RULE 47

Jealousy is your stuff, not theirs

I’d just like to say before we get beyond the title of this Rule, that I’m not talking about instances where you know for a fact that your partner is cheating on you. In that case jealousy is understandable and justified. What this Rule is about is feeling jealous every time your partner is away from home, out on their own, late back from work and so on. Maybe you’ve even been tempted to go through their emails or sneak a look at the calls on their mobile phone. (What? You’ve already done it? Tish.)

Jealousy is one of the most corrosive things in a relationship. I’ve seen it destroy otherwise excellent partnerships. When the partner who is the object of such suspicion is in fact innocent, they feel angry and resentful at not being trusted, and rightly so. Right back in Rule 13, when you were still looking for love, we established that you can’t have a relationship without trust. Well, now you’re in a relationship and it’s equally true. Your partner is innocent until proven otherwise, and you must trust them.

There are all sorts of reasons why you may be jealous, most of which will have something to do with your own history. The thing to understand is that it’s you who needs to address your jealousy. It’s not your partner’s job to tell you where they are all the time and keep handing over their mobile for inspection.

As we saw in Rule 35, every problem is a shared one, and your partner will, I hope, want to help resolve this. But no matter what they do, it won’t satisfy you if you’re inherently jealous. You’ll suspect them of having deleted texts before they handed over the phone, you’ll think of every 10-minute stretch you couldn’t account for their whereabouts. Nope, the only thing that will sort this out is for you to deal with why you feel irrationally jealous. You might be able to do this for yourself or with friends, or you may want to talk to your doctor or a counsellor. You choose whatever method works for you. But deal with it you must, or you’ll end up with no partner to be jealous of.

By the way, if you’re on the receiving end of this jealousy, you’ll make matters worse if you become more secretive. I know it’s tempting – you don’t see why you should have to account for every minute of your day and you’re quite right, you shouldn’t. But if you want this relationship to succeed, you will have to reassure your partner while they’re getting to grips with their own jealousy, and be understanding and sympathetic. If you get touchy and insist that you are totally faithful and shouldn’t have to prove it, you may be right technically, but you’ll kill the relationship.