ERP 155: How To Deal With Partner Envy

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Dr. Jessica Higgins: Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 155, “How to deal with partner envy.” This is a follow-up from a few episodes ago where I was talking about self-sabotage, and then the next episode was the fear of outshining your partner. Partner envy is somewhat related to this, so if you missed those two episodes, I encourage you to check that out.

As always, I wanna invite you to drop into today’s intention, and the intention of the Empowered Relationship podcast. That intention is to grow, to increase our relational skill as we learn and contemplate concepts together. Now, I’ll be offering you information based on my training, education, experience, and I also wanna encourage you to, as you’re listening, run through what I’m saying through your intelligence system.

Some of what I might share possibly won’t resonate, where other things will resonate strongly. So I wanna encourage you to just feel empowered, feel the freedom to take what’s helpful and leave the rest. It’s not a class, you don’t have to absorb this all, and you’re not gonna be tested.

As we talk about relationship, I’m coming from the framework that intimate relationship has a unique landscape. If you have listened to previous podcast episodes, I have talked about the peaks and the valleys, as well as the stable, consistent line, and that we are going to have different challenges in the peaks, meaning to expand our capacity for more joy, more love, more intimacy and ecstasy, and when we talk about the valleys, it’s the places that we get threatened, feel pain, feel triggered, and how we negotiate that… As well as when we’re talking about the day-to-day, how we contribute to safety, stability, consistency, and the health of the dynamic and day-to-day life.

In my mind, intimate relationship provides a beautiful opportunity for growth and development. I am grateful to share this time with you, and I feel so privileged to be able to share this journey together. If you have feedback, questions or interested in getting more support, please feel free to reach out to me via e-mail, [email protected]. You can also visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, and you can find articles, podcasts, show notes, as well as other resources there.

I wanna share a review that I got titled “Grateful.”

“I have been listening to your show for quite some time now. I am so grateful for the light that you shed, not only on my relationship with my husband, but with my young children, family members and co-workers. You have a wonderful way of bringing insight and deep and meaningful discussions to topics that are relevant in so many aspects of my life. Thank you for your ongoing support in my journey.”

I really appreciate your input and your feedback. It really warms my heart and it makes this all worth it, so thank you for your review, thank you for your feedback.

Today’s topic – how to deal with partner envy. Now, envy is an emotion that arises when we feel someone possesses an attribute that we crave or lack. We wish we had it, we want some of it. Envy is a common experience, a fundamental part of human nature, in that it stems from the tendency we have to compare ourselves to others. It’s how we measure ourselves socially, so we’re wired up to be social, and we tend to compare ourselves, hence when we feel we lack, often times we’ll experience envy.

Today’s topic is inspired by the article “To love and to envy” by Dana Shavin. What happens when we compare ourselves to our romantic partner and we feel we come up short. In this article, she cites a psychiatrist, Gail Saltz, who says that envy is difficult to measure, because most people don’t wanna admit it even to themselves that they feel envious of their significant other.

Imbalances are a natural part of intimacy, in that you’re not gonna be completely matches in every facet of your life. Now, this could be from your culinary art skills, to your attractiveness, to your earning potential, or your career success, your ability to be social and have really great relationships with others, to parenting, you name it. The differences are going to be there, hence there are going to be imbalances… Yet imbalances don’t equal envy.

In today’s show I’m gonna talk a little bit more about examples of what imbalances look like, so you can relate to that a little bit more. I’m gonna talk about what couples who don’t experience envy – what they do that makes that successful, how that works for them.

I’m gonna also talk about couples who do experience envy, and where those challenges lie. Then I’m gonna give you some tips around how to deal with partner envy really constructively, so that if you notice partner envy happening at times, you have some guidance around what to do with it. Here are some more examples of what imbalances in relationship can look like; this comes from clients, and I’m gonna share my own experience. And as I’m sharing, I would love for you to be generating some of your own ideas around what you’ve observed in others around imbalances, or what you even can identify in your own relationship… Because again, this is a very common experience. Again, we’re not gonna be matched on every level. So to be able to identify it and kind of how we react to that is just a helpful inquiry process.

I have several couples that I work with where they have children, and one of the partners feels as though the other partner is just much better with the kids; they have a close relationship. I have this one client, and he talks about how the boys — they have two boys, and they are a little older, and they call mom every day, and they have a very close relationship. Now, he feels close to his sons, but he comments about “Sons need their mothers”, and it’s just a reflection around how close his wife and the boys are.

I have other clients where one partner complains that the other partner is the good guy when it comes to parenting. “Why do you always get to be the fun one? Why do you always get to be the one to come in and the kids respond so well to you, and I’m here doing all the dirty work and having to set the limits, and I’m the hard one?” So there’s some envy, that “I wanna be playful. I wanna have fun with the kids, but I don’t feel that I have that same relationship because of our dynamic.” Now, that might be the dynamic, but it might also be the personality style and the lean. I’m gonna give you some tools around how to work with this a little bit later. I’m just laying out some of the other examples.

I have some couples where one partner is more educated, has advanced degrees, and possibly the other partner didn’t even go to college, so there’s an imbalance around education level, and sometimes that is felt. Or perhaps one partner has a more sophisticated, more prestigious career, and that feels as though they have more power, or again, that imbalance – they earn a lot more money.

A couple examples that I’ll share from my own life… One is my husband tends to be really good at relaxing, decompressing and really taking time for rest. Now, I believe that is such an important thing to do in life, and yet I don’t always give it to myself… So when I see my husband doing it, I sometimes feel envy, like “I wanna do a better job of resting!” Or I will look at him and I’m like, “Wow, that seems really nice, and I have not built that into my schedule this weekend.”

One of the things that I do with envy is I will recognize that I have a longing or that I’m feeling envious, like “I want that!”, and I try to use it as a source of inspiration. It’s a cue, it’s a flag alerting me to the fact that that’s something that I’m wanting… And something like rest, I can incorporate. That’s something that I can actually take action on.

My husband’s generally pretty good about scheduling massages, as well. He’ll get a massage every other week, and when he gets a massage, I’m like “Oh, that sounds lovely!”, and then I’m like “Mental note, I wanna schedule a massage.” Now, I don’t always follow through, but I don’t use it as a source to take issue with him, but it’s more, again, as a reminder around “Oh gosh, I wanna do that, too.”

Another example comes to mind – this was several years ago, and as I share with you, I am wanting to laugh because it seems really silly, and it also has a flavor of competitiveness. I do think that I am a little more competitive than I think I am, and I think that partner envy does have an angle of competitiveness, and I’m gonna talk about that in a little bit.

Okay, a couple years ago my husband was asked to officiate a friend’s wedding. Now, we were both friends with the groom and really pretty good friends with the bride as well. My husband had several months to support the couple, interview them, and basically help them construct their ceremony, and I was thrilled about my husband being able to be the officiant and help support their wedding day together.

Now, as we got closer, my husband started making his final preparations and getting fitted for his really nice suit, and getting his haircut, and all his grooming and his shoes, and everything he was doing… And I was like, “He’s looking sharp!” and I was like, “I have to step up my game!” So I had a few dresses that I was gonna wear, but I remember feeling like “I really need to turn it up a little bit”, and I only say that to share that I was observing him, and recognizing that I wanted to also look really good. And again, it’s a very small example, but it’s a way in which we do compare, or I compare to myself to my husband in this situation, and wanted to be more balanced… And I was like, “I need to step up my game.”

Again, if I didn’t feel good about myself, it could be a place where I would feel maybe some envy. “My husband is so attractive, and he looks handsome, and I’m not…”, and that could feel kind of crappy.

Another source of imbalance is recognition, or accolades. From this article, “To Love and To Envy”, the author was describing being an artist, and that her boyfriend started taking photos and then developed his artistry, and then skyrocketed his recognition, and got an award… And she was just like, “I’ve been an artist this whole time, and really just incrementally getting some recognition, and you come in and just out of the gate you’re winning awards.” So she was talking about her experience of envy.

This summer, my mother, my brother and his fiancée came to visit… And this one Friday  night it was actually just my mother and my husband and I went to — in Santa Barbara there’s this courthouse that has this beautiful courtyard, and they call it “The Sunken Gardens”, because it kind of goes down a little bit… And in the summer, they have outdoor cinema.

This particular evening we had put out our blanket, and had our little treats, and we were getting ready to watch the movie and we were doing a little mingling with people… And we ended up seeing another couple, some mutual friends of ours. The couple approached us, and I introduced my mother, and my friend – she was like “Oh my gosh, we love Jessica!” and she was talking about me, and I think she was being a little more enthusiastic about me, because she was my mother… But later, my husband and my mother were teasing around “Oh, we love Jessica! He’s okay… We don’t really pay attention to him…” And it was silly. It was so silly and not true, but again, it’s another source of where one partner might get a lot of recognition, and the other partner might not feel that same recognition, at least in that moment or in that sphere.

A few other examples are if one person is older and more experienced, more respected in the community, has more wisdom. That can feel like an imbalance. One person might be in better shape, more attractive, or even have a bigger, closer family.

Growing up, I had a really great friend, and who I’m still really dear friends with now, and she was one of four, and had a really beautiful family, and they did all these fun things together… And I pretty much was an only child till I was nine, and then I had my brother. And very soon after that, my mother and stepfather divorced, so it was this divided family and it didn’t feel as cohesive. So I remember spending time at her house, and just really appreciating and admiring, and I’m sure there was envy there at times around “Wow, how nice it is to have such a deep, close-knit family.” And they’re still very, very close to this day, and it’s such a beautiful thing to witness.

What does it look like when a couple is not threatened by envy? I’ll read a quote from the article:

“Strong couples want the best for each other, They don’t compete except in play—think running a marathon or playing tennis. Strong partners are thrilled when the other gets ‘the goodies,’ even if they maybe feel a pang that they themselves didn’t.”

Another quote:

“In healthy romantic relationships, partners feel that they are, overall, equal in status. This feeling holds true even if there are areas where one is clearly superior to the other.”  In those cases, partners feel they compensate for their lack of mastery in one domain with mastery in another—for instance, he may earn more money, while she is the children’s go-to for emotional support.

The less successful partner feels the pride and admiration that stem from basking in the glory of the other.”

This is essentially where in relationship partners feel valued, even if in a particular area they don’t shine and their partner is shining… That there’s not a sense of threat. They appreciate their partner’s skill and their success, and they know that they have value and they contribute in other areas, and that collectively they’re stronger together. And whether or not they complement each other or just the added value that each person brings adds value to their overall relationship.

I feel so fortunate that as I reflect on some of my milestone moments, I can feel my husband’s joy… Him sharing in the success and being completely genuinely happy. One moment comes to mind, where we moved to Boulder, Colorado together, neither one of us had jobs, and I was starting a private practice from scratch and not knowing a single soul… And two months in, I had done some networking meetings, I had joined the Chamber of Commerce, and I had a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled. Now, usually these are around happy hour, you have  a few hors d’oeuvres, and possibly some beverages, and I had gone a little bit extra and had gotten some door prizes for people.

Again, two months in, I believe I had close to 100 people there, and it felt like a success to be able to a) be opening up a private practice, to be in a new location and to have people show up, and b) willing to celebrate that with us.

I remember a moment where I turned to him, and I just felt his complete basking, as this quote was saying… I just felt his smile, ear-to-ear, and his heart just being nothing but supportive, and it just meant the world to me. I know that this is incredibly important, and again, I just wanted to share that I’m grateful that I’ve had this experience.

If you do experience partner envy, at times couples will feel like they actually root against their partner, and they tend to feel not good about themselves as they experience their partner’s success as a reflection of their own inadequacy.

Now, I actually think it’s possible to have both experiences, where you do have a sense of strength and a sense of being together as a team, that one person’s success makes you better as a couple, and still have partner envy. I don’t think this is absolute. I think the attention that I’m wanting to draw here is that if you notice partner envy having a bigger impact on your relationship.

In the article, they talked about couples who struggle with envy tend to have a hard time viewing their partnership as an invisible team. It’s difficult to grasp the concept that what’s good for one of us is good for both of us.

Another challenge with couples who face envy is that there’s a struggle with the inequality. That’s the imbalances that we talked about. That’s really the hallmark of envy in relationship.

I wanna quote out of the article from psychologist Peter Fraenkel, an associate professor at City University of New York, the author of Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage says that “Like many problems in intimate relationships, a propensity to envy can often be traced to childhood. A lack of praise from parents, or achievements that were met with indifference or criticism, can set the stage for a lifetime of insecurity about one’s accomplishments.”

A client comes to mind — I deal with a couple, and she’s talked about growing up with a narcissistic mother, where she did not get really any recognition or any even validation of her specific, unique qualities… Not even to mention achievements and praise and affirmation. She didn’t even just get the mirroring of her uniqueness. It was all about her getting in line and doing the right thing and complying. So there’s been a lot of pain for her to see her value, to see her contribution as mattering and as equal in the relationship.

As Peter Fraenkel is noting here, these earlier experiences in our childhood environment are really deeply set, and it takes a lot of consciousness and attention to really reframe, rework this more deliberately.

Let’s move into what you can do if you notice envy occurring in your relationship. Now, you might even go through phases where you notice envy and it’s a new thing, where traditionally you guys have been really solid. Just to pay attention that if you notice envy existing, that you could possibly use some of these steps to support your relationship.

1) Be honest about your experience. I get that this is not something that we really want to do, because as I said earlier, it’s something we usually don’t wanna admit, we usually have a lot of shame, even guilt around, and it’s difficult to talk about.

At the same time, it’s paramount to turn towards that. As mentioned in the article, harboring resentments toward your spouse is never a good idea. The point is to recognize that to envy or be envied is a human experience, and that it’s okay – no blame, shame, or judgment… But that the goal is to move towards the next step and deciding how you and your partner wanna deal with what’s going on.

2) Assess equality. If there are glaring imbalances, looking at them and having a broader spectrum conversation might help illuminate that perhaps yes, your partner shines in one particular area, but there are many other areas, and pointing out where both people contribute, where both people add value.

This can help correct a narrative or a negative story, or even help counteract that early sense of inadequacy that’s so steeped in us sometimes. If we don’t have that felt sense that we are good enough, that we do have value, that if we’re not getting explicit recognition in our relationship, it can further reinforce that old negative belief and that old incorrect story.

3) Look for desire and longing, as well as discontent and resentment. I’ve talked about in previous podcasts I’ve done a lot of studying with Mary Morrissey; I grew up with her teachings, and she talks about desire and longing and discontent are great teachers. They let us know what’s important to us. So if you recognize an area of longing — I referenced my own relationship about my husband being really great about time for rest and real rejuvenation in the way of relaxation, and massage. And that is a desire that I have, so I can use that as a source of inspiration, as a teacher that I wanna incorporate that more.

Well, similarly, when we feel resentment or discontent, it can also tell us where we’re not happy and where we want to perhaps make some change… Whether or not we’re not happy in our career, perhaps there’s a way to evaluate how resources are being allocated, and maybe there’s a career change in the future, and how do you construct the family plan that supports that? We’re not in the interest of keeping someone stuck.

I have a lot of couples who struggle with the division of labor, whether or not that’s domestic chores, or parenting, where one partner feels that they’re doing the heavy lifting, and it doesn’t feel fair. Being able to reassess how you guys negotiate your contributions to getting your life taken care of, and maybe a relook and a re-evaluation, so that it does feel like a win/win.

4) Focus on the couple as a team. This is the unit mentality. In the article it’s discussed that the essential need for partners to see that there’s separate achievements reflect on each other and feed their overall success as a couple. “Both partners should believe that despite the greater success of one, their basic equality and status remains intact and both are responsible for the life they have created.”

Referencing the number two point about assessing equality – this is looking for the ways in which each partner adds value. And yes, it’s true, one partner may excel in a particular area or seemingly contribute in a higher fashion or in a more prominent way, but if we really look at the fact that together the couple is creating a life together, whether or not they have a family, or a home, or whatever they created together, it takes both of them… And both of them are invested, both of them are committed, both of them really rely on each other.

If the focus becomes the unit, it’ll be more clear about how partners support each other, how they complement each other, how they tag team. It’s almost as if they’re taking ownership and feeling a sense of pride in the couple as a unit… So the success of one contributes to the overall success of the couple, and both people feel responsible for that. And it really gets at the win/win.

Many years ago when I was a director of a teen program, there was a leader that him and I were co-facilitating, and he brought forth a game called The Red/Black Game. The whole point of this game was to help the youth experience a win/win, so that nobody wins if somebody loses, and that the idea is how to collectively win. This is not always how we approach a game, or we approach life, for that matter. Often times we want to do our very best, and sometimes there’s a competitive quality or nature to it.

Coming back to the Red and Black Game – we have a group, and the group is divided into two or three smaller groups. The purpose of the game is to score as many points as possible. On each turn, each group decides whether they choose red or black, and writes down on a sheet of paper, and the scoring is as follows: if all choose black, each team gets 50 points. If exactly one team chooses red, that team scores 100, and all other teams score zero. If more than one team chooses red, all teams score zero.

They play five to six rounds. What usually happens is one team will choose red, and if no other team chooses red, they get 100, and the other team gets zero. Very soon, both teams are trying to choose red, although, again, if more than one team chooses red, everyone gets zero.

The real instructions of the game are to get as many points as possible. It didn’t necessarily say for one team, but to score as many possible points collectively. So over several rounds, the group starts to realize that collectively if they cooperate and both choose black, they can have a win/win, and collaborate and work together to get the best points possible.

This game was so fun to watch, as people process their competitive nature, and then begin to recognize how if they look at the whole group rather than just the two groups, and the positive gain for the whole collective group, and the transition from the competitive, self-minded to the collective win and the collective win/win… It was really fun to see that cooperative stance towards the end and what could be generated from that.

As this Red and Black Game illustrates, it does take some practice, some experience and conscious effort to work from the competitive self mind to the more collaborative unit mindset. There is such a beautiful experience when couples can feel a sense of mutual support, and that together they’re benefitting from both of their efforts… Versus the envy, the resentment and the inadequacy of feeling less than. That doesn’t usually contribute to a feeling of love, connection and happiness.

Let’s revisit the four suggestions if you notice envy or resentment popping up in your relationship.

1) Be honest about your experience.

2) Assess equality.

3) Look for desire and discontent.

4) Focus on the team.

Thank you for listening to today’s show, episode 155, “How to deal with partner envy.” If you’d like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find the most recent episode at the top. Again, this is 155.

Until next time, I hope you take great care.

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