In the twelve steps, the fourth step, taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of oneself, is about resentments, which stem from only three things, self-esteem, prestege (same thing in a sense), security, and sex relations (sexual jealousy), and these all tie together, because our sense of security is tied in with all three.
We do have special relationships, and a marriage is a special relationship, which is a bond that should not be broken. The thing is to not put anyone before God, even your closest and dearest, although you do have a special relationship with that person. Not being jealous does not mean that cheating is okay, but that one should trust the other if one can.
Sometimes, jealousy is understandable, and it is okay to feel the way you do. No one can control, or should try to completely control how they feel. I am just saying to look at where it is coming from, and if it is coming from any of the three things I suggested, security, self-esteem, or sex relations, depending on the nature of the jealousy and the nature of the relationship.
Recently, I was kind of hurt and surprised. The last man I had a long term relationship, Alan, died of cancer in the fall of 2012. A woman who lived in his building told me, one night when I ran into her, that he told her that he and I broke up, because I was jealous of her.
I was a little upset that he shared this with her, but it was not unlike him, and I told her, "I didn't say I was jealous or think anything was going on. I just suggested he ask you out, because he and I were not getting along." He had gotten really angry at the time. This had been before we knew that he was sick. Maybe, he was angry, because it was true, but I told her that I never thought she was hitting on him, which was true.
I guess I felt bad, because he shared a personal conversation, between he and myself, with her, and because maybe he did want to go out with her, and was using my feelings to go about talking to her, but I am only speculating. I suppose if I were to go on thinking about all this, I would be wasting time. It really does not matter or mean anything, really. I wonder though, why it is that people say things to you, that could be damaging or hurtful, even if well meaning, perhaps not fully thought through. I mean, Alan had died a few months before she felt compelled to tell me this, and perhaps I needed to be 'enlightened,' so to speak, that Alan was not really this great love of my life I may have been fantasizing romantically about, after the fact, because my ego wanted to feel that somebody loved me. Perhaps, her ego needed to tell me that she was desirable, which I am sure she is, and maybe Alan's ego needed to feel that he was the desirable one, amid the competition of females, so that he could feel good about himself. I do not know. Again I am merely speculating, and should not waste more time on this. I have read though, that women tend to live a rich fantasy life at times, and I have learned that that is not healthy. Things are what they are, and getting caught up in romantic fantasies is silly, to say the least, not to sound jaded, but maybe I am. I am just a realist. That is all. If one creates a fantasy, then one stays stuck in an illusion within illusion, and it only leads to a downfall of disaster, even humiliation, according to the I Ching, at least the ego itself, with or without fantasy, but through its hysterical need to be important. This is part of what A Course in Miracles talks about in terms of specialness. We want to be special, and perhaps we are, but not more so than God. That is the best way that I can explain, except that one need not feel more special than someone else, although in romantic love, there is a place for that, as well as love between mother and child. And yet, a mother can possibly love another child too, like an orphaned child, which she might adopt, and still the bond of giving birth is quite great. Yet, as parents, we must free our children, once they have grown, let them spread their wings and fly, and can no longer cling to them. My son is getting married, and he lives far away now, so I am going through much of that type of growth.
Part of spiritual growth, I guess, is getting everything 'blown out of the water' all the time, and having to let go more and more, bit by bit, until the ego is annihilated. The older I get, the more times I have to say, "oh well." Finally it just becomes habit, and nothing surprises me anymore. I guess that is the point that Baba refers to as 'hopeless and helpless.'
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