Q: Dear Love Jays,
How do you control your partner’s jealousy or insecurities?
A: Dear That Darn Little Green Monster,
Unfortunately jealousy is not a trait you can fix in a significant other. There is no controlling another human beings emotions. You can be the most trustworthy person who has done absolutely nothing to compromise your relationship and it still won’t matter. A jealous and insecure person will always find something to be jealous and insecure about.
The decision to remove insecurity and jealousy has to be the choice of the person who is experiencing those feelings first hand. At the base of those two emotions lies a lack of trust. So instead of the foundation being built on trust it will be built on either control, as a result of a person trying to accommodate the jealously issues of the other or anger and rebellion, due to one person not willing to accommodate the jealously issues of the other. Sometimes these scenarios even go both ways.
You would think as a jealous person you would understand another jealous person, but that’s not how it works. Jealousy is a possessive monster, those who embrace jealousy think of their significant other as a possession instead of a partner. That is not love. Love lies in trust and friendship.
This is not to say a person cannot change their jealous ways, they absolutely can; but it is not up to you. The problem source of the problem lies within them, not within your relationship.
Love ,
Miss J
A: Dear Jealousy is for the Birds,
Jealousy is the one trait I never truly understood and possessing it typically results in much more negative outcomes including unhappiness, violence and anger. I’m all for people being territorial of your partner – if you truly care for someone, you will definitely be interested and pay attention to their daily happenings. But when people take their basic care and emotion too far, they will try to control and manipulate the who, what, when, where and why of their partner’s every move. Unfortunately, we cannot control our partners source of jealousy because it often stems from personal insecurities they are refusing to acknowledge.
Relationships are built upon trust. If you cannot trust your partner or vice versa, what’s the point of maintaining the relationship? We are all human. We will say some things to people we shouldn’t have said, go to places we probably shouldn’t go, get a little too comfortable with the “girl/guy next door”, but through it all, we can’t try to manipulate our partner from experiencing these scenarios. Just because our partner is doing something we don’t necessarily care for, doesn’t mean they are out in streets cheating or disrespecting you. You have to live and it’s only fair we let others have the same freedoms. After all, what good comes from being jealous? Don’t worry…I’ll wait.
Miss J and I have kept jealously completely out of our relationship and it has helped us maintain a healthy, positive relationship. Does it mean we don’t question things here and there – absolutely not. It means we are comfortable enough with ourselves and trust we have each other’s best interest at heart. If your partner’s jealousy problems or insecurities are affecting more than just themselves, it’s time to reexamine the foundation of the relationship. Love can take on many forms, but control, manipulation and anger surely aren’t one of them!
Sincerely,
Mr. J
Have a question for the Love Jays?
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Submit Questions Anonymously Below:’ type=’textarea’/][/contact-form]
© LoveJays 2012
I really enjoyed this article! I tend to be a fairly jealous person myself and am very interested in figuring out what my jealous feelings say about myself. I recently read another article on this topic that had some really valuable information about the causes of jealousy http://www.psychalive.org/2011/09/are-you-the-cause-of-your-jealousy/, I highly recommend it.
An anonymous comment left by a reader:
“If a child witnesses this in their parents and sees the pain it causes how does one go about healing that to not repeat it? Isn’t that the question here? It isn’t that one person is jealous and needs to make a decision as much as it is that something more valuable needs to be healed. If you don’t embrace this about your partner you are actually going to continue to watch them be in pain and continue this choice to not heal and even doom themselves to do something that will doom the relationship. We are taught this behavior as we are taught everything by site and experiencing it inside ourselves with no one to express this to.
If you have experienced the pain isn’t it best you embrace it to understand it not dismiss it to bury it only for it to resurface time and time again? Acceptance of the pains of the situations of life are only exposed when it is seen as a choice to expose it to embrace it. Removing it allows your mind to keep this alive in your present relationships as it was allowed in your past that you have buried.
Why not make a different path to heal it once by absorbing it and allowing this to be a life situation that will keep you from living your life? I suppose it is about that very pain isn’t it? The more focused your deep love is to that person the more they would want to heal such a thing. Unless your love is conditional why would you not make this something you have the capacity to do?”