Jealousy in Relationships Can Be Unhealthy
At the root of jealousy is insecurity, low self-worth, lack of trust, and fear of abandonment. The irony is that because this is where you energy stems, you actually attract what you do not want. Jealousy can erode a relationship. Trust is a very important element to a successful and healthy relationship. Often when someone is jealous, they have either cheated themselves thus projecting the behavior onto their partners or have been hurt themselves by men and women in their life.
It is not healthy for you or your relationship to hold onto jealous thoughts and suspicions.
In my first marriage, I was very jealous. Looking back I can that it caused so much of the stress in our marriage. I did not trust my husband and was sure that he as going to hurt me.
In our dating life, he had cheated on me. We broke up, and eventually got back together. To be frank it was not a match made in heaven and yet for our personal reasons we chose to get married.
To this day I am grateful for the 3 amazing children that we created and for the many lessons as a result of our marriage and divorce. I married him, yet carried with me mistrust. I was unhappy with the way he treated me and very jealous of his friendships with women. It was sore that I allowed festering into a deep wound. This energy was all around us and part of our life. It contributed to how we treated each other. In the end, he did have an affair.
We separated, got back together for the sake of our children and all the right reasons. I knew for me that I could not live with the jealousy and the mistrust - I knew in my heart that I could not be married to a man that I did not trust. I had watched others for years and saw what a life with jealousy and mistrust could do and did not want to subject my children to that. I did not have the tools that I do today then to heal the hurt or our relationship.
Still, jealousy did not go away. We carry us wherever we go, and so in my next relationship, guess what, that emotion reared its ugly head once again. It was worst this time; of course I had more experience and energy fueling it. Fortunately, I realized how destructive and unhealthy my jealousy was - for my relationship, my children, and me. I made a decision to love and to trust. It began slowly. I told myself, that if my new partner was going to cheat, my worrying about was not going to stop him. However, I would feel better without all that worry. If he cheated, I'd deal with it, yet in the meantime I would focus on the joy and love in my life and appreciate our life. This also helped me to not feel jealous when he spoke to other women, yes I am admitting it WAS that bad. Of course at that time, (so many years ago) I did not understand the law of attraction. So by letting go of my worry and mistrust, and putting my attention on our life together, my jealousy evaporated, our relationship improved, and I enjoyed more of our experiences. There were other lessons to be learned and issues, yet that's for another day.
You can choose to trust. Make the decision to believe that you deserve to be loved and respected and start by loving and respecting yourself and others. The more you choose to trust and be present in your life, you will experience relationships differently, and the easier it will become to trust instinctively.
Take steps to heal the hurts you've experienced that may have contributed to your acts of jealousy. Although, from that day I have chosen to trust, the emotion of jealousy still showed up. I was aware and conscious of its existence. I would validate that yes, I am feeling it, then speak to myself about why I did not want to feel this way, and then talk myself into calm and acceptance. Many years later, I learned how to actually release the emotional and energetic toxins that were buried in my cellular memory, going to the source of the feelings that contributed to the emotion of jealousy, using EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique. So now, I rarely have to face the ugly green monster and when if it does occasionally show up, I just clear away the source.
Give yourself a gift - let the jealousy go. If you are in a relationship where you feel there is just cause for your lack of trust, then ask yourself:
Am I contributing to this in some way?
How can I shift within so that I am not experiencing jealousy?
What steps can I take to heal from my past so that I am not bringing or keeping the issues in this relationship?
Talk to your partner honestly and openly about your feelings and the steps you are taking to correct this, ask for their help.
Wishing you a day and a life of joy, love and healthy connections!
This article was written by Cheri Valentine. To get more great advice from Diva Toolbox Media Diva Cheri Valentine, visit her website at: http://cherivalentine.com/
