[Marcus]

Originally Posted by LovingRadiance

Jealousy is a resentment against a rival-or enemy.

Envy is wanting what someone else has.

The definition of those terms is irritatingly close. A friend once described the difference as:

Jealous = fear of losing something I have/want to someone else (the rival)

Envy = longing for something that someone else has.

One is competition and fear of loss (jealousy) and the other is greed and desire to possess more (envy).

Hell if I can come up with a better split between the two!

Either way, these days I experience both - the fear of losing my significant other to someone else and greed from my desire to experience their joys for myself. Granted my fear of loss is much lessened since my monogamous days but (being honest) they still jump up periodically. I do find that I envy what my partners experience every once in a while. Fortunately as one of the other posters stated this feeling is short lived and it morphs into my joy for their elation pretty quickly.