Jealousy is usually the most childish emotion of all. While experiences of fear, anger, sadness, shame and similar can be caused by outer experiences and appropriate to them (although in most cases it's a mixture of realistic and childish, exaggerated perception), jealousy is mostly based on wrong, infantile ideas of not being good enough, that we can't receive enough love and attention, and that our sense of worth and self-esteem depend of others' choices.

Although posessiveness towards one's intimate partner has some roots in biology and evolution, the essence of jealousy is in fear that we are not worthy enough, that something is wrong with us, that somebody else (perhaps without merit, perhaps with more merit, we're afraid) receives something we dearly want. We might also feel that love and attention is limited, that is, if one person is receiving it, another has to lose. As a defense from low self-image, we create anger towards the person who "steals" love from us, and often even towards the person whose love we want.

Some people whose partner fell in love with another person, judge and blame that person ruthlessly, especially if he/she dared to accept this love. (By "falling in love" I don't mean irresponsible sex and selfish behavior towards current partner.) Often we can hear pathetic claims such as: "he stole what was most important to me", "she ruined my life", victim talk and similar words more appropriate to teenage music than to adult people. In many societies in history (and in some still today) adultery was punished by death, often slow and painful. Imagine the strength and depth of childish fear and feeling of unworthiness, that it makes whole civilizations ready to kill another human being for loving somebody else!

Still, even in more sophisticated societies, individuals can still react to such an experience in a dramatic way. Some people are so afraid of it, they would do anything to prevent it, mostly through posessive behavior: controlling partner and isolating him or her from other people, usually people of opposite sex, but sometimes of all the other social contacts. They might be jealous not only of people who might be potential love interest to their partner, but also partner's family, same sex friends, even own children. Some such people want to get rid of jealousy, but don't know how: no rational decision is enough. Others truly believe that their jealousy is normal and justified.

This creates extremely abusive behavior, like forbidding the partner to do many things, suspicios questioning, arguments, criticism, humiliating partner in public, blackmail, even physical violence and murder. A healthy intimate partnership is a relationship of two people who are aware that they chose each other because of specific qualities and shared values, and also aware that those qualities can change with time, and that their partner can feel friendly towards other people. Instead, exaggerated jealousy turns the relationship into inprisonment, ownership and abuse.

People who as children had a chance to build self-esteem, a deep background sense that they deserve love, will be aware that their worthiness doesn't depend of specific other people's choices. Thus they'll be able to feel good about themselves and other people, even when the person they love gives attention to other people. They won't feel the need to be "special" to that person (which is what a child wants from a parent). They will accept the partner's friendly interest in other people as a normal behavior which is not necessarily threatening. They will be aware that we can like different people in different ways. On the other hand, the less self-esteem one has, the more emptiness, shame and fear of loss, the more he will be inclined to jealousy and possesiveness.

I'm not trying to promote open mariages and irresponsible sex here - even if free love might be a rational ideal, we are not just racional creatures. We are conditioned by our biology and emotional needs. It's not wise to deny it. I've met people - mostly women - whose partners used such arguments to talk them into allowing them to sleep with other people. Not only such a person will suppress and deny herself accepting that, but she will lose the feeling of stability and confidence in her partner, which kills intimacy. This becomes a background for future resentment and mistrust. From biological point of view, a woman needs a stable partner she can lean on while raising children. These urges are still in us and there is no use denying them. Besides, complex creatures as we are, it's difficult enough to achieve true intimacy with one person; spreading intimate attention to several people is almost impossible without reducing the quality of relationships.

Still, biologically conditioned jealousy is usually far milder than the childish one, and leaves space for healthy decisions and healthy self-image. Jealousy is most of the time proportional and directly connected to negative self-image. Yet it doesn't have to be visible and conscious. Most people suppress their negative feelings about themselves, maybe they hide them under a mask of arrogance and power. Confident behavior is not at all the same as self-esteem. A better indication of self-esteem is how much we respect other people as well as ourself. Negative opinion of ourselves usually won't allow us to truly appreciate others; usually we'll try to avoid our feeling of inferiority by trying to belittle other people within our minds.

If we truly like and appreciate ourselves, if we feel deserving of love, we'll expect it to be natural and easy to find people to love and who will love us back. We won't experience the end of important relationship as the "end of the world", even if we might need to go through initial period of sadness. We can also feel more respect, understanding and compassion for our partner and give him the same kind of freedom that we want for ourselves.

Jealousy and family background

The most common trigger of jealousy is the birth of the second child in family. Children who feel lack of love and attention, will find it easiest to blame the other child. For the first child, the birth of the second is usually a shock; not only most of mother's and other people's attention is suddenly transferred to a new child, but the older child is often in the same time given new responsibilities and expectiations (you're big enough to do this yourself, you need to help with the little sister...). The younger child, on the other hand, might perceive the older as the one who is given more respect, trust and privileges, and thus develop a sense of inferiority.

It appears that jealousy is especially strong amongst children of the same sex. Perhaps this is because children of different sex need different kinds of attention, so they don't feel so threatened by the type of attention given to the sibling. The other reason might be that, in the period of developing sexual roles, which is characterized by feeling attracted to the opposite sex parent, each child bonds to a different parent, so the feeling of competition is not so strong.

The jealousy amogst children is stronger if the age difference is small. Sometimes parents truly favor one child over the other. In the past, this was usually the son over the daughter, and this is still common in some cultures, but more and more often parents can prefer the daughter over the son. Ideally, of course, parents love both children equally, but as there are no perfect people, exceptions rule.

Every family is different and no common pattern is aplicable to everybody. A lot depends of age difference between children, as well as of the ability of parents to give healthy love and warmth. The older the chid is and the more love the parents know how to give, the feeling od inadequacy and consequential jealousy are less likely to develop.

Some children feel jealous of one of the parents, often the same sex parent. This kind of jealousy is normally not so intense, and children are much more ashamed of it and inhibited in expressing it. The child will feel much more confused and guilty about such jealousy then when it's about a sibling. The child is aware that in some way he's an "intruder" in an adult relationship, so she will usually hide such feelings, even from herself.

Such feelings usually appear from the age of three to six, when the child develops awareness of his own sexuality. The parent of the opposite sex becomes more and more attractive, because through this attraction the child explores his own sexual feelings. The same sex parent can be experienced as competition. Then the child might fantasize of this parent somehow dissapearing or allowing the child to take her place. Children sometimes say things like "When I grow up, I'll marry Dad!" or "Mom, you're my wife!" If the parents react calmly and lovingly, but without encouraging such ideas, the child will be able to go through this phase without creating permanent patterns of inadequacy and jealousy.

If the family is chaotic and unhealthy, the child might develop unhealhty bond to the parent. The child might obsesively search for love and attention, and might create a kind of hope that she'll be able to "save" the parent and make him happy. If one of the parents is perceived like a victim, the child might hope to prove to him that she can make him happier than the other parent. If parent encourages that through a pattern of emotional incest, the jealousy might become a long-term and truly toxic issue. When adult, such child might feel strongly attracted to "love triangles" and situations of competing with others for the love of her partner. She might want to get rid of jealousy... but as long as that subconscious image of parents is still in her, the jealousy will persist.

If you want to overcome jealousy, the key is in developing sense of worthiness and a feeling that you deserve love. Of course, that will create positive consequences in many other areas of life. We offer help with consequences of family entanglements and unconscious patterns.

Individual online coaching

(Note: if you're not able to see or use Facebook plugins, please disable Flashblock extension in Add-ons, restart Firefox and try again, or disable NoScript for this page.)

copyright Kosjenka Muk. All rights reserved.