Some of you may laugh, but for awhile I was insanely jealous of our dog. Seth was always petting her, having her come cuddle with him, and constantly giving encouragement towards her. I began to feel so angry and jealous of the dog because I kept thinking “where are my treats for going potty where I’m supposed too” or “where are my cuddles while watching TV”. It was eating me alive and I was resenting the dog for taking Seth’s attention and Seth for neglecting me. After a while I began to look back on my life and learned two lessons from this experience. First, I have always been subjected to jealousy. Second, my love language is physical touch.
The first experience that came to mind when it comes to jealousy, was when my little sister decided she wanted to become daddy’s little girl. When daddy read us stories, she got to sit on his lap where I usually sat. She got to sit by him at the dinner table, where I usually sat. She took those physical contacts that I had with my daddy and made me so jealous of her while also feeling abandoned by my daddy.
This lead me to my second lesson. I believed my love language was acts of service. I did not want to believe it was physical touch for whatever reason, I just did not believe it. As I looked back I was able to see how much physical touch meant to me. I love my mom and I know she loves but I never felt that way as a child because my mom is not a touchy person while my dad is. He never had issues with us laying our head on his shoulder while my mom only ever lasted two seconds.
As I took these lessons to my heart I was able to sit down with Seth and communicate with him about how I was feeling and why. We both acknowledged that I had a need and it was not being filled. We both took responsibility in helping me find ways to fill that need without a lot of changes.
Here are the simple changes we made, I had to stop looking at our dog (whose name is Puppy) as the enemy. I had to start treating her like she was our dog not just his. That I can also spend time petting, cuddling, and encouraging her good behavior. Another change was to let Seth know when he came home, I am the first one he should acknowledge and greet verses the dog (which can be difficult since Puppy runs to him). These simple changes have allowed us to fill my need without taking away from Puppy’s.
If you are having frustrations or jealous feelings, look inside and figure out what need is not being met and go to your spouse and discuss solutions together that you both can do. Solutions do not have to be big and grand acts. They are simple tweaks that lead to grand feelings.
