What is the best way to address someone about their jealousy?
There are different strategies to deal with jealousy. Important for a good relationship is communication.This means that it is important to talk to each other and to speak openly about problems and feelings, otherwise the other person cannot know about them. However, if you notice that discussions and conversations become too heated, you should take a short break, because with jealousy the stress hormones in the body also increase.
A break can therefore be useful to lower the levels of hormones so that you can continue talking with a cool head. It does not make sense to make accusations and make the person you are talking to feel that you hold them responsible for everything. It is better to work with so-called “I” messages, for example by adding “I have the feeling that… ” and reporting only about your own perceptions and feelings. You relate the facts to yourself, so that the other person does not feel attacked and is more open to conversation. It can also help to discuss rules and limits together, which are described by means of concrete examples, so that both parties know when the other party feels uncomfortable or insecure.
Forms of jealousy
Children with siblings usually experience the feeling of jealousy in relation to their siblings for the first time in their lives. However, it is perfectly normal for small rivalries to arise over the affection of the parents. This is how children learn to deal with such social interactions and the needs of others.
Parents should therefore ideally, before the new child is born, involve the older sibling in the pregnancy and convey to him that he now has an important task as a large child. Nevertheless, it is not a problem if children are jealous of each other as long as this state does not last too long. If jealousies still exist when the siblings are older, the origin usually lies in an insecure bond with the parents in childhood, in which the child has not learned that it can blindly rely on a caregiver.
Especially among twins or siblings where a child has received special attention through illness or success, rivalries sometimes exist that can fuel envy and jealousy. It is very important for parents to emphasize the strengths of the individual children and to divide their attention equally among the children. In adulthood, the feeling of jealousy is usually related to the partner.
The fear of losing love and attention from your partner to another person or being abandoned because you might not be worth enough is in most cases the cause of jealousy. In many cases, however, jealousy is due to misunderstandings where the partner’s point of view cannot be understood. It is therefore useful to share your own feelings so that your partner knows what the problem is and can talk about it.
Those who have not learned to form secure bonds in childhood or who have already had negative experiences in a relationship tend to be critical of others and are not so good at building trust. Whether the partner has been unfaithful in the past or has had many other achievements, these are all possible causes for jealousy and distrust in the relationship. What is past is past.
Comparing oneself with the partner’s past relationships is not very helpful in most cases, since there are ultimately reasons why the relationships no longer exist in the form they did. Every person and therefore every relationship is different and therefore difficult to compare. The reason to look at the past and to compare oneself with others is usually based on one’s own insecurity.
Also here it is helpful to address your own feelings and to strengthen your own self-confidence. If the ex-partner is in a new relationship, a feeling of jealousy can arise, regardless of whether you have been happy in your own relationship for a long time. This is because the ex-partner’s new relationship partner is a competitor and now fills the role that you had in the past.
The fear of having been replaced by a better version gnaws at one’s own self-confidence and often leads to rejection of the competition and jealousy, regardless of how much one allows the ex-partner to be happy. It can also be painful that the ex-partner has gotten over the mutual relationship and has been able to build an intimate relationship with another person. Beautiful feelings and new memories, which one experienced in former times together, the ex shares now with someone else.
That can hurt.Therefore one should try to let go of the painful comparisons and concentrate on oneself. Jealousy and envy most often arise in people who are close to you. Reasons for jealousy over your best friend can be, for example, that she makes more money, has a cooler job, is better looking or simply has more luck in life or in her relationships.
All of these things are very subjective and just because we want to have comparable relationships for ourselves does not necessarily mean that it is desirable, because appearances and reality are sometimes two different things. And who knows if it might not even be possible to achieve it ourselves? The best friend is not the enemy.
It can therefore make sense to ask her for advice or help to achieve the same goal yourself. However, sometimes you have to accept that others are more successful in some respects. Comparing oneself is not necessarily goal-oriented. Therefore you should concentrate on your own strengths and build up your own self-confidence.
