Why do I try to make my partner jealous?

Because a label has no parts. Manipulative, game-playing, cruel: the word sits there and the next move happens anyway. It also skips the useful part, which is that the move is asking a question you have not said out loud.

A pattern has parts. The circuit is the sequence of steps a pattern runs. It starts with the cue, the first thing that sets it off. Then come a body signal, a thought, the behavior and the relief. The body signal is what you feel as the pattern starts. The window is the few seconds between that signal and the behavior.

You are not trying to hurt them. You are trying to see if it would.

It looks like a joke, a passing story, a photo you were going to post anyway. Each one can be denied. That is part of how it works. The move is small enough that you can tell yourself it was nothing, and big enough that you can read their reaction.

The thought is not the cause. It follows the body. That is why the reaction you get settles nothing for long, whatever it is.

By the body, not the move. Three files can make the same move. Each one starts in a different place.

The Testing Pattern, where you push to find out when someone will stop caring, starts as a fast heart. You watch their face to see if they still care. The Disappearing Pattern, where closeness sets off a quiet exit, starts as a band around the chest after a close stretch. The move cools the room. The Rage Pattern, where heat turns into words before you choose them, starts as heat up the neck. The move is a sting sent back.

Because their jealousy looks like an answer. If they mind, the thought goes, they still care. Your body reads some small change as distance, and the move is a way to measure it without asking. The answer does not last, so the move comes back. Next time you reach for it, notice what your body did first. Then ask yourself what you wanted to know.

This page will not write those lines. Here is why. The words you are looking for stand in for a plainer sentence: I need to know you still care. Any line that makes him jealous asks that question in a way he cannot answer straight. Try the plain sentence instead, once, on a calm day. Then notice what your body does when you say it.

Often because you feel bad first, and the move hands it over. A hurt lands in you. Your body moves. A remark goes out that will sting them, and for a moment the weight is shared. The relief is real and short. Write down the last time you did it. Then write what you felt in the hour before. That hour is where it started.

Insight does not change the sequence. Repeating the different action does. Catch means you feel the body signal and name the pattern before it becomes the behavior. Intercept means you interrupt the usual response and choose a different action before the old pattern completes. Here, the different action is the plain sentence instead of the move.

Each of the three files below carries its own script for the window, built for its own body signal. Start with the one whose signal you found. Between moments, you can look at where this was learned, if you want to. SOURCE UNKNOWN is also a complete answer.