Jealousy, jealousy

I am trying to not be toxic and let the feelings go

There are very few things that make me feel worse than jealousy.

It is one of the most vulnerable feelings I can admit to.

Jealousy did not come naturally to me.

When I entered my first relationship, I wasn’t jealous at all. Not even a little. I trusted blindly. I loved openly. I assumed that if someone chose me, that was enough. The boy I was with at the time was almost bothered by how little jealousy I showed. I thought that meant I was evolved. Secure. Mature.

As I grew older, I started to learn about jealousy and about its supposed importance.

I learned that the girl best friend wasn’t always “just a friend.” That the girl I didn’t need to worry about was often the one I should have worried about most. That when someone looked at me and asked, “Do you trust me?” the honest answer, sometimes, should have been no.

Jealousy became a kind of sixth sense. An instinct. It alerted me to things I might have otherwise ignored. It protected me. It uncovered truths that would have shattered me even more if I had discovered them later. Truths that shouldn’t even have been there in the first place.

But the same instinct that protected me also began to live inside me permanently.

It is exhausting to carry a feeling that both saves you and slowly destroys you. Because when does it end? When do you know it is intuition, and when is it fear? When do you trust your partner, and when do you trust the ache in your chest?

Jealousy is a horrible feeling. It makes me want to rip my own heart out just so it will stop aching. It makes me question whether any good in a situation is worth the cost of the anxiety and the lack of sleep that comes with it. It makes me want to pack my bags, move cities, start over, and outrun the feeling entirely.

Sometimes the cause of jealousy isn’t loud or dramatic. Sometimes it looks like being told the conversations are “dry” when they don’t feel dry to you at all. Sometimes it looks like being promised that something will be addressed, and then watching nothing change. Sometimes it looks like waiting while someone else’s feelings are handled gently, and yours are left exposed. And you sit there wondering how you became the unreasonable one for wanting to feel secure.

I think part of my hurt wasn’t the situation itself, but the waiting. Waiting to be reassured. Waiting for something to change. Waiting to feel like my discomfort mattered urgently, not eventually. When reassurance comes too late, it doesn’t calm you. It just reminds you how long you were alone in it. It makes you wonder if it even came at all. It’s hard to feel protected when protection arrives late.

And by the time things shifted, something in me already had.

The cruelest part of jealousy is that it is born from love, but also from betrayal. Or at least the fear of it. And once you’ve experienced both, it becomes hard to separate instinct from imagination.

There is guilt in it, too.

Not because nothing is happening, but because some of it feels deliberate.

You may believe he didn’t mean to hurt you. You may even see him trying. But this isn’t always about him. Sometimes it is about the other person — about behavior that doesn’t feel accidental.

About loyalty being demanded in ways that predate you. From someone who insists on being prioritized. Who flirts openly. Who disappears when they are taken and returns when they are not.

About boundaries being tested again and again, just to see if they will hold. About finding loopholes so promises are not broken.

At some point, it stops feeling like imagination. It feels intentional.

And that is where the guilt begins. Because you don’t want to punish someone who didn’t intend harm, yet you don’t want to ignore something that feels deliberate. And God, it feels so deliberate. So you sit with the discomfort, unsure of who you are allowed to blame. Unsure if you are even allowed to blame anyone at all.

I should probably just let things be.

“You will never have to force something that is truly meant for you,” or whatever the quote I saw on Pinterest says.

I even talked to a priest about it. He told me to let things unfold naturally — that if this relationship is from God, I won’t have to worry. Nothing bad will happen. And if it does, then it isn’t from God, and I will have my answer.

But it is so hard when it occupies my mind more than I would like to admit.

I think about it all the time.

I try to cope. With intense cardio that forces my heart to slow down. Studying subjects that pique my interest and capture my attention for hours. Booking trips to places I’ve never been, hoping the excitement will drown out the noise.

I don’t know what else to do.

I don’t want to accidentally push something good away because I cannot fully trust a third person. Someone I wish would disappear but never will.

I am trying to surrender. But surrender feels a lot like standing still while your mind is running in circles.

This post was written ages ago, and these problems don’t really exist anymore. I just thought I’d share in case someone relates to it.