I often wondered when I was younger if I’d ever be able to not be jealous. Jealousy played such a massive part in all my relationships, that I just assumed I was a jealous partner, and that was it. Jealousy in relationships would be there till the end of my time. That’s why I stayed single for so long, because I knew jealousy would eventually creep in and I fuckin hated feeling jealous. It was a difficult battle, but I won.
The Origin of Jealousy
My life as a jealous fuck all started when I was thirteen and in eighth grade when I was selectively chosen by one of the “popular girls” to be her boyfriend. Her name was Olivia and it was she that made me an overnight success. Weeks prior I was the biggest loser known to mankind but when Olivia decided I was handsome enough to leave loserdom and head forth to her “cool” circle of friends, it changed everything. It was then that I was plagued with popularity and determined to protect it at all costs.
So, after she and I stopped “going out” only a few weeks after it started, it set the stage for what became my life of jealousy in relationships because I refused to go back to being insignificant. There’s nothing worse than feeling like the world would be just fine without me. Maybe that’s where my fear of death comes from… That’s another post, anyway…
It seemed the only way to maintain my status was with a popular girlfriend. My entire life from that day onward was to protect my popularity by guarding all my relationships and continue building my middle school legacy. I was terrified of losing everything, so I forced each relationship to work as best I could. That’s when the insane jealousy started.
After Olivia, I immediately found a girl to take her place; her name was Lindsi. We started “going out” to make sure I stayed on top of the social pyramid, and going out basically just meant we talked together on the phone and french kissed once a month at some lame get-together.
I remember the day my jealousy first peeked its head outa the darkness… Lindsi wore something too tight and slutty and I slammed her locker and nearly took off her face. That was a bad day because it was a day that happened over and over again until I got sober, and even when I was sober, there was still jealousy in my relationships, but a different kind of jealousy. I’ll get to that.
Anyway, when my insecurity became too much and she dumped me I had no idea what to do. I had caused so many hallway scenes that the entire world probably thought I was a danger to society, so I decided those jealous feelings were too dangerous. That’s why I became an eighth grade slut, developed an addiction to “bad-boy status,” started a love affair with ecstasy and special K and mushrooms, started robbing people’s houses at house-parties and stayed away from relationships till I was suspended from school in ninth grade and kicked outa my parent’s house at fourteen, then shipped off to rehab.
Rehab number one is where I met Lacey, and the jealousy started again. We barely had a relationship and yet I was keeping tabs on anyone she interacted with. I was fuckin crazy. How will this ever end? Will I ever be capable of not being a jealous partner?
I got kicked outa that rehab and went to rehab number two, where I met Sarah. Sarah was a hot slutty chick from Lawrence, Massachusetts and I was addicted to her in the same way I was addicted to ecstasy. Everything she did affected my mood. When she had a bad phone call with her parents, no matter what kind of day I was having before, the day became her day and I was miserable until she was happy. I was then about fifteen and still struggling with jealousy and insecurity on a level that was nearly the same as it was in eighth grade. And I’m pretty sure it all started with that addiction to popularity…
After running away with her and trying to get an apartment so we could live happily and jealously ever after (something two fifteen year-old runaways could never accomplish), we were picked up at a truck stop by our counselors and brought back to the rehab, where I was then sent somewhere else by way of two large men at 4AM… some therapeutic boarding school in Georgia. Suffice it to say, it happened again. Another girl, another change of mood every time she did something questionable… but none of this is the point. The point is it followed me all the way to adulthood.
Why Am I Still So Jealous?
My drinking got bad was when I was dating Lizzie, a fashion model I met in NYC when I was selling weed to lawyers and celebrities. I met her cause she had a side gig as a PR chick and I hired her to help me with an event I was producing. Two days later she moved into my apartment with her threatening dog. She was six feet tall, I am only five foot nine. The fear of her putting on high heels was like the fear of getting blood drawn, which for me makes me faint cause I’m a pussy.
She would put on high heels and I would have a rush of jealousy and insecurity and get horny and need to fuck right away before we left the apartment. I would ask her to leave her high heels on while we fucked because it made me feel powerless and that kinda thing is good for sex, but bad for life.
I would go to her fashion shows and get lost in a sea of legs and watch strange handsome men take photos with her after all her shows during New York Fashion Week and feel my insides curl up into a ball every night. I could feel myself getting ready to aim, fire, and shoot. That’s why I started drinkin so much scotch.
That relationship ended horribly after she got pregnant and I begged her not to have the baby and we got into pretty bad fights with each other basically every two hours. That was the start of my final stage of alcoholism, and it’s safe to say it became a theme to drink so I could quell my jealousy in all my relationships to keep the insecurities manageable.
Then I Was Thrown in Jail
Before I moved to LA, I met a stripper in Reno while I was on a road trip making a short film about a guy that walks his dog across the country, and asked her to move in with me; to come back to Brooklyn and live in my apartment. A couple days ago I saw that she now has an OnlyFans account, which I pondered subscribing to for a brief moment… Not important.
What’s important is I got us both thrown in jail on the border of Mexico the fourth day we were together because Border Patrol caught me with weed and decided to chuck all of us (my friend Ryan was also there) in jail for about four or five hours till I paid the sheriff off.
I walked into the jail cell and some big black dude was in there with me. I started pissing immediately cause I had to go, and while I was aiming in the metal toilet, he says to me:
What you in for?
I had some weed, you?
Man they tryin a tell me they found some shrooms.
Oh yeah?
But someone musta put that shit there.
Oh.
It ain’t mine.
Well shrooms aren’t so bad right?
They tryin a say I got warrants.
That’s when I realized: this dude is fucked.
Anyway… That relationship with the stripper ended abruptly after a series of jealous outbursts prompted my off-duty cop neighbor to come up with her gun and see what all the fuss was about. I was forced to call Russian movers to get my shit outa my apartment while she was still there and move down to Coney Island where nobody would find me. Will this ever end?
Jealousy was Destroying My Life
That’s when I moved to LA and decided: no more relationships ever again. I’m too jealous. Jealousy in relationships is not for me, therefore I will never again enter a relationship. That was my thinking. And so it was for many years. I traveled the world and slept around with random women who I would never see again. Even when I got sober, I was afraid to test the waters. But then I caved when I met a girl named Heather at a coffee shop in Griffith Park and asked her to come out with me.
I picked her up in my then-Mercedes… a car I couldn’t afford… and we fucked in the front seat by the beach. She drank, I didn’t, so every time she got drunk my mind told me: she will do everything you do when you’re drunk, and that’s a lotta bad shit. She will fuck your friends and laugh about it (not that I ever did that). She will go to festivals and let ten guys pound her in the ass (not that I ever did that). She will treat you horribly. All these thoughts rushed through my head on a daily basis. I even started going to alanon to get it all under control.
But then something happened: I realized that I was entering into relationships with girls that treated me horribly, that offered no security whatsoever. I was a jealous person because I didn’t trust myself. I had been scarred so many times when I was so young that I never gave myself a chance to heal. When I became aware of all these jealousies and insecurities, I was able to see clearly if a relationship was not for me. If Heather was just gonna fuck me and then head off to Coachella and get drunk with her porn star friends, of course I’m going to feel left out, right? Maybe I should find someone who makes me feel special.
Conquering Jealousy and Insecurity
Slowly I started finding people in my life that gave me a sense of comfort, not a chaotic sense of lust. It wasn’t until then that I was able to treat myself with respect. I began surrounding myself with good humans and treating my untreated rage, alcoholism, and jealousy with the attention it needed, and years later, I have nothing but love in my life.
I now live with my girlfriend Daryl (going ring shopping today) and we’ve been in a loving relationship since we got together two and a half years ago. There has never been a jealous moment (well, none to write about) because we both share the same values and treat each other with respect. How did it take me so long to realize I was worth more?
At the rate I was going, there was only so long that living like that would go before I landed somewhere extremely not pleasant. I was going crazy. I used to think I was fucked; that nothing I could ever do would help me enter into a healthy relationship. There was nothing to be done.
I was wrong.
All I had to do was take care of myself, treat my partner with the security that I wanted for myself, and it was like magic. I realized I was actually a good person. I wasn’t a piece of shit. That thinking faded and now I don’t think I would recognize the person I used to be.
The moral of the story is: Jealousy in relationships is not the end all be all for me. It was there because I was doing the things I was scared would be done to me. I was texting other chicks, staring at other chicks, sizing up other potential relationships. I was never committed and I was always with unavailable women. The second I found someone that was available, that was healthy, that shared my values, and the second I began giving her the respect I was searching for myself, life came together.