Jealousy is a fear of losing our loved one to someone else. It involves an anticipated loss (depression) and a failure in competition with someone else (anxiety & low self-esteem).

In addition, when your partner shows a love or sexual interest in someone else, there’s a "breech of contract" with you and a disregard for your feelings.

When Tony went flirting and dancing with an attractive women, even if it was merely innocent fun, he callously placed his need for fun over Jane's plea for consideration of her feelings.

Jealousy

Let's talk about jealousy. Ooh, the green-eyed monster. Isn't he sneaky? Just when you think everything is going well, he rears his ugly head and you find yourself face down in the mud again. Isn't that always the way? I can think of at least a million situations in which I've felt jealous. Can you think of any?

What is jealousy? It's kind of hard to explain without using the word jealous, isn't it? We've all felt it.

Jealousy is really just a comparison. It's one person comparing his or her situation to someone else's perceived situation.

Well what does that mean? It means that when I compare myself to someone else, what I'm really comparing is how I feel about myself vs. what I think about that other person.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the only times we feel the need to compare ourselves to others is when we're feeling insecure about our own situations.

i.e., if I see a very beautiful girl walking down the street and I find myself feeling envious of her, I can be sure that what I'm really feeling is fear that I'm not as beautiful and therefore of less value than she is.

I feel ugly or fat or dressed less perfectly, but instead of acknowledging that fearful feeling, I blame it all on her. "She's such a ______!" Or "Who does she think she is?" Or "Why does she dress like that? She looks like a _____."

These aren't friendly thoughts. Or, if I take an exam and I do pretty well on it, but that boy at the front of the class did better, I might feel jealous of him.

"He's not that smart. He must've cheated." Or "He's such a teacher's pet." If I were really honest with myself, I'd be able to acknowledge, "I feel really jealous of him because I value intelligence and that boy seems more intelligent to me than I think I am.

We must keep asking ourselves these questions until we get the answers. They aren't easy answers to hear, but they can help make us stronger, more compassionate and loving people.

Okay, so we've identified our feelings of jealousy, we've asked ourselves why we're jealous and we've even gone so far as to dig a little deeper into ourselves to get to the bottom of our fears.

We've probably been through some crying and some screaming and some feelings of unfairness and anger and maybe even some self-hatred. Believe it or not, this is all still good. We're still on the right track. Our next decision is probably the most important decision we're going to make in the whole process - are we going to act on our jealousy or are we going to find another way to work through it?

If we decide to act on our feelings of jealousy, chances are pretty good that someone’s going to get hurt. We'll open up our mouths and say something cruel or nasty to the person we feel jealous of.

We may come right out and say it to his or her face or we may start a little "innocent" rumor that we're sure will make its way back to him or her. This is the moment when we should do the exact opposite. We should keep our thoughts to ourselves and excuse ourselves from the situation.

We can go to the bathroom and lock ourselves in for an hour if we have to, but we need to resist the urge to say something that can only end in hurt feelings and more upset.

Or, if we've been practicing at not giving in to our jealousy, we can try doing something really classy and go out of our way to get to know the person we feel jealousy toward.

Maybe if we get to know the real person as a friend instead of always viewing him or her as competition, we'll find out that we have a lot in common!

Jealousy is a combination of anger and fear. Anger protects us. When people are jealous, they fear isolation, rejection, failure and the unknown. Anger protects them from this fear by giving them power and/or pushing people away so they can't get hurt.

When dealing with your jealousy, you must ask yourself several things.

First, does your jealousy have a basis in reality with this person? Have has he/she ever given you a reason to be suspicious? If so, then you need to take a hard look at your relationship and decide whether there are problems that can be addressed or whether this person is inherently untrustworthy.

If there's no current real reason to be jealous, ask yourself if you are jealous because of what has happened in a past relationship, or do you simply have low self-esteem?

Marianne Williamson says, “Everything we do is either an act of love or a cry for help.”  The Course of Miracles says there are two emotions:

• love 
• fear

Jealousy is about real or imagined fears:

• fear of abandonment
• fear of loss of love
• fear of being dishonored in the relationship
• fear of being shamed in the community

Tony Robbins’ advice that your past doesn't equal your future just doesn’t hold water in this case. The patterns come up again and again unless both decide to work thru your fears and not bury them.

Jealousy can take many forms in the relationship other than concerns of faithfulness. One can be jealous of the talents, abilities, financial resources, social status and a host of other reasons.

In partnership there's no room for jealousy. Whether you sense the jealousy is your own or your partner’s, it has to be addressed. For the relationship to grow and flourish, jealousy has to be exorcised like a ghost in a haunted house. If you don’t, you'll build walls between you and your partner, thus strangling the relationship. Philosopher Jim Rhon reminds us that the walls you build to keep out the sadness also keeps out the joy.

Jealousy can wreck a relationship. The way we've dealt with it is with total honesty about the past and our intentions of the future. This isn’t always easy but when this issue comes up, we first take turns speaking our truths, going to the core to find the real issue.

We stay w/the process of communicating how we feel & no matter how hard it is to say or hear what’s said, we don’t run away. We are each other’s best friends and it’s always important to keep that focus during any discussion, especially one of a jugular issue.

When jealousy issues come up in your relationship, we suggest you first take some time to determine the real issue. You may have to get clear about your feelings by yourself first and then communicate with your partner.

We use the term "staying with it" to express working through a problem until it's resolved. Journaling may help if you're feeling stuck. Just remember that what’s at the bottom of the problem may not be apparent immediately.

With any issue in relationship, you have to patiently and lovingly talk through it without judgment or blame. Creating the relationship of your dreams is hard work but, the rewards are ongoing and abundant.

Dear Dr. Ellen

I'm sad and angry at the same time. My husband is constantly looking at pictures of unclothed women in magazines and wherever we go he flirts with other women.

If we're at a party he ignores me and spends the whole evening talking to a pretty woman. If we're in a restaurant he flirts with the waitress or someone sitting at another table. We're only married for a year and he didn't do that when we were dating.

It seemed then that he only had eyes for me and no one else existed. I find it very hard to make love to him because I feel so awful. He brushes my hurt feelings off as silly and tells me all men are like that. What can I do to convince him that my feelings count?

Advice: Most men enjoy looking at beautiful women. However, once a man falls in love & gets married, he has more than himself to consider.

My definition of true love is, "When someone else's happiness & well-being is just as important as your own."

The fact that you've told him how unhappy his behavior makes you feel, means that he either doesn't take you seriously or he doesn't care. I'm going to assume that he does care about you & your job is to show him that you're very serious about wanting him to stop doing this & you won't tolerate his behavior any longer.

Make one more attempt to sit him down & tell him how deeply hurt you are when he looks at women in magazines or flirts with other women when you're out together.

Ask him how he would feel if you were doing the same thing with other men? Then in that same conversation, I want you to explain the future consequences of his behavior when you're out in public.

Let him know that the next time he flirts, you'll leave immediately. Your job is to follow through. If you're at a restaurant, don't say a word, just get up and call a cab and go home.

If you're at a party, ask someone if they could give you a ride home, drive yourself or again call a cab. You have to act immediately w/no more explanations. You've already told him what you would do, so in order for him to take you seriously, you have to follow through.

It's the only way his behavior will change. You don't want to turn into a nag every time you go out together. The truth is that if he continues this behavior, you'll turn into an angry, cold, bitter and unresponsive woman.

A mature and loving man knows that he has to sacrifice certain things for the sake of a marriage. When you become parents, there are even more sacrifices for the sake of the children. You may want to "party" till 4:00 a.m. but, if you're a responsible and loving parent, you know that your child needs you to be alert the next day, so you don't!

If looking at women in magazines and flirting with strangers hurts your partner, then you simply control your impulse and don't do it! By the way, you can't stop him from looking at other women when he isn't with you, but, out of love and respect, he can and shouldn't do that when he is with you.

As for the pictures, if he truly cares about your happiness, then he will get rid of them as well. You might want to have some fun and research a photographer in your area that does Boudoir Photography. Then for the next special occasion like his birthday or your anniversary you can present them to him with a card that says, "For Your Eyes Only." - Dr. Ellen

About the Author: For the past 20 years, Dr. Ellen has educated, motivated and inspired thousands of men & women on how to put fun, romance, excitement and communication in their relationships.

Thru humor and personal experiences, she's able to captivate and relate to any type of audience, the dynamics of building a solid foundation for a more rewarding life. Through her audio cassettes, CD's, seminars, videos and books she's been teaching and communicating her message to men and women of all ages throughout the world.

All of her efforts are designed to work together to achieve one ultimate goal: strengthen the fun, love and communication between two people. She's been happily married for 34 years, has 3 grown children and 2 grandchildren.

Natural Feelings, Unnatural Situation - Dealing With Jealousy

 Copyright Karon Goodman

As much as we’d like to disagree, we all have feelings of jealousy from time to time. I hear step-moms often struggling with strong feelings of jealousy as they try to come to terms with all the people and relationships in their lives.

It can be a terrifying experience.

Jealousy is a natural emotion, yet it’s hard to understand, interpret and prevent in the unnatural situations created by stepfamilies. But there’s a way to overcome it.

When you remarry and inherit someone else's children and even if you think you're ready, you suddenly experience feelings you can't begin to understand.

There’s no preparation in your past for dealing with your husband's first wife and her children. It's a situation that’s never planned or courted, one day, it just *is* and there is no instruction manual.

Base emotions kick in with a vengeance and jealousy is a strong one.

1. First, don't be so hard on yourself for feeling the way you do. You can't overcome the feelings of jealousy if you continue to deny them because it's not what you want to feel. The feelings are natural and you can deal with them when you acknowledge them.

If you're sometimes jealous of the time your husband spends with his kids, that's understandable. You've had no honeymoon period for your new marriage. You're forced to share what you worked so hard for instantly. It hurts a little now and then.

Maybe you're jealous of the financial security your husbands ex-wife has at his expense. That, too, is understandable. He's still giving to her and that hurts, even if it’s for his children. It doesn't matter, the feelings are the same.

You can't change these feelings until you give yourself time to understand them. Accept them and then choose to change them.

2. Accept the facts. Jealousy is an irrational emotion. It rules out of fear and insecurity and goes straight to your heart. It has no logic, but the pure, cold facts can deter it. It may sound like some sort of tough love speech, but to combat the feelings of jealousy means to simply fight them with logic.

Jealousy makes you want to change whatever is hurting you. Some things you can't change. Accept those facts. Accept that your husband will always be spending time with his kids. Accept that he must fulfill his obligation to his ex-wife because the courts say so.

You didn't create the situations and you can't change them. Don't waste your time and energy on how things you can't control should be or what's not fair if there’s nothing you can do about it.

Then soon, if your jealousy has no foundation to build on, if you dismiss its arguments, it’ll fade and you can move on to better things.

When Love is Competitive, Jealousy is Inevitable

Thought experiment: Close your eyes and imagine the one you love in the arms of another. How does this make you feel?

Is it a distressing picture or are you happy for the person you love?

Would you be comfortable to be present?

Do you prefer to put such images completely out of mind?

The bitter feeling of hurt and hostility we call jealousy can become one of the most powerful obsessions of human life. Yet this emotion is a social construct, with ancient cultural roots.

The drama built around 'the eternal triangle' is still reinforced by TV soap operas, popular songs, fiction, and advice columnists. Our belief that loving more than one person always creates jealousy is so ingrained in our idea of love that few people have ever questioned it.

How unusual it would be for a television series to show people who were happily involved in multiple loving, who were loving 2 or 3 people openly, freely without jealousy!

But while love remains primarily the satisfaction of prior needs or the fulfilling of conventional romantic or marital roles, when a competing relationship emerges, jealousy is very likely. No matter how well we satisfy needs and fulfill expectations, others can satisfy the same needs just as well, or even better.

Within most 'loving' relationships, jealousy is natural:

• We find ourselves supplanted, traded-in for a better model,
  we naturally feel a sense of loss, anger, grief and betrayal.

Preventing Jealousy by Becoming Irreplaceable

Replaceability: Being Better Means Being the Same.

We live in a depersonalized world in which even people, like mass produced objects, become replaceable parts. Uniformity and substitution is the general rule everywhere. When we seek jobs, other applicants have the same qualifications. When we compete for the available partners on the 'love market', we know that others would make equally satisfactory companions.

In the drama of ordinary love, we play well-scripted roles, complex patterns of interaction we’ve learned from our culture. And because all the lines and moves are well known in advance, an understudy could easily step in and take over our functions, if we become too old for the part, fall ill, or even die.

e.g., if we have been playing the role of 'wife' or 'husband', we can easily be replaced as a spouse. But what if an understudy handles the role better than the star?

Perhaps whoever fills the role best will get the job permanently!

When we feel the threat of being replaced in one of our roles, we usually strive to become the best player of that part. Our culture says, in the job-market as well as the love market, that excellence is the best way to beat the competition. So we compete with the others within the accepted criteria:

• We try to be the best social companions for those we want to attract
• The best cooks
• Best sex-partners
• Best providers'
• The most stimulating and interesting personalities
  becoming the best at whatever 'ideal' women or men provide.

But becoming 'better' than others really means being the same. Excellence is a measure of conformity to an agreed cultural ideal.

Jealousy is prevented not by excellence but by irreplaceability.

Personally speaking....

I’ve never been a really jealous person until recently. I can see the point that the gentleman above is making about being replaceable. It wasn't until I felt insecure about my replaceability that I found myself in the jealousy pit!

I think it's wise to always be cautious though, w/knowing the difference between a cheating spouse who has a history & you may be suspicious of the behaviors occurring & realizing that our own insecurities are taking up so much of our energy that they’re sabotaging our own self esteem & dignities.

Jealousy is dangerous when out of control....

kat...

Dads, new babies and jealousy  Armin Brott

Every dad needs support, encouragement, information, confidence and tools to help him be as involved as he possibly can with his new family.

Our fatherhood expert, Armin Brott, author of The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be and Father for Life: A Journey of Joy, Challenge and Change, has advice for your growing family!

Your question:
I used to be the center of my wife's universe. Now that we've had a baby, I'm jealous, of all the time they spend together and I feel left out. Is this normal and how can I overcome my feelings?

Armin Brott answers:
First of all, it's completely normal to be jealous of your wife's relationship with your new baby - especially if she's breastfeeding.

But who's really making you jealous? Your wife because of her close relationship with the baby and all that extra time they spend with each other?

Or is it really the baby for coming between you and your wife, for taking up more than his "fair share" of her attention and for having full access to her breasts when they may be too tender for you to touch?

Probably both.

If you're going to get over your feelings of jealousy, you need to start by coming clean to your wife. Whether you're feeling that you need more attention and emotional support from her or more private time without the baby, tell your wife about it as clearly and honestly as possible.

This may not be easy: You may not want to bother her with your problems right now.

After all, she's just had a baby and you, as a man, are supposed to be supportive, right? You may be afraid that she'll think you're wimpy, or you may already be thinking that yourself. Whatever it is holding you back, it's essential that you get over it. Soon.

The worst - and most dangerous - thing you can do with your feeling of jealousy is to bury it. Left unsaid, it'll make you resentful of both your wife and your baby and could ultimately damage your whole experience of fatherhood.