Is feeling jealous “normal”?
How to comfortably sit and manage an uncomfortable feeling
First let’s ground ourselves… Is jealousy a deficiency? A sign that your relationship is doomed? Can a jealous person learn how not to be jealous? Is there light at the end of the jealousy tunnel? Many of the couples I see as clients bring up jealousy, their struggles with and sometimes shame around this feeling. In this post, I dive into ways you can become more literate and fluent in the way you navigate jealousy in your relationships.
On the surface
Feelings of jealousy within coupledom have long been deemed as “negative” feelings, even potential “red flags” to look out for and assess and a deficiency in a person. When we experience them, we almost immediately want to be rid of their grasp by either escaping from the relationship (if we are the target for it) or controlling our partner to protect our relationship (if we feel it for the other).
Many of my couples tell me that this is a sign that their coupledom is doomed. Of course, there's a good reason why jealousy has been posited as a harmful emotion—when we experience jealousy, we often feel an amalgamate of emotions such as hurt, humiliation and even anger. Plus, who wants to feel a sense of competition around their partner?
Digging deeper
The truth is though, healthy jealousy does exist (in fact, it’s primal and “normal”) and it is in many ways essential to a lively, passionate long-term relationship. Jealousy can often ignite or re-ignite the sense of attraction that so many of us are chasing in our partnerships—the extra “zest” that makes a relationship feel exciting, worth fighting for and wondrous. But like anything in life, the experience of jealousy requires a healthy balance—not enough can lead to monotony and taking one’s partner for granted and too much can lead to potential toxicity and controlling behaviors in the relationship.
Believe it or not, too little jealousy is a common complaint I’ve been hearing more recently from my clients. The Covid-19 pandemic, quarantine, and working from home has provided many of us (though not all) with new uninterrupted time with our partners. While there are certainly benefits to this newfound quality time, the isolation away from the wider world can be detrimental. Without other people around, couples can often completely lack any feelings of jealousy, which leads to boredom. Seeing one’s partner be desired or admired by others (in small doses) can remind us that our mate is attractive, and potentially wanted by others, waking us up to the idea that we have something that others desire (which is a powerful and innate feeling for us humans).
As a matter of fact evolutionary psychologists invite us to listen to our feelings of being jealous because this is an internal alarm to alert us that our significant relationships that carry emotional bonds could be in danger. We have all seen toddlers who fight over their parents' attention by interrupting their interactions with others. In this way, a yearning for one another reinvigorated—it can preserve our most intimate social bonds and motivate us to maintain and sustain the relationship.
Alternatively, too much jealousy can be damaging to a relationship. It can signal to a partner that the relationship is not secure and that there is in fact an imminent threat to the balance of the partnership—whether by someone or something. It can make a partner(s) act in an overly possessive manner, cause them to be controlling or manipulative, or even cause a partner to feel a sense of low self-esteem, or trigger a fear of abandonment. In these extreme cases, jealousy is a red flag, and possibly a sign that it’s time for a solid conversation around the feelings that you have, serious intervention or even to exit the partnership.
I always encourage my clients, whenever they’re presented with an emotion, to try and process it objectively before jumping to a conclusion (i.e. this is a BAD emotion vs. this a GOOD emotion).
Literacy
What to know before you act
Sit with the jealousy and reflect on how it’s really showing up in your body—are you feeling slightly more excitable? Admirable of your partner? Or are you feeling restricted and controlled, or feeling the need to restrict and control?
When you’re experiencing this jealousy, how is your body reacting? Is your jaw clenched? Does your stomach ache?
Do you feel compelled to grab the attention of your partner and connect? Do you recoil and detach?
When in your life have you felt the same? Who was around you? How old were you?
Who agreed with you or told you that you are over-reacting?
Fluency
How to integrate what you know and feel
All of these signs from the body are cues that can help us determine how we’re actually feeling and processing an emotion. Are we in balance with it or not? Take out a piece of paper and write down these feelings, type them out or commit to an hour of journaling.
When these emotions come up, how do you process it (by talking about it? With whom? Thinking? Overthinking? Acting a certain way?)
Pick a calm moment (not in the middle of a disagreement or while you are still pretty heated with the emotions), frame your conversation “I would like to share something with you”, “when x happens, I feel …”, “I think….” And don’t stop there, help the other person show up the way you want them to, for example “when I feel like that and tell you as much, you can reassure me by…”.
If you are interested in the research on jealousy and want to read more on the topic, here is one that has the necessary coverage on the topic. Click here to read.
The kindness clause
Every person and relationship is different, and only you can decide what feels right to you. Give yourself and your partner the benefit of the doubt, create a chance to exchange details and data before running on assumptions. We all have a background that impacts our perceived sense of security, when we feel secure or unstable in a relationship that carries emotional charges for us.