Jealousy, when it is allowed to take precedence over other emotional feelings, can become very destructive indeed. It will break a relationship or put restraints on it that are unreasonable. A jealous sibling may go as far as destroying the relationship with a sibling entirely based upon beliefs that are unfounded. Rage can happen as a result, and this is when jealousy gets out of control. You need to know this because even though you may think of your jealousy as being reasonable at this stage of your relationship, if you allow it to carry on, it could turn into morbid jealousy, which results in extremely negative emotions.
Strangely enough, when scientists looked into this kind of unfounded jealousy, they found that the western world suffers from it more than others because of their belief that relationships should be monogamous. If you are starting to see jealousy appear in your relationship, you need to stand back and examine your reasons because if you let this continue, this could turn into an obsession that is not based on fact but on irrational thoughts that come from inside you.
●I am not that pretty - therefore, he must be being unfaithful.
●He was home late from work - therefore, he must be being unfaithful.
●He looked at a pretty girl in the stores - therefore, he must be being unfaithful.
●I own him - therefore, he should not be looking at others.
You can see the pattern emerging. It emerges because you actually believe in your mind that something within your relationship isn't enough for your partner. That insecurity is at the very heart of jealousy. Your partner could be the most faithful person in the entire world, but if you have these insecurities, you will see reasons to be jealous - whether these are real or merely perceived. You will look for actions to be jealous about. You will look for comparisons between you and others of your own sex and their interactions with your partner. It becomes an obsession. If you recognize patterns such as this, the underlying insecurity is the reason - rather than your partner actually being unfaithful. He or she may not have even thought of being unfaithful, but if you let your insecurities allow them to see your unreasonable response to their behavior, you may actually alienate your loved ones and drive them away to the point that they are unfaithful, because they feel they have little or no choice.
For peoblems such as this and circumstances where morbid jealousy comes into the picture, psychiatric evaluation may be necessary -not because you are jealous, but because the underlying problems that are making you jealous are making your life a misery and also making the lives of your loved ones difficult. It may take several sessions of psychotherapy to find where these problesms stem from, but unless you are prepared to do this, you may never find out why you feel insufficient and why you translate this as jealousy. It’s not reasonable and let me explain why.
As a child, perhaps you were always left for fast. You never had things when you needed them. You may grow up expecting other people to treat you badly because of this. Your baggage goes back to a time when you were a kid, but it stuck with you because you saw your parents and teachers treating others better than you were treated.
You grow up, you meet someone, and your self-esteem issues from childhood tell you that you shouldn't expect things to last. They never do. You don't expect people to treat you as important, because they never have. Thus, when your partner tells you that you are special, you like hearing it, but you don’t believe it. When faced with social situations where other people are involved, you immediately expect your loved one to give more attention to others than what is given to you, although he or she has no intention of hurting you, doesn’t have the same background as you, and certainly wouldn't understand it. Your partner starts to speak to his or her boss. Under normal circumstances, people do this, and others may think nothing of it, but because you have a background of being put after every-one else, you assume that he or she is choosing the boss over you, thus causing you to demonstrate jealousy.
This long-term jealousy must be dealt with. It's unreasonable and will break up relationships. It isn't the wife in this scenario that has done any thing wrong. It is people from the past, but self-esteem follows you through your life, and it's the self-esteem that needs fixing rather than the jealousy itself. The point is that if you have reached a place in your life where you have to control the people you love, then you need help because your jealousy will turn their love into dread. This means that your relationship won’t last based on anything other than fear. That’s not healthy from your point of view, and it’s not healthy from your partner’s point of view either.
We all see ourselves as dependent - to a certain extent - on our partners. They have chosen to be with us for life. However, if you go into a relationship with past baggage, your expectations are different and can be extremely unreasonable. My old boyfriend was unfaithful, so no doubt the new one will be. In trying to protect herself, a girl who thought like this would be on the lookout for activities that give her a sign that he is about to be unfaithful - even if he is not. The kinds of people who get involved time and time again with people who are unfaithful usually merit it. They treat their partner so badly that it drives him or her away.
To fix personal issues, you need to work past them before you get into another relationship, especially if these give rise to morbid jealousy. You can also categorize delusional jealousy as being something that gives rise to a lot of negative actions, and this can even lead people to being violent toward their partner or harboring self-harming thoughts. Thus, if jealousy is permitted or has been permitted to get to this stage, you do need to talk it over with a psychologist and deal with the underlying problems that give rise to it, rather than allowing the jealousy to go out of hand. The following are signs that there are problems:
●Someone tries to own you, or you try to own someone.
●You have morbid thoughts about your partner or yourself caused by jealousy.
●You believe that you will be betrayed because of past experience.
●A partner becomes restrictive and stop you from doing what you want to do.
●You become restrictive and stop your partner from enjoying freedom.
●You avoid people who trigger the sense of jealousy.
When jealousy affects you to this degree or you have a partner whose jealousy is affecting him/her to that degree, then help is needed to get the relationship back on track. You have to remember that these are deep-rooted feelings that appear to be very real and that are based on expectations of a partner but are unjustified. Unless these feelings are resolved, there can be no compromise, which will eventually make it impossible to live together because there will always be negativity and doubt in each other. These are not good signs of a healthy relationship.
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