Envieth Not
What is envy? Is it jealousy? Is it coveting? The dictionary defines envy as “a feeling of covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, and possessions, etc.” (Dictionary.com). It is a form of coveting. One of the original ten commandments is “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbors” (Exodus 20:17).
Jealousy is an emotion which is triggered when we think someone is trying to take what is ours. Pshychology Today states, “Jealousy is distinguished from envy in that jealousy always involves a third party seen as a rival for affection. Envy occurs between two people and is best summed up as “I want what you have”” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/jealousy).
With this definition, one could ask “How does envying affect a marriage relationship?” Envy comes through comparing ourselves to someone else. Envy shows it’s negative face as ruminating over something we don’t have and resenting those who do have what we want. In marriage, when we compare ourselves to our partner we may see traits we wish we had, or opportunities they get through their work which we wish he had, or we compare our partners to others and think “I wish my partner would do that.” We can fall into believing they have it better than we do. For example: When my husband started traveling for his job, I hate to admit it, I was envious of his travels for quite a long time. All I could see, was he got to see and experience new things without me. It was especially hard because I had always wanted to travel. I started resenting the fact that he would be gone for several weeks at a time while I was at home changing kids diapers and dealing with fighting kids all by myself. Jealousies arose as well from my own insecurities. I was not happy for him and his adventures. I felt abandoned and left alone. What I didn’t allow myself to think about was the long hours he worked. The alone feeling he experienced with not having his family around him. The things he missed out on because he had to be gone. The difficulty of being in a country without knowing the language and having to work with people in that country. It was difficult and very challenging for him. My envy kept me from seeing the whole picture and I became against him rather than for him.
Envy can also show up when we compare our partner to someone else’s partner. We see the good parts of the other people and fail to look at and understand they have flaws as well. We end up comparing all the good things in the other person to the fuller picture we see in our partner. When we do this, we create in our mind a story of how the other person is better than our partner and if our partner would be like them then our marriage would be better.
Envy is prevalent as we compare our marriages to other people’s marriages. A good practice is to realize all marriages have their challenges. While we may see some good qualities and practices in other’s marriages, we cannot allow what we see to make us envious of others. Rather we can learn from others and if we think that is a good practice that would work in the context of our own marriage then we can implement it.
What are some suggestions of things we can do to help remove envy?
We can strive to celebrate at least one success in our day and one success in our partner’s day. Rejoice with them and cheer them on. Do a happy dance with them!
We can focus on the positive qualities they have and our own positive qualities and how they complement each other.
Work on strengthening your relationship. Practice some new communication tools like the 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments.
Grow in appreciation for each other.
Tell yourself the rest of the story. Meaning look at others in a holistic healthy way rather than just one side of the story.
Look out for the well-being of your spouse. Look beyond what is happening in your own life and look at things through the lenses of their eyes. Be selfless rather than selfish.
Don’t allow envious thoughts to enter into our hearts. Reframe it to a positive thought. If we ruminate these envious thoughts, then they can take control; we don’t want that because it will be damaging to the relationship.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions on how to keep envy out of our lives.