Managing Jealousy

Understanding jealous feelings and addressing them at the moment they occur, is the only way to handle jealousy without letting it slowly kill a relationship. It is one of those emotions that will destroy a loving relationship by both keeping it hidden and expressing it openly. While it may be next to impossible to never feel jealousy, by understanding the reasons you are experiencing it you can mitigate its effects.

Jealousies in relationships are often formed due to a feeling of inadequacy within the person feeling jealous. When you feel inadequate in some way, you become painfully aware of this area in your life. For example, if you feel you are not sexy because your weight; anytime someone you perceive to be skinny will cause you to be on alert. You may find yourself watching your partner closely for any indication of them noticing that other person. You may even find yourself making comments that expose your feeling of inadequacy. Even though your partner may love you just the way you are, eventually, your projection of your perceived inadequacy will begin to diminish their happiness with that part of you. It is a self inflicted wound that can eventually infect the rest of the relationship.

It is important to remember that you have to love yourself the way you are. Physical appearances are not usually critical factors in a happy relationship, unless you make them so with your insecurities. Not to mention, that most physical appearances can be modified with a little dedication and work. If you don't like how much you weigh, do something about it. If you don't like the way you look, it will be very hard to find a partner that will. Besides, true beauty comes from the person you are, not the way you look. Even men, who are very visual creatures, are more attracted to women who are comfortable with themselves over the centerfold type woman who is not happy with herself. And women are not easily lured by the super handsome man who feels inadequate. Love and embrace who and how you are, and your partner will want to love and embrace you as often as they can!

Jealousy can also attack even the most confident person from conversations of their partners past. I do believe that talking and being honest with your partner is critical for intimacy, but yours and their past is just that; the past. There really is no need to discuss the supermodels you slept with, or how rich your last partner was. My recommendation is to keep the past the past, and enjoy the present day with the person you are with. The two of you are together for a reason, and nothing else matters. If you insist on talking about past relationships, you will begin to cast a seed of doubt in their head, that will grow and grow over time as they wont be able to get it clear form their mind. We all have a past, we all dated losers, and even some winners, that obviously weren't the right stuff. What the two of you have now is the right stuff, so dump the past, and live in the now.