The Shocking Truth About Jealousy in Relationships - Evolution's Hidden Agenda! | Macken Murphy EP 717

0:00My name is Lewis Howes. Thanks so much for being here. I want to remind you about the Summit of Greatness, our annual conference happening this September in Los Angeles. With David Goggins, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and many more incredible speakers and performers, there will be so many live attendees there that you can meet with, you can network with, and you can help transform your life. I can't wait to see you at the Summit of Greatness here in Los Angeles.

0:28Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:37do you feel like jealousy and insecurity is a sign that someone loves you or is it a toxic unhealthy trait a lot of people do and this isn't you know laboratory studies this is just living a human life a lot of people do seem to find some degree of jealousy sexy right but jealousy is also just because it's like oh this person really cares about me like they really care what i'm doing do they really care about you or are they more insecure about themselves My feelings on jealousy is that it's a naturally evolved human emotion, right? It's one of the many pieces of evidence that we are a, let's say, a serially monogamous ape.

1:16And I'm not alone in thinking that, by the way, you know, Helen Fisher wrote a very good book on this. And there are plenty of academics who agree with me. I also know that there are plenty of academics who disagree and think, I saw you had sex on in the lobby. so there are plenty of people who disagree with this but humans have a evolved psychological adaptation to feel jealous when they see threats to their partner's fidelity right so it's like if you see a super hot guy talking to your fiance that might be like want to be protective yeah you're like no this is this isn't this i mean you seem like a totally secure guy but you might be sitting there thinking this isn't ideal right right right and same and same for her you know you go to an event and you know a bunch of girls want your autograph or whatever um she might be you know and she seems like a very secure person as well but she might be internally be like this is not this is not the ideal situation right and that is that is a evolved psychological adaptation to in your case protect paternity and in her case protect investment so you know if a lot of people don't understand the like the evolutionary psychology of men's jealousy is very clear it's a clear story if someone else is sleeping with your girlfriend you might end up raising a kid that's not yours right so that's a pretty clear narrative everyone understands that yeah it's like oh i don't want that to happen so jealousy is natural on the woman's side right there's no chance that her in in in most cases there's no chance that he is going to be pregnant right so she's not too worried about that right she's uh but what she is worried about is that if you're out you know sleeping with other women maybe you end up raising those kids taking care of her taking care of those kids and then she's left alone with a baby and nobody and nobody around so both sexes have strong reasons to feel jealous and those have deep roots in our evolutionary biology you're in a relationship do you feel jealous ever yes but but i also i will say this that the that the research really helps because it's like no genuinely because i'm like i'm gonna give you i mean you're what 26 27 no i'm 40 almost 41 no i would say every relationship I was in from 16 to 35, I was jealous.

3:21So I'm going to grow out of it. At different levels. I'm not saying you're going to grow out of it. It was one of the hardest things for me to actually overcome. Now I'm just going to speak from personal experience. I don't know if this backs any data or research or science that you've seen, but what I do know is being jealous was a horrible thing to feel. It never felt good for me. I never felt empowered and excited by it. It caused more stress and anxiety. And it probably had me saying things that I shouldn't have said in my relationships, acting in certain ways I shouldn't have acted and nothing horrible, but nothing benefiting me.

3:56There was no benefit ever in the relationship for me being jealous. Now you might be able to say, well, you know, having a little bit of jealousy and saying, oh, who was that guy and showing that you care that they were talking to someone else. Maybe there's some slight benefit for that. but just like you said like you know someone in a boxing match who's like outmatched and know they're gonna lose that builds and you start throwing haymakers later that is not a fun picture in a relationship sometimes hard to get back yeah and also it doesn't everyone is and i'm not a terribly jealous person i'm just acknowledging that i have jealousy i have that emotion of course like everybody i get it to an extent uh i certainly don't have you know morbid jealousy or anything like that but but you know i mean the green-eyed monster sometimes sometimes visits of course the but what i will say is that um let me finish my thought then you add to that actually yeah yeah so the jealousy that i felt never added any benefit to the relationship and it only made me feeling more insecure and anxious there was a time when i was about 34 35 36 in that time where I noticed the jealousy started to leave my body.

5:08Like I stopped being jealous that this person was going to be with someone else. There was something that flipped inside of me. Um, and I was in another relationship after that where I had zero jealousy that I can think of. Maybe there was moments, but it wasn't, it didn't come out as like jealous acts. And I remember thinking to myself, something switched inside of me. I don't know if it was the time, the season of life, the experiences of different relationships I'd been in, the agony and pain that I felt by having jealousy in 20 years of my life before that. But something flipped and I just said, if this person doesn't want to be with me, what's the point of me being jealous or insecure if they're going to move on and leave?

5:55It's probably going to be painful in the moment, but it's going to benefit me in the long term. So I just got to a point, you know, in my relationship with Martha now, when I started dating her she's a very famous celebrity in her country and done 40 movies and her dm requests are probably horrifying oh yeah i mean i don't look at that stuff yeah i mean i'm kidding yeah i'm sure she's got tons of men who have lots of money who are you know sexy charming who have big businesses who are celebrities that were reaching out to her before me and i'm sure some still reach out now right she doesn't engage in that but if she didn't want to be with me it would be the greatest gift that she would give me by moving on quicker than staying with me longer and then and then cheating on me or ending it later yeah and so i'm like if you want to be with me it's because you're committed to the vision of our relationship and what we can build together now that doesn't mean i just get to be a sloppy human being and stop caring about her and stop investing in time and communicating and loving her yeah and speaking life and abundance into her so i'm constantly developing self as a man and as a human being to build confidence to to be my word to myself to add value to society to be desirable to myself but also to her and if that's not enough for her then we shouldn't be together and so the jealousy thing just doesn't add value to the relationship from my experience i completely agree i think that's all very wise i'm not saying you should just like cut it off right now.

7:26Yeah, I know. I know. And I don't, this isn't something that I struggle with. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's not a, it's not a huge part of my life, but I was just, I was just admitting that I have the emotion. Yeah. Like many people do. Do you engage in any of the playful jealousy that we discussed? The kind of, Hey, who was that guy? No, none of that. None of the jokes. No. Interesting. I'm trying to, I mean, maybe there was once or twice where I was like, you know, where do you know that guy from? Where like, like someone came up to her like just curious like oh is this someone you dated in the past or someone who's hitting on you before just more of like who is this person yeah yeah but not from a sense of like why are you talking to this guy yeah oh no no never never me either yeah yeah no no that's that's not my personality but now i don't i don't know why i don't i think again i had too much pain and suffering by experiencing now i probably had a lot more jealousy than you i wasn't as evolved yeah it's well it sounds it sounds like you you really suffered from it i i've i've i've been quite lucky um i've also heard i don't know i mean i think that a little bit of playful protectiveness if it's in that spirit yeah yeah i think that again some people find it quite sexy sure and you know quite stimulating that it's like oh wow this you know this i get that this woman wants me so badly this this guy wants me so badly they don't want anyone else to talk to me but as long as it's where does that go to but if it's not yeah but that's that's with the very strict provision that it's like it doesn't lead to controlling and strength such as going through DM requests such as you know going through give me access to everything where are you every two hours all that stuff yeah why didn't you call me last night etc and I think that's you know it's it's a slippery slope for sure it's like okay I'm gonna drink a glass of wine once a week and then I start having twice a week and then two glasses of wine a night and then it's like now I'm an alcoholic.

9:12So it's okay. Make sure you manage that, I think, is the thing. Otherwise, I just think that's a lot of relationships struggle with too much jealousy.

9:27Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

10:17Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.