partner and to communicate.  Being honest may
    not always be the best policy some may say, but better you find
    out than be sorry later on.
    

    re: All
    
            Thank you all for your valued input.  Like I said, jealousy
    was a problem in a past relationship and it ruined everything...right
    down to my own feelings about her.  As I was younger then, I had
    no idea of WHY I was jealous, therefore, I could not deal with it
    effectively.  Now, fortunately, I'm older and hopefully wiser, PLUS
    I have this neat new medium to discuss these things with other,
    more wiser persons than I, and it all becomes quite clear as to
    the causes and reasons behind this problem.  This is why I asked
    you all here today, so that I may get an understanding of this before
    I get into another relationship and start feeling the same way (if
    indeed it happens again)...which I doubt, now that I am aware of
    it's causes (and believe me, I didn't know insecurity was one of
    them).  OH well, live and learn.  Again, thank you all for your
    excellent advice and observations!
    
    						Phil
    
    
    ps....this discussion is by NO MEANS over just yet.....I'm just
    acknowledging those who took the time to help me out!  

    
    RE: .7
    
    Carole, I couldn't agree with you more about honesty and good
    communications being important for any serious relationship to
    be successful!!  I personally feel they are the two most important
    factors in a relationship being successful and preventing that
    "green-eyed monster" from rearing it's ugly face!!
    
    					Joe

    Good question! (hoping for some good answers!!)
    
    What if the lack of trust and insecurity is based
    on the actions of one's partner?  Then what?  Do
    you say, "oh well, on to the next one?"  Or stick
    around, trying to work it out in spite of the ob-
    stacles?  What if (oh god, the worst), there is a
    combination of one partner who is basically untrusting
    and insecure, and the other partner's actions reinforce
    those feelings? (the worst of all possible worlds!)
    
    I guess I'm asking-how does one rebuild those feelings
    of trust and security?  Or can one?
    

    	I *claim* not to get jealous...
    
    	I try not to be jealous...
    
    	If I am, and I'm asked about it, I will admit to it...
    
    	So far, it's worked all right for me...
    
    						--Doug

    
    I have always seen jealousy in a slightly different light.. I have
    tried reasoning my jealousy in the past and came up with the reason
    I was having those feeling were due to more of a feeling of rejection..
    I 'spose that does indeed carry over to not trusting someone.
    
    In past relationships I often felt hurt and jealous when I would
    see the person I cared for so much interacting with another women
    because it caused me moments of panic when I wondered if this would
    lead to rejection..  Rejection for me has always been hard to handle
    and the fear of having to deal with it can strike panic in me to
    this day, even now when I feel I have a pretty secure hold on my
    emotional well being...  I guess it stems from a basic insecurity
    somewhere deep inside coupled with having been involved with a few
    people that seem to take delight in the mind games and jealousy
    they can arouse in you.  
    
    I am always severely flamed when I see people engaging in mind trips
    and trying to deliberately spark jealousy in the one they claim to
    love.  You just don't do that to someone you are supposed to care
    for and love.  If you are feeling like you need a little more attention
    from an SO then state it, don't try to toy with emotions and jealousy
    to obtain it!..
    
    later, gailann
                                   

    I don't understand the amount of hurt that jealousy seems to cause.
    I have felt jealous, and have viewed that feeling as information
    about what my heart needed.  Usually this involved reducing my
    involvement, at least temorarily.  If I did what my heart needed,
    the jealousy went away.  That has been my experience, anyway.

    Re:  .14
    
    Very well said!
    
    I recently went through a very strange relationship which involved
    everything from deception, invasion of privacy to massive head games.
    
    Approximately a year and a half ago I met someone that I thought
    was very nice and decided to pursue my feelings.  The first question
    I asked this person was "Are you the jealous type"?  He laughed
    and said no.  I should have suspected then that it was too good
    to be true.
    
    We were seeing each other on a regular basis and everything seemed
    to be perfect.  Then one day a friend of mine warned me to be careful
    of him, that he was not what he appeared to be.  This friend was
    a friend of his as well.  Well for months I ignored all the warnings
    I received from my/his friends because I became so obsessed with
    his love that I thought he really loved me (as he kept telling me).
    I went as far as to call my friends liars which I will probably
    regret for the rest of my life.  How could I let someone do that
    to me, I'll never know.
    
    Come to find out he was seeing someone else on the side (had been
    throughout the whole relationship).  In the meantime, he was punishing
    me because I had friends (some were male friends) that would keep
    in touch with me.  He became infatuated with the idea that I was
    unfaithful to him and I was playing all kinds of numbers on him.
    It couldn't be farther from the truth.  Actually, everything he
    accused me of, he was doing.
    
    We are still friends today (at least for me) but he still views
    me as his possession and that I should be there waiting for him,
    should he get rejected from someone else.  I recently asked him
    why he thought I was playing around behind his back.  His reply
    to me was "I've been burned in the past, why should you be any 
    different".  He said "Your old boyfriends keep calling you".  So
    we are still friends, is that a crime?
    
    That blew my mind.  If you have to suffer for someone else's mistake,
    then the relationship will never work.  Had I known that when I
    first started seeing him, I would have been more cautious.
    
    Deliberately trying to spark jealousy shows a sign of one's weakness
    in not being able to handle a serious relationship.  There's not
    much one can do to change that in someone, except to walk away.
    If I want to play games, I'll go to the neighborhood arcade room,
    not on a friend, be it just a friend or more!
    
    
              

    RE: .17    A strange relationship

    Two observations strike a resonant chord with me, and I wonder
    if they fit into some pathological pattern of jealousy.
        
>   In the meantime, he was punishing
>   me because I had friends (some were male friends) that would keep
>   in touch with me.  He became infatuated with the idea that I was
>   unfaithful to him and I was playing all kinds of numbers on him.
>   It couldn't be farther from the truth.  Actually, everything he
>   accused me of, he was doing.

    I have been accused of things I hadn't even thought of doing, and
    responded by exhibiting extreme behavior to "prove" to my SO that
    she should not be concerned.  What was actually happening was I
    was giving her a large handle to manipulate me by.  All she had
    to do was accuse me of something, like trying to make her jealous,
    and I would do whatever she said would assure her that I was not.
    Boy, did that reinforce that behavior in her!!  With the passage
    of time, I came understand this and became less manipulable, and
    began to see that she only saw in me things that (I felt) she was
    doing herself, and was projecting them into me.
    
>   Deliberately trying to spark jealousy shows a sign of one's weakness
>   in not being able to handle a serious relationship.  

    The times when I have been guilty of consciously encouraging jealousy,
    it has been because I wasn't sufficiently confident of my self-worth
    to base the relationship on my value as a person
    
    I wonder if these patterns are common?
    

    Re:  .18
    
    Sounds like a pattern to me!  Hopefully some of us will have learned
    from these past experiences.  At least I have.
    
    All I can do now, and want to do, is kick off my shoes and stop
    taking things so seriously.  Live on a day to day basis and hope
    for the best.
    
    Someday someone special will come along and "sweep" me off my feet
    and will appreciate me for who I am, what I stand for, and where
    I'm going with my life!
    
    Thanks for your inputs!
    
    Carole

    Being jealous is not pleasant, but everyone gets that way sometimes.
    Jealosy is a reaction to being emotionally wounded, just as scar tissue
    is a reaction to being physically wounded. Jealosy is no prettier than
    scars (the right scar in the right place can be dashing or cute, and so
    can a small amount of jealosy). 
    
    I've always dealt with my own jealosy by telling myself I'm being
    silly. It doesn't immediately help; knowing I'm being silly and
    irrational doesn't make me any less so. However, knowing that I'm
    feeling that way because I'm been hurt, and knowing that I will heal
    *does* help. With proper care, jealosy fades, just as scars do. 
    
    	Jon

    For me the most important thing is to acknowlege the feelings and
    not just try to sweep them under the rug where they do much more
    long term damage.
    
    I have one ongoing situation in my life which might come under this
    category of jealousy.  My SO has a very close friend--they work
    in the same facility, seem to see eye to eye on everything, are
    very stimulating for one another, and knew one another before my
    SO and I met.  They never saw themselves as candidates for having
    a relationship, even when the opportunity was there.  
    
    My SO has two habits which are hard for me to deal with 1) talking
    about this other person in glowing terms to me, and comparing me to
    this person.  (I keep pointing out that if they were to see 
    one another moment to moment, day to day, things would look 
    different...)  2) talking about the problems in our relationship to
    this person, and then wanting me to socialize together as a 
    threesome. (There are times when it feels ok to go out with this
    friend, but there are other times when it just feels stressful.) 
    
    I don't know if this is actually jealousy--I'm glad my SO has a
    good friend, since I have found that trying to be *all* things to
    one's SO is a losing wager.  I'm just not used to being discussed
    like that--I save my discussions like that mostly for my therapist.
    
    I think my biggest fear is that since my SO puts *so* much trust in this
    friend, this friend has more influence over my SO and the course
    of this relationship than I would choose.  So far the friend's input
    to my SO has been supportive of the relationship.  But I wonder
    what would happen if it were not...
    
    I don't feel like either of us has the right to tell one another
    who to see or what to talk about/not talk about with friends, so
    that isn't a course I want to pursue.  
    
    Has anyone ever had a situation like this, and successfully "navigated 
    the rapids"?                        

        I'm not sure that jealousy deserves all the bad rap that it
        gets, of course it also doesn't have to be given free rein with
        your life. 
        
        I look at it this way: Having one love doesn't have to diminish
        your love for another. As an example think of your love for your
        children (or of the love within your own family if you don't
        have kids). Loving one does detract at all from how much you
        love the other. If anything, love for one person is more likely
        to increase your love of others.
        
        On the other hand, watch what happens when a new child is born
        into a family. the older children are not loved any less by
        their parents or by their siblings. In fact as the younger child
        grows up the older are now loved by more people. HOWEVER, the
        amount of attention that the older children get *is* diminished.
        Their isn't less love, but there is less time, less attention.
        
        The new loved one is in some very real ways a burden on the
        longer-standing loved one, and it is legitimate to feel hurt by
        that burden. It is understandable to feel threatened by it. It
        is reasonable to resent it. In short, it is completely normal
        to feel jealousy. 
        
        The danger is that the jealousy will itself cause further
        tensions and troubles. Jealousy can attack the trust in a
        relationship. It can weaken or interfere with the commitment. IT
        can diminish the love.
        
        When we are jealous we need to keep the jealousy under control.
        We need to realize that our love, trust, commitment, and
        relationship are all more important that the jealousy. 
        
        Further, recognizing the legitimacy of jealousy and the dangers
        inherent in it, we need to do what we can to avoid causing our
        loved ones to feel in unnecessarily. This may mean just paying
        them all the attention that they deserve, or making them
        understand the new love in our lives. It may also mean holding
        back on our involvement with new loves. If the existing
        relationship is a marriage, and the new love has a sexual
        component, I would say that it is wrong to act on the sexual
        component. Others may disagree with my ethics, but I also
        maintain that it is ill-advised in a practical sense to risk the
        existing relationship for the potential of the new one.
        
        JimB. 

FWIW,

When dealing with couples, I've allways found it best if you can be friends
with *both* of the couple.  It is a lot easier to fear/hate/ be jealous of
someone one does not know/communicate with...

Jim.

    
        <<< QUARK::DISK$QUARK2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]HUMAN_RELATIONS.NOTE;1 >>>
               -< What's all this fuss about 'sax and violins'? >-
================================================================================
Note 367.0            Jealousy - Is there already a topic?            No replies
KIRK::GOLDMAN "Amy Goldman"                          22 lines   4-AUG-1987 08:55
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi! 
	I am a (relatively) new noter - just joined DEC about a month
   ago, and have been trying to wade my way through this conference.
   There is A LOT here!  I finally realized that if I tried to read 
   everything, I would never contribute, and would be reading till
   1990 (if I could even get caught up then!)!

	Anyway, there was one issue which I hoped I could find here,
   but can't seem to locate (at least, not through the subjects
   in a DIR).  The topic is jealousy - yes, that green-eyed monster.
   You see, I've been seeing someone who has a problem with this, knows it,
   but is having a tough time working through it.  I thought I might pick
   up some insights or words of advice here in H-R.

	If there is such a topic, could someone point me to it (and forgive
   my inexperience in locating it)?  If not, would anyone care to offer
   any pearls of wisdom? 

	Thanks so much!
	  Amy

p.s WOW! I just wrote in my first conference!    :-)
    

    This is a good topic, I seem to think that a persons
    upbringing has a lot to do jelousy.  I was brought up
    by my parents to not be jealous of anybody....I look at
    it this way...If someone else has more than me...good luck
    to them...they work hard for it (job wise of material wise)
    I am not going to loose sleep over something I cant have.
    Does it make sense?
    
                                 Lynne

    re:-1
    
    Lynne, 
    
    Are you mixing up Jelousy with Envy?  There is a big difference.
    I agree with you if you are talking about Envy.  If they got it,
    good for them.  When it comes to people, I do get a little jealous.
    I don't like being rejected, just as I believe no one does.  I don't
    get jealous unless I have offered my best and get rejected for someone
    else.  I don't however let it get to me.... I do feel it tho....
    
    Bill