Jealousy, a killer disease

Is your partner’s out of control jealousy and rapid questions about where you’ve been, who you have been with and what were you doing driving you crazy?

Nothing can ruin a relationship or marriage faster than jealousy. Jealousy creates anxiety, anger, loneliness, hate, fear. No one thinks clearly when jealous.

Having a relationship with a jealous person is tough, the jealous person acts untrusting and suspicious. It makes the person unattractive, even repulsive.

Jealousy is one of the strongest emotions that can motivate vicious revenge, murder and can even breed wars. Everyone is susceptible to jealousy in many forms, whether it be sibling rivalry, or envy of a co-worker.

The strongest and most recognizable form of jealousy is found in romantic relationships. There is no one specific cause of romantic jealousy; it manifests itself in many different ways.

It is the emotion that typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that one values, particularly in human relations/connection.

We think of it as a single emotion, but it is actually a whole bundle of mix feelings that tend to get jumbled together. It can manifest as anger, fear, betrayal, anxiety, depression, feeling inadequate and loneliness.

But when this familiar experience in human relationships get out of control and jealousy controls you, you can never imagine what horrific things you can do or what you did.

Joseph Kennedy, the father of President John Kennedy once said “more people die from jealousy than cancer.”

Why are people so jealous of each other?

Perhaps it all starts in the family, in the rivalry that ensues between siblings. As children, we are jealous of each other, thinking at times that our brother or sister is our parents’ favourite child and being treated better than us. We usually seek for our parent’s attention, recognition and love. We carry this same feeling of rivalry, jealousy into adulthood. When someone else has wealth, power or honour we often ask ourselves “why does she deserve more than us: when somebody’s child receives an award, we ask ourselves why not such good things happen to my child? Often times we become angry if good things happen to others instead of us and we resent the fact that others seems to be getting more attention, recognition and love than us.

Is there really a solution to the problem of jealousy? Yes there is, just like Joseph Kennedy, we need to realize that jealousy is a disease, it can make life miserable. It can make us into seething, resented, angry people. We need to accept the fact that jealousy is a dangerous disease that can do more harm than good to our lives.

Again we need to remind ourselves regularly that each of us in our own way is special, peculiar and important, even though we may not receive as much recognition as others. If we are honest in what we do and are proud of that, that alone is an important accomplishment. If we help others and are involved in volunteer work for an important cause, it is a great accomplishment. If we are good parents, raising our children to be ethical and moral human beings, that is a great accomplishment. If we are good spouses working to create a continuing and fulfilling relationship, that’s a major accomplishment.

We equally need to realize that we have our own accomplishment and that the accomplishment of others does not in any way diminish our own.

And finally, for us to get rid of jealousy, we have to be truly happy for someone else who has been successful even if it hurts our egos a little. The expression of joy we bring to others helps us realize that sharing is itself a great achievement.

By sharing the good fortune of others, we ourselves can grow and appreciate all we are.