4 Essential Steps To Dealing With Jealousy In Relationships, From A Therapist

Jealousy, affectionately known as the green-eyed monster, gets a bad rap when it comes to emotions because it can be disregarded as a “superficial emotion.” While most commonly associated with romantic relationships, jealousy can show up in a professional environment, within friendships, family, and elsewhere. Instead of typecasting jealousy as a “petty” emotion, consider jealousy an opportunity to improve your emotional intelligence by recognizing, understanding, and managing your emotions.

Most people confuse feelings of jealousy with feelings of envy. The difference is, when you experience jealousy, you see a person or thing as an obstacle to you receiving love, attention, affection, etc. As compared to envy, you want to acquire something that another person has. Based on that definition, it is possible that if you’re feeling jealous, this may be an indication of a possible unmet and unsaid emotional need within your relationship.

When encountering feelings of jealousy, your gut reaction may be to shove your feelings to the side or to rush through them because you feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, doing that is a disservice to yourself. I recommend taking this slow and allowing yourself to process through all the things because every emotion—even jealousy—can be processed more healthily.

Here are four steps to deal with feeling jealous:

Let me clear the air by saying this: Admitting that you are jealous does not make you a bad person!

Jealousy is a part of the wide range of emotions that humans will experience at some point in their life. Denying the fact that you are jealous can potentially set you on a cycle of constantly denying your feelings.

Consider for a moment: What are some possible barriers to admitting that you’re jealous?

This part can be uncomfortable because you have to exercise vulnerability within yourself. With jealousy involving a third party, I suggest doing a self-assessment to help you sift through the tangle of emotions. You don’t want to operate on assumptions or find yourself dredging up past experiences and then projecting them onto your current relationship.

The self-assessment can be as simple as asking yourself the following questions:

Be mindful of why, when, and with whom you are sharing your feelings. The last thing you want to do is make things worse by speaking to the person you perceive as the reason you’re potentially losing attention and affection in your relationship.

By instead going to the person you’re in a relationship with and sharing your emotions, you’re building emotional intimacy and connection through vulnerability. Relaying the fact that you feel jealous and want to move past it sheds a light on those unsaid and unmet needs and allows the relationship to improve and heal through your transparency. If you’re out of practice, here’s an example of how you can get the conversation going:

This example takes ownership of your emotions instead of attacking the other person. It identifies additional emotions that may be layered with the jealousy and gives examples of what behaviors trigger the emotion as an observation instead of an accusation. Finally, it gives the partner an opportunity to collaborate on solutions, which reinforces the unit instead of pitting one person against the other.

Note: While this message is a generic response, tone is everything and can change how your message is received.

Choices made during temporary heightened emotions can have long-lasting negative impacts. Jealousy that gets out of control can manifest into envy and anger, which can lead to the relationship corroding, which is the opposite of what you’re wanting. If you’re able to take a moment and self-soothe when you’re in the thick of it, you can decrease the likelihood of making a regretful choice.

Try doing any of the following exercises: