In chapter 7, I asked you to think about your mind as a large room, filled with different objects, filled with memories. Imagine now that your relationship is also a vast room. It is not simply this one thing—jealousy—not simply one feeling. Imagine richness, complexity, many textures, and all kinds of pictures. All these are part of this relationship.
Your relationship room is a space—a mental space—with a kaleidoscope of memories, feelings, thoughts, experiences, disappointments, hopes, and sensations. Looking at it is like looking around the room you are sitting in. I am in my study, which is filled with piles of books, lamps, papers, pens, a couple of chairs. I see one book, in particular, that brings back memories, thoughts, ideas, feelings. I see another book that I know I want to read, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. This is the room, surrounding me with objects, images, memories, and possibilities. There is not simply one thing in it, one feeling, one experience, one moment in time. It extends into the past and into the future. In the same way, your relationship room holds the many experiences that you share with each other. Some may lie forgotten, under layers of memories, until they surface at unexpected moments. Whatever you are experiencing in this relationship room—including your jealousy or your partner’s jealousy—it is only one moment, one layer, one possibility.
Imagine your relationship with your partner as a room. Perhaps it is in disarray, like my study. To find something that you want, you need to search around. Perhaps it is filled with reminders, images from the past. It is also filled with the range of feelings you have experienced over these past months, maybe over these past years. You have been spending a lot of time with those feelings of jealousy, anger, anxiety, and sadness. They are here and they have been troubling you. But this room is vast: in addition to the present, there is also the past and the future, as this room goes back and forth in time.
You look around this large, complex, seemingly ever-changing room that includes so many things you may have forgotten—until this moment. You remember when you first met, your first date, even what you wore. How you felt back at the beginning. You remember the walks together, the laughter, the questions that each of you wanted the other to answer. You remember the first time you made love, what it felt like—and the many times after. In this large room, hidden under whatever hides things in your room, you discover—once again—the feelings that you had when you felt so close, so safe, so happy. You think, “Whatever happened to that?” as if it is gone forever. But here it is, in your room. Here it is, in front of you, in your mind, in the feeling of this moment.
As you look around the room, your mind travels back into the past and you remember the fun, the laughter, the playfulness. You remember longing to see each other, missing your partner when apart, wanting to hold her, to be held by him. Yes, you remember how it felt to share something special—maybe it was dinner at the restaurant you both loved or walks you took together, things that might seem ordinary to someone else. But it was you being together, it was something that you felt belonged to the two of you, together. As your mind drifts to those memories at this moment in time, right now, you feel the warmth. You feel the love that you feared was being lost, and you feel sadness because you still fear losing it. Because it was once the two of you.
What was it about your partner that so moved you? That made you feel, “Yes, this is the one”? It is hard to put your finger on it, hard to find the words. And that is what you search for right now: the words. Behind words, there are waves of emotions and images and memories, each seeming different from the one before, some seeming like they will cancel out the others, but they keep coming, one after the other, coming toward you, through you, memories of the two of you. Your memories, your waves of feelings. Your contradictions. Because in this room that both keeps changing and remains the same, your room, you realize that life is filled with contradictions. Where there is hope and love, there can also be sadness and anger. The waves may knock you down, both of you may fall, but you can still struggle to stand, still rise above hard times. If you can imagine holding the hand that reaches out, or reaching out yourself, you can lift yourself above these disappointments. You don’t know, you don’t want to get your hopes up, because both of you have been knocked down.
Perhaps your jealousy is like a lens that darkens everything you see about your relationship. Through it, you see your partner and yourself. It seems stuck on the one thing that makes you feel trapped, hopeless, unloved, and unloving. You can only see your partner through one lens, one darkened and dim shadow of reality. There is nothing else, you think, and the emotions of anger and anxiety and sadness you feel at this moment seem inescapable. There is no way out.
I remember looking into a kaleidoscope for the first time when I was a kid. I felt like I had entered an entirely new world. I turned the wheel and the patterns changed, I spun it around backward and the patterns changed again. All I could see was that the patterns were symmetrical and that, each time I moved the wheel, another pattern would emerge. I have often thought that relationships are like kaleidoscopes: each time I turn the wheel, I see a new pattern. I know that, when I am angry, I get stuck on a very dark pattern—one that seems to capture everything—but just leaves me in the dark. In the moment of my anger, it’s a pattern I see as I think, “This is the way it is.” And it bothers me. I feel trapped by this darkness, this disappointing pattern, this dead end. Then I wonder: What will happen if I spin the kaleidoscope? What if I change to a different pattern? What will I see? What will it feel like?
Let’s try spinning the wheel. Let’s see what other feeling patterns can emerge when you look at things differently. When I spin a wheel, I am going to call up a different emotion. For now, it will be a more neutral relationship than your partner. Give it a try.
Try the emotion of compassion. Imagine, from your memory of childhood, someone who seemed to have compassion, who seemed to hold you in loving-kindness. What do you remember about him or her? For me, I recall my grandmother, who smiled and spoke in a gentle voice, who held me and told me how wonderful I am. Call up memories of this person, bring them into the present moment. Close your eyes and remember being held, touched, comforted. Imagine that feeling of compassion and kindness surrounding you, enveloping you. Here, in the midst of love, you feel safe.
Now imagine feeling love and kindness toward this person. Yes, you feel it right back as you say to yourself—to him or her—“I love your gentleness, I love your kindness, I love you.” You feel love flowing from your heart to his or her heart. One heart together. One.
Now I want you to recall another emotion, just for the present moment. Think of a memory when you were playing, laughing. Remember that moment. For me, it is a memory of walking our dog in the woods, along a trail. I was watching her running and sniffing. As I remember, she is playing in my mind, in my heart, in the present moment. I am playing with her. I take a tiny football and throw it for her, watching her chase it. Her tail is in the air, her mouth is open and breathing while she runs. I see her grab the football and bring it back. With this memory, I feel a rush of happiness, a rush of playfulness.
As I think of the good times with my grandmother and my dog, I also feel a rush of sadness because they are no longer with us. But I know what that compassion and playfulness felt like with them. And I know I can still feel those things at times; they never left me completely. I can feel them now, even in memory, even with the sadness. Yes, both feelings came. The compassion and the sadness, the playfulness and the sadness. Sad that they are gone, but happy with the memories of being hugged, of watching my dog running for the ball.
That’s the nature of feelings and memories in the relationship room. Feelings can seem to contradict each other, being both happy and sad. How can that be? You may ask: How can I feel both extremes with the same memory? Don’t contradictions cancel each other out? If so, would that mean I am left with no feeling?
Not at all. Both feelings are legitimate, real. They both make sense. Yes, we can have positive and negative feelings about the same memory. Just as you can have positive and negative feelings about your partner. You can feel jealous, but still love him or her. You can feel angry, but still want your partner.
You are not confused. No—you are simply aware of how rich and wide-ranging your feelings can be. Because it is never so simple as one feeling, is it? You are filled with all the shapes and colors of the kaleidoscope. Things are one way, and then you spin the wheel. Everything changes in the next moment.
What are the emotions, other than painful ones, that you and your partner have shared? Is it only jealousy and anger between you? No, it can’t be, because if it were you wouldn’t care enough to feel jealous. You have shared many other emotions. We were just talking about compassion, loving-kindness, the feeling of being held, caressed, comforted, and totally accepted with all of your human imperfections. Recall that feeling, and try to remember when you experienced it with your partner.
It may feel hard to welcome that feeling, because you are in such pain. But try to bring it back for the moment. Bring it back: to listen, to feel, to remember; to know that this is something that is still up to you; to realize that you can still love each other, even if you are hurting.
In fact, the hurt may be because of your love. Sometimes love hurts; sometimes we are sad because things matter to us. So welcome all those feelings, even when you are hurting. Realize that the pain is there because there are also warm, loving feelings. Even if you want to get rid of your partner to get rid of the hard feelings, you may still love and care for the person who is making you jealous. The pain is only one part of the relationship room. It is surrounded by a whole lot more.
This is the relationship room that you have built together. There is no better time than when you have been hurt to remember the love that you can feel. It’s not easy to recall love when you are feeling jealous and angry. So set the jealousy into a chair, over in a corner. Let it rest for a moment so you can now remind yourself of the loving feelings that you have experienced, the love that you have received, the love that you give.
As the jealousy sits in the chair, watching, taking it all in, remember once again the playfulness that the two of you have shared: the laughter in times when you were goofy together, just being silly. Yes, you can have these memories by going back in time a little. The jealousy can sit in the chair for now, while you see that those other memories and feelings are also in this relationship room.
I want you to remember that something else is in this relationship room: all the problems that you have worked on together. Think back about what you have worked toward, problems that you have solved. Maybe there have been differences, arguments, disappointments lately. But you didn’t get here, caring enough to be jealous, if there weren’t some problems that you have resolved.
What were they? Maybe you helped each other through difficult times before—through disappointments, problems at work, family struggles, friendship breakdowns. You were there for each other during those times. You were doing it together, not just one person; it was the two of you. Maybe you worked together to raise children, being there at the beginning, at birth, moved so much there were tears in your eyes. Laughing at the kids’ antics, watching them grow, waking in the middle of the night, taking turns, together. Maybe you made plans together—activities, vacations, getting things right. Together. Remember all your projects that were about the two of you. Those are still part of this relationship room.
When you are feeling jealous, you may view the entire relationship as being about jealousy and mistrust. You may even label yourself as “a jealous person.” This makes you feel overwhelmed by the jealousy and leads you to be unable to see the richness and diversity of feelings in your relationship—and in yourself.
When you say that you are a jealous person, it’s almost as if your entire personality, your entire past history, has disappeared. It’s as if you have been replaced with the label. So you begin to cancel yourself out. You are reduced to a diagnosis, a pejorative, a category. You are no longer a distinct person with a unique history and a range of emotions, past relationships, and current relationships. You have placed yourself in a box, closed the lid, and set yourself up on a shelf—perhaps to be discarded.
In fact, at any given moment your relationship and the feelings that you have are far greater than your jealousy. As we have seen, there is a full range of richness to your feelings with each other—joy, happiness, curiosity, closeness—memories of working together on problems, sharing meaningful experiences, planning for the future, and having fun together. Your relationship is larger and richer than your jealous feelings at any given moment. By placing jealousy in the larger context, momentarily letting go of the jealousy, you can learn that there are a variety of possibilities for other feelings and experiences as you focus on the other sources of meaning in your relationship. You are not “a jealous person”—you are a person with a wide range of feelings, experiences, and possibilities.
We can put your jealousy and your relationship in the context of a life larger than the current moment. We can examine how you can build a meaningful life—independent of your current jealousy—that includes friendships, professional relationships, meaningful work, values in life, important goals, and priorities. Jealous feelings are elements of a larger life, one that is constantly changing, flowing through time, creating new opportunities. You have a life that is larger than your jealousy and it can be filled with a wide range of possibilities—if you unhinge yourself from focusing on jealousy.
Rather than thinking that you need to get rid of your jealous feelings—or the jealous feelings that your partner might have—look at your life as large enough to contain the jealousy…and more. In the relationship room, you can make space for all the feelings. Nothing needs to be banished.
Making room allows us to accept and acknowledge the feelings of jealousy—but it also allows us to make room for the loving, playful, compassionate feelings that are also part of our relationships. When we make room, we no longer struggle against the jealousy, we no longer order it to go away—and we no longer become angry and upset when the jealousy returns. We can accept that “I am feeling a jealous feeling right now” without being upset that it has appeared. We can make room without acting on jealous thoughts and feelings because we can say, “I can accept these feelings for this moment.” We say, “I can live with that feeling,” knowing that we can add, “and there are a lot of other feelings, memories, and possibilities that I will experience.” It’s not as if jealousy arrives and empties out the room. It’s simply that the jealousy stands up for a moment, cries out in pain, we hear it, and then we continue on. Because making room for how we feel is better than going to war with it.