Jealous Lovers in the Tarot

“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy – in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
~ Robert A. Heinlein

Are you the jealous type? Do you accept the jealousy of a partner as some form of flattery?

Jealousy is not called the ‘green-eyed monster’ for nothing. As much as some people like to think that jealousy means you give a damn, it actually blocks love from flowing and where love flows freely, jealousy has no in-road. That doesn’t mean we don’t all sometimes feel jealousy… but those of us who know that it is not a healthy condition, choose to let go of the feeling as soon as we accept its presence.

Resistance or denial are both futile. Remember: What you resist persists. So rather than telling yourself you’re not jealous learn to change your self-talk to ‘jealousy has no hold over me.’ The temptation to be jealous may or may not go away, just as the temptation to cheat may be there even when you are happily in love with someone. However, it doesn’t mean you give in… Learn to observe your feelings rather than identify with them. Acceptance is not the same as identification or giving in. Acceptance allows you to observe and let go.

Denial and giving in to temptation are at opposite ends of the spectrum but equally dangerous. Jealousy creates pain and makes you paranoid and possessive. Ultimately, it may kill a relationship that would otherwise have succeeded. It’s a high price to pay for feeling that you are in control of another person which, as you probably know, is not possible anyway.

So what does jealousy look like in the Tarot? For readers who use Astrological correspondences this is a no-brainer, we need look no further than to the Scorpio cards, especially the Knight of Cups, 5 and 7 of Cups, possibly in combination with the 3 of Swords and/or the Devil.

Do bear in mind that the cards have to be read in context of adjacent/surrounding cards, the question and also your own energy. Jealousy is more likely to be indicated in a reading where a third person is showing up in the reading too.

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.”
~  William Shakespeare, Othello