Letting Go

A friend told me a story recently about jealousy. Her long-distance boyfriend had a close, long-term friendship with another woman in the city where he lived. He insisted they had never been romantically involved, and my friend believed this. She said that as a woman when she met this female friend she could tell that she had no romantic interest in her boyfriend, so that was not an issue.

His feelings, however, were another matter. He was so absorbed in his friendship that the first thing you saw when you entered his home was his female friend's portrait (not his girlfriend's). Needless to say, this bothered her enormously, but she when she brought it up, he became angry and accused her of not believing him that there was nothing romantic between him and his friend.

Is this story familiar?

Much of what happened in their case matches our gender stereotypes and expectations. The man has some sort of ambiguous but close relationship with another woman, and his wife/girlfriend/partner feels that it is getting in the way of the intimacy she wants and needs to have with him.

It's classic.

But I've been on the other side of this equation, also. The rap on men is we are often inappropriately possessive, jealous, suspicious, and controlling with our partners. It probably is all true, at least I'm sure I was like that when I was younger.

But in conversations with friends, men and women, I've been re-evaluating these experiences and these feelings. "Jealousy only looks good in bad light. It's just hollow bullshit," one friend told me.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with her, but she's on the right track. What I've come to realize is jealousy occurs when you feel one-down in a relationship. If someone is not sharing the power fairly in his relationship with you, you're going to feel one-down. In this state, his interest in others -- real or imagined -- easily becomes inflated in your mind.

In the end, we either are or are not honestly together as an intimate, exclusive couple. If we are, from an emotional perspective, that's as good as it gets. If we aren't, nasty feelings like jealousy spring forth. All we have is the "bad light," where it's hard to know good from bad, wrong from right, or hope from hopelessness.

Every person has so much power. Those who doubt this miss chances to develop heathy relationships.

Perhaps the next time I find myself one-down and jealous of a woman, I will just let her go. It is likely that she is the one with work to do anyway, because I never feel overly possessive anymore.

However, that said, once you have violated somebody's trust, the only way you can ever regain it is to sit down and answer every question he has -- truthfully and in detail. He gets to say when enough is enough; you don't. And he gets to say what you can and cannot do in the future regarding this betrayal in order to be worthy of earning back the trust you have broken.

This is the fate of those who betray trust and cause pain to their partner. Their relationship is truly doomed unless they are willing to do this work. Most are unwilling; they'd rather flee.

I should know. I've been the "bad guy" in the past, and I know what it cost me. These are the incontrovertible laws of emotional life, eternalized as cliches.

What goes around, comes around.

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