Jealousy Leading to Infidelity

Jealousy issues that lead to infidelity

Tori Dean

University of Kentucky

Abstract

The following paper is a compilation of many peer-reviewed articles focusing on the topic of jealousy issues that lead to infidelity. The goal of this paper is to not only show the reader the negative consequences of jealousy, but to also give advice on ways to deal with the jealousy issues that you and your partner may both experience. This paper pulls from the resources to guide you along to learn about what constitutes as infidelity and how it has become more common as the years have gone on. Another topic this translational paper will touch on is proof that humans are not the only ones who experience jealous feelings. Lastly, it will wrap up with advice on how to handle a situation if you experience infidelity due to jealousy issues. 

              Keywords: cheating, jealousy, infidelity, issues

Defining is a Necessity

Have you ever been in an argument with a romantic partner because you claim that they cheated on you but they’re assuring you that they didn’t? If it’s not because they just hate to admit that they got caught, it could be because both partners have a different idea of what infidelity is considered. According to Dictionary.com (Easton, 1897), infidelity is defined as unfaithfulness or adultery. From our class textbook, The Dark Side of Infidelity (Tafoya & Spitzberg, 2007), we are informed that from a woman’s perspective, she might consider cheating to be something as simple as telling another girl secrets that he isn’t sharing with her. Men on the other hand, tend to consider cheating more of a physical thing. Recently, I found an article (Johnson, 2004) about cheating that was in a poem form. What I like best about it is that it helps gives insight to anyone who doesn’t realize how many ways someone can classify infidelity. This poem tells a story of two strangers who “meet” on a train and the woman is afraid to focus her attention onto others because then she feels that the guy will think she has cheated. They never actually talk but to this day, she points out that her mind was set on only him. To read it for yourself, you can go to http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uky.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ac6800b2-c9ef-4806-ad23-045ab740ca72%40sessionmgr12&vid=2&hid=1. To summarize the above, my first piece of advice for this paper is that it is essential to communicate with your partner and decide in the beginning of the relationship what you both consider to be crossing the line.

After an incident of infidelity occurs, the next question, besides wondering how to react, is asking why did the other person do it? Are they just over the relationship and couldn’t think of a better way to break up? Or is it in fact, something deeper, such as jealousy issues? Again, Dictionary.com (Johnson, 2004) defines jealousy as a mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims. Everyone has experienced dealing with jealousy issues before, whether it be that you’re jealous of a sibling, friend, romantic partner, or rather just dealing with someone else who has jealousy issues with you. Regardless, when either jealousy or infidelity are involved in a relationship, it’s bound to stir up some trouble.

Jealousy Issues Effect Everyone

According to a study done in the article, Mate Value Discrepancy as Predictor of Forgiveness and Jealousy in Romantic Relationships, (Sidelinger & Booth-Butterfield, 2007) mate value discrepancy, which is the perceived difference in resource value between self and partner in romantic relationships, played a role with jealousy in that the higher the value of the partner, the more likely an individual experienced jealousy. I think this is pretty much common knowledge because the higher you think of someone, the more you care about how much attention is returned to you as opposed to others. But did you know that humans are not the only ones who experience feelings of envy? The Oprah Magazine (Fisher, 2009) informed me that:

“Primatologist Jane Goodall describes Passion, a female chimp who was tipping her buttocks toward a young male in the classic (for chimps) "come hither" pose when he ignored her and began to court another. Passion slapped him—hard. Bluebirds are also jealous. In one experiment involving a breeding pair, evolutionary biologist David Barash waited until the cock was away, and then placed a stuffed male on a branch about three feet from the nest, where the female rested. When the cock returned, he began to squawk, hover, and snap his bill in fury at the dummy. Then he attacked his mate, pulling feathers from her wing. She fled.”

After reading that article, I realized that everyone’s reactions to being jealous vary. For example, in both of these situations, the animals reacted violently towards their partner to show that they were upset. I’ve had to deal with jealousy issues in a romantic relationship before and the way that I handled it was that at first, I was just very short with my partner and acted very disinterested in anything he had to say to me until we talked everything out. A friend of mine, who is a little crazier than I am, reacted to her jealousy issues by returning the favor to her partner and did everything she could to make him jealous too. After seeing the consequences of a variety of reactions, my advice is to always go straight to the source causing the problem and be open about how you feel so that you and your partner can communicate and fix things before it is too late.            

Cleaning Up The Mess

Many articles give their own advice on how to handle jealousy issues but one common reoccurring theme is that if you aren’t careful when handling your jealousy, it could push him into the arms of another lover. According to The Dark Side of Close Relationships II (Tsapelas, Fisher, & Aaron, 2010), 20-40% of heterosexual married men and 20-25% of married women will have an extramarital affair during their lifetime. This number has increased over the years just like the divorce rate. When trying to overcome situations of infidelity, everyone has a different way of doing so. The majority of the stages deal with sadness and anger. You can choose to stay with your partner or choose to terminate the relationship. The best decision is situational-based but if you’re lucky, just as the author was of, A Love Story Each Tale of Infidelity Is As Unique As The Person Who Has Been Hurt or Healed (Payne-Robinson, 1992), then you find the silver lining and can use this incident as a learning experience.

The majority of advice columns lead us to the option of leaving our partner if it is more than just being jealous and they are truly cheating consistently. Have you ever been jealous of a lover and it’s torn your relationship apart? I can actually speak first hand of a jealousy issue that lead to infidelity. Back in high school, I dated a guy for three and a half years but after the first year, I cheated on him. Of course when we were going through the honeymoon stage, we were two kids who were just young and in love, but as time went on, I found myself always questioning if he was more interested in other girls than in me. I began to feel like he was under appreciating me and unfortunately, chose to use another guy for the attention I was looking for. Sure enough, I got what I wanted and felt terrible after it happened. I was fortunate enough that after I gave my partner some time to be upset with me, I got to explain that I acted irrationally and handled my jealous issues in the wrong way. My advice to anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, learn from my bad judgment and if you start to feel insecure and jealous, again, talk to your partner about it. If they’re dating you, you should be able to feel comfortable enough to explain how you feel because communicative infidelity is the wrong answer when it comes to dealing with envy. In the end, it only hurts people and usually ends up ruining relationships.

Thank you for taking the time to read my paper. I hope that if you ever find yourself in a position causing you to deal with jealousy issues or infidelity that my insight can be of some assistance. For more information and other points of view on similar topics of jealousy and infidelity, check out my website at http://layneandfriends.blogspot.com/ and to watch a “Maury” parody also dealing with these subjects, you can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvXgPKwPZE8

           

           

References

Fisher, H. (2009). Jealousy- The Monster. O, The Oprah Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Understanding-Jealousy-Helen-Fisher-PhD-on-Relationships

Jealousy. (n.d.). Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. Retrieved April 04, 2013, from Dictionary.com. website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jealousy

Johnson, D. (2004). Cheating. Texas Review, 25(1/2), 91-92.

Payne-Robinson, L. L. (1992). Infidelity. Essence (Essence), 22(10), 61.

Sidelinger, R. J., & Booth-Butterfield, M. (May 01, 2007). Mate Value Discrepancy as Predictor of Forgiveness and Jealousy in Romantic Relationships. Communication Quarterly, 55, 2.)

Tafoya, M. and Spitzberg, B. (2007). The Dark Side of Infidelity: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Communicative Functions. In Spitzberg, C., The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication (pp.201). New York and London: Routledge.

Tsapelas. I., Fisher, H., and Aron, A. (2010). Infidelity: When, Where, Why. In Spitzberg, C., The Dark Side of Close Relationships II (pp. 175). New York and London: Routledge.