When you keep score, what does it mean to win? What’s the prize?
I won’t make you scour this article for the answer. Yes, your love is envious. To a degree, at certain times, caused by certain triggers.
Any mortal’s love is subject to sin, which means it is tainted by any and all imperfect things.
That doesn’t get us off the hook, though. Imagine if your significant other wronged you deeply, you asked them to explain themselves, and their response was, “Well, I’m just a sinner with a tainted love, you know?” And they left it at that.
It’s a slap in the face, isn’t it? A disrespect to the effort true love calls you to.
If you’re prepared to do the hard, self-refining work that God’s love requires, consider these three subtle but undeniable ways your love is rooted in envy:
1. It’s a Tally Game
I was a fantastic scorekeeper in my first year of marriage. There were days I secretly delighted in my spouse’s downfalls, whether big things like his temper getting the better of him, or petty things like him forgetting to throw his dirty socks in the hamper (again). The more wrongs he had to his name, the more ammunition I had for the next time we argued.
Christ’s love that He invites married couples to partake in should produce joy, but my selfish, desperate need for control marred that wholesome love. As long as I was the better of the two of us, the one with fewer flaws to my name, I could be happy in my marriage. I wasn’t joyful; joy requires a freedom from selfish desires that I wasn’t prepared to work for. But I could convince myself I was satisfied in our messy union because I was the better of the two of us.
He was the one who didn’t deserve me.
I was the prize.
This is petty, no doubt. But I ask you to consider your relationship. How often do you use tallies when a heated argument revs its steam? Do your conflicts end with both parties admitting their sins and creating a roadmap for a healthier way forward? Or, how often is a “resolution” merely the aftermath of bitterness burned out from exhaustion or a need to show face for a Bible study or school function?
Too easily, we envy our partner when we feel they perform better, whether they make more money, pull more weight at home, get along with the kids best, etc. So when we finally discover the slightest chink in their armor, the one spot they are weak, we write it down, sear it to our brains, and keep it locked and loaded for when they dare mention whatever character flaw we wrestle with.
Envy always wants the upper hand. Jealousy always wants control. It’s the only way she will ever convince herself she’s worthy. It’s a dastardly lie, a sneaky strategy decided by the author of lies himself.
When you keep score, what does it mean to win? What’s the prize? A tense, unhealthy relationship? A constant pressure to be the best between the two? A partnership where neither feels they can lean on or be healthily challenged by the other?
Take heed: Bitterness and jealousy never heal anyone.
2. The Relationship’s Success Is Based on Perception
If we can’t have their perfect relationship, we can at least fake ours. Jealousy leaves little room for undefiled fun because everyone’s actions are under intense scrutiny. That’s how so many of us treat our relationships, leaving them supported by shallow beams of social appeasement, financial ease, or clout. Who we can become in our relationships is limited by how we want to be perceived.
If the relationship looks pretty, it is pretty. (At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. Meanwhile, the liveliness, the rudimentary health, of the partnership is thrown to the curb.) We convince ourselves if the bank account is full, the marriage is full. (After all, how can so-and-so truly have an intimate, joyful marriage if they’re just scraping by?) If our significant other earns us proper status from family, friends, folks at the office, and online strangers, why mess with such a (prideful) trend? Let’s be honest: Haven’t we all been waiting for years to post photos with someone this handsome and successful so those high school bullies would finally eat their words?
When the relationship’s success is defined by proving yourself to those you envy, you and your partner aren’t allowed to mess up. Which means there is zero, zero, tolerance for anything but perfection. There’s too much to lose to let loose. You can’t do or be anything real because your relationship is surviving solely on a facade.
How exhausting and lonely is that?
3. You Are Miserable
There’s no five-step formula for discovering just how miserable you are in a relationship where envy, whether towards your spouse or another couple’s partnership, takes precedence over grace, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance, and patience. If you're miserable, you know it. The soul tells on itself quite easily. And I believe that vulnerability is God-designed.
I’m a Millennial, a baby who was raised in a culture where technology created a convincing, destructive lie: The more people who like and follow you, the more worthy you are. Our value is placed on an easy-to-read scale, on a profile page for friends and strangers alike to see.
This destructive, diminishing tactic has convinced us to run the rat race that is social media, showing up online to present all sorts of half-truths about who we are and how authentic we can be. We convince ourselves we are only successful when we have created a digital front that has others jealous of us, our numbers, and our facade of joy.
We are so envious of others being accepted and verified that we destroy our souls to reach that false pinnacle of success and plant that same destructive seed of jealousy in others. You should be me, we scream. We taunt them with our success, knowing the empty lives we truly live. Even still, we are quietly envious of everyone around us, those with even more numbers... and those with significantly fewer numbers who are genuinely happy. Yet we wonder why the world turns on itself. Why we are so divided. Why when the lights are out, the world is quiet, and it’s time to put our phones away, we feel so hollow and lonely.
We can’t forget that the world’s first taste of poison was poured by envy, from the enemy wanting to be God, convincing man and woman they should be envious of the knowledge and authority of their kind Creator. Jealousy will always lead to destruction. It might convince us it’s only there to challenge us to push ourselves to be better, land more success, and find fulfillment, but death is her doorway.
Remember this: Our love, apart from Christ’s perfecting work in us, is quickly tainted by envy. Always scraping for worth. Always stepping on others to find fulfillment.
Be careful, dear reader. If you let envy take root, you'll lose. Every time.
Yet the blessing for the believer is that God's love works through us, bringing us eternal victory:
"Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!" Romans 8:37-38
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