Jealousy

(I'm freestyling here, so please tolerate grammatical errors if there would be any.)

Jealousy.

It can take up a lot of time and worrying. To keep up with being jealous you have to constantly monitor your partner's activities and the people he's seeing to the point where you have to do it behind his back. You would spend endless nights over-analyzing things that are usually unimportant. Borrowing words from the movie Moulin Rouge, jealousy can drive you mad. And that is the part about falling in love that's the ugliest.

So you can either let jealousy eat you up and destroy your relationship in the long run, or you can confront it. Six months into my marriage and six years into my relationship, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I still have jealousy attacks from time to time. My husband being a baller, he gets admiration from the opposite sex and sometimes from the same sex. Which is why I feel a tinge of jealousy for the girls who can cheer him on or for their team during their games and a bit apprehensive when he's on basketball mode. The thought of an attractive, voluptuous woman throwing herself at my sweaty husband after an intense game drives me crazy. Yes, I have an overactive imagination. While my husband, a self-confessed late bloomer, can be so clueless about women and their subtle flirtation, I know all about it. I've seen it all in my day, having girl friends, gay friends, having three brothers and being one of the boys. I've studied women and sexual innuendo like the back of my hand. So while he can be all-friendly and non-malicious about it when being approached by a woman, there's a war-freak amazon inside me that just wants to hash out.

However, confessing that I have jealous and violent tendencies does not mean that I am not doing anything about it. In fact, I have learned to keep it at bay and to the point that it is tolerable. Getting into boxing has helped me with my aggression issues, but what has been really helpful is the reality that my husband is not like most guys. In our six years of being together, he has not strayed or ever gave me a reason to doubt him. Everyday, he proves to me that I am his one and only.

My husband knows that I have a jealous streak, but instead of freaking out and going ballistic on how incredibly wild and pointless my imagination can be, he knows how to control my emotions and he knows what exactly to say to encourage the trusting side of me. Whenever he senses that the jealous Cams is slowly sneaking in, he'll say something like, "tell me if you don't want me to leave and I'll stay here." He asks me if I'm worried about something and he'll find the words to reassure me that I have nothing to worry about. That's when I find my core and learn to give in to trust and faith again.

Honestly, I don't know when I'll be completely jealousy-free, but my baby steps are working so far, and when the time finally comes that I'll be with my hubby 24/7, I'm sure I will soon be healed.