I suppose your bond with your husband is really strong and thats why you don’t have fears about your importance to him.

However you want to be perceived as valuable to others. When they speak of other people fondly, it makes you feel like your value is being put into question. In other words you are personalising their view point though in reality they aren’t even comparing in any way. It’s you who is comparing.

To know how to cope with this, you need to understand why you feel this need to compete with for people you hardly know?

Is it because of the way things were when you were growing up where you felt alone and undervalued?

Do you struggle with poor self image? Do you feel like you have nothing good to offer as a person to them?

Do you have this belief that if they talk of others, they indirectly mean you are less important and your values are less so?

Usually this mild possessiveness is seen in very close friendships and romantic relationship but when it happens in every day interactions, it’s a sign of poor self worth. The healthier internal talk should be “they are great and so am I” rather than “oh no, they are so great and gosh, I suppose I am not, no one would talk so well of me”

What do you think?

Hi amag,

The feeling of jealousy at its core is the thought that one is expendable. That when we die our friends and family will be fine without us. In training as a lay minister we were taught never to say to someone in the hospital, “Oh, everyone back home is doing great!” But when I’d say, “You better get well soon, ten people are trying to do your job!” they’d smile the biggest smile. LOL

You are irreplaceable! Believe it! How about when someone talks about their other friends you talk about YOUR other friends? See how it feels.

Maybe you can tell your DH at your next big birthday, “No surprise parties, please!” Then later enjoy the inevitable surprise party with all your friends awaiting you!

Blessings,

Inky

Dear amag:

In your original post you wrote: “I don’t know where this (jealousy) comes from. Is that important?”

Yes, it is important. Let’s look at where it may come from.

In your last note to me you wrote the following:

1. “I was never lost or forgotten!”
2. “my parents were late to pick me up as they often were”

# 1 and #2 are not congruent: when you were a child waiting for your parents, as you were waiting, every moment waiting was a long, long moment. Even for adults in distress, time seems longer. For a child, it is the
longest. Each day you waited for your parents to be picked up, you experienced being “lost or forgotten.” Every single day, and those days happened often.

Your “recurring worry/feeling” of being lost and forgotten was based on the reality of you having been, practically, often, lost and forgotten for long, long periods of time (long, according to a child’s brain, if not according to a clock)

# 3. “I never felt ignored or unseen as a kid.” You were ignored and unseen by your parents as you often waited for them. You were very distressed, waiting, and it happened again.

Do you see any of this that I (from the advantageous position of objectivity) can see?

anita

* Dear XenopusTex: it is not a good practice for a person replying to challenge a reply of another person who is also replying. Best to comment on the posts of the OP only, in any one thread. (People are less likely to reply to a thread if their reply is likely to be challenged by other members replying, arguing about the validity of this or that advice- that would be a mess).
anita

Dear amag:

I have no doubt a child can get very hurt by waiting for parents who are late showing up, again and again, watching the other kids being picked up while the waiting child is still waiting, and waiting.

On the late parents end, they are busy, rushing, not enough time. Doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

But it is a big deal for a child. Notice this: when your parents picked you up late, did they SEE how distressed you were? Did they see the tears in your eyes, did they see your flushed face, the great relief when you saw them?

It is not just the being late, repeatedly. It is not seeing the distress of the child, day in and day out.

Adult children often look for the horror-movie type traumatic even in childhood to explain their great distress. But it is my experience that a child unseen, distressed for a long time, unattended to for their childhood distress, uncomforted- that is enough to explain the anxiety and distress carried into adulthood.

anita