This is an open letter to my friend
Jealousy
That's one emotion I hate that I can feel. That's one emotion I hate the outcome of who and what I become once I start to feel it. That's one emotion I get embarrassed to admit that I feel. This is me admitting it.
When I feel it, I don't say anything about it because of fear of being seen as insecure, which I am not.
What do I do then? I keep quiet about it and allow scenarios play out in my head as a result of this emotion.
What's the result of this action? I end up hurting my feelings and I give room for the emotion to grow. It is baseless. It is very baseless.
What’s the solution? This. Voicing it out. Walking through my feelings and getting the reassurance I need to shut it down.
What happened, you ask? I'll tell you what happened. Today, I got jealous because of my partner's childhood friend.
First of, I didn't know she was going to be at the party and my partner didn't give me headsup or just inform me for information sake but she showed up and I met her. He got back in and didn’t do an introduction like he did when I met all his other female friends and even male friends. When I say all, I kid you not. He would literally hold me by the hand and tell me to meet ’xxxx’ and tell them to meet me too, even if we had met unofficially but that didn't happen in this case and that was the entrance of the emotion that I hate so much.
I started to overthink possible reasons why that didn't happen even if he had called us both aside at some point during the event.
”Did this person have feelings for him and he is aware of it?”
”Was he trying not to hurt her feelings because he knows introducing me to her would?”
”Is she someone he fancied but just didn't date because they had siblings-zoned themselves?”
”Why didn't he introduce me to this person?”
”I mentioned it to him and he still didn't do an introduction?”
”What is it about this two that he hasn't told me yet?”
”This is the same person he used a love emoji for on her birthday and used a confetti for mine” {and I tell you that we've spoken about this before and he explained why but my mind couldn't help but go back to it because it desperately needed answers}
Every single time these thoughts made rounds in my head, they made me feel really sick to my stomach. I was hurt. I had nasty alcohol too so the combination of all of that made everything unbearable for me. Jealousy just doesn't affect my emotions, it affects me physically too. It really is my worst enemy.
When I think about it, a proper introduction would have ended this emotion as quickly as it had started. As simple as an introduction is, I wouldn't have had to start getting jealous if that was done.
I wish I had a safe word to communicate to my partner when I am experiencing this horrible emotion so that at the very moment it's happening, I'm able to break down my emotions to him and tell him how I feel but one of the big problems I have is just starting a conversation to talk about this emotion because how do I say “Babe, I am jealous”. I can't.
Will a safe word work?
Will it help me deal with this emotion?
It’s normal to get jealous, right?
Your Friend.