 |
Love isn’t love without jealousy. Although we most often consider jealousy a negative quality, it’s basically impossible to be in love without it.
Well, impossible to feel in love. While our jealousy isn’t always directed at our partners (and instead at whomever is trying to consort with them), it’s really the love of our lovers we’re afraid of losing. This fear reminds us how much we love our partner. This fear reminds us we need him or her in our lives.
This means we need to feel a bit of pain when we’re in a relationship in order to get that euphoric “in love” feeling we all spend our lives searching for.
We grow up believing pain must be avoided at all costs — especially when it comes to adult relationships. As I’m sure most of you’ve noticed, however, there isn’t a single relationship in the world that’s immune to all of love’s unpleasantries.
No relationship is ever “perfect” because no relationship would survive being perfect.
Pain cannot be avoided in loving relationships, as every part of them that reminds us how much we care is — to some degree — painful. What is it to love if not to long for someone? To need someone? To feel as if you’re missing something — missing a chunk of yourself when the two of you aren’t together?
This longing is literally the definition of romantic love — the most beautiful and sought after pain in all of human history.
You can’t avoid pain in a relationship — and you shouldn’t try to. People spend so much time trying to please each other and make each other happy that relationships often lose their flame and die.
Or, on the other end, there are incredibly frustrated people who, after months or years of tiptoeing around their partners, blow up in their faces, saying and doing things they later regret.
Of course, you shouldn’t try and seek out pain. Men often do the silliest of things: try and make their women jealous. There is no wrath like the wrath of a jealous woman — a little pain may be healthy, but you’re going to get a little more than just a little pain.
Relationships are already incredibly difficult. There will always be pain to be had, so there’s no need for you to make an effort to bring it about. Don’t get me wrong, a little jealousy goes a long way to maintaining a healthy relationship, but you shouldn’t have to try and make her jealous.
We’re told that relationships are supposed to be seamless, so at the first sign of friction, we freak out and contemplate ending them. I remember wondering whether or not relationships were “supposed to be this difficult” and whether or not I was “making a mistake and missing out on something greater.”
We’re sold on this fairytale that we’re to recognize love when we first encounter it and all the things that happen afterward are just the delightful pieces falling into place, eventually assembling into that happily ever after.
Relationships can’t be all joy and happiness all the time — nothing in life can be, indefinitely. Human beings don’t like only having good experiences. We need pain in order to understand how good the good times are.
Real men don’t make their women jealous. But, they, hopefully, feel a tad bit jealous every moment they aren’t together — it’s one of the most memorable and oddly enjoyable feelings in the world.
There’s nothing better for a relationship than a touch of uncalled for jealousy. You want to feel a bit jealous knowing other women want your man (and vice versa). You don’t, however, want to have a good reason to be jealous.
You see… Real men don’t need to make their women jealous because they’re already jealous by default. A woman knows how great her man is and, naturally, doesn’t want anyone else getting any filthy hands on him. He is hers, and she won’t have it any other way.
This is healthy jealousy — healthy jealousy that makes for healthy relationships.
And real men don’t go out of their way to make their women jealous. If you need to try and make her jealous, you’re not worth getting jealous over.
Or, also a very likely possibility, your woman just doesn’t know how great you really are and doesn’t appreciate you. Either way, something isn’t quite right.
The greatest male partners in the world make sure that every other single woman in the world is jealous of their woman.
A man’s job is to give all other women reason to be jealous of the woman he loves. If all other women are jealous and the woman you love is jealous, you, my friend, have got relationships figured out.
If it turns out that the woman you’re dating doesn’t appreciate having you around, there are plenty of other women already waiting to fall in love with you. It’s a win for everybody.
Except for your ex… but now you know you deserve better.
Paul Hudson
Good one.
ReplyDelete