The green-eyed relationship killer
How to resolve jealousy in relationships
By Jessie Fetterling (Contact)
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
Chelsea Mertz, Topeka sophomore, admits to being a really jealous person. After she and her boyfriend broke up, she saw him soon after at a party with another girl. When he started dancing with the girl right in front of her, she kicked him in the back with her heel, which, she later found out, left a huge bruise and welt.
Jennifer Taylor, Leawood senior, and Tom Arnspiger, Fairway senior, had been dating for two years and living together for about nine months when Taylor discovered a link to a porn Web site on Arnspiger’s computer. She was angry and a little offended because she assumed that he had a wandering eye, when in reality Arnspiger says it was nothing and the site had just come up as he was passing to another site. As a solution, Taylor suggested that the two make their own sex tape. Weeks later, while again snooping around her boyfriend’s online history, she found another similar link. Outraged, Taylor quickly decided to punish Arnspiger by taping over their homemade rendezvous with footage of their cat sleeping.
The couple broke up six months later, and Taylor says her jealousy played a part in it.
People in relationships often find themselves jealous of something their lover does, whether it’s flirting, talking to an ex-girlfriend or watching porn. Jealousy can be dealt with in other ways besides breaking up, though.
Photo by Catherine Coquillette
Steps can be taken to prevent jealousy from creeping into relationships.
“Jealousy is basically just seeing someone else getting what you want,” says Susie Collins, Ohio-based author and relationship coach.
In these cases, Collins suggests asking yourself what it is you want and how you can go about getting it.
Most people who feel jealous are insecure with something in the relationship, Collins says, and this eventually needs to be healed, or nothing good will come of the relationship.
With all the new ways to meet and communicate with people, there are now also more sources for potential jealousy. However, it usually just means there’s something else wrong in the relationship. “If your relationship is solid, there isn’t any room for jealousy,” Collins says.
A new-age prompter of jealousy is the Facebook or MySpace wall. Both Michael Solganik, Overland Park freshman, and Andrew Rogers, Olathe senior, say their girlfriends have complained when other girls write on their walls, even if it was something as harmless as, “Haven’t seen you in awhile.” In Rogers’ case, one of the girls who had posted on his wall was a lesbian.
Jodi Jakylovich, Gower, Mo., senior, describes a time when she went out with a guy friend who had just returned from Afghanistan. The next morning she awoke to find that her boyfriend had blacked out all the windows of her car with shoe polish. Needless to say, he and Jakylovich are no longer together.
The best way to overcome jealousy is to first figure out if something is going on that should give you a reason to be jealous, or if you are just making assumptions. Then you and your partner need to come to an agreement and work toward having a closer, more understanding relationship. It’s important to start there instead of accusing and arguing. People usually become jealous because their lovers are more flirty than they are. In this case, Collins says to remember that your boyfriend or girlfriend loves you and he or she is going home with you, not anyone else.
When someone has cheated, it can be difficult to forgive because trust is a hard thing to build back up. Collins says, however, that if you want to rekindle that relationship you need to set aside your feelings and try to open yourself up to really try in the relationship. “You have to give up being the martyr and the victim and make sure that your partner is committed to making the relationship work,” Collins says.
Not everyone can stop his or her partner from watching porn or talking to an ex or even the occasional flirtation. Instead, the thing to ask yourself is: Why am I jealous of this? If the reason is fixable, then communicate with your partner and move on. If it’s not, then there will be a lot of unreasonable blow-ups that can lead to an unhappy ending for both people in the relationship. Everyone gets jealous. it’s how you handle it that makes your relationship a worthwhile one.
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