Real (In)Security Part I: Friendship Jealousy

There are so many things I have wanted to write lately, but I have been utterly distracted and unmotivated in the area of writing lately. I hate it. But today that changes, because today I was given a wise word from a friend. 

I was reminded that sometimes we need to press through our feelings of apathy in order to gain the higher prize that pushing forward brings. If we always wait until we feel better to do things, then we will be waiting for a long time. And so though I have not felt like writing lately, I have also had several things pressed upon my heart that I feel led to share. And so I push through the sluggish feeling.

I will soon be starting a blog series, perhaps the first official series I have ever done. The series will be a conversation about vulnerability and the dynamics of the array of relationships we have in our lives and as a sort of ‘appetizer’ to that I’d like to chat a little about female friendships, in particular this tendency that we females have towards jealousy.

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I was seated at a high-top table at the local Starbucks a few months back chatting with a dear friend about jealousy. I was frustrated with myself:

“She’s moved away, made lots of new friends and I just found myself being threatened and jealous because of that." I said to her. "Shouldn't I be happy for my friend?” I don't know what I was looking for. I just needed to say out loud the thoughts and feelings that were swimming around in my head.

My friend’s response to my confession was both humble and convicting in the most backwards way.

“I know!” she exclaimed, “I've felt exactly the same way! Why can’t we just be happy that our friends are happy and making new friends?”

We chatted a bit more, and later that week I ended up confessing my feelings to my friend over Skype:

“R...” I said to her.  "I don't want to be jealous of your newly forged friendships. I want to be happy for you. I don’t want to be selfish or insecure, I want to rejoice at the fact that you have people around you when I can’t be there, and even when I can! I want to rejoice at the fact that you are experiencing the fullness of community. But I was jealous, and I need to figure out why.”

R and I had a great chat that night about what friendship means and why growth, even of a community of friends, often involves growing pains. The most invigorating part of our conversation was that there was never a clarification of who was “highest” in the pecking order of her friends, mostly because she doesn't sort all of her friends hierarchically. Instead there was a clarification of value and investment in our friendship. That conversation helped set me at ease, but I was still frustrated that I felt jealous in the first place. Why would one woman ever be jealous of another woman's friends?

In his book The Four Loves C.S. Lewis tells a story that seems to explain the danger of this strange phenomenon (that even men seem to struggle with from time to time) more clearly:

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away.’”

It is beautiful to think that the more friends my dearest R will have the better I will get to know her because the more facets of her personality I will see. It is also a humbling and relieving thought to realize that as one of her many friends I am not her everything, nor do I have to be. 

But why am I jealous? I don't wish to be. I want to give this things that Lewis calls "true Friendship" freely to all my friends, especially to someone like R who is the closest thing I have ever had to a sister and is my kindred spirit.

So I prayed about it and talked with some people about it and this is what I have concluded: 
We women are very relational in nature and I believe that this aspect of our God-given nature can produce a divine ability to forge beautiful relationships. But most of us also share this tendency to get jealous. We tear one another down, we gossip and we compete for attention and affection. Why do we do this? As relational beings shouldn't we realize that jealousy is counter-productive to the growth of healthy friendships? 

Some people may chalk jealousy up to being a fruit of our relational nature. We are jealous because we want to protect our friendships. But after talking with several women about the subject I am now convinced that our jealousy is not the love-child of our “femaleness” and our territorial tendencies don’t really have anything to do with our relational nature.

Jealousy, more than anything else, is an issue of insecurity.

It may be a product of broken trust, negligence or a myriad of other relational blunders. But most often I believe that jealousy is a fruit of insecurity; it is a disbelief that who we are is enough - that we are worthy, valuable, likeable and good. We fear being replaced. In this world of throw-away everything we fear being tossed in the friend trash like yesterday’s leftovers. And this fear is often misplaced - our friends don't treat us like trash, but somehow we still believe that we are and so we self-protect. I think the reasons for our insecurity are as diverse as we as women are. But we shouldn't be this way because God created women as fierce, beautiful, helpful, caring, nurturing and audacious beings.* 

So here is a challenge for us. Let’s discover the roots of our insecurity. There is a different cause for each of us, through the help of a wise mentor I am just beginning to discover the roots of my own. But seriously, let’s figure this out and deal with it because every woman should feel the peace that comes with loving and accepting who she is; who God made her to be. But not only that, let’s do it for our friends, that we may bless them with the ability to enjoy the fullness of many friendships and the freedom to be fully themselves and because we as women were created to build relationships, not tear them down. If you're looking for a place to start, reading this might be helpful.

* For examples on women who are like this see the story of Ruth in the book of Ruth; Deborah in Judges 4-5; Rahab in Joshua 2 and 6:15-25; or Esther in the book of Esther, among others.

If you have a similar story of struggle with jealousy in friendships, please comment below or write to me at kait.jongsma @ gmail.com -  I would love to hear your story and be able to encourage you as you journey towards security in relationships!