“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is: a dissatisfaction with self.”
~Joan Didion
When I was a young man I had an issue with relationships. Looking back now, it is easy to see that I had low self-esteem, though I could not see it at the time. Because of my low self-image and my neediness, many relationships that could have had a decent chance went by the way side.
I developed a low-level anxiety about how much any girlfriend cared for me, which, in turn, became outright jealousy and resulted in controlling behavior.
I would worry that my girlfriend was going to leave me for another man and would then become aggressive, starting arguments. I would act out when she wanted to go out with her friends. If we went out together,
Of course, all of this behavior was about demanding, without explicitly saying it, that she demonstrated how much she loved me. This was because, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believed she did not
Ironically, the more she showed me she loved me, the less I believed her.
My Fear
I tried to control the fear that I was unlovable by controlling the person I loved. I even took to confronting men who I saw as a threat to us as couple.
I realized that I could not control my girlfriends and that trying to control them had the opposite effect.
Lastly, I realized that I needed to learn to love myself and stop expecting others to do something I wasn’t doing for myself.
We can choose to live in fear or not—that’s something we can control. And we can also control if we choose to be miserable or happy. I chose happy.
http://tinybuddha.com/author/julian-hall/
No comments:
Post a Comment