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When someone close to you is happy – and it eats away at you
Jealousy is a natural instinct that can blind you and harm others. But it is possible to tame this monster and even make it work for you.
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Jealousy is – according to evolutionary psychologists – innate in us, and is a behavioural mechanism to ensure the sole possession of a mate for “genetic replication”.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS
For most of his married life, Mr R, a 60-year-old technician who worked in the petrochemical industry was reasonably happy. He married when he was 29 years old and subsequently had a daughter who continued to stay with Mr R and his wife after she married.
Things changed shortly after Mr R’s 60th birthday. He started noticing what he thought were rather unsettling changes in his wife: she seemed to be talking more to their 29-year-old son-in-law and spending more time on the phone. He became convinced that his wife had been cheating on him, and not just with their son-in-law, but with his various friends. He could tell from the “way she looks at them” as he was to tell me later.
