[jealousy] a less popular perspective

What chance you could go through a life of relationships and not strike jealousy and suspicion?

I’d say a very slim chance for some very good reasons. Firstly, women tend to go for bad boys, in order to tame them and the result must inevitably be heartbreak somewhere down the track when she disoovers he is, in fact, a pitbull in a nice suit.

Men almost always fall for the gorgeous doll, completely failing to appreciate that she has had a lifetime’s practice of giving men a hard time. What chance a selfless, demure siren for whom fidelity is the key issue? Practically zero.

People come together for all the wrong reasons too and when they go ahead anyway, do they discuss the groundrules? And what if there’s no marriage and no ties that bind? What is there, beyond love, to keep the roving eye from roving?

Also, each partner has a different line over which the other must not cross – some baulk at their partner stealing a kiss; some don’t mind the partner having sex with someone else as long as he assures the other she’s top of his list.

One always loves more

This is the single greatest root cause, IMHO, of jealousy. The one who loves is going to be far more anxious, over time, which will cause the other to tumble to the fact that he has a captive heart on his hands and can do virtually as he wishes – she’ll always take him back, despite anything she says.

[I say he/she and for the purpose of this post, he will be the villain and she the victim but it could equally be the other way around. It’s just for literary convenience.]

Defining the terms

First, one should define jealousy. It’s not necessarily envy as such because envy is wanting something you don’t have because someone else has it. It can be no more than keeping up with the Joneses and plunging into credit debt.

Nor is it protecting one’s territory. Both men and women are territorial – don’t believe that old line that women aren’t – and they’ll fight for their partner with jealousy not so much the uppermost emotion but rather that of protecting one’s remit.

Jealousy, to me, is not wanting your girlfriend to be with another man [or vice versa] and while it is perfectly understandable, there need to be defined and agreed limits to it.

Hypocrisy

But there’s so much hypocrisy attached to it.

I’ve just finished an Agatha Christie, in which there is an easygoing, charming, goodlooking, womanizer and a horrible, frumpy, jealous wife and quite frankly, Agatha Christie was out of order on this portrayal. The young girl enters the fray and though Christie is at pains to keep both the bright young things platonic, the wife is insanely jealous.

I’m sorry but I ask the question immediately; “What exactly has that man been doing, over the years, what little gestures, what little flirtation taken too far, what slightly overextended handshake, what other build up of all the little issues which add up to scant attention being paid to his own woman?”

In other words, what ego?




Naturally, our young heroine falls under his spell and won’t have it that this man could be the murderer, despite her husband having the Lothario at the top of the list. Even in there are the seeds of divorce if she doesn’t wake up.

The thing which galls me about the one who loves less [and I’ve been on both sides of the ledger] is that he’s on clover – captive heart, not anxious, relaxed, therefore more attractive to the other gender and the more he succeeds, the more he is tempted to keep a string of liaisons running, most quite innocent.

When she turns around and seems so unreasonable, when her voice is strident and she bursts into tears, when she is not a delight to come home to any more, he has an arsenal of weaponry to use on her. All his friends agree with him, he says, that you’re so jealous you’re going to break us up. Why shouldn’t I see whom I like? Why can’t I have friends of the opposite gender?

There’s not just mental cruelty in here – and if you’ve ever loved someone, not to be fully loved in return, you’ll know what I mean – but there’s also dishonesty. The guilt is laid on the one less able to cope and that person is made out to be something other than what she was at the beginning – now a lesser person, less desirable certainly.

Oh, she’d be jealous of a tree, he says and a friend agrees that she’s a clingy, needy woman.

What the Lothario does

Nothing is said about the day they were in the café and a femme fatale walked in and her man went straight up and chatted, the two chattees going into the next room and when he returns, as happy as Larry, refusing to tell her anything about it, seeing her wooden expression, he blusters at her and lectures her on jealousy, saying, “I really detest jealous people.”

Nothing is said about this not being the first time but it being the latest in a long string of non-affairs, each one unpleasant to his partner. In his eyes, he’s eminently reasonable and perfectly innocent.

Except that he’s not. Not at all. He’s a right bastard and I'm including myself here. [Or the female equivalent the other way around]. Perhaps the unfairest thing of all is the way she’s ganged up on by all and sundry who consider she, the victim, is the unreasonable one here. I’d lay money on the fact that if he was not as he is, if he spent the bulk of his time on her, she wouldn’t be half as clingy and needy as she is.

Solution

1. One solution is to come to an agreement on what is acceptable or not, if they can keep genuine dialogue going long enough to come to an agreement.

2. The other solution is to leave him [or her]. The logic is that anyone can make a mistake once, anyone can fall under a spell once but when it happens again, it has become a system.

What has been lost is trust. Now, her only chance is to follow him or hire a private detective, stand out in the pouring rain all night and become thoroughly miserable and for what?

She says she still loves him, that if only she can get him away from that vixen and so on …

No, no, dear, it’s pointless. She thought she had a catch, a good man. She doesn’t – she has a lying, cheating sociopath who's pleased as Punch with his effect on the opposite gender; he's sociopathic insomuch as he doesn't consider her feelings. He should let her go but he keeps her hanging on for his ego reassurance.

She can’t leave him though, can she? She can’t say goodbye. And nor can he, for different reasons.




The charmer has his say

“Can I get a word in edgeways please? You know, Mr. Higham, she really is as needy as I say she is. I never knew that when I met her. I'm not this sociopath you accuse me of - I'm a normal guy who has a few female acquaintances, that's all. She's so jealous it's poisoning our relationship.”

Simple test. Devote a week, firstly to her and secondly to your work, in that order and see if the neediness diminishes. Then talk about the groundrules, one being that you cease flirting. Full stop. Period. After that, if she can't cut it down then either she is needy or else the trust has gone.

Trust

If I think a woman’s in love with me [tall order – tall tale], then I don’t care if she goes out for a candlelit dinner with some man, provided there was a purpose, e.g. he’s her boss or client. I’ve been in that situation and it was necessary. I don't mind the occasional tryst with an old flame because I know her and trust her.

What I did object to was picking up that light blue dress for her for us to go out, only to find she wore it for the boss. This peeved. This brings us to what is reasonable jealousy.

Reasonable jealousy

Protecting one’s territory, first and foremost, is quite acceptable. Everyone has territory, usually called one's home and no one's talking about goods and chattels. No other human being is your property, eer but you do have a right to a certain loyalty if the two of you have an understanding. That's because, on the basis of that understanding, you lowered your defences and let your heart go out.

So, if I’m in conversation with a girl and all she wants to talk about is this new guy she’s met and he’s such a nice guy, that I’d like him a lot, yada, yada, doesn’t she understand I’m not remotely interested in this other guy, even if he’s the male equivalent of Mother Theresa? I'm interested in her alone.

Why would I be interested some men she knows?

If I’m blogging and having a long talk to a lady blogger and she starts speaking of other male bloggers she’s really impressed with, I might agree, in passing but when she goes on and on about them, then I excuse myself and go and do something else. I know she has other males she spends net time with, I have no claim on her per se but at the same time, I don’t particularly need to think or talk about other men 24/7 with a woman I like. I have my own male blogmates and we visit one another.

I don’t even see that as jealousy – I see it as her lack of courtesy and something unpleasant for me. If she started talking about her girlfriends, well, that would be OK.

There’ll be all sorts of things said about me for taking that line now but I say no! No, I refuse to assume any guilt at all over that feeling and neither would you feel guilty about it, should you find yourself in that same situation. That’s the hypocrisy I was referring to above – those doing the accusing would do exactly the same as me in similar circumstances.

Look, I’m no more and no less jealous than the next person, including women - in fact,in some ways, I haven't a jealous bone in the body but on the other hand, there are things which are done and things which are not done. There are things which are pleasant and things which are not pleasant.

Finally

Show me a person who has no jealousy and I'll show you a person who doesn't care, who is primarily into him/herself.

That’s all I have to say on that topic and thank you for your patience. ☺