Jealousy and Envy: Step away from the bunny!

September 13, 2005 by NML

Sometimes I am convinced that I am mad. Not as in asylum type mad, but female madness. Every woman knows what I’m talking about.

It’s not just when you have PMT or when it’s the time of the month, but in general. It’s when you do things for the oddest of reasons, or under react or overreact to things. It’s when you go out for milk and come back with the milk, and a cardigan, because you stopped at Marks and Spencer’s en-route.

Or there’s that moment when you’re in bed with your man and you he tells you that he really likes a certain thing and it occurs to you, that that’s what he did with his long term girlfriend. He hasn’t actually said or done anything wrong, but your stomach is doing the samba and you imagine him doing it with his ex.

I feel quite fortunate that jealousy and envy have been quite foreign emotions for most of my life. It’s not because I’m cocky but because whenever I see something successful that I like, I’m more inclined to take something positive from it, such as trying the same thing myself, or using it as a goal.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do look in magazines or at the TV or films, and think, ‘I know I could make Brad far happier than Jennifer could’. Or ‘That bloody J Lo’s got one fat ass!’ when really I’m wondering what it would be like to have an entourage of fifty, with designer gowns overflowing in every room, and every man wanting MY ass! I have no idea who their wives are, but whoever the exceptionally lucky women are that married Tyson Beckford and Morris Chestnut, I hate you both, and hope you both get hit with the bubonic plague! – But that’s normally about as far as I can go in terms of jealousy.

I have female relatives and friends, who have been known to do some crazy sh*t because they have had terrible bouts of jealousy. Examples such as taking on females that have tried to talk to their man, holding a mans balls in a vice until he swore that he had not been with some girl, systematically sabotaging a poor colleagues reputation, and the list goes on…..

I really surprised myself with a spurt of jealousy a few years ago, when my ex-fiance started receiving phone calls from his ex following the death of her father. I had been perfectly fine when he had received previous phone calls from her, but he had made a point of mentioning that he wouldn’t be keen for me to be in constant touch with an ex, even if their parent had passed.
When she called up a few weeks later for a ‘chat’ and ‘advice’ on his mobile when we were at home, something seemed to snap in my brain. Gone was ‘No Jealousy NML’, and in replacement ‘I’m Gonna Break Your Two Legs if You Speak to HER Again NML’. The transformation was terrifying even to me, and once I got going, I was unstoppable, even with the good angel on the left shoulder saying, ‘Shut up you mad bitch before he has you committed!’ Bad angel was saying, ‘Keep going girlfriend. You can make this stick! You’ve got him now!’

For the life of me I’m not entirely sure of what prompted my madness, but it was probably the ‘Me too’s’, all the way through the conversation, and the guarded chit chat. Here’s a little piece of advice for you guys out there: If you don’t want your woman to have jealous rages that result in you, your property, or your perception of her permanently damaged? Don’t talk as if you’re in the CIA or MI5 having secret coded talks. Keep doing it, and you’ve got a whole load of ‘nagging’ and upset coming from a woman with her hands on her hips, looking for some answers.

I used to have an ongoing flirtation with the most gorgeous looking thing in the office. Once we’d had a few drinks, I’d get the majority of his attention, and we’d flirt for England. I loved it. Now I’m not very good at being a second best girl at the best of times (ask my ex), but down in 10th place or beyond, not going to happen, and if it does, I discovered that I can get blindly jealous.
I remember watching him flirting with most of the girls from the office one night, and I received a poor amount of attention, AND had to watch him bump and grind most of my colleagues. I felt about as special as the last guy that did the woman in the world’s biggest gang bang, Mr 289 or whatever number he was. I was just a number and another eager woman in a very long line.

If I’d had to grin through a tight smile one more bloody time, I’m sure I would have had to be admitted to hospital for face strain! So what did I do? I resorted to my natural tendency, which was to be a bitch with a sickly sweet face. I danced, I laughed, I joked, and I talked, and had a fabulous time - With everyone but him. I literally had to dance off these horrible feelings, and in essence I had a very good night.

Did he notice? Of course he did! I may get over emotional at times, but I also know what I have to do in times of crisis. Did I tell him what was bugging me? Yes I did. But I also did it in a humorous way, and by the time I fell into bed, I could almost find it funny myself. But I do say ‘almost’. It took a while for me to stop the automatic tight smiles whenever I thought back to that evening.

Did I learn anything from this rather challenging experience? Well, after all these years, I have accepted that I am not immune to jealousy and envy, and that I need to keep myself in check when it hits me. I’m no Bunny Boiler or Ball Breaker, but I can do Browned-Off Bitch when confronted with these emotions. In small doses, these emotions are actually quite healthy, and I really doubt that I have seen the last of them.

To all the ladies out there that experience these emotions on a regular basis, don’t do it. If you’re constantly accusing your man of trying to get with such and such, or sleeping with that ‘silly ho’, you will not only wear yourself out and drive yourself crazy, but you will also do this to your man. I act on very strong suspicion, with accompanying proof. The constant accusations will put you on a very uneven ground with your man, and if he isn’t cheating, he will either start cheating, or leave you.

On the other hand, if he is guilty of whatever he is being accused of go ahead and do Ball Breaker, or Browned-Off Bitch, but steer clear of Bunny Boiler. It ain’t pretty and you could be taken to court, end up in jail, or God forbid, end up like Glenn Close at the end of Fatal Attraction! And ladies, we all know, no man is worth that.

NML is editor of Baggage Reclaim