How to stop being jealous?

Jealousy is one of the most ancient human feelings. At the dawn of the birth of civilization, it was this feeling that allowed the creation of tribes: the jealousy and aggressive reaction of males did not allow other representatives of the stronger sex to continue the race with representatives of this flame. Then jealousy led to the formation of a monogamous family. But this ancient feeling does not leave our contemporaries alone, and in a given situation, almost everyone feels it, regardless of gender, age, social status and profession. This article will discuss how to cope with this very difficult feeling and stop tormenting yourself and others with suspicion.

Jealousy in our life is not limited only to love relationships. There is childish jealousy, there is jealousy of friends, colleagues. Any of these types is characterized by a strong emotional "storm". The feelings of someone who is jealous can be different in nuances; in general, any jealousy is always based on two basic feelings: on the fear of losing something (love, the object of this love, self-importance, authority and weight) and on anger directed at an object that "encroaches" on this personal, which belongs only to you.

Needless to say, both anger and fear are destructive feelings that gradually destroy the personality and health of not only the one who is jealous, but also the one who becomes the object of jealousy. This is especially noticeable in the case of paranoid, unhealthy jealousy, due to which murders and suicides are often committed.

In psychology, there are several types of jealousy, each of which is dangerous in its own way. The simplest and most accurate formulation was presented by the modern Ukrainian psychologist Daniela Puertas, who summed up the works of Sigmund Freud and other eminent specialists and brought their theories into one concept.

• Paranoid jealousy - a state of mental distress, paranoid-delusional personality disorder, in which a jealous person is unsubstantiatedly confident of treason, and may also believe that the cheater is regularly trying to poison him or get rid of him in another way.

• Narcissistic jealousy - a state in which a jealous person is afraid of losing the object of love as a component of his own personality, this is more a manifestation of great love for himself, and not for another person.

• Psychopathic jealousy - the state of psychopathy, which is very dangerous for all participants in the situation, is characterized by the unpredictability of the jealous's reactions and the spontaneity of fits of anger.

• Masochistic jealousy - suffering for the sake of suffering. If there is no fact of treason, the "sufferer" invents it and pity himself, not showing aggression, but trying to arouse the pity of everyone around.

• Schizoid jealousy - characteristic of low-emotional people who, in their own way, find it beneficial to maintain in themselves the idea of ​​treason, since this gives them with a clear conscience to keep a distance from their partner.

• Hysterical jealousy - always concerns exclusively physical, sexual betrayal (fictional or real), while it has nothing to do with the world of feelings of love and affection, that is, a jealous person is concerned only with the fact of possible bodily betrayal. It flows violently.

• Obsessive-compulsive jealousy - "on duty", suspicions of domestic obligations. Most often, it is formed due to the ideas imposed in childhood that love can be shown only when certain conditions are met (lessons learned, room cleaned). It manifests itself as a tedious, daily ritual: check the partner's phone, find out who and what wrote to him, where he was.

In modern psychotherapy, several types of jealousy are distinguished according to its emotional color. Determining the type is very important in order to understand how to help a person get rid of destructive thoughts and behavior.

• White - not pathological, not painful jealousy, inherent from time to time to every mentally normal person. There is no aggression, excessive suspicion, obsessive distrust, dangerous behavior in it. A jealous person is adequate, listens to the voice of reason, to arguments, facts. Often such jealousy allows you to "refresh" the relationship in a couple, especially if they have been going on for a long time.

• Blue - jealousy with signs of increased anxiety. If you do not help a person, it can transform into a neurotic disorder. It manifests itself as a violation of normal perception, bouts of tears, depressive moods, sleep disturbances.

• Green - on the verge of mental pathology, since the idea is gradually degenerating into an obsessive one. Most often it occurs against the background of an already existing neurotic state. In 20% of cases, a person is able to "return" to reality, in the rest - jealousy degenerates into pathological.

• Red - the most dangerous, pathological, paranoid. It is accompanied by delirium, while the person himself no longer distinguishes between fiction and truth, and considers his absurdity to be the only truth. Needs psychiatric treatment, often with medication.

This ancient feeling, if not curbed in time, can undermine human health.On the mental level, paranoia, schizophrenia can develop, on the psychosomatic level - oncological diseases, disorders of the organs of vision, hearing.

But even at the initial stage, long before the development of an illness or mental disorder, jealousy causes physiological changes: a person begins to sleep worse, his appetite suffers, he becomes more absent-minded and inattentive to everything that has nothing to do with his jealousy, and painfully treats any little thing that may have to do with her.

If your plans do not include divorce, separation, placement in a psychiatric hospital for treatment, and you are also disgusted with the idea that your partner will need to be monitored to find evidence of his infidelity, it's time to think about how to get rid of this unpleasant and a dangerous feeling.

Since male and female jealousy has some differences in mechanisms and manifestations, recommendations for elimination are different for both.

Male jealousy is very often directly related to low self-esteem. That is why destructive thoughts creep in that someone else can be better in bed, can earn more. The most reasonable way out of this state for a representative of the stronger sex is to increase his own self-esteem. Sign up for a gym, get your body in good shape, change jobs for a more interesting (and possibly better paid) job, find a hobby that will allow you to get rid of excess adrenaline: parachute jump, go to the mountains, fly on paragliders ... If this is unacceptable for you, find a less extreme hobby, the main thing is that it increases your value in your own eyes.

Think, because she chose you, and not another. This means that the relationship with you means more to her than it might seem at first glance. Women are more attached to the home, to the family, and change, according to statistics, much less often than men.

Stop suspecting her, checking her cell phone when she's in the bathroom, reading her messages and rummaging through her browsing history. If she was looking there for an answer to the question of how to become more sexy, this does not mean at all that the girl decided to increase her sexuality for someone else. Most likely, she does this for you.

It is better to talk openly about everything that worries. This will help to bring trust in the relationship, which women really, really appreciate, and personally, it will help you get rid of groundless jealousy. It is also recommended to use methods of psychological protection against new attacks of jealousy. They consist in the fact that for every thought about the possible infidelity of a friend, a man, with his characteristic rationalizing thinking, you need to find at least three logical arguments, arguments of fact.

For example: "She's definitely late at work!" - logical arguments may be: “her organization is no longer working at this time”, “I saw her leave work ahead of time and leave in an unknown direction”, “I know for sure that she was with her lover!”. If there is no evidence of such arguments, there is nothing to worry about. For each statement, you should always give yourself a counterbalance: yes, she was late, but she warned that she would come later, because she had to go to the store with her friend or stop by her mother. Trust your partner. With a rational male brain, always try to adhere to the "presumption of innocence."

The peculiarity of female jealousy is in the hypertrophy of internal experiences. Even normal, "white" jealousy may well cause an irresistible desire in the fair sex to rummage in her partner's phone, to get to the bottom of the truth. Here, the main thing is not to overdo it, because from normal and moderate to pathological jealousy in a woman is one step.

Female jealousy is most often associated with a feeling of threat to the family hearth. It seems to her that the habitual way of life will surely collapse if the husband goes "to the left", and just like men, the situation is influenced by low self-esteem.

What to do is not an easy question. Better to start with increasing self-esteem: do your favorite hairstyle, update your wardrobe, lose a few extra pounds, find yourself an exciting and interesting hobby. This will help not only distract from unpleasant thoughts and suspicions, but also increase your value in the eyes of your partner.

Talk to your partner. An adequate and loving man will be able to understand your feelings, and will also be able to dispel doubts. Avoid surveillance, a huge number of calls per day demanding to tell where the man is now, what he is doing. And you certainly don't need to dig into his car or phone: control attempts will certainly be noticed, and then you will find yourself in an uncomfortable position.

Try to plan more things together: from going to the store together (you alone cannot carry the bag with groceries to the trunk, it's hard!) to watching a football match together with a glass of beer. More often take an interest in what is interesting to a man, learn to distinguish rugby from basketball, show him that you really like his hobby. And then the degree of trust will grow, and there will be fewer reasons for suspicion.

All of the above related to unreasonable jealousy, which has no basis. But what if there is a reason, or do you think there is? In this case, it can be very difficult to cope with unpleasant sensations. Let's immediately clarify that a reason for jealousy can be objective and subjective. In the first case, a good reason to suspect infidelity lies in certain oddities of behavior (took off the ring, does not take it with him to friendly gatherings and meetings, tries to avoid intimacy, often lingers, acquaintances saw him with a stranger, does not come to sleep, obviously someone is in the car rides, except for you, because the seat is pushed back in an unusual way, etc., in the end, you yourself saw a partner with a rival (rival). Usually there are several such reasons at once, their strength is in the aggregate.

Subjective reasons are your personal speculations. You are sure that your partner is cheating only because he is late at work, even though you already know that his work is irregular. You think that treason can only be because there is less sex in the family; at the same time, it does not even occur to you that your partner may have problems, including health problems, that he may actually get tired.

Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish the objective from the subjective. But there are not so many ways out of the situation:

• stop "cheating yourself", abandon suspicions and accusations, overcome your negative emotions and replace them with positive ones;

• start looking for concrete and irrefutable evidence of treason.

In the second case, you will get good reason to stop being jealous if the adulterer does not find his confirmation.But it can cost you dear: a partner who finds out about distrust can break off all relations with you.

Whatever the reasons given to you, they differ from the facts in their ambiguity and illusion. For each of them, you can find a second, logical explanation, which has nothing to do with treason at all. If the relationship is expensive, and there is no desire to spoil it with a partner, then it is better to try to cope with jealousy without embarking on the path of a “self-taught detective”.

A few simple installations will help with this:

• no one is obliged to meet your expectations;

• everyone has the right to personal secrets, personal space and their own free time, even if people are married, because marriage is not a prison;

• jealous people quickly lose their partner's respect, and with the departure of such an important feeling as respect, love also leaves, there is no other way.

If you repeat this to yourself more often and not do something that can destroy trust and respect, then it will not be as difficult to stop being jealous as it seems. If you cannot overcome suspicions, you cannot trust, there are other difficulties in the relationship, it is better to contact a specialist: a psychologist or a psychotherapist in person. It will be good if you also attract your beloved (beloved) to help yourself, and openly ask the person to support you in this difficult task - the fight against jealousy. You are both interested in this.

Quite often, and some time after the dissolution of the marriage or the termination of the relationship, the former spouses continue to stir up jealousy of each other at a distance. This is more likely not even jealousy, but a petty "revenge" for the fact that the hopes did not come true, the relationship did not take place. At the same time, one of the partners flaunts his new relationship, does everything so that the former half will find out that there have been changes in the former's personal life. The desire to show her (him) that you are not so bad so that he (she) understands what gift of fate they have lost is understandable and even natural in its own way.

Why does the second partner "bite" on this and begin to be jealous almost for real? The key word here is "almost." This is no longer so much jealousy as resentment, understatement, incompleteness of past relationships; a person is offended not only by the fact that the former partner met another, but by the fact that “he, such a good one, was so quickly found a replacement!”. This is a cry of wounded pride and nothing more.

Dealing with this form of jealousy is quite simple: Realize that it is the resentment that you are feeling, and also understand that this resentment was the purpose of the ex who showed you his new life. Don't be manipulated. Stop suffering and take care of the arrangement of your personal life, which will allow, after a while, to give your ex a few hours of unpleasant emotions about the fact that everything is fine with you too.

Jealousy for a person's past has a completely different nature. It is especially difficult for men and women who tie themselves in relationships with a partner who has children from former marriages, and who maintains friendly relations with ex-wives or husbands.

Doubts about this situation are not always groundless. To build a strong relationship with such a partner, you need to be sure that the relationship "there" he ended. Unfortunately, former spouses often continue to meet from time to time and enter into intimate contacts, or just from old memory, talk over a glass of tea. Sooner or later, these lingering "bouts of nostalgia" end, but do you have to wait and suffer? If the relationship is not completed to the end - the exes often call each other, often correspond, meet - you need to put everything in its place and wait out this period at a safe distance.

If the partner does not give a reason to be jealous of the ex, and his meetings are limited to meetings with children, besides you have a serious relationship, you should not control your partner, you should not forbid him to communicate with his former family.This is unworthy, low and wrong. You will have to deal with jealousy quite often, but it is quite possible to defeat it. All misunderstandings in this case will help to resolve a confidential conversation.

The so-called friendly jealousy is not a common phenomenon among adults and independent people, it is usually characteristic of children and adolescents. If an adult is jealous of a friend or girlfriend of other mutual acquaintances, this is a sign of psychological and emotional immaturity., due to which a person is simply "stuck in childhood." The attitude towards such friends is usually always sympathetic and a little compassionate, as they feel pity for an unreasonable and capricious child. If the friend starts to "act up" a little more, then pity is replaced by irritation and the very fact of friendship is put under a big question mark. It is easier for many to remove such a person from the social circle than to endure his whims and jealousy.

Think about all this, if you suddenly feel resentment and jealousy seething inside, if your close friend, without saying anything, went with other friends on a fishing trip, a picnic or the sea, and you (the closest person since kindergarten!) I didn’t tell about it. Friends don't owe each other anything. They do not have to say where and with whom they are going, where they want to spend the weekend. Do not transfer jealousy to relationships such as friendships.

A completely different jealousy is the jealousy of your half for existing friends. At the same time, they are jealous of both their comrades and the partner's comrades. It is very easy to play around and become a real tyrant who will interfere with the joint trips of friends to the cinema or club, meetings of classmates and classmates.

Understand that your partner will not become happier from the fact that you discourage all acquaintances from him, and you alone can never replace the entire range of communication he needs. Leaving your partner alone, you risk that one day he will leave you too: he is no longer used to losses. In addition, he will always blame you for not having communication outside the family circle.

Learn to mentally put yourself in the shoes of your companion. And in this case, the situation may look completely different. This method will require some skill, psychological training and patience, but the results will not be long in coming. Getting rid of jealousy is a gradual process.

Never put pressure on weak points: "We have gone through so much together, and you ...", "When you felt bad, because it was I who helped you!" Sincere and true friendship does not need such reminders, a friend is valued not for specific help in a particular situation, but just like that - the whole thing, with all the actions and statements.

If you are the victim of friendly jealousy, try to convey all these thoughts to the jealous person., and also clearly mark the boundaries of what is acceptable. Do not blame yourself, do not let a friend manipulate your life, in which you have the right to decide what to do and how to do it.

If you're feeling jealous, advice from a professional clinical psychologist can help you deal with it. Let's briefly present them.

• Honestly admit to yourself that you are "sick" and treat your jealousy exactly as an ailment that is to be cured.

• Be sure to try to find the reason for your feelings. If you can't find a motive on your own, then contact a psychologist or any person you trust to tell everything and find the reasons together.

• Clearly understand what feelings possess you in a fit of jealousy: resentment, wounded pride, anger, fear or other feeling. This will help control your emotions.

• Learn to treat yourself better: improve, study, change your job, image, learn to like yourself in the mirror.

• Plan your time clearly, try to keep yourself occupied constantly. Idleness is fertile ground for a variety of obsessive thoughts.

• Make positive adjustments to your relationship with your loved one. Remember that anger breeds anger, and total control breeds a desire to run. Try to share good emotions, and in return you will receive the same, which ultimately will help increase the degree of trust in each other.

How to deal with jealousy and how to treat it, you will learn in the video below.