A lot of love relationships hit the wall because of jealousy. It helps to understand what this dark force really is. It is not an inevitable by-product of love. It is rooted in fear, not in love. It comes from being antagonistic towards feelings that you are unwilling to accept in yourself. The feelings – like loneliness, heartbreak, grief, anger, helplessness, despair and fear itself – nearly always originate in a childhood where you were not taught to accept your feelings. Usually the antagonism is directed outwards against others. Ironically, it is your intimate partner who usually bears the brunt. Sometimes people direct the antagonism against themselves, turning themselves into victims. Either way, your attitude is essentially hostile and unloving.
There is only one way to handle your jealousy with integrity, and it is not easy. But then, what people do with their jealousy is not easy either – so much nastiness, and about as merciless as war! It is one of the insanities of being human. Like infants, we refuse to take responsibility for the destructive feelings that come up in us. We would rather lash out than say hello to our pain, rage, tears and despair. It is understandable, but only the same way that a two year-old’s temper tantrum is understandable.
And there is very little in our culture that helps. The media all milk the jealousy soap-operas for the dramas they get out of them, and a lot of pop songs praise possessiveness as though it is the holy grail of love, when it is really only the fear of being lonely. So it is quite normal for people to create hell in their relationships when what they really need to do is make friends with the demons in their own inner hell.
Life is a very insistent teacher. Until you surrender to what you have to learn, you go on having unhappy relationships. You walk out of your marriage furious because your partner had an affair. You slam the door and get a divorce, and tell yourself never again. Two years later you’re slamming the door and getting a divorce again, and so it goes on until you’re willing to turn around and say hello to the pain, fear, panic, terror, loneliness, abandonment, the feeling of love having gone forever and never coming back, and all the other horror stories you may go through in your jealousy.
The only healthy, and for that matter healing, way to deal with your jealousy is to do nothing and feel everything! Do nothing against your partner, put nothing on your partner, and do nothing against yourself either – no victim trip, no turning yourself into an ambulance case. You have to sit alone in the transforming fire of your hell and make friends with all your darkness. And that, believe it or not, is as simple as breathing! Yes, you cry, you fry, you feel at times like you’re gonna die, but still, IT IS ALL ONLY YOU! You breathe into whatever you are experiencing, and as you breathe out, you surrender to it. You agree to experience it all, for one awesomely simple reason: BECAUSE IT IS SO. You agree to make friends with your inner weather, whatever the weather! Yes, I know it seems impossible! It isn’t. Really! Once you have been through its fire and honestly embraced all your demons, you become happier than you have ever been in your life. Now you love yourself and you don’t need to find anyone to save you from all that you used to be so afraid of in yourself. And the most beautiful thing is that now you can really love somebody, not just want and need them!