What Is Jealousy?

It's like there's just the two of you in this world. But after the "fire" of the beginning passes and you start building on your relationship, and you realize that many "hungry eagles" hover around. Can they be dangerous? In a committed relationship, partners have to assume that their connection is too strong to be disrupted by outside intruders. But sometimes, the bond is not that strong.

When "the green-eyed monster" has installed inside of you, you see everyone coming in contact with your partner as a potential danger. Once jealousy got a hold on your relationship, it's literally eating you inside, till it gets unbearable for both, and this it why so many couples break up.

Jealousy can be triggered by structural (inner, subjective) factors or objective ones, the main four being:

1. Low self-esteem makes you feel insecure about your value. This is due to your education, ideas that you have developed by yourself or if you perceive your partner as being superior to you (physically or mentally). As you cannot love yourself, you cannot believe others can do it, too, so you are constantly afraid of your partner leaving you.

2. You cannot be 100 % monogamous. You're prone to cheating on your partner (something like that typical greatest fear of a thief, namely that of being robbed), and you're obsessed he/she can do it, too.

3. You two haven't yet figured out how to establish safe boundaries within your relationship. Do not suffocate your partner, let him/her feel free, have a social group, but at the same time do not allow him/her too much freedom, that would permit intruders to infiltrate; in the end, even when he/she doen't have the intention of doing it, he/she can "encounter" temptations. Too much or too little freedom induces anxiety linked to jealousy.

4. He/she cheats on you: many times, partners do not understand that this is not necessarily linked to penetration; it often has to do with making emotional connections to others outside the relationship, fact which is perceived as a betrayal by the other. If you share details of your private life with attractive members of the opposite sex (or which your partners just perceive as a potential threat or inadequate), this robs a sense of intimacy from your relationship, and weakens the bond, as it induces a vulnerability feeling on your partner (which can feel the betrayal even through indirect clues).

Trust, respect, adequate safe boundaries, therapy could help you openly share your feelings with the one you love.