Dear Anthony,
My girlfriend and I are very serious and talk about marriage. But I’m a little concerned about how she accuses me of being too friendly with other women. I guess I should be happy that she cares so much for me that she would be jealous of other women. But I wish she would stop being jealous. Am I making too much of this?
It’s hard to tell what all the contributing factors are in order for me to help you fully. Maybe you’re a hopeless and obvious flirt that would naturally make anyone with you feel uncomfortable or unsettled. Or maybe she has serious issues from her upbringing (i.e., abandonment by her father, or parents divorced) that make her exaggerate or be overly sensitive about the threat of other women to your relationship.
Jealousy is one of the most common things to happen in a romantic relationship, so it’s very easy for jealousy to pushed aside as an expected part of relationships, and not to be taken too seriously. But I assure you, jealousy should be taken seriously. Depending on what is motivating jealousy, it can be a source of death to the relationship. You might both need to seek some kind of qualified counseling to address this to make sure it is nothing too serious.
Since I can’t know the degrees and nuances to your particular situation, I will just give a general overview about jealousy that could be of some help to you.
First, just as there is such a thing as righteous anger, there is such a thing as righteous jealousy. Jesus had righteous anger when He overturned the moneychangers in the Temple. God has a righteous jealousy for the people of God, His bride.
The reality that God is a jealous God means His love is protective. He does not want his children to stray from Him or hurt themselves. He wants nothing to disrupt the relationship He has with us. He is deeply committed to His people. And he expects us to be committed to Him in return through obedience to Him. But what’s most important is that God’s jealousy is about doing what is necessary to restore the relationship.
Jealousy is, in essence, an intolerance of rivals. It can be a virtue or a sin depending on the legitimacy of the rival and the way the situation is handled. Jealousy is often associated with envy, and too often produces a controlling and over-protective motive in order to subdue the beloved. These things are never attributed to God, because God’s love includes His respect of our free will. He does not force us to love Him, nor stay in our relationship with Him, as jealous as He might get. His jealousy includes pity and mercy, never intent to harm and seek revenge.
Let’s turn the focus on jealousy that is negative, harmful and destructive.
Jealousy is not anger. Anger generally subsides with time but jealousy coolly calculates and plots revenge.
This is an important distinction. It’s one thing to be angry, but it’s quite another to seek revenge or purposely desire to cause harm. Anger settles down in a short time, where jealousy pursues over time. Anger is a passion of the surface that blows over; then there is a return to calm and clear thinking. Jealousy is anger permitted to penetrate the depths of one’s being, turning into other more harmful and dangerous things, not so easily removed.
Without fail, jealousy inflicts a death blow to any potential your relationship has. This is because it intrudes on trust. Jealousy is an enemy of trust. Trust is essential for love to grow between two people.
Peace is the fruit of trust, and jealousy kills peace. Once peace is killed, there is disorder. Jealousy is a favorite toy of evil because it has as its sole purpose the disturbance of peace and the destruction of trust.
Even if it makes sense to become jealous, it’s better not to. Better keep faith in love and trust, and allow peaceful environments for communication about any matters of concern that need discussion and resolution. Choosing the path of jealousy only harms you, making you unfit to contribute positively to the situation.
It’s perverse to consider jealousy attractive. Some women are thrilled when their boyfriend shows that he is jealous. She interprets this as his being a man and standing up for his girl. These same women eventually find out that this jealousy does not die at the altar, but lives on within marriage. It becomes no longer flattering and will take on new and more harmful forms.
Jealousy is fundamentally an insecurity issue. The person somehow fears they will be abandoned. A person who is easily jealous doesn’t need a legitimate excuse to become jealous. They find reasons.
If your girlfriend is a jealous person, she must decide to implore the grace of God to help be healed of it. It’s no easy task to stop being jealous. Like all habits, it takes great effort to break it.
Human beings are often disordered, and our anger and jealousy are bad in motive, thus our jealousy acts with a petty, insecure, suspicious outrage which can kill a relationship that might never have had to end. God shows a beautiful, passionate commitment to us, and His anger and jealousy are ordered, without ever getting out of hand.
Jealousy is not the answer, even if there is just cause, strictly because it is counter-productive and causes more harm. It also prompts a departure from who you are, and who you are supposed to be; namely, a Christian whose faith is strong.
This brought painful memory of the relationship that I had.
I was in a relationship with a man and thought that I found my good catholic man.After a month of corresponding we decided to communicate only with each other.I stopped communicating with other men.I thought that we wore serious.He came to see me twice than I made a trip and saw him.Than I found out that he corresponded with other women from AMS.I was not jealous but felt so hurt.He was telling me so many nice things that I wonted to hear.I realized that he was telling that probably same things to the other women.I felt betrayed,lost trust in him and broke the relationship.He told me that I needed to have more trust in him and that he was only corresponding with others like a friend and nothing more.I am praying for him and wish him the best. k
Hi K,
I had a similar experience with someone I dated from a dating website. Within a month of corresponding intermittently due to my earnest interest in courtship dating, we had our first phone call. He sounded like he had all the characteristics I had been seeking since high school, and I am currently my mid thirties. We had a few more phone calls, and they would last all night almost until midnight. We went on our first date, and hit it off well. Within a week later, we both met each other’s mothers and had about 4 dates due to my serendipity of getting free tickets to see live sports.
I now realize he had inconsistencies in revelations. He stated he only drank one beer when he drank, but he did reveal that would eventually see “red flags” due to his drinking. After the first week, he pushed me to see only him, or I would loose him. He stated he last went to church 3 weeks ago, but after dating him about a month and a half, he still stated he last went to church 3 weeks ago. He would state he needed to do better as a dad, but when I would ask him if he talked to his daughter who lives across the coutry, he would say he always speaks to his daughter on the phone.
I now realize he had all the signs of co-dependency, and his choice drug was alcohol. I broke it off with him when I realized he was out drinking with the guys throughout the week, and after he lied to me about not talking to other girls online throughout the time he said we were to be exclusive with him identifying me as his girlfriend to his friends. He also had a history of jumping into fatherhood outside of marriage as well as jumping into marriage.
Clinically, I know that bi-polars and alcoholics tend to be manic (irresponsibly excitable but non-committal to major plans) and enjoy the feeling of rushing into love and marriage. This guy had those signs, and I am glad to have caught onto the clues before falling for each of his good words that he couldn’t follow through on through action. I am also glad, he had the seeds of God planted in him early on, so that he had enough virtue to be honest with me during his rare moment of clarity and sobriety. Unfortunately, his honesty came after he was caught with his rush of secretly talking to other women on a dating website.
I don’t like to pray for him even though I do. I want to give it all to God to watch over him.
C
My oldest and dearest friend has spent a lifetime of internal struggle “fighting” the jealousy demons even though she is married to a husband that has always been faithful and true to her. A fractured relationship with her father has caused he to imagine something may be ‘going on” with any women that her spouse comes in contact with. Years of therapy have helped her to realize her fits of jealousy are a draw-back to her childhood insecurities. It has, at times, been very hard on her husband to cope with. I would say that signs of jealously in a relationship should sent up a red flag and then proceed with caution. As Anthony points out, this is usually a sign of a much bigger problem.
Hi C,
My problem is that I am still hurt and that I am still thinking about him every day.I tried to correspond with men since I broke up with him but couldn’t get to close to anybody.I am inactive right now.I am tying to go on but is very hard because I put my whole heart into the relationship and I still care about him.My best friend tells me that I am very attractive and that I can find another if I try to.She tells me every day that I need to forget and move on,but how do I do that?I am praying a lot.I was honest ,did everything right way and that did not help me.I wrote a letter to the nun of the monastery I visited last year when I was overseas.I wrote everything what happened to me and I asked her to allow me to come and stay at her monastery for few weeks.I got my answer today.Sister Brigitte will let me stay at her monastery to pray and live in solitude for a while.I am looking forward to this trip.
I need a prayer,please pray for me.
Thanks,k
Finding someone and falling in love and spending a lifetime together is a great gift from God. I know as I had it for 27 years until death separated us. If it was just hinged on “finding someone else” or being attractive everyone would be blissfully in love. The harsh fact is it doesn’t happen more often than it does. When it does it is almost heavenly and, as I said a gift God-given. K, you can’t help what you feel in your heart. Heartache is one of the most painful conditions a human can suffer. Pray and offer the sacrifice to God and perhaps in time God will send someone else into your life you will love and they will love you in return. In the meantime may God Bless you during the prayerful time you spend at the monastery.
I will keep you in my prayers +
Thank you Mary Ann and God bless.k