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Jealousy signs, causes and tips to combat
contents
- Legitimate jealousy
- Emotional and sexual jealousy
- From the bad quality to the delusion
- Jealousy and sex addiction
- based diseases
- What characterizes jealousy?
- How does morbid jealousy arise??
- Poison for the relationship
- What to do about jealousy?
- risk factors
- abuse of trust
- Latent homosexuality
- Parent phenomena
- How do pathological jealous people behave??
- Are you at risk?
- Murderous jealousy
- Destroying relationships
- Conflicts in the relationship
- Alcoholism and jealousy
Legitimate jealousy
If our partner broke our trust, for example through recurring lies, a secret sexual affair with another person, or by apparently keeping parts of his life secret from us, jealousy is not harmful, but an important warning signal. The opposite would be naivety here.
If the partner lies to us or cheats on us, jealousy is an important warning sign. (Image: fizkes / fotolia.com) Anyone who feels neglected when the partner excels at parties as an entertainer but ignores the wife is not overly jealous yet. Often these are misconceptions that can best be clarified by talking about them. Thus, a partner often does not understand that a situation in which he feels at home is foreign to his counterpart. He now appears to the partner, who stands up without a word at the ceremony and disappears as a fun-devil who "always just grumbling", the partner appears to her as someone who always shows himself to others at his best.
While talking in such situations helps and understanding the perception of others can clarify much, a relationship is poisoned when I secretly check my partner's cell phone, portray him as a cheater, or talk to a former classmate about old times or him Sexually interested, if he smiles when paying in the cafe of the barmaid. If such jealousy increases, the relationship will sooner or later be destroyed. For the wrongfully suspected, there is no alternative in the end to parting to escape hell.
Emotional and sexual jealousy
A recent study from Pennsylvania showed that "jealousy" does not exist, but that the specific expression depends on the form of relationship that a person prefers. People with a strong sense of closeness in the relationship are therefore particularly sensitive to emotional embezzlement, and thus become engrossed in a form of jealousy in which they do not believe that the partner "really loves" them. If this form of excess takes over, they put their partners under increasing pressure, building up distance to protect themselves, and the relationship becomes a destructive spiral.
However, those who value independence in their relationship are not afraid of emotional infidelity; they do not even see them in the same light as their partner, who longs for closeness. He has no problem with his girlfriend or boyfriend going to the movies with other people, having a different circle of friends, or hanging out in clubs alone at night. On the contrary, he also claims that for himself and sees it as a sign of a healthy relationship in which both "do not constantly squat on each other". However, such people often have sexual loyalty very important.
From the bad quality to the delusion
Increased jealousy can turn into a delusion. The boundaries are fluid, but the difference is that heightened form still has an anchor in reality, while a Wahner's disease confirms itself and integrates every external stimulus only into the closed system of delusion.
Pathological jealousy quickly turns the relationship into an agony. (Image: Antonioguillem / fotolia.com) A delusion pathologically distorts reality, and those affected cling to their twisted vision with absolute conviction, even though their perception is in opposition to objective reality, to their own life experience and to the judgment of friends and acquaintances.
Mad adults often refuse to test their judgments at all. They need and want no justification and often look down contemptuously upon those who have not understood "the truth". "It is so", and those who doubt it with the best of reasons, the delusional is either stupid or as a liar.
Those affected relate external events to themselves, even natural phenomena such as rain or sunshine, but also conversations whose subject matter is completely different, glances or scraps of words, texts on billboards, quotes in television shows, etc.
This has the jealousy in common with megalomania, descent or conspiracy delusion - in fact, some sufferers generally suffer from delusions. Not only do these sufferers believe that their partner has sex with others behind their backs; they also mean, for example, that evil powers wanted to poison them with cell phone radiation, that they were an unrecognized genius, that dark forces would bring envy for their place in the sun, etc.
Jealousy and sex addiction
"A jealous guy is worse than a great dog." Karel Capek
Morbidly jealous people often do not meet the demands that they place on their partner - and this contradiction becomes pathological when it is no longer a matter of calculation or deliberately selfish behavior.
Thus, some sufferers are notorious even as notorious Schürzenjäger or correspond to what has been called in earlier times as "Mannstoll". They have to constantly confirm themselves through sexual achievements, which extends to sexual assaults. As a rule, they brag about their sexual conquests.
At the same time, however, they are extremely controlling with their respective partners; they can not bear it if they even look at another man or woman. This also has to do with pathological forms of projection. They often do not realize that they are submitting their own behavior to the partner.
While under certain circumstances, the relationship partner in the evening sitting alone in front of the TV, while the possessive opponent has drunken drunk with a stranger in the pub-toilet, he then rings an hour later storm and showered with reproaches.
Jealous sufferers are often themselves unfaithful - assume their own behavior but the partner. (Image: Antonioguillem / fotolia.com) While he has just found favor with a twenty-year-old and meets his still-girlfriend at a garden party, he restlessly snaps when he tells her that she does not want to go cycling with him home because he's drunk. She wanted, he roars, only with (...) jump into bed.
Sometimes the delusional now projects his own behavior more on the partner, the less their behavior corresponds to his allegations. This is no coincidence: it dawns on him that the further she is, the more stable her behavior is, the more she will distance herself from him and eventually break up.
Promiscuousness and morbid jealousy are not opposites: the sexual conquests need the delusional yes to prove his sexual value, which he doubts. For the same reason, he fears that his (permanent) partner has sex with others - he considers himself to be inadequate. The paradox between the accusation of sexual fidelity of the partner and their own promiscuity blends into delusion.
Sooner or later, every mentally healthy person will break away from such a relationship. But with the patient, only a new spiral of possessive conquests, sexual self-affirmation, and broken relationships begins. He is just jealous because he feels deeply lonely himself, and the proximity that could end this loneliness, made impossible by his attacks.
based diseases
In fact, a jealousy is often based on a basic disease. For example, it is typical of alcoholism, paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline symptom and narcissistic disorders, and sometimes it is associated with anxiety disorders and psychosomatic illnesses. Hypochondria, the Munchausen syndrome, or the dissociative personality disorder are often associated with morbid jealousy.
What characterizes jealousy?
The affected person is convinced that his partner cheats or deceives him, even if all the evidence speaks against it. On the contrary: If the partner gives no real reason to be suspicious, the delusional sees it as proof that the partner disguises his behavior.
Even though friends, acquaintances and relatives blame the jealous that they have not seen the slightest sign that justifies his suspicions, he sticks to his conviction. Jealousy is even here in conspiracy delusion: Who tries to talk the victim out of his madness, "is with the partner under one roof".
It is not harmless spinning. People who are delusional about their partner's infidelity become aggressive towards it, and by the way, they are rarely opposed to the alleged rival. That's enough for murder - we'll talk about the intimicide.
Mental jealousy is anything but harmless, as it often results in aggression towards the partner. (Image: Kzenon / fotolia.com) How does morbid jealousy arise??
Jealousy springs from one's own needs and only apparently from the behavior of others. The causes are manifold, but in the heightened case, there are usually three problems: those affected firstly value how much others love them, take care of them, admire them - but have problems themselves in giving love.
This often goes hand in hand with a narcissistic disorder, a false self sustained by the admiration of others. Such people feel worthless if they do not get the attention and affection of another. Secondly, there is self-doubt, the feeling of not being lovable and, thirdly, a thinking of possessions in which the partner becomes personal property and the equally expanded and unstable ego.
The drama of this is that people with such a mind destroys what they long for, getting attention and love in the positive sense of someone else, through their own behavior. Love is part of trust, and this attacks the jealous through their controlling behavior.
How should someone open a partner, love him, if he spies on him, how can someone by binding his partner to provide security, if it creates by constant accusations at best distance.
Poison for the relationship
In fact, the morbid belief in the partner's unfaithfulness kills any wholesome relationship, unless the person concerned becomes involved with a masochistic partner who starts on such a psychoterror. Psychologically stable people respond to the mental prison into which the jealous person locks them, in the long run with separation: At some point they seek a partner who leaves them the vital freedom. Or they logically enter into an affair to compensate for the constant stress. As a result, the person affected feels confirmed again.
People who suffer from pathological jealousy often have this same experience in relationships, but without learning. This is not because they are generally not able to learn, but because their madness system is so self-contained that they themselves can not get out of this mental prison.
At the beginning of relationships with sexual partners, those affected can even be attractive because the fresh relationship partner does not yet understand the boundary between attention and monitoring. First of all, the jealous person appears as the opposite of indifference.
Especially people who themselves have relationships in which the partner did not care, whether they sleep with someone else, go out with someone else, often feel that the partner does not care if they are even in a relationship at all or not. The jealous now gives the partner the feeling of being needed. He craves attention, and some people are only too happy to give this attention at the beginning of a relationship.
If a partner actually "escapes" into an affair, this is the confirmation for morbidly jealous persons: "I've always known it". (Image: andriano_cz / fotolia.com) What to do about jealousy?
If the jealousy has not yet assumed delusional features, it can be got under control. However, this presupposes that the person concerned develops an awareness of the problem.
First of all, he has to realize that his jealousy, first, has nothing to do with the partner and, secondly, that there is no love. It's not about the other, but about the victim himself, and now he has to face his fear of being abandoned or worth nothing.
Then the sufferers have to start accepting themselves and accepting them as lovable people. This is a long process because the roots of the lack of self-esteem are mostly childhood.
Furthermore, it is about doing something yourself. Jealous people depend heavily on their partner, and when they have made themselves dependent, they blame their partner. In fact, they consider their partner, and other people, more attractive, more interesting, generally better than themselves.
This lack of feeling for one's self-esteem is best changed by one's own experience. Those who cultivate their own social contacts, pursue their own interests and meet their own friends, become more independent. But whoever feels more independent, has less to lose. His fear disappears that the partner leaves him, because he could live well without a partner. Slowly, this also changes the relationship itself to the positive. Your own ventures bring the relationship back to life.
risk factors
Jealousy itself is a basic feeling, whether we like it or not, just like anger, grief or joy. Certain risk factors can make them crazy. In addition to the feeling of inferiority, this includes a depressive mood, a pathological consumer behavior, in addition to alcohol abuse, the abuse of other substances, especially psychoactive drugs can distort perception.
abuse of trust
An important mental factor is real abuse of trust in past relationships. Those who have been lied to and betrayed by their partner find it difficult to get involved with anyone again. He almost expects the new partner to cheat him again and is looking for secret signs. However, it is part of the basic psychic wisdom that people with such patterns of relationships actually get back to fraudulent partners, while they scare honest partners after a short time by their jealousy again.
Behind this is a tragic psycho-logic: The cheater has an easy time dealing with jealousy, even when it becomes morbid. In contrast to the respectable partner, he always comes up with a lie to appease the person concerned - and hardly a person is as easy to manipulate as someone who suffers from a delusion.
For the honest partner, however, the false insinuations initially get on his nerves; when he develops deep feelings in the relationship he increasingly suffers from tyrannical behavior, sooner or later he will no longer play his role as unjustly accused because he is not doing anything wrong has done.
However, if the old experience of misuse of trust has become a delusion, then the person concerned will no longer be able to understand that it has different reasons this time, when the new and honest partner leaves him. Rather, he feels now confirmed that "they are all the same".
A loyal partner who has developed strong feelings in the relationship will not be able to stand the false insinuations any more. (Image: Nontavut / fotolia.com) Latent homosexuality
A trigger for pathological jealousy can also be latent or repressed homosexuality. Whether man or woman, those affected now feel extreme fear of loss, when friends or girlfriends for whom the friendship has no sexual component, enter into sexual relations.
Unaware of their sexual attraction, those affected try to rationalize their jealousy. The new partner "does not do her any good", "I want to protect him from being exploited" are common suggestions. This delusion is especially dangerous. The affected just split off that it is (sexual-intimate) jealousy. There would be no reason to be jealous because the friend from the sandbox has finally found his great love.
But the attachment to this friend, to this friend had previously libidinous features. Not only sexual partners of the opposite sex, but also friendships of the object of desire for people of the same sex can now trigger dangerous actions.
Thus jealousy dramas are known in which the perpetrator seriously wounded a friend after the perpetrator had spent a long time abroad, and when he returned another man apparently took the place of the best friend, and after the fact said: "I love you, you do not understand that. "
Parent phenomena
Almost always the delusion is based on a superordinate phenomenon, and the delusional behavior can only be changed if this cause is treated. Often, however, a scaffold of behavioral disorders builds up over the original diseases, which must be removed piece by piece.
The pathologically jealous, for example, also gets into conflict with the police because he is constantly involved in brawls, he lacks impulse control, and he has an authority problem; He scratches his arms and stages pseudo-suicide attempts to attract attention. He is a drug addict and suffers from obsessions, he collects psychosomatic illnesses.
The fear of loss does not fall from the sky. Those affected have often had loss experiences, often orphans who are constantly looking for the loving parents they never had and never can have. Others were sexually abused by their fathers or mothers as children, and this sexual and trusting abuse of caregivers, without whom they could not live, is reflected in their further relationship patterns.
But it does not have to be sexual abuse - neglect works just like poison. Anyone who has been neglected as a child, expects this neglect in later life again and again fears it. If the partner goes out alone now or spends a weekend with the parents without the "neglected child" the old feeling is back - the helplessness. Controlling the partner, locking him up in a cage now offers the pathological certainty that he does not disappear like mother or father.
Above all, an extremely jealous person is a person who can not handle closeness because he did not have the positive experience of being close as a child.
How do pathological jealous people behave??
For people who suffer from morbid jealousy, these hobbies, occupation, friendships and social contacts displace. Strange as it may sound, the conviction of the partner's infidelity also suppresses the relationship itself: the person concerned no longer perceives the real relationship at all.
Instead of worrying about what he and his partner could cook together, where they want to go on holiday, what's in the cinema, or even just washing the dishes together, disappears behind the delusion. Jealousy becomes alcoholic for the sick. That's what makes an addiction special.
The secret browsing in the partner's cell phone is an important sign of exaggerated jealousy. (Image: Antonioguillem / fotolia.com) Are you at risk?
You can check for yourself if you develop a morbid jealousy:
1) read the SMS of your partner when he is not there; Search his personal belongings for supposed evidence?
2) Interpret your partner's behavior as evidence of infidelity without any reason?
3) Secretly check what your partner is doing when he's alone?
4) Do you ask acquaintances, friends, and relatives what your partner is doing when you're not there? Note that this is not curiosity but mistrust?
5) If you accuse your partner of unfaithfulness, you will be deprived?
6) Do you control your partner with calls, sms or emails? Curse him when he chats with other people on Facebook or Instagram?
7) Do not believe your partner when he tells you what he did at work, on the way home or before breakfast?
Does that mostly apply to them? Then a consultation by a psychotherapist or psychologist is recommended for a jealous consultation hour. Here you can find causes, background and possible solutions for their behavior.
If their jealousy is not pathological, after the first step, awareness of the problem, it's relatively easy to get out of the burdening patterns.
However, if it turns out that the cause is a psychiatric illness, then make sure that they are referred to special therapists.
Murderous jealousy
Jealousy can kill. The reason is simple: The main cause of violence is offense. Disgruntled rulers slaughter entire peoples, behind many wars were insults as triggers.
Without psychologizing the deeper economic causes, this even played a role in the First World War: his British relatives always regarded Kaiser Wilhelm II as from above. The development of the German fleet in the years before 1914 was also due to this deep feeling of inferiority.
In relationships, however, nothing offends as much as the withdrawal of love. Anyone who did not experience unconditional love as a child, and in rightful or wrongful relationships feels unloved in later relationships, develops revenge feelings towards the partner in the worst case.
The murderousness of jealousy is now in the basic feeling: if I can not have her or him, then no one else. As grotesque as it sounds. When the person destroys what he believes he loves, he seems to regain a lost control - which, in reality, he never had.
Often, sufferers retain their morbid behavior even after the relationship has ended, for example by pursue the ex-partner and make his life difficult. (Image: Mirko / fotolia.com) Destroying relationships
Jealousy does not lead to murder in very few cases, but sufferers often harass former partners for many years when they have a new relationship. They are well aware that the old relationship is over, but they still can not change their behavior.
They lurk on their ex-partner, they collect information about the ex-girlfriend, who are useless in every way, they meticulously put together every detail about life in the new relationship, without any objective sense.
If the "success" sets in, then they do not win the partner back, but have at least managed to destroy the new relationship.
Incidentally, the jealousy of people who have not experienced love and closeness must not only refer to the current or past partner. In the same way, they try to disrupt people's relationships in their social environment.
Be it the buddy they are jealous of, because he is considered a heartthrob that they put in a bad light with potential sexual partners; be it your best friend, who recommend her the most unattractive garments to shine next to her.
Conflicts in the relationship
Increased jealousy in a relationship can also lead to harmful patterns from both partners. While the individual observes the partner at every turn, the supervised person avoids anything that could cause suspicion and thus puts himself under increasing pressure. What's more, in order not to disturb his partner, he conceals things where there is nothing to hide.
Without any ulterior motives he meets, for example, with his former boss. Since the partner could understand this as a sexual approach, he meets secretly. If the partner gets it out now, she sees herself confirmed, because obviously he has reason to keep the meeting secret.
Both partners are in demand. The jealous person usually assumes that the other person just has to behave "right" and everything would be fine. But it is he who can break his thought prison.
For example, a diary can help here, in which he / she writes honestly about his / her feelings and discusses them with the partner. It is important for the partner to show that he / she takes these feelings seriously, even if they have nothing to do with the concrete behavior of the object of jealousy.
Mindfulness is now in the foreground for the person concerned: What do I feel? When did I ever feel that? At six o'clock on New Year's Eve, when I was alone in bed, sad that no one was hugging me? Write down when you feel special jealousy, and when none at all. What are the triggers?
You can also take a behavioral therapy. Jealous behavior is behavior, and behavior can only be changed if you want to change it, and especially if you know what behavior to change. Strong jealous people are responsible, and an important step is to take them on.
So instead of saying to the partner you've just publicly insulted because he was with a buddy at the zoo, "You provoked that," it's necessary to admit that there's no justification for your own behavior - just after You will find explanations for this admission.
Absolute openness is necessary, especially for relationships that are poisoned as a result of the fear of losing the partner's love. This implies that the partners agree to talk about jealousy dramas at a "neutral" time about what actually happened.
The attacked partner should neither defend nor give in to the attacks. It's better to go for a walk and say, "we'll talk about it when you've calmed down," and then do it.
In conversation, the jealous partner should force himself to listen to the other closely. (Image: Adam Gregor / fotolia.com) During the discussions, one should not hide anything from the person concerned, however difficult that may be. Meanwhile, the jealous should force himself to listen. By the way, concentration exercises like yoga help. He should concentrate on what the other person says, not on what is going on in his own mind.
The Attacked man would do well to forgive the jealous. This does not mean to present the behavior as correct, but to show that he understands the fears of the partner. Allegations of how much jealousy puts a strain on the relationship are of no use.
Alcoholism and jealousy
Chronic alcoholics sometimes develop a delusion of being cheated on by their partner (and their fellow human beings). This is accompanied by general feelings of inferiority, which brings with it the knowledge of one's own addictions. Jealousy and paranoia are closely intertwined with alcoholics. Especially in the alcoholized state, this can lead to killing offenses. Such a delusion affects almost exclusively men.
For a partner there is nothing to clarify here. He can only say goodbye to the relationship or go to the partner at a distance, until he has reached an absolute alcohol abstinence. Intimate conversations that can otherwise change a relationship into a joyful experience with heightened jealousy are not only out of place, but potentially a dangerous window dressing.
It does not matter what the person promises in a sober state. He is a ticking time bomb without control. The next complete rush can be the last one for the partner. The withdrawal of alcohol can support a psychotherapy or highly potent antipsychotics. Even with absolute alcohol withdrawal, however, the jealousy of this disease develops only very slowly or not at all. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)