What is it in the brain that makes us want to be special in someone else’s eyes and life? What makes us want to be the first, or the only, the last, the best? What makes us see certain things as sacred? For me, the flip side of this coin is jealousy. I don’t always share well. It’s one of the things that brings me the most shame. Specifically, I’m thinking about the last few times my ex-fiancee, B, wrote to me – she made it a point to tell me she had a boyfriend – he reads this blog too… he finds my public hashing out of our relationship to be disgusting. Telling me she had a boyfriend had the effect of making me feel very unspecial. I don’t know if that was her intent. When I wrote about waiting, I was reading (and feeling) about how the one who waits, would love to be the one to recover first – to show the other person that they moved on faster….. “Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn’t wait.” There were plenty of times I wanted to go out and get a girlfriend just to somehow show my ex-fiancee that I had moved on. A rebound that would push me across that line, that would intentionally cheapen the thing that I had been holding on to for so long. (I’ve never claimed to be above pettiness). For whatever reason, I couldn’t do it – I knew it wasn’t the right time or thing for me. Her having a boyfriend… somehow feels like a betrayal. I know I “shouldn’t” look at it that way. In my mind, it’s as though she took all of the things that she had given to me, things that were supposed to be special, and just as easily gave them to the next guy in line. All the while, I’ve been trying to dig myself out from the avalanche that had buried me – hoping to see a little daylight, feel a little air, breath a little easier.
I still struggle to imagine giving anything close to what I gave of myself to anyone else. For months, I wanted, more than anything, for us to find our way back to each other… The thought of her having moved on in this way made things considerably more real; put that fantasy in it’s proper place; brought her back to her “rightful place and size.” Before I moved, my stepfather would “joke” that she’s probably engaged by now. I never found this funny. For one, it happened to me once before – I broke up with a woman and the one time I reached out to apologize and maybe reconcile (about three months later), I learned she had gotten engaged. With B, the fear was real – I knew she would move on much more quickly than I would. The one who leaves always does. The joker in me is reminded of the Friends episode “we were on a break.” The romantic in me struggles to understand any of these things. I don’t believe in timelines – there is no right amount of time to wait. And while I believe that the grief felt is proportionate to the love that was felt, I’m hesitant to embrace its inverse; to believe that moving on is an indication of lack of deep feelings. It’s too uncomfortable to think the words were empty and that I didn’t matter much.
All of that stuff above – all of those words are an attempt to wrestle with that very complicated human emotion – jealousy. I can get jealous over the dumbest things. I know it stems from insecurity. No matter how hard I think about it and try to pinpoint it’s origin within me, I can’t seem to get there. When I was really young, I remember being a little jealous of my stepbrother and stepsister. I don’t think I understood why they got to see my dad every day and I didn’t. I know one of the first times I stayed at my dad’s house in South Philly I peed the “bed” – we slept on a sofa when we stayed there. I have no idea how old I was – too old to wet the bed. I can only imagine that it was a result of some type of anxiety that I was experiencing. Perhaps it was the disturbance of being in a new place, a physical manifestation of me trying to show that I was uncomfortable. Later in life, with my first girlfriend, I can remember being jealous of some of her male friends, and also of her having to dress nicely/stylishly for her retail job at the mall. It was as if I felt like she was going above and beyond for work in ways she might not do for me. At some point, I grew out of it – though I know it flared up in a very similar way early on in my relationship with my ex-wife.
As best as I can describe it… deep down I don’t trust men. I assume that they lust after everything and will always try to conquer and win out. So sometimes, when my partner looks great, instead of being able to just accept and embrace that, my insecurities needle the back of my mind and I think her looking great will not only attract the attention of other men (why wouldn’t it, it has my attention) but that their attention will seem novel enough to maybe be reciprocated? A therapist would have a field day with all of this – perhaps it’s a projection of something deep inside me? These jealousies aren’t just limited to “affair” types of situations. I sometimes struggle with feeling left out. B once went on a hike with a female friend of mine. I had really wanted just the two of us to do the hike. We talked about getting married in a secluded spot. We sometimes enjoyed the bubble we had created – I know I did. The hike has one of the better views in the state of Pennsylvania – I wanted it to be something special. I wanted it to be ours – never mind that I’ve done the hike a half-dozen times before, sometimes with other women. This was my way of trying to share something important – to give it exclusively to her. The experience of her going without me gave me very mixed feelings – add to that I was under significant pressure at work, and tired, and stressed. I wanted the two of them to hang out and have a good time. But I also wanted to be the first one to show her that view. Perhaps I simply place too much emphasis on novel experiences instead of the more zen way of looking at it which is that every time can be new.
In trying to understand some of this, I turned to that place that always seems to touch on these things, Brain Pickings. From Cicero, I am again reminded of our dualities:
Could a wise man be subject to grief, he might also be liable to pity, or even might be open to a disposition towards envy… Compassion and envy are consistent in the same man; for whoever is uneasy at any one’s adversity is also uneasy at another’s prosperity.
Those dualities are always a good reminder for self-compassion. Yes, I can be jealous and petty and small. All things that make me a fallible human being. All part of the multitudes.