Jealousy is something that affects most relationships at one time or another. Relationships of any kind. It rears its ugly head on all sorts of occasions and, as Not an Odalisque mentioned a few in her recent blog post on jealousy, for many varied reasons. We often hate ourselves when it happens, perhaps thinking that we should be above such thoughts, but remember that most people experience the green-eyed monster quite often in their lives and none of us should feel bad about that. After all, the first step to managing jealousy is to actually admit to ourselves that we do have those feelings.
As far as sex is concerned, many people think that jealousy can only relate to a partner having (or wanting to have) sexual contact with someone who isn’t you. However, it can happen for other reasons too. Have you ever felt jealous of a partner’s multiple orgasms when you’ve been stuck with only one? Perhaps you’ve been in a situation where you didn’t come at all and they did? Maybe they’re more flexible than you, fitter than you, less inhibited than you? However your jealousy manifests, you should first learn to pause before reacting in order to think about why you feel this way.
Where have the feelings come from? How can this be fixed? Do you feel as though you’re missing out on something? If you talk to your partner(s) calmly about your emotions using neutral language – e.g. use “when X happens, I feel Y”, rather than “you make me feel Y” – you will begin to feel more in control of these feelings. In addition, your partner will probably be pleased that you are discussing things with them and are asking for their help. Even sharing the bad things can be positive sometimes. You are not in this alone.
Image via Quasic‘s Flickr photostream.
Good Advice, it's always helpful to hear that jealousy happens to everyone 🙂
I haven't felt jealous for a while but it's something I used to feel a lot – and it's such a horrible, negative, time-consuming, energy-sapping emotion! And you are so right, don't you just hate yourself when you feel jealous?!
Looking back, I think my moments of jealousy were triggered by moments of low self confidence. Both of which can be worked at – phew!!
I totally agree. We should be able to talk about what happens in the bedroom–or wherever you like it, haha. It's natural and soothing.