How to Stop Being Jealous and Insecure?

The Jealousy. Who has never been jealous? Jealousy can manifest itself either in love or at work for various reasons and in various forms. What is jealousy? Where does jealousy come from? How does jealousy differ from envy? When does jealousy become an infernal circle? Between man and woman, who is the most jealous? What is love jealousy? How to stop being jealous and insecure? In Short, discover more about jealousy in this article.

Let Start with Advice on How to Stop Being Jealous and Insecure?

When jealousy becomes an infernal circle, you have to learn to trust yourself. Thus, work on self-esteem is necessary: if the jealous does not feel good without the other or thinks himself constantly threaten to lose it to the benefit of a third, it is because he does not think he is up to it. He thinks himself unworthy of the affection he receives. “The jealous will have to work on the assertion of its power, says Violaine-Patricia Galbert. The goal of the therapy is that it can be said finally: “I deserve to keep it”, or again: “If it goes away, I know that I will have the means to make me love another … ”

Learning to have confidence in yourself to trust others is a real job that can last, according to Leo Lederrey, one, two, even three years. “In the end, we do not cure jealousy, but we just learn to control it. This former jealous and habituated ruptures has lived with the same woman for nearly ten years. “She just registered for Spanish classes. Formerly, my reflex would have been to ask her who she had spoken to if many men were enrolled in her class. Today, I manage, because I understood that the problem does not come from her but from me. It is not always easy, but in any case, my jealousy does not ruin our lives. ”

I – What Is Jealousy?

Jealousy is a secondary emotion that represents thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety about the anticipated loss or not of status, object, or emotional connection that has significant personal value. Jealousy is a mixture of emotions such as anger, sadness, frustration, and disgust. It should not be confused with envy.

Jealousy is familiarly related to human relationships. It is therefore approached on various approaches. So, is it possible to stop being jealous and insecure at all?

Definition of Jealousy in Psychology

In Psychology, jealousy involves an entire “emotional episode” including a personality complex. This jealousy can be caused by experiences already lived, thoughts, perceptions, memories, but also imagination or questions. Goldie (2000: 228) shows how jealousy can be an “impenetrable cognitive state,” in which education and rational belief matter little. Psychologists generally consider sexual arousal through jealousy as a paraphilia, some sexologists (like Serge Kreutz, Instrumental Jealousy) explain that jealousy, via a manageable dimension, can have a positive effect on sexual function and satisfaction. Studies also show that jealousy can increase passion for two partners and sexual pleasure. Depending on the situation and the individual, jealousy can be more or less intense.

The Jealousy According to Réné Girard

According to the mimetic theory of the philosopher René Girard, jealousy is a moment in the dynamics of human desire. The latter is by nature mimetic, that is to say, that desire is borrowed from a model who desires or possesses the object before, and whose being is fascinating. The jealous is convinced that the jealous being precedes him in the possession of the object and forbids him access. The complacency to maintain this feeling comes from the fact that the existence of the obstacle constituted by the jealous rival reinforces the value of the object of the rivalry, which reinforces the fascination exerted by the being of the supposedly happy rival who is the non-conscious ideal of the subject.

Jealousy According to Henri Laborit

Henri Laborit, on the other hand, uses another approach according to which there is in itself neither jealousy nor instinct of the property, but more simply that the individual would build over time, and sometimes from very early childhood, models associating the notion of privation with that of pain, and then unconsciously tries to create conditions avoiding these risks of pain.

Jealousy in Proverbs

Many proverbs evoke jealousy and its consequences throughout the ages. Thus in French-speaking Africa, and more particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, the expression “Les jealous will lose weight” symbolizes the force of jealousy, working the jealous even in its flesh.

II – Where Does Jealousy Come From?

According to psychoanalysts, one would have been jealous only once, in his very early childhood. Jealousy is so terrible that it has marked us for life. When one is jealous, one would only relive that pain, that of the tiny child who cannot bear to see his mother turning away from him. All of a sudden, his world collapses: he feels abandoned, betrayed.

For Lacan, this suffering, which is necessary because it makes it possible to get out of the merging with the mother, intervenes at the end of the period of weaning, which is already difficult in itself, and at the moment when the child is about to undergo a major traumatism: realize that he is no longer alone, that there is another (for example, when a new child arrives in the family). It all depends on how this first injury was experienced. Some swallow the snakes with more difficulty than others, and they are branded with the iron of the lack. No love will ever be big enough. No being will ever be reliable enough.

III – How Does Jealousy Differ from Envy?

Some are jealous only in love, others only at work … But in the professional setting; we will speak rather of “envy”. Jealousy is “the fear of losing what you have”. While envy is “the pain of seeing someone else possesses what one desires for oneself”. On the other hand, jealousy presupposes a rival third, while envy implies a relation to a single person. But these two feelings are intimately linked. The word “jealousy” does not come from the ancient Greek ‘ Zelos ’, which means “envy”.

IV – When Jealousy Becomes an Infernal Circle?

The sickly jealous is an outstanding screenwriter. Prisoner of a bad series, he sees himself in the skin of the anti-hero betrayed by his spouse and a third, and tightly films the behavior of his partners as indicative of the crime of which he will be the victim. The other actors can justify themselves, give proof of their innocence, he hears nothing, obsessed by these images of deception.

Catherine remembers: “Every night, I waited for him to have his back turned to pocket his pockets. A new pen, a business card, an unreadable name written on a calendar page, anything: I could not help but consider every object found as evidence of treason. And, every morning, I watched him carefully: the slightest changes, the least effort to be attractive, and I was intimately convinced that he was going to spend the day with another. ”

1 – Jealousy: A Form of Paranoia

“Jealousy is a form of paranoia,” explains Alain Krotenberg, a psychiatrist specializing in behavioral and cognitive therapy (author of L’Envie d’aller mieux, with Luc Patry, Payot, 2001). Now, the paranoid is by definition never wrong; if he is convinced that his wife wants to deceive him, nothing will shake him. Unless his suffering, which has become too strong and difficult to sustain, does not encourage him to consult. It is then up to the therapist to make him aware of the pathological degree of his jealousy.

A Role Play

“At first, I ask the jealous person to regularly note how quickly and with what intensity manifests his suffering before, during, and after his fits of jealousy,” says Alain Krotenberg. This is the so-called cognitive part. The therapist then proposes a role play: “The patient puts himself in the skin of his” victim “, me in his, then we invert. This behavioral approach allows the jealous to become aware of what is excessive in the way of acting and reasoning. Relatives can take part in the therapy by participating in these role plays.

A Growing Anxiety

However, no single spouse has the means to help the jealous get out of his obsessive pattern. His anxiety remains uncontrollable, obsessive, and, above all, growing: “We start by swearing that we love him, that no one else can attract us, but that is not enough. After having herself followed psychotherapy, a patient ended up getting divorced from her husband, who was too jealous. “To avoid arguments, I ended up breaking up with all my friends and leaving my job, until the day I found myself at home, to dare nothing more and to depress. ”

The Jealous Must First Understand What Is Behind Them

“And even when the victim of the jealous finishes, locked up, by not seeing anymore, it happens that the other becomes jealous even of his thoughts and says to himself:” She does not look happy with me, she thinks inevitably to another! “adds Violaine-Patricia Galbert,  therapist for the couple. To get rid of these bad thoughts – the specialists speak of “cognitive distortions” – the jealous must first understand what is behind them. This is what some therapies, especially psychoanalysis, attempt to reveal by focusing on the past of the jealous. “The relationship to the mother is a love relationship that the child does not want to share, the love jealousy is never a reminiscence of this relationship lived in childhood,” says Denise Lachaud, psychoanalyst.

2 – Emotional Dependence

For twenty years, Léo Lederrey, a medical journalist and therapist, was fiercely jealous, until he decided to turn to specialists. After taking several Gestalt therapies, rebirthing and bioenergy courses, he was able to get out of his obsessive pattern: “I could understand where my jealousy came from: I was raised alone by my mother … One day, my father suddenly came back to “steal” the affection of it. Since then, every man who came too close to the women he loved unconsciously took on this role of “thief of love”. “It’s a trauma that’s part of my story, a scar that will always be there,” he adds. But because therapy has allowed me to identify her, she does not hurt me anymore. ”

Jealousy Comes First from the Desire to Possess the Other

According to Violaine-Patricia Galbert, “jealousy comes first from the desire to possess the other; the jealous do not want him to escape. ” Behind this desire for control lies a state of emotional dependence. “When he tried to justify his fits of jealousy, my husband told me that he would never be able to live without me, that the idea of being alone would terrorize him,” says Patricia. The therapist’s job is then to get jealous out of this fusional relationship by inculcating in him the principles of autonomy: “It is a question of teaching him to bloom alone, without the other who serves him as a substitute”, continues Violaine-Patricia Galbert.

V – Man, Woman: Who Is the Most Jealous?

According to studies, jealousy is a feeling that fits both feminine and masculine. As for the frequency and intensity of jealousy, again, men and women are equal. On the other hand, the two sexes are different in their way of reacting: “Men get angry, women depress,” says Ayala Malach Pines, a  therapist for a couple.

Alain Krotenberg, a psychiatrist, points out that “in women, jealousy reveals a hysterical and depressive behavior whereas, in men, it has a paranoid and obsessive character, which makes it more difficult to cure”. Psychoanalysis considers jealousy as a reflection of the unconscious desire to deceive the other. Because this desire for infidelity is unbearable, the jealousy defends itself by attributing it to the other. This mechanism, called projection, is difficult to accept. For the jealous, first, who will not admit that it is his own desires that he projects on the other. For the spouse, then, who risks concluding: “So it’s up to me to be jealous since you want to deceive me. The two must then admit that these desires are unconscious, therefore unrelated to reality.

VI – What Is Love Jealousy?

Love jealousy is an aggressive emotion that is the consequence of the fear of losing the loved one or the exclusivity of one’s love for the benefit of another person – a feeling that can be based on imagination and not on facts. When it is permanent or excessive, jealousy is a form of paranoia and is tied to a “love” relationship in a possessive or even exclusive fashion.

Jealousy Is a “Monster Who Mocks the Victim He Feeds On”.

In Othello or the Moors of Venice, William Shakespeare describes Lago’s jealousy as a “monster who mocks the victim he feeds on”. Love jealousy cannot be born if the partners have a relationship of trust, but this notion remains subjective in the jealous individual. Jealousy is all the more important because the jealous individual feels that his or her psychological equilibrium is based on being tied to the desired person: jealousy is, therefore, an attachment problem that is specific to the jealous person who has a need to be reassured, even if, rightly or wrongly, the feeling can be based on the imagination. It should be noted that the jealous individual generally reproduces the same patterns vis-à-vis all his partners. The jealous individual can then be erased in the couple: he seeks to own his partner at all costs and, to avoid losing it, rarely comes into conflict by accepting compromises. But this behavior can then further reinforce feelings of insecurity, especially when the partner has freedom outside the couple since the jealous person no longer becomes the sole beneficiary of a partner.

Love Jealousy Is Often Related to Possession

Love jealousy is often related to possession, possibly to hatred; this feeling exists for both men and women. For example, a jealous individual hates to see or imagine his partner spending time with other people, not only because she is deprived of her presence, but also because she considers herself the only legitimate beneficiary of the attention of her partner. his partner. It is a feeling of exclusivity that can deprive the partner of freedom10. In this sense, the most common, of love jealousy, jealousy occurs in the context of a relationship to three (which differentiates it from envy or to be envious), when someone (the jealous individual), which may be of any sex), considers that a second individual behaves to a third party (a third person, a group, or even a thing) in a way that he or she believes is rightly or wrongly couple and more particularly his place in the couple. The jealous conceives resentment, reproach, doubts, which he addresses to the other two, usually with a focus on the second person. The essence of jealous behavior does not lie in this anxiety, sometimes imaginary, for the couple, or in acting, but in the excessive emotional intensity that accompanies it and which compromises the success of this action. The consequences may be detrimental to balance and communication in the couple, 10 the jealous individual sometimes expressing possession in a permanent, excessive, exclusive, or recurring manner often representing unhealthy jealousy, so jealousy is a form of paranoia. The jealous individual feels liberated from his jealousy only when he spends time with his partner alone, which ultimately compromises the freedom of the partner, in whom frustration can arise over time. Jealousy often evolves by the crisis (delusions). In literature, a study of jealousy is proposed in Marcel Proust’s A Love of Swann.