“Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous man ends up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned needle against himself.” Friedrich Nietzche, Thus Said Zarathustra

You may already know that jealousy destroys more relationships than infidelity. In other words, the idea that we might be betrayed often outweighs the reality that it might actually have happened. It’s almost impossible not to have experienced jealousy in the history of your personal relationships: and even if you’ve never experienced jealousy, almost certainly at least one or more of your partners has.

And yet, what’s the truth about jealousy? Is it good, is it bad, does it destroy relationships or does it strengthen them? In what follows we discuss the subject at length.

First, let’s see what we’re dealing with.

What is jealousy

Jealousy is primarily an unconstructive use of the imagination, and imagination can easily fool us into thinking it is reality. The human brain doesn’t actually differentiate between real and imagined except through learning and experimentation. These processes develop a filter by which we judge whether or not we can rely on our own perceptions, but this filter always remains extremely fragile and vulnerable: as proof that this is so, it is enough to remember the false perceptions you have all the time, when you ‘think’ you have seen or heard something. Or when you have a nightmare and are convinced that the dream is real until you wake up (or until you realise, in the dream and without waking up, that it is just a dream).

Much the same way jealousy works: the scenarios that trigger it are all your own concoctions, they develop in your mind and you act as if they are real. So, if all day you’ve been thinking about how your partner flirts with other people at work, when he gets home you stop wasting time with nothing and get straight to the accusations: ‘where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing and, more importantly, with whom’.

Jealousy is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. “what you’re afraid of so you won’t get away with”. Jealousy disrupts open communication in a couple, destroys trust between partners and provides a breeding ground for the two to hurt each other.

These elements deeply destabilise the relationship and, even if infidelity was not a real threat before, it becomes an increasingly tempting option. After all, while he’s being accused of something, it seems like it would be a good idea to feel the benefits, not just pay the price.

Last but not least, jealousy is an incapacitating feeling (like rage) that deeply unbalances the smooth functioning of the person experiencing it. In perception experiments involving jealous people, it has been shown that peripheral vision is drastically reduced when a person feels jealous.

This ‘narrowing’ of the perceptual field is similar to that which occurs in moments of extreme anger, when you ‘see nothing around’ except the cause of your anger. So jealousy can cause you to behave in a way that you later regret.

For this reason, I consider jealousy to be one of the most damaging feelings anyone can experience.

Types of jealousy

The most common types of jealousy are the following:

1. Reactive jealousy: after you find out your partner has been unfaithful or following other triggers (see next section).
2. Suspicious jealousy: when you start to doubt your partner’s fidelity and your trust in him or her decreases. You feel this without any concrete argument, which distinguishes suspicious jealousy (without reason) from reactive jealousy (based on some signals, even if very vague).
3. Retroactive jealousy: linked to information from the partner’s past. Men tend to be more jealous of casual ex-partners (because they perceive this as an indication that the partner is capable of infidelity – which, from an evolutionary perspective, increases the chances that they will end up raising another man’s child) and women tend to be more jealous of ex-partners to whom the partner has been emotionally attached (because this increases the risk that that man will reattach to those partners and, from an evolutionary perspective, leave them to raise the children they conceived together on their own).
4. Delusional jealousy (you can find it under various other names in the literature: morbid jealousy, pathological jealousy or Othello syndrome): when jealousy reaches paroxysm and begins to resemble an obsession. You behave increasingly irrational and desperate, even though your partner has given you no real reason to be jealous. Any irrelevant incident is to you undeniable proof of your partner’s infidelity and you refuse to change your mind even when confronted with evidence that contradicts your suspicions. The delusional jealous usually accuses their partner of multiple infidelities (with more than one person). The consequences are serious: usually both partners develop chronic illnesses or substance addictions and there is an increased risk of domestic violence. Those suffering from delusional jealousy are usually very preoccupied with other people’s lives (and tend to violate the boundaries of common sense and invade the privacy of others), because they want to avoid their own reality at all costs.

Whatever form it takes, jealousy has the same pattern of occurrence and causes of occurrence. The above forms differ only in what initially triggers the jealousy and in the intensity of the experiences.

Triggers for jealousy

Even if you haven’t been jealous before, the following situations have the potential to trigger feelings of jealousy at any time.

1. The past: when you find out details of your partner’s past that you don’t like, or when he or she tells you in too much detail what happened in previous relationships.
2. Suspicious behaviour: if your partner hides from you, leaves the room when you answer the phone or is still in good relationships with ex-lovers. If when you enter the room your partner quickly hangs up the phone or computer, this can make you suspicious.
3. Rivalry: an attractive or perceived superior competitor can make you jealous, especially when they show interest in your partner.
4. Family history: if your father cheated on your mother (or vice versa), this can affect your trust in people in general.
5. Gossip: if you hear or find out that someone else, from another couple, has cheated, this can make you suspicious of your own partner, because it reminds you that some people are not trustworthy.

Causes of jealousy

Jealousy can have several causes, at least apparently. We are often tempted to believe that the sources of jealousy are external events, but the real source of jealousy is exclusively internal. Remember what I said about the filter through which you pass information and thus distinguish between real and imaginary: that filter is internal and does not depend on other people or events.

From a psychological and psychodynamic point of view, the source of jealousy is the inferiority complex. The inferiority complex is a state of self-unacceptance, of dissatisfaction with oneself, coupled with a belief that others are better than us. Adler believed that the feeling of inferiority is something experienced by all people and that one of the main goals of man is to overcome this feeling and strive for a position of superiority. Although I don’t think the theory holds in absolutely all situations, in the case of jealousy the explanation is pertinent. Specifically, jealousy hides deeper and more harmful feelings, such as shame, insecurity and possessiveness.

Added to these is an unhealthy tendency of the individual to remain stuck in the self-critical stage. The inner monologue of jealousy is negative and destructive, not supportive. Those critical things you say to yourself have the potential to be far more damaging and real than the threat of infidelity itself. Infidelity also involves the other person, jealousy on the other hand is about your low opinion of yourself. Thoughts such as “men can’t be trusted”, “all men cheat”, “all women want money”, “no one really cares about me” actually reflect your opinion of yourself, namely that you are not worthy of affection.

This inner voice has its origins in childhood, in humiliating or traumatic experiences from which you drew conclusions about who you are. The origin of the voice is most often one or both parents. If you were constantly criticised by a parent who seemed impossible to please, then you may have concluded that there was something wrong with you, that you were bad or unable to cope in life. If the parent ignored you, you might have concluded that you were unworthy of attention.

With all these ideas you start out in life and carry them with you all the time, including in the relationships you have with other people. The parent is often no longer there to criticize you but you have already internalized the critical voice and carry it with you everywhere. You no longer need to be abused from the outside because you abuse yourself every chance you get. The parent’s voice has become your inner monologue.

This critical voice covers up your real inner monologue, and it did this because it originally came from an authority figure: in the early years of life, a child’s ultimate authority is the parent. Removing this voice allows your real inner voice to make itself heard. But this liberation happens through psychotherapy because you have lived with the parent’s voice in your head for so long that you no longer distinguish between what you believe and what other people have told you: you believe that those critical ideas about yourself are yours, even though they are not. That’s why other techniques don’t work, like telling yourself every day what a wonderful person you are: because no matter how much you repeat it to yourself, your parent’s voice is stronger and you won’t believe the new value judgements.

Most people are unaware of the deep shame that exists within themselves. The betrayal and rejection that sometimes occurs in relationships is blamed entirely on the other person and what they have done but these situations actually trigger the sense of shame, learned from childhood, and remind the person that there must be something very wrong with them since they have been betrayed, rejected or cheated on.

Just as, as a child, that person never for a moment questioned that there might be something wrong with the parent, so now, as an adult, the first thought that comes to mind is that there is something wrong with their own person. Even if anger arises from jealousy or betrayal, the anger is actually directed at the self, regardless of what the person claims.

How you can free yourself from jealousy

You can free yourself from jealousy if you first understand and accept that this feeling is primarily about you and how you see and relate to yourself. When someone is jealous and tries to control the other person’s behaviour in the belief that this will make them less jealous, they are not taking responsibility for their own feelings.

It’s not the other person’s problem that you are jealous, it’s yours. Telling them not to do something so they don’t make you jealous is trying to control their behaviour. That’s your goal really, not to stop being jealous.

If the other accepts the deal, it opens a door for countless other, increasingly absurd demands.

If you feel insecure, this comes from the distorted idea that you are not good enough. You’ve come to believe that this idea is really you, not that it’s actually just an image you have of yourself. As such, you constantly expect to be rejected and betrayed. In a way, you even seek out these feelings to confirm your belief.

To compensate for this image, you create another, exaggeratedly good one. It’s how you want others to see you. You haven’t changed, you’ve just created an image with which you can replace the original negative image. In fact, both images are false, the only difference is the feeling you get when you focus on one of them. Usually, you focus on the positive one, but any hint of doubt about the relationship brings you face to face with the negative image.

In order to free yourself from jealousy you need to understand that both images are false. You are not the images in your head.

The positive image you’ve constructed from characteristics that you find attractive to women or men. When you receive attention or affection you assume this is because of the positive image you project and this causes you to feel good feelings such as acceptance, love, happiness. What you don’t see is that you are the source of these feelings, not that someone else has given you attention. When you project positive feelings, chances are good that those feelings will receive a similar response from others.

The same is true when you project negative feelings.

As such, the idea that someone else “makes you happy” or that “you need someone to make you happy” is an illusion. If you understand that you are the source of these feelings, you no longer depend on someone else to make you feel good and, more importantly, you stop blaming someone else when you feel bad.

We often understand jealousy as a fear of losing the other person. But the truth is that the biggest fear is not facing the negative image and shame. When your partner’s attention is on someone else, the negative image is triggered and feelings like shame and the belief that you are not good enough take hold. This is what you try to avoid at all costs when you are jealous, not necessarily the risk of losing the other person.

More details on how to free yourself from jealousy can be found in my guide, written especially for this purpose. You can buy the guide here.

Anger as a control mechanism

Children learn early on that anger can control another person’s behaviour. When we were children, punishment was often accompanied by anger. Sometimes a few harsh words were enough to make us willing to change our behaviour. At worst, we would at least get the attention of someone who was angry with us. In this way, we learn from a young age that anger is a way of getting the other person’s attention and controlling behaviour. As we grow up, we don’t give up this idea easily.

Jealous people use anger to punish and control others. Punishing through anger results in emotional pain and the partner is then incentivised to change their behaviour to avoid feeling the same pain in the future.

But the effect is often precisely what they are trying to prevent, because an adult is more resistant to anger punishment than a child. The tendency of the adult confronted with anger is to withdraw, to avoid emotional distress. This withdrawal reactivates in the other person the idea that they are not worthy of attention, which is exactly what they wanted to avoid feeling.

After a fit of rage, the jealous person analyses himself and that moment is one of the hardest to bear. It is the moment when he faces the consequences of his actions and the failure of his strategy to get attention from the other. The perspective from which he analyzes events is that of a judge (like the critical parent), not realizing that the judging party is the same one who perpetuates the false image that he is no good.

The solution he finds is to become the positive image. If he could just trust himself, stop being jealous, be strong and worthy of admiration, then everyone would appreciate and love him and all would be well. He doesn’t realize that both the problem and the solution exist only in his mind.

The illusion of perfection might help you function for a while. But there are two problems:

1. Whenever you are rejected or ignored the negative image will reactivate, with the negative emotional consequences.
2. Because you have negative beliefs about yourself, you will often feel inauthentic or like a charlatan. These emotions will be particularly present when someone praises you for some personal or professional achievement.

In psychotherapy you can learn how to stop relating to these false images in your mind. You can stop believing the story in your mind with a little guidance. Remember that it takes more effort to believe something than not to believe it.

Other ideas that perpetuate jealousy

1. The illusion of permanence

Although it is known that the only certain things in this world are taxes and death, people continue to behave as if nothing has an end: neither relationships, nor feelings, nor circumstances.

This expectation of permanence can cause jealousy. What brought you together at one moment can tear you apart at another. Expecting a relationship to last forever doesn’t change the fact that it may not.

Uncertainty and uncertainty are an essential part of life and the human condition. Even if you lie to yourself that it doesn’t, at some point reality will prove you wrong. It’s better to be prepared for that moment than to be taken by surprise.

2. Projection

Projection means blaming the other person for thoughts or intentions that we actually have ourselves.

Sometimes jealousy is triggered by our own desires and impulses: if we are attracted to a colleague, for example, we might wonder if our partner has the same thoughts.

To a certain extent, this thought also provokes jealousy, but it also helps us to keep looking at ourselves in a positive light: otherwise the conclusion might be that we are lacking in morality or ethics.

3. The illusion of control

Among the lies people frequently tell themselves, the lie that they can control another person is one of the most popular.

If you don’t believe this, just think how popular all the materials, books and courses on manipulation are. The dream of anyone who feels powerless is to control others, in the hope that this will make them feel more powerful.

In reality you can’t control anyone.

We often find it hard to control even our own person, let alone others. You will waste your life chasing the illusion that you can control someone.

Of course, it’s your decision whether you waste it or not. Because I can’t control you either. I can only hope that you choose what’s good for you.

4. Competition

Despite my training as an Adlerian psychotherapist, I don’t agree with all of Adler’s ideas. The idea that all people feel inferior and tend towards superiority is the one I resonate with the least. Even if it applies to some people, I don’t think it applies to all. Furthermore, when you feel inferior the solution is not to tend to become superior. This is called compensation, not solving the problem.

The solution to stop feeling inferior is to get out of the paradigm of comparing yourself to others. The solution is not to want to be superior because that is to remain trapped in the problem. When you try to be better than another it means that in essence you are similar to that person.

Wouldn’t it be better to be incomparable?

And then how do you stop comparing yourself to others?

Compare yourself only to yourself: how do you want to be better tomorrow than you are today and what do you have to do for that?

The solution to stop being jealous is not to become the best/attractive/smart/smart etc. The solution is to become unique, so that comparison is meaningless. Otherwise, if you are just the most (something), there is always the danger of someone better coming along.

5. Cultural training

Society indirectly teaches us that husbands are each other’s property: more the wife is the husband’s property and vice versa. The mere fact that a marriage is concluded at a state institution (civil status in our case, notary or justice of the peace elsewhere) indicates that this union also has a legal-administrative component, much less romantic.

This contractual approach to marriage I believe is a major source not only of jealousy but also of domestic violence. That is, to put it more bluntly, the husband beats his wife because it seems to him that he has every right to do so, she being his property, per person, in the words of a classic in life.

The reality is different: even though it appears to be a contract, the marriage certificate presents no guarantee and no extra insurance.

It’s not a decisive moment beyond which you don’t have to make any more effort because you’ve already assured yourself of each other’s eternal affection and presence. This attitude will only hasten the end of the relationship, no matter how it comes about: through infidelity, jealousy or outright divorce.

Useful resources on the subject of jealousy:

Psychology Today

Heathline

Good Therapy

Is jealousy justified?

I’m often asked: however, sometimes isn’t jealousy justified, does it serve to protect the couple? My answer is that it depends on the situation, but most of the time jealousy is neither justified nor does it serve to protect the couple in any way.

In fact, more often than not, jealousy damages the couple it is theoretically trying to protect. You can’t control another person’s behaviour, either through jealousy or any other means. You have to come to terms with this reality and find another occupation.

This other occupation could be to take care of yourself and what you want to achieve in life. These accomplishments can individualize you in the eyes of others to the point where you become unique. And if you are unique you can’t be replaced so you don’t need to worry about that happening.

The tendency of most people is to focus all their attention on the relationship and each other when in fact they should be doing the exact opposite. Humans are social animals and need relationships to function well but these relationships should not be turned into ends in themselves or obsessions.

“Look at love as a state of grace: not a means to an end, but the alpha and omega, the end itself.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love in the Time of Cholera

I have often heard the phrase “jealousy is not lack of trust, but fear of losing the one you love”. There are two problems with this idea:

1. It is not a lack of trust, both in oneself and in the other. Often, the statement is used to make the other obey aberrant demands. “See? I don’t actually set conditions because I want to control you, but because I love you”.
2. What does loss have to do with love? Doesn’t loss have more to do with the idea of ownership? If you love someone and that someone leaves you, is someone forcing you to stop loving them? Can’t you see that, in your mind, what you call love is really possession?

If you want to get rid of jealousy, the first step is to read my guide to freeing yourself from jealousy.

In conclusion

Writer Elizabeth Bowen said that “jealousy is the feeling of being alone against enemies who smile at you”.

This statement captures how the jealous often feels: alone against everyone, everyone feels good and secretly despises him because they know he is weaker than they are.

“You made a fool of me” is an accusation often uttered by the jealous, not realizing that no one can make you look like a fool without your help, without you letting them do it.