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Emotions and the actions they spur are often colored by the perception of both the people doing them and those on the receiving end of said behavior. What one person considers romantic, another may consider corny. What one may consider a sweet gesture, the other might consider inappropriate. In a romantic relationship, there’s no clear cut way for any action to be taken, but one thing I’ve always found odd is the notion that jealousy is a viable method of showing someone cares.

Depending on how you view it, jealousy is an emotion and/or action. Some might say when they’re involved with someone in a romantic relationship, jealousy is a natural emotion as it comes from a place of protection. Heavily investing emotions into a person can make the investing party very protective of their situation, so one might feel they’re entitled to this emotion because so much is at stake. Jealousy, then, takes on a weird form where, instead of it simply being an emotion, it becomes an explanation for how a person shows they care. Therefore, any action taken from a standpoint of jealousy goes from something they wouldn’t ordinarily do to “I only act this way because I care so much about you.”

Others, and this is where I fall on the spectrum, feel jealousy is a wasted emotion. If a person is truly secure in their relationship, jealousy is unnecessary as there really isn’t a reason to be jealous. I’m not interested in having discussions about every single woman my girlfriend sees me with. I’m of the mind that I chose to be with her. I made that choice without any form of coercion or false pretenses. If she can’t trust the choice I’ve made to be with her, then we need to have a discussion about how we’re going to move forward. I tend to think jealousy is the result of a lack of or decrease in trust, and if the woman I’m with can’t trust that I’m doing right by her, she needs to find somewhere else to be and somebody else to be with.

In some sense, jealousy probably wouldn’t bother me as much if people didn’t make so many stupid decisions based on that feeling. For example, a man making an overwhelming amount of inquiries about other men talking to their girlfriend or a woman who decides she’s going to search her boyfriend’s phone in order to make sure he’s being faithful. Being in a relationship with someone you can’t trust defeats the purpose and speaking as someone who’s been in a relationship like that, it’s difficult to grow as a couple if you’re constantly being second guessed about every action and every person you’re speaking to. I understand that it’s quite threatening to think your mate might be more interested in someone else than he is in the relationship and, to some degree, I can see how those thoughts might cause folks to do something extreme in order to protect what they believe is theirs. But I’m steadfast in the belief jealousy comes from a place of insecurity and a lack of trust — neither of which make for a healthy relationship. Insecurity is something that can only be remedied by the insecure party and if a couple has trust issues to address, open communication is a far better problem solver than acting out under the guise of jealousy. We all know what truly being cared for looks like. If the behavior your partner displays to you comes across as anything less than that, address the issue head on instead of making nonsensical excuses for it.

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