9 Ways to Get Over Your Jealousy and Save Your Relationship
Feeling jealous can be distressing. Jealousy is often considered a warning sign of bad things ahead in your relationship. But, if you take the right steps, it can also serve as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and strengthen your relationship.
Jealousy is Normal
When we think of jealousy, our brains automatically jump to the negative. Jealousy is touted as a toxic behavior that will destroy your relationship in a heartbeat. But what advocates for this stance fail to realize is that jealousy is a normal human emotion, to some extent. All of us feel jealous at one point or another.
When we feel jealous, our first reaction is usually to stifle that feeling. It’s uncomfortable and we want it to stop, so it’s reasonable to want to push it away. But research shows that rejecting your negative emotions actually heightens the way you’re feeling.
Dr. Noam Shpancer says,
Attempts at avoiding negative emotions are usually futile. Telling yourself that a certain emotion is intolerable or dangerous traps you in constant vigilance regarding the very thing you're trying to avoid. You become hyper-vigilant about any possibility of this feeling arising. The fear of the impending negative experience becomes a negative experience in itself.
Recognizing our jealous feelings as normal helps us to view them as less of a threat when they come up.
When Jealousy Harms Your Relationship
While jealousy is a normal human emotion, it can still wreak havoc on your relationship if it ventures into a harmful place.
Unhealthy jealousy differs from normal jealousy in that it is much more intense and frequent. Normal jealousy comes up in situations where feeling jealous is reasonable, such as if another person is flirting with your significant other. Destructive jealousy may pop up anytime your significant other speaks to a person of the opposite sex.
Unhealthy jealousy may stem from an unfounded belief that infidelity is happening in the relationship. If you find yourself searching for information that confirms your partner has been unfaithful, you’ve probably ventured into the realm of relationship-damaging jealousy. It’s time to reign in that feeling before it gets past the point of no return.
Other signs that your jealousy has entered the danger-zone include checking up on your partner, preventing them from going places where infidelity could be possible (such as bars or nightclubs), and interfering with their relationships.
9 Ways To Get Over Jealousy and Save Your Relationship
Ruminating and acting on jealous feelings can tear your relationship apart. But there are steps you can take to feel less jealous and revive your relationship before it’s too late.
1.Figure Out Why You're Jealous
According to Dr. Gwendolyn Seidman, there are several reasons why people experience jealousy.
Jealousy often correlates with low self-esteem. People with low self-esteem are more likely to view their partner’s attraction to someone else as a personal rejection. Jealousy and the possessiveness that often follows is an attempt to prevent that rejection from happening. Jealousy also coincides with neuroticism. Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety or self-doubt, often.
Feelings about the relationship itself can make you more likely to feel jealous. If you worry that you aren’t good enough for your partner, your jealousy may really be fear that they will one day realize the same and find someone else. Similarly, if you feel like your partner is the best person you will ever date, you may feel insecure that you’d never find anything better if you lost them.
Most of the time when you’re feeling jealous, you’re probably projecting your own insecurities onto the relationship. But if you find yourself feeling jealous when you’re typically not a jealous person, there may be something else going on here.
Dr. Seth Meyers says,
If you don’t have a history of being jealous, odds are that your jealous feelings in your current relationship aren’t actually a problem. In fact, it might be that your instincts are signaling that you are in a relationship with someone you might not be able to trust. In this situation, you aren’t becoming ‘the jealous type’; you're more concerned and distrustful.
2. Separate Your Current Relationship From Your Past Ones
While chronic jealousy often stems from internal feelings, jealousy can also develop from infidelity or mistreatment in a previous relationship. Being in a relationship with someone is like taking a crash course in what love is supposed to look like. When a new relationship begins, we take those things we’ve learned and try to translate them to fit with this new person. Sometimes they mesh well. Other times they actively harm our new relationship.
For example, if your ex-partner had an affair during your relationship you may have learned that trusting people is dangerous. Bringing a suspicious and mistrustful attitude into your new relationship may lead you to question your new partner’s loyalty before they’ve even had a chance to prove it.
Acting this way isn’t fair to you or your new partner. It’s important to remind yourself that your current partner is not your ex. Infidelity happening in the past does not increase the likelihood of it happening again. You and your partner both deserve a fresh start free from the people who have hurt you in the past.
3.Take Away the Power of Your Jealous Feelings
Jealousy demands a lot of emotional attention. They don’t call it the green-eyed monster for nothing. It can consume you when you’re in its clutches and tear you apart when you try to keep it at bay. Jealousy is a powerful emotion.
Powerful emotions can feel impossible to overcome. But emotions are fleeting by nature and there are a few psychological tricks you can use to help them pass more quickly. These tricks help to “defuse” your thoughts or take away their power by teaching you to take them less seriously.
Dr. Barbara Markway suggests several ideas for defusing your thoughts. First, you can label your jealous thoughts. When you worry about your partner being faithful, remind yourself that you’re telling “the jealous story” again. Second, you can thank your mind for the thought. Jealous thoughts are an attempt for your mind to prevent an unpleasant outcome from happening. Thanking your mind for trying to protect you helps the feeling fade away quicker.
Finally, she proposes a few options that may seem silly at first. One of these is repeating your jealous thoughts in a funny voice. Another is singing the thought in your head or out loud. Both of these methods work to reduce the threat of these thoughts and help you take them less seriously. These defusion strategies are based on Dr. Russ Harris’s book, “The Happiness Trap”.
4. Let Yourself Feel Jealous But Don't Act on It
While defusing your thoughts can make them feel easier to deal with, doing so won’t make the thoughts disappear entirely. Feelings come and go like clouds in the sky. Taking steps to prevent yourself from feeling jealous is simply setting yourself up for failure. When you’re feeling jealous, remind yourself that it’s okay to feel this way.
Normalizing feelings of jealousy can put your mind at ease. But you should not take accepting these feelings as a license to act on them. When you act on your jealous feelings, you give them the power to cause you more distress in the future.
Dr. Robert L. Leahy says,
Just as there is a difference between feeling angry and acting in a hostile way, there is a difference between feeling jealous and acting on your jealousy. It’s important to realize that your relationship is more likely to be jeopardized by your jealous behavior — such as continual accusations, reassurance-seeking, pouting, and acting out. Stop and say to yourself, “I know that I am feeling jealous, but I don’t have to act on it.
5.Distinguish Feeling From Reality
Jealousy is an intense emotion. You feel it throughout your whole body. It tints your vision the ugliest shade of green and convinces you that what you’re feeling jealous about is seconds away from becoming a reality. Because of this, it’s important to practice distinguishing feelings from reality.
Experiencing intense emotions impairs our ability to assess a situation. Strong emotions cause us to jump to conclusions that feel true even when there is no evidence that they are true. This distorted thinking is referred to as “emotional reasoning”: when we assume that our emotional reaction to something defines its reality.
For example, if your partner is spending more time with an opposite-sex coworker of theirs, you may begin to feel jealous about their growing relationship. This jealous feeling evokes suspicions that your partner is cheating on you. Emotional reasoning would have you believe that your partner really is cheating on you because it feels like they are, even though you have no evidence of it.
Dr. Leon F. Seltzer recommends asking yourself,
‘What are the facts that support my emotionally-based determination?’ For you might then realize that precious little, if any, empirical justification exists for your conclusion. You might also ask: ‘Have I (arbitrarily) discounted, or dismissed, more positive explanations for my, well, ‘emotional findings?’ Or, ‘might my feelings be clouded by some bias that ought to be reevaluated?’
6. Talk to Your Partner About How You're Feeling
Communication is key in any relationship but it’s especially important when it comes to jealousy. It’s important to talk to your partner about your jealous feelings and where you feel they are coming from. If the feelings have been influencing your behavior, discussing the matter will help your partner put those behaviors into context.
The discussion should focus on how your jealous feelings have harmed you and the relationship. This should not be taken as an opportunity to assign blame or accuse your partner of bringing on these jealous feelings. Both you and your partner should take accountability for their contribution to the jealousy issue.
Dr. Ari Tuckman advises that couples who are having a jealousy issue
need to talk this through, bravely and honestly. They need to own up to their part of it and also challenge each other when necessary. They need to remember that nothing in a relationship happens in a vacuum and understand that each is responding to the other. They need to bring curiosity and ask lots of questions — of themselves and each other.
7.Journal How You're Feeling
Writing down how you feel can be very powerful for overcoming difficult emotions. Journaling can provide a space to process your jealous feelings. Processing might look like reflecting on where these feelings come from and what other thoughts come up with them. Writing down the way you are feeling can also make your jealousy feel less distressing.
If you’re unsure where to start, get out a sheet of paper and set a five-minute timer. For the entire five minutes, just write whatever comes to mind until the timer goes off. If your mind goes blank, write “Blank” over and over again until it starts back up. Once you are finished, you can rip the paper up and throw it away. This writing exercise helps to clear your mind by giving it an outlet where it can dump all these thoughts without judgment.
8. Remind Yourself How Great Your Relationship Is
Jealousy can be frustrating when it continues to pop up even when your partner hasn’t done a thing to provoke it. In this context, it usually stems from baggage from past relationships or personal insecurity. Remind yourself that these feelings do not reflect the quality of your relationship.
Focus on the parts of your relationship that you love. Remind yourself why you chose this person to be your partner and all the ways they make you happy. Separate this relationship from past experiences that may be bringing these jealous feelings to the table.
Try doing everything you can to love and appreciate each other. Make daily and weekly plans for pleasure, growth, and communication, rather than litigating what has been over for quite some time. The current relationship will thrive on its own merits. The past can be left — in the past.
Stop Holding Onto Jealousy
Taking steps to move past your jealous feelings is not a one-time thing. These are things that need to be worked on time and time again. Doing this is the only way to reverse the jealousy pattern you’ve fallen into. Once you have begun to take steps in the right direction, it can be easy to fall back into old habits because they are familiar. If you find yourself doing this, remind yourself that what’s ahead is so much better than what you’ve left behind.
Unchecked jealousy can wreak havoc on your relationship if you let it. But with insight and practice, you can grow your toolkit of techniques to get it under control and save your relationship.
