Jealousy can rear its head in many ways. Have you ever felt displeased and resentful that a partner showed someone else ‘too much’ attention? Or that they spoke fondly about an ex? Or maybe you’ve felt unsettled when a best friend or a family member made social plans that didn’t include you? In situations like these, your feelings of jealousy might gnaw at you under the surface, or you could feel so hurt that you lash out at someone you love.
Jealousy is a normal emotion and, like other emotions, it can affect people in both healthy and unhealthy ways. At its worst, jealousy can keep you stuck in negativity, anger and resentment. But when it’s managed well, jealousy can be useful – an alert that you are feeling threatened in some way. There’s a lot to unravel when it comes to this commonly misunderstood emotion. And the more you learn how to gain insight from jealous feelings, the less likely you’ll be to cause yourself or others unnecessary angst or pain.
This Guide is for anyone who wants to know more about jealousy, though it could be particularly helpful for those who chronically struggle to understand or respond well to jealous feelings. The goal, in any case, isn’t to eradicate jealousy, but to learn to engage with it in beneficial ways.
What is jealousy?
Jealousy arises when the love, affection or attention you receive from someone else seems to be at risk, usually because you perceive the actions or presence of another person as competition. Although ‘jealousy’ and ‘envy’ are often used synonymously, envy involves wanting something that another person has, whereas jealousy generally points to a lack of security in a relationship. In short, feelings of jealousy are triggered by a sense of relational danger. This danger might be real or imagined; the mind often doesn’t differentiate between the two.
When jealous feelings come up in response to an actual event – such as when a romantic partner admits to infidelity – it is what clinical psychologists call reactive jealousy. As a therapist, I have worked with many people whose jealousy stemmed from concrete experiences like this. One client’s jealousy arose, for example, when they discovered that their loved one had been communicating with an ‘old flame’ on social media. Although the situation hadn’t escalated to physical infidelity, the partner who discovered it felt hurt and betrayed. In this case, the jealous feelings were an emotional alarm bell – an indicator of a potential threat to the relationship.
Suspicious jealousy is different from reactive jealousy: it stems from personal insecurities rather than a concrete event. In a romantic context, for example, suspicious jealousy can arise even when a partner has never shown any evidence of being unfaithful. If you tend to feel jealous about someone even though they are open and honest with you, you might be struggling with suspicious jealousy.
In my work with couples in therapy, I’ve noticed that suspicious jealousy is often an indicator of difficulties with relating to others, which are rooted in one’s past. For example, I recently worked with a couple where one partner’s attachment style led them to feel chronically insecure in the relationship and overly dependent on the other partner. Although both partners were faithful and committed to the relationship, unresolved wounds from childhood often left this partner feeling deeply anxious and jealous. When underlying issues like these are at work, the path to improvement involves diving into those unhealed wounds from the past to develop healthy awareness and responses in the present.
When jealousy is chronic and unprocessed, it can hurt self-esteem, increase stress, and create further difficulties in relationships. I’ve seen ongoing jealousy cause serious harm in friendships, family relationships and romantic partnerships. In one case, a long-term friendship was irrevocably damaged when one person became so jealous about her friend’s blossoming romance that she actively tried to derail it. It became clear that the jealous friend – who struggled with anxiety and low self-esteem – felt threatened by her friend’s delight-filled new relationship. In the same way, unresolved jealousy between family members (for example, chronically vying for parents’ attention, validation and other resources) or between romantic partners can eat away at relationships.
Whatever the source of your jealousy, if it’s something that you struggle with, you can learn how to process and respond to jealous feelings differently, so that when you do experience them, you feel more regulated and empowered. The process of managing jealousy can take some time (especially if it’s an ongoing issue), but you can create real changes, starting now, by increasing your self-awareness and practising mindful emotional regulation. Next, I’ll share some ways to do that.
As you get started on the following practices, I recommend keeping a journal or notebook to use just for your work with jealousy: a place to nonjudgmentally record your experiences with this emotion and notice what arises for you. Keeping a journal sets the stage for you to better understand the patterns of jealousy in your life as you use the approaches I’ll describe below.
Give yourself compassion
Self-discovery and self-growth require treating yourself with compassion. Many of us respond to difficult feelings – including jealousy – with self-judgment and self-blame (eg, How am I feeling this way again? or I should be able to just get over this). But that only works against you. Habits can be difficult to break, so it’s important to initiate changes with patient, gentle practice. As you go forward, try to simply notice any moments of self-judgment or shame when you’re feeling jealous or thinking about jealousy. Then, offer yourself a compassionate thought, such as: I am evolving; or I’m discovering how to be kinder to myself; or Compassion feels good. By arming yourself with compassion rather than negativity, you’ll make the journey smoother and more productive.
Get to know your jealous feelings better
When difficult feelings such as jealousy arise, many of us want to close down or avoid the feelings. Yet when you get curious about your emotions instead, you open the door to not being controlled by them. Actively engaging with curiosity can mute the tendency to become judgmental or defensive, creating more space for noticing and understanding your thoughts and feelings.
As an example, imagine you are at a party with your romantic partner. You observe them and another person chatting in a way that strikes you as flirtatious. A swell of emotion comes up. But then you get curious. As you explore how you’re feeling and consider the situation, you recognise a simmering stew of jealousy: you’re worried that someone is competing for your partner’s affection. And if you stay with the jealousy, getting really curious about how it feels, you might discover that it makes you feel queasy in your stomach, or that your heart is beating fearfully. Just as you might feel ‘butterflies in your stomach’ when you’re anxious, you can come to recognise when jealousy makes you feel a certain way in your shoulders, chest, neck or elsewhere.
All of these are signals from the interplay of your mind and body; they are warnings that your relationship may be in peril. Importantly, they don’t make your jealousy ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. They simply help you realise that you’re feeling threatened.
This is a step toward being able to mindfully evaluate whether you are noticing a genuine relational threat or not. When you slow down to become curious and explorative, you slow down the body’s threat response and become more able to choose how you respond to the feelings. You can start to see jealousy as a manageable feeling that arises within you, rather than something that just happens to you.
So, instead of feeling at the mercy of jealousy when it arises in you, take a pause and get curious. You might find it useful to first take a few deep breaths, envision a bright red stop sign, or take a ‘time out’ to go for a walk. Then, ask yourself a few questions, like: where do I feel the jealousy in my body? What is the level of my jealousy – is it low, moderate or intense? Do I feel safe or unsafe right now? If you can, take a moment to jot down your responses in your journal. Pausing to more fully notice what you’re feeling counters the tendency to react impulsively, shut down or get consumed by the emotion. This process may be difficult at first, but it will, in time, become easier for you to notice and track your jealous feelings.
Gain clarity on what activates your jealousy
You’re also more likely to slow down and respond in beneficial ways if you learn to identify the things that activate your feelings of jealousy. To help you get clearer on these ‘activators’, it may be useful to reflect on your history related to jealousy, starting as far back as childhood and going up to the present. You might do this by:
- writing freely in your journal about your experience with jealousy;
- creating a list of jealousy-related memories; and/or
- talking with loved ones who might offer valuable insights on your history with jealousy.
Throughout this gentle investigation, strive to take an attitude of self-compassion and nonjudgment.
As you reflect on your experiences with jealousy, you might identify old issues that are relevant for understanding your jealousy in the present. For example, perhaps you long felt overlooked by your parents in favour of another sibling – and now, you find yourself on alert when someone you love pays ‘too much’ attention to others. Or, you feel your jealousy activated when your romantic partner merely chats with your attractive neighbour; as you reflect on your past experiences, you realise that this could be tied to old issues such as a parent’s infidelity, or a relationship betrayal back in high school. You also might identify recent experiences that point to reactive jealousy, such as a current partner’s frequent texts with someone they were romantically involved with.
Let whatever you unearth help you understand yourself better, so that you will feel less controlled by your activators and more capable of choosing healthy responses. With a deeper and more compassionate understanding of why you feel activated, you can evaluate your current situation more clearly.
Practise differentiating real and imagined threats
As you continue exploring how jealousy manifests in you and your life, you are likely to get better at detecting which threats are real and which are imagined. Working on the previous steps can help you notice when jealousy is flaring up due to some specific, concrete behaviour that concerns you – a sign of reactive jealousy – or if what you’re experiencing is suspicious jealousy, based more on your imagination than anything the other person has actually done. In some cases, you may also find that a mixture of reactive and suspicious jealousy is at work: for example, you might be reacting to an actual behaviour (such as a partner privately catching up with an ex) but also leap to the conclusion that something more than that is happening. Be patient with yourself if you struggle with differentiating real and imagined threats. It can take time to find the root causes of strong feelings like jealousy.
If you feel stuck, it could be helpful to chat about your experiences with a neutral person, someone outside the relationship that is sparking jealousy. Depending on the situations that activate you, this might be your partner, a close friend, a mentor or someone else you trust. It can be challenging to tease apart these issues, and you can often gain clarity by reaching out for objective feedback.
Choose how you respond to jealousy
The more you notice your jealousy nonjudgmentally, the more you’ll be able to ‘press pause’ when it arises so that you can think before you react. And, as you learn to take a pause rather than reacting, you’ll be able to discover jealousy’s message – what it’s suggesting to you in that situation. To get a better sense of this, you might ask yourself:
- What is my jealousy telling me?
- What am I afraid of?
- What is making me feel so unsafe right now?
By continuing to ask questions like these and make space for the answers (here, again, it may feel helpful to make ongoing notes in your journal), you can deepen your understanding of how jealousy affects your internal and external worlds and where it is coming from. And this will guide how you respond. As I’ve noted, it’s common to find that unresolved issues from the past give rise to activators, particularly with suspicious jealousy. If you think that your jealousy is rooted in painful experiences from childhood or past relationships, you might decide to respond by continuing your self-work and perhaps seek out a psychotherapist who can help you address those unhealed wounds. If you instead find that your jealousy is a reaction to someone’s clear and worrisome behaviour in the present, you could set aside time to talk with them openly and honestly about your concerns (see the next step). Or, if you struggle with reactive jealousy as a result of a partner’s confirmed physical or emotional betrayal, your feelings might prompt you to seek couples therapy. The more you investigate, the more you will hear the messages that jealousy has to offer.
If you find that you are noticing jealous feelings and more frequently slowing down to evaluate yourself and the situation – instead of feeling consumed by red-hot jealousy, lashing out, or chronically worrying about the time or attention someone gives to others – that’s a clear sign that you’re engaging with jealousy as the helpful messenger that it can be. And as you notice, process and understand your jealousy better, you’ll be able to choose healthy responses that feel appropriate to you.
Consider talking about your jealousy
Jealousy can be confusing, embarrassing and unsettling. But it doesn’t serve you to keep silent about feelings of jealousy. In fact, part of the healing process is found in sharing feelings of vulnerability with those you can trust – people who will listen to you and engage in respectful communication about what you’re feeling.
If your feelings of jealousy are activated by someone’s behaviour, it could be productive to talk openly with that person about what you’re experiencing. For example, if you’re feeling jealous because your partner has been talking to an ex online, then rather than approaching them from a place of judgment and indignation, you can choose to talk about what you’re feeling and tell them what you need to feel safer in your relationship – such as more transparency around such communications.
As another example, if you’re experiencing a bout of suspicious jealousy about your partner, and your default tendency would be to close yourself off to them or to get angry, you could instead decide to ask your partner for support. For example, you might say something like: ‘I’m doing a lot of journaling and reflection about feelings of jealousy that I have, which I think are linked to my past relationships. I don’t want them to infect our relationship, so I’d appreciate it if I could talk through them with you when I have them. When I get stuck, would you be open to teasing them apart with me sometimes?’ This type of thoughtful, non-blaming approach supports healthy connection.
In general, it’s helpful to use ‘I’ statements that lead with your feelings rather than the other person’s actions; this decreases the likelihood that the other person will respond defensively. For example, you might say: ‘I feel really jealous when I’m not invited to attend parties with you. I’d like to talk with you about how these feelings are affecting me, and to know more about what’s going on for you.’
Of course, if you try to talk with someone gently and honestly but are met with anger, stonewalling or other unproductive behaviours, it’s natural to feel hurt. Another person’s unwillingness or inability to navigate the situation with you can feel disheartening. Yet it’s important not to let others’ behaviours keep you trapped in unhealthy patterns. If you find yourself feeling stuck, either due to relational dynamics or your own limits, it’s wise to seek professional support from a therapist.
That being said, you might find that your loved one is, in fact, receptive to learning how jealousy is affecting you, and that they are better able to support you as a result. When you open up about how you’re feeling and are held in the safety of kindness, compassion and respect, difficult emotions such as jealousy feel all the more manageable.
Where does jealousy come from?
Starting in early childhood, jealousy plays an important role in our lives. On a basic level, it alerts us to a sense of being unsafe in relationships. Early on in life, jealousy might arise if a child perceives a caregiver to be devoting too much interest in another person or task. Even young children realise they’re safer when they have a caregiver’s undivided attention. One client of mine shared an early memory that speaks to this. When her little sister was born, she tried to push her sister off her mother’s lap, saying: ‘You no want that baby. I the baby.’ Children instinctively feel unsafe when competing for love and attention.
As we begin to form friendships in playgroups and school, feelings of jealousy often arise as an indicator that we’re being left out. Here, again, jealousy works to create safety. Humans are gregarious ‘pack animals’, and we instinctually realise that survival is better ensured when we’re part of a group. So when our companions seem to be giving us less attention or affection than we’d like, a sense of jealousy might arise as a warning of insecurity. If you’re like most people, you can recall a time or two when you felt this way growing up. As uncomfortable as those situations may have been, those feelings of jealousy were messages that reinforced your need to feel safe.
In adult relationships, jealousy often works in much the same way, whether it’s activated by a partner flirting with someone at an office party (suggesting a threat to your romantic relationship), a respected boss showing your co-worker more favourable treatment and attention (a threat to your work relationship), or some other apparent threat to a relationship that is important to you. But as I’ve described, feelings of jealousy can, in a sense, become inflamed or ‘contaminated’ by negative life experiences such as past betrayals, leading you to feel the emotion even in situations where there is no threat. At some point, you may have become predisposed to feel jealousy, not through any fault of your own, but because you experienced harm in the past.
As you work to understand your jealousy better, you will naturally discover some of the roots of your own jealous feelings. Although your reflections could lead you right toward these important roots, some of them may be so deep or complex that they need to be unearthed and tended to with more focused care. For example, sometimes jealousy is rooted in childhood attachment issues that were compounded by traumatic experiences. In cases such as these, individual psychotherapy or a trauma support group may be helpful in getting to root issues that remain hidden or difficult to untangle.
Want to learn more about uncovering the causes of jealous feelings? My book Joy from Fear (2019) helps you explore the unconscious drivers that keep you trapped in emotions and behaviours that work against you. It takes a mindfulness-based approach to self-discovery that fosters healing, connection and personal fulfilment, and offers self-paced exercises to help you embrace practices such as breathing and journaling.
If you appreciate a focus on attachment theory and the idea of earning secure attachment, my book The Joy of Imperfect Love (2024) can help you build a stronger relationship with yourself and those in your life. It is filled with guided prompts to help you boost self-awareness, self-regulation and communication capacities. You might also enjoy Leslie Becker-Phelps’s book Insecure in Love (2014), which is designed to help you explore feelings (such as jealousy) that could suggest an anxious attachment style, and create changes that give you more internal stability and ease.
Robert Leahy’s book The Jealousy Cure (2018) is another interesting read and draws from multiple therapeutic approaches, including cognitive behavioural therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. Focused on creating trust and reducing possessiveness, it helps the reader see how jealousy can harm and help their relationships.
In an episode of the Imperfect Love podcast, I speak with the psychologist and sex educator Joli Hamilton about the meaning of jealousy in romantic relationships, prompted by a listener’s question about jealousy and nonmonogamy.