It would be nice to think that because married couples are a team engaged in a common project, envy doesn’t exist in marriage. Unfortunately it certainly does.
In his beautiful description of love in First Corinthians, St. Paul warns against not one but two aspects of envy. First, he says love doesn’t envy; loving spouses appreciate each other’s successes. Second, Paul warns us that love does not rejoice when wrongs befall our spouse.
The first kind kind of spousal envy can take many forms. One spouse we know resented the business trips her husband took. “I can’t believe you get a business trip to Paris while I’m stuck here. Why don’t you ever try to take me along?” she would complain. Yet she knew the answer: His company would not pay for her flight, or her accommodations, and she would be on her own while he was in meetings every day. That their family budget could not accommodate such travel for her was something she knew, yet the envy remained.
Spousal envy can occur over little things as well, such as resentments about the spouse getting to go out to lunch at work while the other didn’t, or one spouse winning at Bingo.
The second form of envy against which Paul warns us is called schadenfreude, a term English has borrowed from German. It refers our experience of pleasure or self-satisfaction when someone else encounters difficulties, pain, or embarrassment. Love does not rejoice when wrongs befall our spouses, Paul says. We should not applaud when life takes our partner down a notch—however much we may in our hearts believe they need it. Our real attention should be on us: why do we feel this way about our spouse?
Envy can spring from attitudes of entitlement and competitiveness. You may find yourself consumed by trying to be the “best” in your marriage—the better looking, the main breadwinner, the best parent, the smartest. This kind of competition can only lead to suffering for both yourself and your spouse.
What would a marriage without envy be like? And how can we deal with envy in our marriages?
This passage is redacted from a chapter of our book Climbing the Seven Story Mountain. You can read the full chapter here.
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