Listen.
I will tell you a story that, once you read it, you will never think the same again. Some tiny part of you will change.
That’s good. Change is good.
Change, as a byproduct of awareness, is life-changing.
Before I tell you the story, let me put you into context.
In the Spanish language, we have a rather weird term for the concept of ‘envy’. Some people like to differentiate between ‘healthy envy’ and ‘envy’. The latter being the bad and horrible one that nobody wants to admit having.
So, they like to point out that they are feeling a ‘healthy envy’ towards this or that person, because of this or that reason.
Well, I think this is a useless term. Because there is already a word for that feeling.
Let me introduce you to this new word: ‘admiration’. Because that’s what you mean when you are saying that you feel ‘healthy envy’, right?
When you admire something or someone, you are in a good place. You feel good about your own life and yourself. You are confident, stable, and satisfied. And you admire what this other person is achieving or already has, and this attention can motivate you to persevere or get inspired in whatever aims you might have.
On the other hand, envy… Ugh!
Nobody, oh, nobody will ever admit feeling envious.
Maybe that’s why they came up with a new word, so they don’t feel bad about themselves.
Humankind would rather sell their own mother than admit to feeling envy.
Short story long.
As a psychologist, I get supervision from a senior doctor. With a group of other psychologists, we share and supervise cases, go back to psychoanalytic theory, and discuss specific interventions and all that jazz.
That’s how I heard about this woman’s story.
Her reason for seeking consultation was a devastating anguish caused by her pathological jealousy, believing that her husband was betraying her with another woman. Her delusional conviction was so strong that she told her daughter that her father had another woman, and all attempts to convince her otherwise were futile. In desperation, her husband offered what he considered to be conclusive proof: he suggested they have a child, arguing, “If I had another woman, I wouldn’t want to have a child with you.” To this, she responded that since he was planning to leave, he wanted to leave her with a child as compensation. The woman became pregnant and informed her daughter that when the baby brother was born, their father would abandon all three of them.
Horrible, huh?
What stood out the most in their couples therapy sessions was the pleasure she took in attacking her husband and in displaying her jealousy as a supposed proof of her love.
Additionally, it was a way of torturing him, especially because among her husband’s values were fidelity, being trusted, and being seen as someone capable of providing happiness to others.
This woman tended to make him feel precisely the opposite: that he was incapable of making her happy.
The most surprising thing was what the therapist detected throughout the treatment.
The woman deeply admired her husband, whom she considered a successful man and someone better than herself, possessing greater intellectual merits and, physically, much more attractive than she was.
Although this was not true, as she was a very intelligent and attractive woman.
Behind her jealousy was envy of the qualities she attributed to him and hostility towards him for being someone so loved by her and by others. Her jealousy and envy stemmed from a severe disorder, a profound alteration of her self-esteem, which made her see both her partner and the presumed rival as superior.
This woman was capable of consciously feeling her jealousy, while her envy had to be kept out of her awareness. Jealousy could be justified as proof of love.
In this patient, the most rejected feeling was the envy she felt towards her partner, and especially the hatred and desire to attack that this envy generated.
Her jealousy served as a pretext to justify her hatred and conceal the envy that was its basis.
Mind you, this example was extreme because she had a severe disorder.
However, we all face envy or being envied to different degrees.
Envy stems from a person’s prior devaluation of themselves, who, when they meet another person they assume to be superior, they will eventually pinpoint the trait that confirms this superiority.
That’s why with envy, the starting point is always, always the person’s fragile self-esteem.
Because if you feel admiration, you’d already be feeling good about yourself, your world, and your life.
See, there is no such thing as a ‘healthy envy’, you either envy or admire.
If you ever felt envy, I know you won’t even admit that to yourself. But I can keep a secret.
Love,
Noemi
