Let’s be honest, jealousy is the most unsexy emotion that your partner can throw at you, and I rarely see it do anything besides drive beautiful relationships into painful turmoil. My husband and I have been together for ten years, and throughout that time, we have had many many conversations about trust and jealousy.
Even more so, I get other women asking how I avoid feelings of jealousy. I get this question ALL THE TIME.
First off, my man loves hard. He loves everybody close in his life hard and steadfast. He also is a flirt. And so am I. And we’re both ok with that. We appreciate others’ beauty, if a woman with a banging ass walks past us, we both turn and look and say “damnnnn”. However, we know that there are lines we agree not to cross. He showers me with his affection, so much so that when we first got together I really had to work on feeling worthy enough to receive his devotion. And that love pours to others as well, and he has many platonic friendships with other women, usually friends of mine as well.
He kisses them on the cheek every time he sees them, gives them the biggest hugs (or well he did before social distancing was the norm).
I can’t count how many times in my life I’ve had other women say to me, how are you okay with him showing any affection towards other women? Isn’t he your husband? Here’s how:
1. Him showing his platonic love towards other women in no way takes away from the abundance of affection and devotion that he gives to me. My cup is more than overflowing and I am happy that others get to feel a small fraction of the love shower that I get every day.
2. I trust his character. Period.
3. I release expectations. If he were ever stupid enough to have an affair behind my back that tore us apart, well that would be really shitty — and it would be his loss. But living in fear of your man leaving you really is just giving way too much attention to that which you don’t want to happen. Your perspective and your reality are highly dependent on that which you set your focus on.
4. Communication. Sometimes, we have both crossed the lines, especially if drugs and alcohol were involved. We’re not perfect, and there are those that hold judgements to us for that. But other people are not part of our marriage and they create their own narrative from imperfect snippets of our life. When we’ve had difficulties with trust in the past, we discuss what needs to happen differently and recommit.
5. Feeling jealous doesn’t feel good. It’s low vibe AF. Feeling worthy of yourself and wearing your confidence like a fucking queen feels GOOD. Yes, you may get burned, but then you know that person didn’t deserve you and you choose again, and again if needed. And you get wiser with each experience.
6. If you are ever depending on your partner to fill a void in your life, to love parts of you that you despise, then there will always be an imbalance in your relationships. Sounds so clichè, but you do need to be so incredibly happy with who you are and love yourself fully to avoid feelings of jealousy.
7. Life is too short to waste it on stupid fights about trust and jealousy. You know if your partner is committed to protecting your heart. Trust that. And if you know they aren’t, then maybe it’s time to reassess.
Yes, maybe you’ve had experiences in the past that make it feel impossible to squash your feelings of jealousy. But you have made a choice to be with the person you are now, or you’ve chosen to forgive that person for what they’ve done in the past. If jealousy is still bubbling up inside of you, then you get to work on healing your past traumas around it, that’s your responsibility, not your partners.
