Re: I need advice. This is a bit tricky.

Hi!

What a tangled web we weave...

From the sound of your post, you both have a pretty strong relationship, far better than most I've seen. So don't take my philosophizing here to mean that I think your relationship is doomed. What I'm going to say is meant to explore some concepts, not label you. Most of it doesn't apply to you at all but is useful for exploration, so please keep that in mind. It's easier to think about pure white light if you break it into its spectrum and see all the colors distinctly. It's also easy to see how pure the white light really is this way.

The short of it: he'll stop antagonizing you sometime after you are genuinely not bothered by it any more. It's strange and sad and goofy, but it's true.

From one viewpoint: You're the one with the issue. He's willing to play the part for you, so that you can keep confronting your issue until you no longer have the issue.

It's kinda like kids teasing the fat kid until he finally no longer cares about people calling him "fat". As long as they can get a rise out of him, they'll keep teasing him. After both sides finally know that he genuinely doesn't care about being called "fat" any more, the game ends and both groups can move on to other games.

So, yes, it's childish behavior. (Which is more childish -- the fat kid reacting to being called fat, or the other kids taunting the fat kid?) Pointing that out to him, however, won't make it go away. You can easily use that as a method of trying to prove to him that he's wrong for being this way, but you have, in fact, already gotten a taste of what "proving" him wrong on this point will do to him.

If it's his choice to change, then he can change. But if he's changing for you... well... that's a kind of rejection. He's something less than perfect, or your shared love is something less than perfect, or... I don't know precisely what the rationale is for him, but it'll be something along those lines. It's also kind of silly (personal experience here...), but every one of us probably looks silly/childish/immature to someone who has matured past our particular issues.

My advice, therefore, is to find the strength within yourself to decide not to be jealous any more.

To me, love and jealousy are mutually exclusive. Many folks think of love as some sort of jealous possessiveness wherein each side has to continually prove his love for the other, and each side defines his worth by the actions of the other in demonstrating this "love", devotion, dedication, etc.

Actions do speak louder than words, but what does the action of demanding or requiring proof of your partner's love say?

It's really a lack of loving one's self, and trying to substitute someone else's (false, possessive, jealous-attentive) love for one's own worth, which perpetuates this. It does nothing but breed more jealousy.

As love matures, or becomes more perfect, or as one's love for one's self grows, or whatever the path is for the individual -- I don't know what your path is in this regard, since I'm having so much fun walking mine *grin* -- the jealousy part drops away, bit by bit (or chunk by chunk, or maybe all at once!). The more perfect the love, the less present the jealousy. Think of it as a scale or balance, with jealousy on one side and love on the other; the higher one side, the lower the other.

I believe it's possible to elimiate the jealousy entirely. From the looks of things, you want to eliminate it. Correct?

Well, one possible way is, of course, to get rid of the stimulus that you use to trigger feeling jealous. This doesn't put you in any better control of your feelings, however. It's like avoiding foods that give you hives. It's an effective approach -- it's better than all that itching -- but getting rid of your body's allergic reaction would be a better option, wouldn't it? Then you don't have to avoid foods, or make special requests at restaurants, or worry about contamination, or...

Likewise, giving up the mechanism that results in jealous feelings could be considered a better choice than stamping out the behaviors or situations that trigger the mechanism.

Rarely does anyone make that an easy thing for him to do for himself -- give up one of these reactions. I can't claim to have mastered the process myself, but what has worked for me is to just decide.

Yep, it really could have been that simple. But, being the stubborn little SOB that I am, I spent weeks or months testing myself, or proving it to myself, or whatever. This has traditionally resulted in a lot of excess drama that could have been avoided by simply believing in myself and not having to play that prove or test game, but now I know that, too. *grin*

Good luck!

=-John-=
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