Coping with Jealousy

When we speak of coping with jealousy, we mean unwarranted jealousy, or invalidated jealousy. There is a difference between feeling insecure in a relationship and wishing your relationship was as strong as that of your partner’s association to a third person, and feelings of hurt from an open betrayal, where there is no doubt. The latter situation is a healthy response to infidelity, and the former is an unhealthy suspicion, warranted or not. It is the former situation, which we will address here.

Thanks for visiting. Welcome to our site. In these pages, we address matters relevant to depression and anxiety and the aspects of our lives that arise from them. Some aspects may be causal, and others may be resultive, but all have connection in some way. There are none more closely related to low self-esteem and shame than the experience of jealousy. Coping with jealousy assumes the feelings come from insecurity, and are a detriment to the quality of life of the sufferer. When in such a position of need, bad choices may damage the relationship.

All jealousy arises out of insecurity from one’s self-image of inferiority. Jealousy is a true indicator of ones’ debased self-esteem. Those with a complete self-esteem are not prone to jealousy. What compounds a problem of an inferior self-image is the emphasis one then puts on their relationships to add that missing self-value. We begin to need those relationships much as an addict needs drugs to get our daily highs of security and our sense of wellbeing. We begin coping with jealousy by needing the other person more, and trying to feel secure by forcing the relationship into scale that may not be natural or healthy. We do not want to feel empty, but we do, and we use the other person to give us that sense of our self-value. We may feel guilty for needing their attention to make us feel good about ourselves.

Romantic relationships are naturally unique, because we are sexually territorial. However, someone coping with jealousy will have the same feelings of abandonment even in shared and open relationships as between friends and acquaintances as well. While it may be common among middle school youth as they learn the social ropes of being an adult as a seventh grader, it is not healthy for adults to entertain those feelings of hurt in the same situation.

When we seek the continuous positive input that the other person values us highly, we will tend to grow overly territorial and protective of that relationship. Because we see them as our property, we may put undue expectations and demands on the other person to reassure us steadily of our value. We may even become very controlling and abusive, and drive the other person away from us.

This happens because we imagine our presence as not being as important to the other person as someone else might be. We may observe the other person having meaningful and deep interaction with outsiders, and imagine our interaction as being not nearly as deep and as meaningful as that we observed. Coping with jealousy then becomes a battle to out-impress the outsider, to keep the loyalty of our friend in our camp.

In ninety-nine, point nine percent of the time, those conclusions are wrong, and the observations are imaginary and entirely false. What we see and what we think we see are two different things, and can be exactly opposite. Insecurity tends to distort reality, often to great degrees. It is easy to imagine the other person in a deep, enriching, exciting relationship with an outsider, and imagine the other person’s relationship to us as being shallow, boring, and pathetic! Does that sound familiar!

Now for the good news

If you or a loved one is coping with jealousy, take heart; Question the assumption that you have an insecure relationship over which to feel concern. The more jealousy you feel, the more likely you have distorted the information about what you feel jealous. If you feel extremely jealous and have much envy over your friend’s relationships with others, the more likely it is that your facts are wrong about what to feel jealous. The more insecure you feel, the more probability that your conclusion is wrong, and that the relationship is not in jeopardy. Say this to yourself repeatedly as we have here to drive home this point. In other words, question your own feelings of insecurity.

That does not mean the relationship is not at risk, it is just not at risk from the outside as you may suspect. Relationships stand or fall on their own merit. We do not disband one friendship because another comes along and outshines it. Humans, at least normal ones, do not think that way. We all need to feel good about ourselves before we go into a relationship, and not go into it to add to our self-value as a product of that friendship. If your relationship is weakening, it is from possessiveness and controlling attitudes on your part, and not from the other person comparing you to others who outshine you socially. You do not stop liking your mother as a child because another’s mother was prettier, more generous or a better cook!

When you feel jealousy you feel like a ship with an overloaded hull, and the waterline is critically close to spilling over the sides into the cabin. Any wave that comes along can sink you. As you cope with jealousy that is how you see your social life as being that precarious. What is more is that you depend on your social life to give you all your feelings of self-esteem, which is terribly dangerous and wrong. This mindset puts you on the defensive socially and makes you far too protective of your friendships, which do not need protecting.

Give yourself a rest and relax emotionally for a second.

Feeling that an outsider may be outshining you with a friend or loved one, which you cherish, is a heavy burden to bear. Your feelings are important, and your social standing with your significant other matters very much, as well. Nevertheless, there is another way, and that involves trust and faith. Trust us on this one, for we have all been there before, and we know the crooked and rocky road, which you are now traveling very well. It is emotionally draining to live in fear of abandonment from your friends and loved ones because something inside you is missing and you feel empty. We want to help you escape that painful burden.

The first thing to consider in coping with jealousy is what we call embracing our own uniqueness. What we love about another is not just their ability to make us laugh or pay attention to us, it is their differentness as well. So too is that differentness what others love about you. Your feelings of jealousy are much like a hamburger being jealous of the Coke or the French fries that accompany it as a meal! The point being others either love us or dislike us for our own virtues alone, and not because of the relative comparison to outsiders. In fact, relationships with outsiders actually enhance your differentness, and make you more desirable as a friend or loved one, not less. It is much like the hamburger feeling threatened by the Coke or the French Fries. Enjoying the drink only enhances the enjoyment of the hamburger, for they are both different tastes. Your friendship or your love will be more desirable not less so, due to the different individualities of others. Variety as experienced with others only makes you more colorful and your uniqueness stand out even better! Think about that.

The last point in coping with jealousy is trust in being who you are. The natural response for anyone with feelings of jealousy is to change from being their true self to being something more dashing, romantic, in an attempt to make themselves more competitive in the friendship marketplace. These efforts only distance them from their friends and make their friends suspicious of the newly adopted façade. Nothing could be more corrosive on a relationship than those attempts.

The bottom line is choose to feel secure in the person that you are, and trust in that individuality to lead you to the life and the true friends which you deserve. You may not feel it, but you are a very beautiful person and someone with infinite possibility. The key to unleash all that potential is to trust Life or God. Feelings, and choices compose our emotionality, and the choice to trust in our own unique beauty will remove all insecurity, over time. Like any skill, we must practice trust to become proficient in it. Trusting in God, what we call God outside of religion, and trusting in Life in general, will with practice, allow us security in all of our relationships. Then at last, peace will come and we will feel secure. What is more, others will sense that stability, and be attracted to it, for they will feel secure being around us. We will talk more about the other aspects of this subject later, as in how to address the quality of relationships, and if they are good or bad. For right now, practice what is here, and reacquaint with your own good points and your talents until you become comfortable thinking about them. The next time you visit, we want you to be able to tell us what it is that makes you different from everyone else on earth, and what it is that makes you so very special.

Coping with jealousy means admitting that we have insecurities. By sharing these insecurities with trusted friends, we can use them as allies in building our self esteem. By embracing our humanness and seeking the aid of friends and loved ones, we will not shut others out. The gravest mistake we can do is to see these friends and loved ones as hostile, and hold the world away when they would want to help, and not know how to.

Coping with jealousy means do not shut yourself off from others, no matter how bad you may feel. Reach out to them and seek their aid and comfort, for that is the first step down the road home to your timeless Authentic Self.

Coping with jealousy is just the beginning down the road to see our inner beauty. To learn more about our self-love and relationships, please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind. In this book, we talk about the whole overview of our soul’s journey as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We talk much about our boundaries. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch.

Thank you for visiting us today and please keep in touch, sharing your trials and your victories with us. We promise to answer personally every Email that we receive.

Shayne and Lori North in Aurora, Colorado

Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book

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