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Jealousy in Marriage

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grit

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I am processing feelings of jealousy and insecurity and I hope some of you can help me with your great insights and experiences.

I am experiencing the green monster lately. I have had it in the past but I always sort of course in my great dissociation, put it under the carpet sort of. Also in all fairness, I just rationalize it well and could see clearly, it was all in my head. Now I need to get to the bottom feeder part of it rather than just the surface so please share what you see, feel or sense from my post. No comment is uncalled for and no comment is too deep or too low. I need a good shake around this.

To give you some context, also feel free to ask questions if needed. I am 15 yrs older than my husband and I am going through change of life AKA menopause…no overt symptoms but I am in my late 40s he is early 30s. We have good marriage. We connect well. I am more or less emotional seeker rather than rational, so I feel connected. We have been together 6yrs…married 4. We have a lot of things in common travel, play sports (different kind but we are both outdoorsy), and we like nature and dogs. Most of our time together I was strained from my mother (recently reconciled) and he has been strained from his father about 15 yrs. I got along with his family and he is with mine (even those in my family I am not close…he is close to).

There is a girl, similar age as my husband and they met few months before we did. There was attraction but he did not feel she was the one so nothing happened. Since we met we have seen her handful times. We have been to her house party one time (she lived with a guy then) and she has been to our house one time …and hooked with one of my husband’s friend and that ended really bad (so bad…) but we never know what happened. Since then, we see her very sporadically. This is the first time I feel jealousy around her. She has a boyfriend (at least the 4th one I am aware of since we all met). Nice girl. Attractive girl. Very artistic. I do not have anything bad to say about her.

There are or were couples times a friend of my husband (not the one who dated her) calls my husband and invites her too and sometimes I am there and some times I am not. The times I have (at least 2 times) I got the monstrous feeling of jealousy. The thing is I expressed this to my husband, and it starts as a fight like I am being immature, insecure but it always ends up really understanding and really connecting but lately it happened twice in like one week. One time, my husband run into her, her new b/f and her father. And the other time the common friend invited my husband and I mentioned probably she will be there and it created again disconnection.

I have not bring this up in my therapy, which I will it always happens right after therapy and by then, other things come up so I am planning of bringing it up but at the moment, I could use a dose of consciousness kicked into me.

What is the core belief that is getting triggered? I am from a big family and never felt special and experienced (as I highlighted many times over) severe violence against me as a child.

This is my take of jealousy. I am more or less identifying with her (she had has about three boyfriends since I met my husband that I know of) and feeling her loneliness (or my projection of her loneliness) and I am feeling her anxiety of finding the one - after all I have been there and I am so identifying with so unhealthy, I am not even thinking or feeling ME! anymore. I even see myself imagining my husband and her as me and my husband and feeling this intense sadness and loss. Maybe there is abandonment trigger. When I remind myself this is my feeling and I need to focus on my feeling and not think about her, my body literally feels good but not for long until I am again identifying with her and falling into the rabbit hole. It is a cycle. I know identifying with others for me is my baseline (have had it for a long time with my mother and recently recovered from that)….it is kind of empathy like ---understanding others at the expense of erasing myself. This is my therapy hat talking.

My most consistent feeling is deep loss like death. Deep sorrow and regents (not sure about what) and I feel fighting to control the situation but yet let my husband be he. There is no cheating. I am not really focusing on abstract just my feelings and how to make sense of this. I am also getting to a space where I feel nothing. Complete deadness and full of air in my stomach -unable to breathe. Seems to me a step up from disassociating.

Trying to learn intellectually as well as emotionally what is jealously? How do I digest and let it seep so I can touch the core beliefs that are crying for help?

Any insight. Experience. Outworld input.

Thank you.
 
me with your great insights and experiences

@grit My insights ( If they can be defined as insightful) Come from emotional flatland mostly. If I can broaden my scope, then Jealousy comes with bagagges of fear, Abandonment (Which you already mentioned) As I come from the Part-theory-department,I can only say that a part isnt aware and doesnt feel secure enough in the present situation. So, how could you make that part realize that there is No threat here? I have Photos of myself from different ages hanging on a wall and I try the internal dialog with them. Its just another method to communicate with the inner voices(Not always easy and not always something I prefer doing or working)
 
Amazing!
PURUSHA post: 1623757 said:
that a part isnt aware and doesnt feel secure enough in the present situation
I have not done Part-theory dept but I have read about it and that line of yours completely and utterly resonates with me. I am feeling something but not aware of. I can feel being very close but yet not so...
Thank you so much. You gave me a different way to look at myself. I can tell there is something profound for me to learn in this situation. It is sticky but I need to move through it.
 
I know identifying with others for me is my baseline (have had it for a long time with my mother and recently recovered from that)….it is kind of empathy like ---understanding others at the expense of erasing myself.

Sounds like traits of an Empath.
 
Well, you are going through the change of life and your feelings are misdirected. One question. Did you and your husband have any children?
 
@Deanna
Interesting take and I wonder why I mentioned both in this post...maybe there is some connection or association that you pick on. It is possible I am avoiding my anxiety toward aging and focusing on someone younger than me. We do not have children and maybe this is another anxiety underlying this...the fear that I cannot bear children for him and she can. hmmmmmmmmmmm

These points are all truly touching something. I will have to digest and see how I take it internally. I am understanding the depth of them intellectually but I need to have emotional resonance and that shall come when it is ready.

Thank you for pointing me there.
 
am feeling something but not aware of

Feeling: You are feeling it... that's a step further. I have lived in the valley of the unaware for many years. Finding acess to the parts is /I have been told is the Key... who knows...
If Bodytherapy/somatic experiencing is something you could try?
 
Sounds like traits of an Empath.
Hi @NIKI
Empathy is a huge spectrum and this could be on the spectrum...yes but unfortunately it feels to me where empathy hurts (erasing myself to identify with others) is truly the state I have been most of my adult life. There is no healthy empathy in that. But you are right, when used and felt healthily (like if I felt her pain but kept it as her pain and my empathy of it rather than disappearing to her and imagining her and my husband like I died)...that is just maladaptive of empathy spectrum and I am recognizing this often now.

Thank you.
 
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Feeling: You are feeling it... that's a step further. I have lived in the valley of the unaware for many years. Finding acess to the parts is /I have been told is the Key... who knows...
If Bodytherapy/somatic experiencing is something you could try?
I am in therapy and I find therapy extremely helpful. I am also extremely body sensitive to the point that just now I had a massage and had interesting reaction.
I could focus on the massage therapist's hands on me or the feeling of my body under the hands. I could actually distinguish the two feelings apart and was quite moved how deep that is for me.

I am in psycho-dynamic psychotherapy and even though my therapist is not body work, I am body positive and direct my healing toward the body. I am healing because I can take advantage of the subconscious I am dealing and how it is manifested in my body.
 
am healing because I can take advantage of the subconscious I am dealing and how it is manifested in my body


Good to read @grit. :)
Actually I kept writing to you because its interesting for me (I hope this doesnt sound too egoistic) To read someone who is (From what I have understood so far)more empathetic
 
it feels to me where empathy hurts (erasing myself to identify with others) is truly the state I have been most of my adult life. There is no healthy empathy in that

I understand and agree. I am the same way and it is exhausting. Do you need a lot of alone time to recharge yourself after being around people?
 
Yes in fact, I am a loner and extroverted.
I love people but I love being alone after people. You are extremely perceptive!

I understand and agree. I am the same way and it is exhausting. Do you need a lot of alone time to recharge yourself after being around people?
 
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