Rereading Othello has given me a chance to look back at my own relationship history. History of one, but still a history.
I thought for a while, that I was a bit like Othello, the green monster of jealousy having possessed my body and seeing cheating where it was not.
I didn’t imagine it. It was there…all around and everywhere. Every person I suspected it being with, it was there, either in the physical or emotional action, or in the desire for it to be there.
It made me paranoid of everyone. Well not everyone, but everyone in my ex-partner’s life. And was I right to be? Well I was definitely right, but should it have been that way?
I sometimes wonder if it was all just my ex’s desire to cheat multiple times, or if it was a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Where I expected to see cheating, I did. And perhaps I threw us into a cycle.
But it’s not like I first thought this. I had to get burned first to be suspicious. There was indeed a time in my relationship where I wasn’t jealous at all. I learned pretty fast. So maybe I grew into an Othello, and unlike Othello, my concerns were justified.
I don’t want to say it was my fault, because that denies their agency and their own choices.
Whether I suspected it or not does not give someone else the excuse to fulfill my suspicions.
It is important to take blame, but (like I learned in my relationship), taking too much of the blame, the blame which isn’t yours, is not helpful. It won’t solve anything and it isn’t right.
So just some thoughts on the matter.