Sex and Love 100

Musings on the most basic life skill . . .

Friday, December 9, 2011

Jealousy

Jealousy
     While love can bring us rapture, it can make our lives crazy.  Nothing feels as worse as that demon, jealousy.  It is an emotion that results when we detect a relationship is being threatened but a third party.  It is the fear of being totally abandoned.  If the threat is very high the message is sent immediately to the amygdala, a center in our primal brain that we have little control over. Your autonomic nervous system is now on and you center on all the facts to determine just how you will respond. Intense and consuming; few people can truthfully say “ I was a little jealous” because it is not the kind of emotion that we experience lightly.  So negative is this feeling that we need to at once deal with it.  The feeling is so harsh that we will make any kind of bargain to take it away. Fear or anger is often unconscious, fast, impossible to control and direct.  
     So what do you do when you find this jealousy pit bull in your face?  You may cry, plead, threaten, be reduced to hostile reactions that in your normal state you may not had ever considered.  Aside from obsessing the jealous person becomes vigilant and will focus on the behavior of the other person.  Here is when we can get into all sorts of trouble because our brain might over process the situation. Guess what? You were wired to do that. 
     Jealousy is not only the worst possible feeling it also motivates us to act to preserve our bonds and to rescue our relationships.  Nature intended it to work exactly this way.  Jealousy is the detection system that insures the bond between lovers is preserved so we could stay together to raise our young. Because when we feel it we may do what we need to do to keep that person from leaving.  
There is a strange flip side most people don’t notice with regard to jealousy. So terrible is that feeling that sometimes we don’t want to believe that we are being jilted.  Girlfriend tells me that and tells me that loverboy told her he’d like to take some time off the relationship- get a little space.  A breather. “what do you think he means?” She asks me.  I immediately knew.  So does girlfriend # 2 who is part of the conversation.  My friend is in denial, her brain not wanting to face that devil.  Of course she eventually did when he showed up at her house to pick up some of his things with his new lover on his arm.  My rational GF went crazy.  For the next few months we entertained her visions of retaliating.    She was going to slash her tires,  put dog poop on her car handles,  but the best one was asking one of her other GF’s (who knew her) to put hair remover in her hair conditioner.  We just listened and eventually she was able to get back to her normal self. 
     As bad as the J word is it can serve us.  Strange but we deliberately use that little devil in our relationships.  We might mention an old flame we ran into…flirt with someone in the presence of our love or in the worst case leave our love and let them know we’ve found another interest.  Jealousy is often the first sign they care about you!  How many movies have that theme- they break up and then she finds someone new and then he goes crazy…Well evidently loverboy was reading that script.   GF began dating loverboy’s neighbor.  About a month later he sent her an email….”I really miss you…” It began.
This brings me to a final point and another blog I must write. Men are far more jealous than women….

Any comments? Dr. Dawn Marlena Hopper

26 comments:

  1. When you explain it like that, natural instinct, jealosy doesn't sound like such an awful emotion. Although is a difficult one to have to experience.

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  2. I agree! Jealousy is often something you hear about in such a negative way. The way you put it here, it is an emotional reaction inside us that is quite normal. I have experienced my own feelings of jealousy and they are awful! They do however fade and you move on!!

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  3. Sometimes people take jealousy to the extreme though...... That's when it's no longer normal.

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  5. I believe that possessing jealousy in a relationship has both good and bad aspects. I admit that I sometimes get jealous but I only feel that way because I don't want to lose my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years! He sometimes gets jealous of me too when he sees me talking to an attractive guy, but like said the J word is a natural human instinct to possess. Sometimes though, jealousy has adverse effects because some partners are so protective of their partners that the relationship doesn't ever work out in the end.

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  6. Males have good reasons to be jealous... they can not reproduce without a live female uterus. Seriously. As long as there is electricity and/or a frozen tundra, women can freeze their male couterparts sperm and use it long after they are dead (or just, gone). But men have to maintain, horde and keep a live woman available to them in order to spread their genes around. It might sound silly, but it's true.

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  7. Jealousy.... the biggest fear in a relationship. To me atleast. I hate the feeling of jealousy overpowering the feeling of love you have for your partner, but you must remember that jealousy is a part of loving someone. I was jealous of anyone who talked to my boyfriend because I had fear of him having bad intentions and I spent a lot of our relationship nagging about it. Once I realized how he did have a wandering eye and that I could do better the tables had turned. He was so afraid of actually losing me. He was so jealous and controlling I had to get out, and it wasnt easy. Men can be so jealous because again, they take so much pride in things that they can call their own that the just are so afraid of losing that feeling and I feel that women brace themselves for that feeling.

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  8. Jealousy is one of the most terrible feelings to have in a relationship. It constantly eats away at you until it is remedied or you completely give up. Jealousy has kept me up at night more than once and with it usually manifests anxiety causing emotional devastation.

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  9. Jelousy is really such a crazy feeling to have, i think sometimes there are people that just spend their whole lives just being jelous people they wont get anywhere becuase it would create so much conflict.

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  10. I think everybody has had a feeling of jealousy in their life before. I know I have and I felt like I couldn't control it and it just happens sometimes. I think some people though do it uncontrollably and get too caught up in it.

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  11. It is true that men are more jealous and possessive than women. To me it makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. As humans we will go to great lengths to make sure our children survive. We risk or lives to rescue them from danger and will go so far as sacrifice eating in order to feed them when food is scarce. We also show, though not universally, a very high degree of investment from the father in terms physical and emotional support to child and mother. To raise a child just to reproductive maturity takes about 10 to 15 years. To our genetic forbears that was almost an entire adult life, nearly half a life span. For a female then it would be possible to choose one mate for genetic quality, i.e. strength and vitality and seek support from a mate with greater material resource as a logical insurance for the long term survivability of her offspring. For a male, who also wants his genes to be passed along it would be almost unthinkable to unwittingly spend his prime reproductive years insuring the survivability of another male's offspring.

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  12. jealous is such a bad feeling to have. but it is also an annoying thing to deal with when the person you are with is always jealous of every one. it has been a big problem with most of guys i have been with but at the same time i have had the same problem, so i know how much it sucks to feel like they want to be with someone ells

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  13. I often find myself getting jealous over my ex boyfriends new girlfriend. Even though I have an amazing boyfriend that i love and treats me a million times better then my ex ever did. My boyfriend often gets jealous that I am still friends with my ex and sometimes, not often, hang out with him. I find myself often having to remind him that I love him and always run to his arms.

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  14. I always was told that jealousy was a thing for an abusive partner to feel, at least thats what i was taught in high school by my health teacher. the way it was explained here, as a natural instinct, makes it sound much more rational, because i know that if my girl friend is hanging out at the mall or somewhere in public and she texts me saying a guy is trying to flirt with her i of course get a feeling of discomfort but i am not on the verge of freaking out because i know my girl friend wouldnt allow him to try anything. but jealousy can always be a destructive thing, in one of my previous relationships i ended up breaking up with my ex because all she did was bitch at me because she thought every girl was trying to get with me. i eventually grew tired of the constant nagging and attempt at control of who i could and could not talk to so i broke up with the girl.

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  15. I can say this demon named Jealousy was planted in my body about 11 years ago. Now that is a long time to be dealing with such a terrible feeling. At the mere age of 13 i lost my virginity to a guy who i believed loved me and of course I "loved him" although at 13 i had no clue what that was, but i thought i did. As you can probably guess this relationship did not last as i found out he was with someone else all along and left me. I was devastated to say the least, and locked myself in my bedroom for three days in the dark and even took an overdose of pills in an effort to end my life. From this moment on i could not get it out of my head that whoever i was with was going to cheat on me. This demon ran my life keeping me blocked off from being intimate with anybody let alone a boyfriend. As i look back at this now i believe all the years i was trying to catch them before they hurt me. The pain I experienced back then was so great I never wanted to go through it again. In the past couple of years I have gotten, and continue to get counseling to help me with this. Living with this demon has cost me many relationships and has caused me to miss out on friendships because of the wall I have had up. After all this time I cant say that I'm cured, but I can say that I am aware of why I was doing the things I did and am working to retrain my brain from thinking everyone is out to hurt me. I agree that jealousy has to be the worst and hardest for me to rid myself of.

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  16. This makes jealousy seem like its not such a bad thing since its something that we cant help since we are wired to do it. I completely agree with that fact that you cant experience a little jealousy. Its a full blown fear and fear makes people do crazy things.

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  17. Jealousy has its limits. It can show someone that you care, but when you can't control it, it can make you lose the person you care for. It's not something that we can ever stop from ever happening again, but it is something that is possible to work through so you get over it.

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  18. Jealousy is inevitable, we always assume the worst whenever theres a small blip on our radar. If she looks a guy too long, or if her and a male friend hang out; we simply jump to extremes and think "Oh she's cheating on me " or whatever. It can be a good sign to notice that your lover is jealous in certain situations but only when its minor and harmless and its talked about. Some people can truly take jealousy too far and i think honestly the only time it does go too far is where there is miscommunication. If any problems that arise were talked about as they should be in relationships , i think the couple can work things out but it's when theres a lack of communication that people jump to conclusions and essentially let their emotions take control of them and jealousy => rage => bad decisions.

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  19. jealousy sucks, but it does show that one cares for another. being jealous and analyzing each little situation brings nothing but the worst out of somebody. as nasty as that feeling is, if it is not over used, it is still good to have.

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  20. I think jealousy is a way to show you truly care about someone. The fact that your so afraid you might lose someone who really care about, i dont think is bad. But like these comments say too much jealousy isnt good. People need trust in their relationships and without it, your relationship most likely wont last. I was overly jealous and thats on of the reasons why my last relationshipended. So its important to trust your partber and dont accuse them of anything unless you have a legimitate reason.

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  21. When reading it as a natural instinct, it doesn't sound as bad as people make it out to be. Being confident in a relationship can be difficult with outside factors always on your mind. Rumors and gossip can make someone create things to make the situation even worse.

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  22. It bothers me when a girl(speaking from a man's point of view) can mistake jealousy for not trusting them. How i like to think of it is that its not the girlfriend that is not to be trusted its who ever that other guy is that talks to her all the time or whatever the case may be.

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  23. I agree completely. Jealousy is a terrible blessing to any relationship; You can't live with it and you can't live without it. I believe personally that there is a reason for everything and this is one of those things. However, by experience, when something is suspected or the thought is raised in one's mind, it's most likely true. Which is why I believe when you are in a relationship you should conduct yourself in a manner so that your significant other does not suspect or even have that thought in their mind if can be avoided.

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  24. Jealousy is a feeling that can comletely take over a relationship. It starts off by showing you care but an large amount of misplaced jealousy can cause the relationship to fall apart

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  25. I agree with your comments that "fear or anger is often unconscious", but I do believe that it can be controlled with some internal work. "Demon" I think is a very appropriate description of what jealousy can become. Jealousy should be addressed because it can be so consuming/hurtful to a relationship. Your point that "it also motivates us to act to preserve our bonds and to rescue our relationships" is a very powerful one. I do believe that it is very important for people to differentiate healthy jealousy from unhealthy jealousy. Healthy jealousy can help a relationship and unhealthy/overbearing can definitely destroy relationships. I feel that self analyzing the root cause is a key to recognizing that you may not be the best fit for someone or vice versa.
    E.L.

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  26. I ALWAYS assumed women were "more jealous". Maybe it has to do with how outwardly emotional they seem, compared to most men. Are men jealous to themselves?! I guess since I'm a guy, I more likely to get a worse case of jealousy. I do remember one relationship I had, ending on an awful note. Jealousy played a big role, and I'm sad to confirm how irrational it can make the most collected people. It's like when the simplest, almost animalistic part of your mind opens up, and just stops at nothing to get what it wants, which is usually revenge. It's kind of scary too. Good point about how a lot of people don't even realize it's happening, when it is!

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