Jealousy is one of the most common reasons women turn to psychologists. Many women tend to experience a constant painful state of internal fear, the fear of losing something meaningful to them. According to experts, jealousy is present in varying degrees in everyone. We can be jealous of friends, colleagues, family members, it all depends on the degree of emotional closeness. What is jealousy, and where does it come from, says psychologist of the crisis center "Hope" for women and children, Nina Kizrina.

To return peace to the family


Tatiana, 32, came to the Crisis Center for Women and Children. She has been married to Mikhail for 12 years. Her husband holds a responsible position and spends a lot of time at work.

Until June 2020, the woman had no idea that her spouse might be cheating on her. But after her best friend's happy marriage crumbled before her eyes for many years due to cheating, Tatiana became seriously concerned. A few weeks ago, she was torturing herself so much that she couldn't sleep a wink. The woman seems to have cheated on Michael for a long time. Thus, she began to watch her husband endlessly, and over time, this led to frequent conflicts in the family, which was not the case before. Tatiana realized that gratuitous jealousy would not do any good and turned to professional psychologists for help.

"The psychologist developed a plan for individual conversations. The meetings with Tatiana took place once or twice a week for three months. In the course of the work, we managed to restore the emotional context, eliminate intrusive and disruptive thoughts, harmonize the relationship between the spouses and bring calm back to the family," explains the specialist.

What is jealousy?
Jealousy - a vivid and negative emotional feeling of possessiveness, increased selfishness, the desire to have unshared with another person, which is usually expressed in distrust, suspicion, painful doubts about loyalty and love.

Psychologists distinguish three types of jealousy: rational, irrational and delusional.

Rational jealousy occurs when there is a real threat of losing the object of love.
Irrational jealousy is not related to reality and is based mainly on imagination and fantasy. It occurs in people with an overactive imagination who suffer from inferiority complexes, have undergone a mental trauma in childhood.
Jealousy delusion - inappropriate, unreasonable jealousy, reaching a psychiatric pathology. Most of this type of jealousy occurs in people with mental disorders (schizophrenia, paranoid disorder, alcoholism, drug addiction).
How jealousy starts

The feeling of jealousy is formed during the period from one to three years of age. In the family, the child learns how to interact with others, what the relationship between the parents should be. The baby sees how mom and dad communicate, take care of each other, solve problems.

As a rule, a jealous woman chooses, in most cases, a man who will be her husband and will stimulate this feeling. The causes of jealousy come from childhood and parental relationships: lack of love in childhood, physical or sexual abuse, genetic predisposition, psychological trauma in childhood. As she grows up, the jealous woman begins, at an unconscious level, to replay the scenario of her childhood - a psychological trauma of rejection, fearing its repetition. Later, this behavior acts as a form of prevention of betrayal. 

"Reasons for jealousy can be competition between siblings who claim special status with their parents; self-identification with the aggrieved parent when the other parent cheats; dysfunctional relationships in the parental family - alcoholism, physical abuse, cheating parent of the opposite sex," explains the specialist.

Causes of jealousy in adulthood - lack of self-confidence, low sexual self-esteem, the presence of an inferiority complex, feelings of worthlessness, underestimation of one's own abilities and skills. The causes of jealousy can also be emotional dependence, fear of losing the object of love or loneliness, excessive feeling of ownership, unlimited right to possess another person.

One of the variants of the manifestation of jealousy is sadomasochism. Here the experience of jealousy is closely related to self-mutilation, manifestations of masochistic tendencies.

"The jealous person derives a kind of pleasure from the anguish experienced by constant surveillance, looking for evidence of his partner's betrayal," said Svetlana.

An important cause of jealousy - the neurotic need for control. If the jealous woman misses an opportunity to control her partner, she begins to panic, jealousy increases at times.

Another reason for jealousy - provocative behavior of the partner. In this case, the partner unconsciously provokes jealousy to get a "proof of love", focusing on the formula "jealousy means he loves". That's why these women always have dramatic relationships with their partners, they constantly need confirmations of love. This indicates a high degree of co-dependence.

"If the house is quiet, there are no manifestations of the husband, declarations of love, scandals and manifestations of jealousy, then she becomes unbearable - she needs an emotional jolt, a discharge, which she is used to receiving in a dysfunctional parental family," believes the psychologist.

How to get rid of jealousy


If you decide to fight against this negative and destructive feeling for you, always start from the idea that your partner is faithful to you. By continuing to think that he or she is cheating on you, you will never be able to cope with jealousy.
Realize that the cause of your jealousy does not lie in the actions of your partner, and their own fears of the horrors that attract your imagination: betrayal, betrayal, loneliness.


Realizing that the cause of your jealousy - fears and complexes, do not expect, that your partner will do something magical, which jealousy as a hand off. It will not. The only person who can get you out of the swamp of jealousy, before it destroys you completely, is you.


Fear replacement. The best way to deal with fear is another fear. Stop being afraid that your loved one will change you, start being afraid that his suspicions, jealous scenes and tantrums will eventually destroy your relationship. When you truly fear this, the jealousy will leave you forever.


If you yourself are having trouble dealing with your feelings of jealousy, schedule a consultation with a professional psychologist. The specialists at My Family Center and the Crisis Center for Women and Children will help you deal with this difficult situation.