Tatiana Khodakova
“He’s jealous – it means he loves me” is probably the most common misconception. However, everyone is familiar with this feeling to one degree or another.
Jealousy is not really a separate feeling: it is a “cocktail” of emotions that arise in relationships, when there is a threat to attachment.
Jealousy can arise in various relationships, both in love and in parent-child, friendly, sibling, work, etc., and borders on addiction. The mechanisms of jealousy are the same in all relationships. There are two ends of the connection, and when at one end there is a threat that the attachment may weaken or break, at the other end there is a complex of feelings in the form of jealousy.
Since jealousy is a mixture of feelings, a set of different states, causes and effects, it is very difficult to cope with such experiences. At the core of jealousy is fear – fear that is associated with anxiety, self-abasement, humiliation, and, as a way to cope with anger. Anger can manifest itself as a defense mechanism, when a person is afraid to admit that he feels vulnerable, weak, powerless.
So, jealousy is based on fear, which actualizes the feeling of uselessness, weakness, anxiety and self-abasement. To cope with jealousy, it must be broken down into its individual components, and then it becomes possible to interact with these feelings.
But it should be remembered that jealousy cannot be cured by logic, rationalization, persuasion in conversations.
AT FIRST GLANCE, JEALOUSY SEEMS TO BE A REQUEST FOR LOVE, BUT IN FACT IT IS A REQUEST FOR CONFIRMATION OF VALUE
And no matter how much the second person says “I love you, your suspicions are in vain, I need you and you are important to me” — inside, his partner cannot contain and preserve it.
It happens something like this:
— Do you love me?
— Yes.
— Do you love me?
— Yes.
The partner places this love inside, but it “fails”. The person does not hold it inside. Because inside there is a “hole”. And then the cycle repeats:
— Do you love me?
— Yes.
The partner is “harassed”, and sooner or later he will break down and say: “How much more can this happen?” And he will receive in response: “Well, I knew that you don’t love me”…
How to work with jealousy, with this fear?
You need to understand what it consists of and where it is formed.
Jealousy arises in the period from 1 month of life to 3 years. We are talking about the first experience of “abandonment” in infancy. When a mother does not guess the child’s desires, when she does not pick up, when she is not there at the first request, the baby perceives this as a feeling of “abandonment”. Mom is the source of everything for the child, he is totally dependent on her. The strongest fear “mom is lost” appears in the preverbal period, therefore it is often not realized, and therefore, it is “not cured” by talking. This fear is “sewn” into the muscles: “if I was abandoned, it means they do not love me, it means I am not good enough, because loved and good people are not abandoned.” Fear remains in the body and is felt as some unloved part inside that desperately needs love.
The search for someone who would love her back begins… And often this “unloved” childish part is “given” to the partner – such a convenient and quick way to receive love and confirm one’s value. Therefore, it is very “shaky” when there is a “threat” of losing affection (looked at another, did not immediately respond to a message, responded with one word without a smiley, did not guess the desire, went to “hang out” with friends, etc.). Interaction with the partner occurs with an unconscious message: “Love me the way I do not know how to love myself. Love me the way my mother did not teach me to love. Love me the way my mother could not.” But the partner does not know how to love like that, because this is a request for “mother’s” love. The partner can love differently, this is a different love. And then this unconscious fear of “losing love” is actualized, anxiety appears, and anger arises to reduce the feeling of fear.
The first thing you need to do is to realize that this is the fear of a small child who was not loved enough in childhood. And that it is time to learn to value yourself. Having discovered that your partner is not able to satisfy your demand for “mother’s” love, you may become disappointed in him/her. Being disappointed is also painful, but this pain is not as burning as jealousy…
The second step is to disassemble jealousy into its constituent emotions. Dare to meet them separately, experience them in your feelings and discover that this process is finite. Promise yourself that you will never abandon yourself, that you will learn to give yourself love, care, attention and support. After all, the only person who is able to “love you enough” in a way that your mother could not is you. And then the need for jealousy will gradually begin to disappear…
When the psyche knows that someone loves you unconditionally (in a way that your parents could not) even if it is you yourself, it gradually becomes free of trauma.
Love yourself in a healing and caring way!
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Translated by Maria Zayats
Read also:
Everything is complicated in our relationship
Small gestures that create big miracles…
Татьяна Ходакова
Практический психолог
Интегративный подход
