Jealousy can be like molten lava slowly engulfing our core being. Left unprocessed, the weight of jealousy can interfere and affect our thoughts, emotions and behaviors. When it comes to sex and intimacy, the emotional force of jealousy can be a barrier to communication, closeness, and pleasure.

Jealousy is the language of comparison and suspicion. It awakens our judgemental inner critic that undermines our own abilities, worth and value:

• What is it about them, in comparison to me…
• What don’t I have, that they have?
• What is so special about _____, that I can’t offer.
• Obviously, I’m not good enough.
• I’ve worked harder than _____
• I give more than _____

Within the language of jealousy lies the complex and dynamic set of overwhelming feelings that can shake our core. It can feel like a threat or danger to a thing that we rely on or anchors us.

In the context of intimate relationships, when the jealously switch is flipped on, the forces of our inner critic tell us that the situation is much harder to resolve than it actually is. And regardless of its rationale, we’ll behave in ways that desperately attempts to stop threats of loss. Therefore it’s our own reaction to jealousy that can hurt ourselves, our partners and relationships.

• We may monitor our partner’s whereabouts and internet search engines
• We may constantly want to scroll through every text message until we find something that can be interpreted as confirmation of our feelings
• We may become more rigid with our daily schedules or routines
• We may ruminate about what our partner is thinking and doing
• We may begin to put our partner down or lower their self-confidence
• We may act passive-aggressively by being avoidant, disengaging, or having our partner guess what we’re feeling
• We may create stories in our mind about what our partner is feeling
• We may feel we need to prove by overcompensating on chores, family responsibilities, and work
• We may feel defeated and withdraw romantically and sexually

But can jealousy be an opportunity for personal and relationship growth?

Jealousy can emerge at any point in our relationship. It’s our relationship with jealousy and the awareness of how our inner critic reacts and responds that can either positively enhance or negatively impact our wellbeing with ourselves or with our partners.

1. Acknowledge the presence of jealousy

Jealousy is a part of the human experience, an inner voice, and can serve as a wake-up call to ourselves and to a relationship. To move through jealousy, it begins by acknowledging its existence. It’s common that people can find it difficult to identify jealousy but as we get better at learning the voice of jealousy the better we’ll be at articulating or communicating it with a partner.

To help get started,  try to identify the physical feeling of jealousy and where it’s held within your body. For example, “Jealousy is this heavy weight that sits deep in my gut. When I feel this weight, I know that jealousy is being activated.”

2. “Calling in” rather than acting out

“Calling in” can be described as having a conversation with yourself. This takes patience and an openness to vulnerability because it’s an act of acknowledging our deepest fears, worries, and insecurities.  To help distance yourself from the overwhelm of emotions that can prevent rational and clear thinking, ask yourself using a non-first-person pronoun. Examples:

• “Shaina feared that ____________.”
• “When (situation occured), you were afraid that ____________.”
• “The other day when (partner) spent time with his best buddy, Andrew worried that _______________.”

What is our inner critic telling us?

Is our inner-critic undermining our self-efficacy despite the fact that we can name many examples of how we overcome the adversity of fear and worry?  Research indicates that self-affirmations offsets self-criticism. Take a few moments to think about some examples of how you managed through worry or fear throughout your life. This reflection as factual evidence helps to remind us of our strenghts, capabilities and self-reliance; it turns down the volume of our inner-critic.

4. What are the messages signalling for me and for our relationship?

Strengthening our identity, strengthening our relationship.

Acknowledging our insecurities is an opportunity for personal and relationship growth. By calling in and identifying what underpins the presence of jealousy opens the door to deeper, more thoughtful and intentional discussions with our partner rather than reactionary acting-out types of behaviors.

Perhaps the underpinning messages are rooted in unprocessed deep wounds of our past that are being activated and need healing. Perhaps there’s a blind spot within the relationship that’s not being nurtured enough. Perhaps there’s an emotional injury within the relationship that needs repairing. Perhaps it’s a signal that what anchors the relationship is becoming rusty and needs a bit of maintenance.

5. Moving forward

Allowing jealousy to fester over time can compromise a valued relationship and undermine the steps necessary to sustain a romantic and sexual bond. Sharing your feelings and the underpinning messages of jealousy opens up communication and dialog. Sharing can help to identify different pathways for yourself and for your relationship.

While turning into the feelings and messages of jealousy, it’s also important to explore or remind ourselves ways that we can self-soothe and turn down the emotional and psychological toll of our inner-critic. Self-soothing is an act of self-compassion and will help ground ourselves when feeling emotionally and psychologically unsteady.

Summarizing jealousy, unpacking, processing and moving forward.

I often invite clients to turn-and-tune into difficult feelings and inner-critic messages rather than avoid them.  Avoidance suppresses our emotions. And while, in theory, avoiding the hard-stuff is easier, it will eventually have an impact on our mental health. It’s like holding onto a fire hose all by ourselves; our hands will exhaustingly tire and we’ll eventually have let go watching that hose fling uncontrollably.

Tapping into your supports or accessing professional supports can be helpful. By slowing down, acknowledging the human experience of jealousy, unpacking the feelings and underpinning messages of jealousy, and entering into a constructive dialog with your partner will diminish the negative power and unhealthy affects of jealousy.