Jealousy is an emotion that is extremely difficult to deal with. You can ask me, I’ve been dealing with it constantly lately. I suppose it stems from many things and I must have all of them. One, somewhat consoling thought that came to mind about this whole regime was, “I must be ready to face this reality about myself, because it keeps slapping me in the face.” I guess I can only hope.
Where it began? True, unfettered, full heart open love. Before that I could only love partially, half-way, never fully. Growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it was always a given that a woman, a wife, supports her husband. It was a given that he had more responsibilities, a higher calling to support the good of the community, the church and especially God. Not only was this reality given because of the structure of church function, but also the responsibilities of the priesthood and leadership in the community. There was also the structure of the home that was taught to me and many others, that of the husband being the leader and the head of the home and family. In fact, in the temple, where we were taught the very most important structure and hierarchy, I as a woman covenanted to obey my husband while he covenanted to obey God. He, my husband, was the link between me and God. Another aspect of this was also the fact that Joseph Smith and the early leaders of the church taught the law of polygamy, that a man’s glory was added to by the number of wives he could make covenants with.
All this to simply say, that for a woman, there was never any reason to give your whole heart to a man. You would always be second. Some one or some thing greater would always have to come first. Whether that be God, the church, the community, the neighbor, or another wife. You had to know that you would always come after everything else, that you would support his efforts outward and be there to comfort and console him after all his mighty works were complete.
This structure proved to be the means of a mostly closed off heart for myself. In fact, it was one of the most important lessons, from my mom’s point of view, that she ever gave to all of her daughters. In fact, these were her exact words, “Never love a man too much.”
It has taken me a lot of years to understand where my mom was coming from and what influenced her to believe so firmly in withholding love that she would consistently preach this to all of her daughters.
With experience comes wisdom and time is the best teacher of all.
It turns out that I can never be fully open and loving to my husband, if deep down I know that I will always be second, I will always be after the more important stuff, which is everything else, in his life. Why open my heart and care too much? This reality only brings heartache.
How did I come to understand that I was only loving my husband with a portion of my heart, instead of all of it? The green-eyed monster began cropping its head up over and over, again and again.
We dance and we have danced for several years now. We began teaching classes and pushing our efforts into students more than our own learning and progress. In fact, we completely lost any semblance of balance and threw everything we had into other people and their progress in our Round Dance activity. One of the major effects or outcomes of this involvement and focus was that my husband was needed to dance with other women all the time. I became an observer mostly, sitting on the sidelines, watching my husband interact, teach and participate with other women. I had to ask myself, ‘is this what I want?” It’s what I am supposed to be okay with right? After all, the teachings and the understanding that I am to support him in all his good works was paramount. But I was not okay. In fact, I was seething!
So it was that the Green-eyed Monster came to take up residence in my heart and mind. (This was originally written in December 2023, more to come later)