One for you, Two for me

"Mine, mine, mine!" Have you ever noticed how much little kids love pointing out that something is theirs?

When we were young, my brother and I used to fight over the free tazos that come in packets of chips. When my other brother came along, I used to taunt that our mother was actually my mother, and my mother only. His response was to hug our mum in defense and cry. But some people never grow out of this possessiveness.

I have a quite a few friends who don’t tell their partner when they see or speak to a certain someone/s outside of their relationship. I ask them why. They say it’s because they know their partner will get angry. Or in other words, jealous.

But if lying includes the things you don’t say (and not just the things you do say that aren’t true), does it not then constitute, if not the slightest form of cheating? If the relationship was platonic, why would you go through all the effort of hiding it?

Is it not logically easier to have a fight, and get the compromising over and done with – than spend the rest of your life manoeuvring around particular friends without your partner’s knowledge? And even if the compromise meant a break up, then you’d leave… right? Bros before hoes? Chicks before dicks? BFF’s?

Well, apparently this is easier said than done when you’re in, or have been in this situation. I had a friend who practically disappeared off the face of the planet when she started going out with her on-again-off-again boyfriend. He made her delete every single contact number off her phone, save for him and her family. “But he’s good to me,” she says, trying to justify the situation. So almost any form of outside communication, including her conversation with me, was secretly devoured like a binge eating anorexic.

According to marriage and family therapist Joan Lachkar, such behaviour is actually a degenerate, more dangerous form of jealousy: envy. “ENVY… is destructive, possessive, controlling, and does not allow outside intruders in.” Bevan agrees. According to him, "Jealousy is… a protective reaction to a perceived threat to a valued relationship, arising from a situation in which the partner's involvement with an activity and/or another person is contrary to the jealous person's definition of their relationship.”

Another friend of mine said he was jealous upon finding out that a girl he used to like was now seeing someone else, even though he already had a girlfriend. I asked him if this jealousy meant that he would rather be with the other girl over his current girlfriend. “No, I’m jealous of the fact that another guy pulled the exact same moves I did, and that it worked out successfully for him, but not for me. That’s all.”

This resembles the politically correct definition of jealousy. Joan Lachkar explains that “Jealousy, unlike envy, is… whereby one desires the object, but does not seek to destroy it or the… rival.”

Sibling rivalry is also a common example. Take for example an anonymous contributor; let’s call him William. When he was young, William’s parents bought him a toy sword. A few days later, his brother was treated with an even bigger, better light-up sword. Not because it was his birthday, but because he got jealous of William. Now in their teens, William toiled for hours at a part time job in order to save for a laptop. His same brother got one for free, from their parents. Knowing that William would get jealous, they bought him an iPod.

Yet, another contributor admits that she has double standards when it comes to her boyfriend. She spends hours assuring her boyfriend that her boy friends seek her purely platonic company. But when it comes to her boyfriend spending time with his girl friends, she feels a littlelest, tiniest, teeniest pang of jealousy. “It reassures me that I still care for him. So a little jealousy is healthy,” she says.

If there’s one thing I’m jealous of, it’s of people who can drive. I’d have to work over two hours for a one hour driving lesson. And driving lessons would mean giving up my university degree, which requires me to study overseas for a year. I’m jealous that people can drive to work located nowhere near public transport. I’m jealous of people who don’t have to ask their friends’ parents to drive them around. I’m jealous of people who have parent/s who are confident enough to teach them how to drive, or have a parent who does live within the same proximity.

Coming from a broken family, I’m jealous that girls from a nuclear family are more likely to trust men than I am. As thankful as I am for the lessons my parent’s divorce has taught me, I’m jealous that for other girls, their template of a happy marriage is their parents’.

But since my mum says likens having a car to having a baby (the finance, the upkeep), and since I probably wouldn’t be as strong-willed and independent as I am had it not been for my parent’s divorce, then maybe it’s true that

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had”
- Erica Jong (American writer and feminist, 1942).

So... what are you jealous of? Let it all out in the comments section. Adios amigos!

Love, Noeline.
xox

SOURCE
Bevan, J.L. 2004, ‘General partner and relational uncertainty as consequences of another person's jealousy expression’ in Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 68, pp. 195-218.