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Coping with envy
I am a 31 yo woman and married. My husband is a research scholar in USA and I am doing my PhD in Europe. Initially I moved to US with him and had a very happy and comfortable life. The honeymoon phase of marriage went well for almost 2years and then he decided to move back to our home country to pursue his dream career in academia. I, on the other hand got admission in a very nice PhD program and moved to EU and started living apart from my husband. I let him know how I want to see our future in US, so he applied to several places in the US. However, due to covid and recession, he could not secure an academic position there and got a great position in an eminent institute back home. He doesn’t want to sacrifice his dream career of an academician just to stay in the US. I totally understand and support his ambitions. But now I am suffering from a very childish envy for a friend of mine who is going to stay in the US when I am forced to leave US. I know it sound funny from a person of my age. But I can’t cope with my own envious toxic thoughts. Especially when this friend of mine had tried inflicting negative thoughts about moving to US with my husband right after my marriage and now she is doing the same thing. I am finding her enormously hypocritical and hating the fact that she would get to live the life I once lived and wanted to continue living. Kindly suggest me how to cope with this horrible mental agony.
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I know you asked about envy but from what you wrote, I see two issues, Envy but also the marriage to your husband. I will address the marriage first.
So if I understand correctly, your honeymoon phase ended because he moved back to the home country?
Moving your living location doesn't usually end a honeymoon phase or romance and attraction. I have heard of others who just like me and my husband, consider themselves to be at home if they were with their partner. So it should not matter where a person lives, in which city, state, country, province, etc for them to be at home. And there is a saying that home is where the heart is. My heart belongs to my husband and he feels the same, that as long as he is with me, he is home. Have you ever felt that your husband is home for you and does he feel the same about you? We both do take some private time but most of our days are with each other. Being around your mate 24 hours around the clock will drive some people to frustration and anger, this is usually because on a scale of 1--5, their true chemistry with each other is below average so they wont get along or get along without each other. You can only hope for a 2. Your problem as far as your marriage, I can't say what it is but a counselor could help. With different locations, I feel that both going to marriage counseling is not probably going to work as far as scheduling unless you are both in the same place.
As for Envy, I feel it might be good if you read what psychologists have to say about it. A basic fact they share is that envy comes about when you feel that someone has what you don't have but want and so that is Envy. It is an Emotion and emotions feed on 'thoughts'. So your very own thoughts are causing this emotion. So one help would be to get ones thoughts under control. This means the moment you are aware a negative thought has entered your mind, you speak to it (in private so no person would think you are crazy) and tell that negative thought, that it isn't wanted and you won't spend anymore time thinking about the negative situation or person, etc.However, you have to be patient because at first I found myself making it only 10 minutes or less before another thought on the same subject entered my mind. I repeated to my thoughts the same I shared before. As time goes on and you keep yourself on the alert for these negative thoughts, you'll find that you can go longer, much longer before the bad thoughts reappear. So you my dear have to work on your thoughts. It is your wanting what someone else has that occupy your thoughts. So stop thinking of her, start thinking of how the marriage can be improved.
Here I will put a link for professionals explaining envy.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
And here is another:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
and: [Link](Mouse over link to see full location) on this one, I thought I'd gone to a wrong page but just scroll down aways and you'll see the article called 'Overcoming Envy'.
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