Love Advice: Isn’t Jealousy an Inevitable Part of Being in Love?
Boy meets girl; they fall in love. Boy meets second girl. First girl feels jealous; boy feels torn. Pain, disconnection and maybe even betrayal ensues. Boy and girl part ways. If you follow the Murphy’s Law theory of relationships, you might believe that this is the “natural” course of a love relationship or marriage. It might seem to you that it’s bound to work out this way. But it doesn’t have to be this way and here’s why…
Don’t Fuel Jealousy by Playing the “What If?” Game
Jealousy is almost always a painful and destructive experience. It can be the cause of distance and conflict between two people in a love relationship or marriage. It can even lead to a breakup or divorce.
If you have a tendency to be jealous in your relationship, you might have a habit of playing the “what if?” game and that fuels your jealousy. This is a mind trick that many people play in which thoughts fixate on situations or scenarios that haven’t happened and may never ever occur.
Jealousy Advice: If My Partner is the Jealous One, Why Should I Change?
When it’s your partner who has a tendency to be jealous, you might wonder what– or why– you should do anything differently. After all, it’s his or her problem and not yours. Right?
When jealousy makes its presence known in a relationship, both people can actually help end this disconnecting habit. Yes, of course, the person who is jealous needs to take responsibility for his or her beliefs and actions.
When Jealousy Gets Tangled Up with Unclear Agreements
Jealousy is no fun and it can cause a lot of trouble and disconnection in a love relationship or marriage. When you feel fearful or concerned that your partner is going to leave you for another, jealousy might emerge. From a jealous place you might say or do things that you wouldn’t normally do– and then usually regret it.
There are many possible relationship scenarios in which jealousy becomes tangled up with the fact that the people in the relationship have not made clear agreements with one another– or perhaps agreements have been made but they are not being kept.