While most partners want someone to care if they run away with the neighbor, using jealousy to evoke a sign of love from a partner, or feeling jealous of your partner’s interest in something or someone other than you—takes its toll.

Often confused with envy which is the emotion you feel when you want something someone else has (car, wife, job) jealousy is the apprehension or fear of someone or something being taken away from you.

• She is much happier speaking with her friends on the phone than speaking with me.

• You dress up for the people at work but you certainly don’t dress up for me.

• You will plan a weekend to fish, but you can’t seem to find a weekend for us.

Helen Fisher, author of Anatomy of Love, describes jealousy as a combination of possessiveness and suspicion. She reports that studies of men and women find that neither is more jealous than the other, but that they react to jealousy differently. Whereas women will feel it, overtly showing indifference (often with verbal digs) but hold on to a relationship, men will leave a relationship to save face or become reactive. Male jealousy is a leading cause of spousal homicide cross-culturally.

Clearly, despite the anthropological consideration of jealousy as necessary for early man’s survival, or its equation with love in medieval poetry, in the day-to-day life of couples, jealousy threatens connection and reduces happiness. “A nationwide survey of marriage counselors indicates that jealousy is a problem in one third of all couples coming for marital therapy.”

Recognizing The Threat of Jealousy

Because some of what we do is not always conscious and we are often unaware of the impact of our feelings, words and behavior on our partner, it is worth checking out the role of jealousy in your relationships.

Five Checkpoints:

Unrealistic Fears

• How realistic is your fear about being replaced, dismissed or overlooked by your spouse for another? Are you upset or jealous if you partner speaks positively about another person—be it a family member, neighbor, or colleague? Do you believe that your partner could so easily forget …
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In a culture of cell phones, text messages, Facebook, tweets and instagrams, the definitions of privacy and secrecy are challenged and at times blurred.

You read my emails?

I can’t report every move I make in the course of a day.

Why can’t I check out my high school girlfriend on Facebook?

When it comes to relationships, partners often underestimate the importance of privacy and the danger of secrecy.

Privacy in relationships reflects trust and enhances intimacy. Secrecy in relationships impairs trust and impedes intimacy.

What is Privacy?

Privacy is defined as the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. It is the state of being free from public exposure and attention.

Why We Need Privacy As Individuals

Psychologically, we understand that whereas secure attachment is key to early development, the growing capacity of the child to internalize this attachment and to separate–to have room to be, to play alone, to have private thoughts, to have space, to develop an authentic self–is crucial.

Why We Need Privacy In Relationships

As adults we continue to need different degrees of privacy to re-charge, regulate stress and nurture a sense of self–be it a solitary hobby or reading the paper alone.

We also need intimacy. We need to be and share with another, to be known by them in a way that no one else knows us.

Boundary Changes in Relationships

As such, in committed and intimate relationship, our individual boundaries of privacy change. In most cases, we choose to share bedrooms, sex, money, food, pets, chores, vacations, confidences, fears, and hardships– the best and worst of ourselves–with another. We also share a respect for each other’s privacy.

Disclosure Expectations in Relationships

While one partner may be more disclosing than the other, we can’t expect to hear or share every thought, action, urge or memory of our partner. In a trusting relationship, we have neither the need to check each other’s phone, emails, mail or daily moves, nor the obligation to disclose all. If we enjoy such sharing, it is mutual sharing that fuels our connection.

When thinking about privacy in a relationship it is worth considering:

• A loving relationship …
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The war in Iraq has officially ended and the president promises to bring the troops home from Afghanistan by the end of next year. For all of our military and all of their families, finding the way home from war is a treasured event and a complex process.

For families, homecoming involves readjustment  in terms of time, space, roles, and expectations. For couples, homecoming means finding a way to integrate all that has happened to each partner and the relationship they share. Whether one or both have been to war, on many levels both partners have to “come home” together. For couples that means coming to know themselves and their partners in old and new ways.

How Does that Happen?

Couples do this in their own way, in their own time, knowing that they are not alone. They often find that even more complicated than the hours waiting to be rescued, the hours of driving in the dessert, the flight from Bagdad, and the applause and embrace of those waiting, is the journey home they will take in the many months that follow.

Considerations:

Listed below are some considerations gleaned from others who have traveled this path as well as from those who have worked with and guided them home.

The Excitement and Fear of Homecoming

• It comes as a surprise to realize that for as much as everyone is counting the moments to be re-connected with his or her partner, many are also very anxious about homecoming – “Will he still love me?” “Will I still love him?” “Will she expect me to be the same?” “How much will she have changed?”
• You are not alone if you are both excited and nervous. If you can, savor those first Kodak moments of connection. You will build upon them as you get to know each other again.
• If those first moments just don’t unfold as dreamed, give yourself time and trust your coping skills and support networks.

Emotional Time Warp

In some ways homecomings throw you into an emotional time warp.  One day you are military serving with dust, death, comrades and combat and then -You are …

If you are human, in a relationship and living on this planet there will be decisions to make and problems to solve. They may be intrinsic to your circumstances, imposed upon you by outside factors, or a function of your personal needs and goals.

For most couples issues related to jobs, residence, children, socializing, religion, sex, money, in-laws and more demand decisions but often invite dissent.

If you want a clear example of the type of behavior to avoid when problem solving as a couple you have only to take a look at the presidential hopefuls.

Recognizing that they are, of course, contenders and putting aside the specifics of their platforms or the campaign engines that drive their rhetoric, they nonetheless offer a glimpse of the type of the exclusionary thinking and reactivity that erodes collaboration, jeopardizes problem solving and risks relationship success.

Dynamics to Avoid:

Consider avoiding the following as you and your partner build the platform for your life together.

• Coming from an “all knowing position.” “ You know nothing about cars and have no experience buying them, I will choose.”
• Blaming the partner for things outside of their control. “ Why would I want to go on another family vacation when the kids always get sick?”
• Assuming the worst about your partner. “ I really want to socialize with the people from work but I know you will be uncomfortable.”
• Looking only at what the partner has done wrong with respect to an issue. “ When it comes to money, you are the last person who should have anything to say. You used to have a bad credit rating.”
• Negativity about the other in public. “ He has no idea of the kids’ schedules or what they need on a day to day basis.”
• Coming into the problem solving with a solution. “ So I have it all figured out – we will buy a two family house with my parents.”
• Refusing to see problem solving or decision making as a building process. “That won’t work, forget it.”
• Seeing each other as one-dimensional. “ You are a city person. Why would you …
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