This is a subject that I feel is VITAL for everyone to think deeply about: are you the jealous type, or perhaps your loved one is? How does it make you feel? Have you seen anything good ever come out of jealousy?

I have been in 2 serious relationships in my life and have gone to all the extremes and back. In my first relationship I was the mega jealous one and in the second one, I was on the other side. Finally in my current new one, both of us trust each other enough not to be jealous. I shall go into reasons why people feel that way and perhaps give you something to think about.

Lets go to the scenario where YOU are the jealous one (if you’re not, this will help you understand why your partner is). Have a think firstly, WHY are you jealous?
♥ Do you not trust your partner?
♥ Are you afraid that he/she might find someone “better”?
♥ Do you think that he/she is only for YOU and noone else? Why?
♥ Do you not trust the people your partner is friends with?
♥ Do you believe that men and women cannot ever be just friends?

(note: just to make it easier to read, I will refer to “the partner” as “he” in the general sense, it just looks ugly writing he/she all the time)

If you don’t trust your partner:

Has he ever cheated on you before, or do you know of someone he’s cheated on? If yes, then you have a reason to feel this way and it may be worth thinking if its worth being with someone who treated you this way. Has he really changed? It sure is possible, just be careful.

If no, (please don’t close this page if you get angry, that would be a sign that I’m right and you should address those feelings) then is it possible that you are inventing these feeling just to cause conflict? Yes there are people who do that, you may not even be aware of it. Could you be doing that because deep down you don’t really like the person you’re with and you need an excuse to get out?

If you are afraid that he might find someone better:

Sadly this is an issue many people face, and even more sadly, this all goes back to LOVING YOURSELF! The reason why you may be worried is likely because you aren’t confident enough about yourself, about your looks or personality, or feelings like “I’m not good enough”. Let me give you some advice – throw those thoughts out of head!! You most certainly ARE good enough! You are beautiful and smart and funny and loving and its time you remembered that. It makes me sad to see people who don’t love themselves, please please please do something about that, in my opinion its one of the most important things you will ever do!

It would take too long to list all the ways on how you can begin loving yourself, you can have a look online, but I’ll tell you my story in short. From age 11-16 I had seriously bad acne, it was pretty much all over the place – it didn’t do wonders for my self esteem. I thought how anyone could ever love me this way, I would look in the mirror and think that even I wouldn’t kiss myself! My mum saw me struggling and told me to look in the mirror and just say out loud: “I love myself, I am beautiful” etc. I thought it was stupid (like what teenager listens to such things?!) but after maybe a year, I decided to try it out, must have been 14-15. I don’t know how it works – but it bloody works!! Ok so I would still photoshop spots out of my photos, but a lot less than before, and I didn’t even seem to notice them after a while. At age 16 I met my first boyfriend and he didn’t even notice the bad skin, which was such a shock to me, thinking how could he possibly like kissing me, but he just laughed at me when I asked and told me that he loves the whole of me and doesn’t even notice some silly little spots. I was like O.o !!!!

Sometimes, girls especially, worry too much about silly little things that don’t really matter, and most likely your guy wouldn’t even notice. Also, don’t give him a hard time for staring at other girls on the streets, its not nice but it doesn’t mean he is thinking of cheating, appreciating beauty is not a crime (unless he does it waaay too much in a creepy way of course)

If you think that he/she is only for YOU and no one else

This is the most dangerous one, in my opinion. It may be a sign of possessiveness, dominance and need for control. If you are feeling this way, try digging deep inside yourself, when did you first notice this jealousy? Does it have anything to do with your childhood (as a lot of things are)?

Do you not let him see them friends? Meet your friends? Go out on his own without telling you first? Do you get violent if something does not go according according to your plan? – This may be a very deep fear and it is possible to get rid of it by meditation or with the help of natural healers. The important bit is to dig out WHEN this issue began, so you can deal with it and move past it.

If its your partner who has this problem and they don’t believe in meditation, it may be helpful for them to see a psychologist. If they refuse, I urge you to be careful, it may seem like small things at first, like controlling your Facebook and checking your phone, but it can get worse. If it does, please have the courage to leave the situation at its roots, you are so much better than this “relationship”!! Find someone who can support you, who will help you if you are scared of the consequences, but there’s nothing more important than your well-being in a situation like this.

You may think that you have “no one” – but I can assure you that there are good people out there who would help. I had a situation like that, we had moved in together and signed a contract for the flat for 6 months. After 2 months I came crying to the estate agents – not only did they give us the deposit back, but a woman who was working there offered me to stay at her place until I find a new house! Thankfully I didn’t have to use the offer, but it just shows that the universe will help you, if you just have the courage to take the first step.

If you don’t trust your partner’s friends:

Get to know them, but actually try to like them, you never know, you may get along well! If you become friends, they will be less likely to drive your loved one away from you (if that was their intention in the first place).

Also, you may not trust his friends, but you should trust your partner as that it the most important thing. He will be able to control himself if a dodgy situation arises, and if it persists you should trust that he will make the right decision to stay friends with that person or not.

If he does indeed go off with one of his friends…well there’s nothing you could have done to prevent that, if something is meant to happen it will happen – so WHY WASTE YOUR ENERGY ON IT?? If you really love him, you will want him to be happy, even if it means letting him go… (yes this takes time, but you can do it!)

If you believe that men and women cannot and should not be friends

So you already know about my second relationship – now this was the big problem in my first one, where I was the jealous one. I was seriously convinced that its NOT right for men and women to be friends, and I didn’t let my boyfriend have any friends.

Why do people think that? It could be cultural upbringing. It could be personal experience. Personally I’ve just never had male friends (until I turned 23) who wanted to just be “friends”. My whole perception of that changed when I met my current spiritual community, where everyone is equal in the sense that we are all one. For the first time (and I’m seriously good at knowing when someone likes someone) in my life, I didn’t feel like (some) my new guy friends wanted something more from me, it was SUCH a relief, and totally blew my mind – wow, guys and girls CAN be friends!

How to deal with jealousy?

Not everyone can get rid of jealousy completely, and that is ok, as long as it isn’t hurting you and the other person. If you’re miserable, then it may need some work. It’s ok to feel a slight “ping” if you catch your man staring at another girl, you can calm yourself down by reminding yourself that this amazing soul is with YOU and not her!

Trust and honesty are two of the most important things in a relationship. If there is no trust, then why are you together? You should also place your trust, not just in the other person, but in the universe/creator too. If something happens, yes it will suck, but what if that is how its meant to be? What if you had to break up, in order to find your PERFECT person in a few months time? Or what if being together will cause one of you to get sick, or be miserable, or miss out on some opportunity – you really never know.

After my last relationship ended, I was “done”. I just surrendered myself to the universe and waited for whatever is meant to happen to happen. I wrote about this in a blog post here so I wont repeat myself about how and what happened.

What was interesting about this relationship though, is that for once in my life, both of us completely trust each other. I am actually a little shocked by this, I was talking to him on Skype last night and he had ex wife and her new husband staying at his house for a while. At first there was this slight O.o moment, but after like half a second it was gone, and I mean like totally and completely gone!! Just one look into his eyes, even through the camera, and that’s enough to know that I’m the only one on his mind – what an amazing feeling.

From his side, it’s the same. I have quite a few guy friends and it is such a relief to know that I can tell my boyfriend that I’m going to watch a movie with a guy friend and he will be ok with it! I’ve had to sacrifice friendships for past relationships before and it’s not a nice feeling, especially if your friend has no idea why you’ve stopped speaking to them.

As a last thought, in my opinion, jealousy just doesn’t lead to anything good. Some women try to get their boyfriends attention through flirting with other guys to get them jealous (and vice versa) but what does it cause? Usually in angry words and tears. It just makes you look like you’re not loyal, when in reality you very well may be. I know for sure that I’m not going to waste any more time and nerves on this emotion, it’s done nothing but cause problems in my life, so if you would like a honest and trusting relationship, why not give it a go. You may be surprised at how liberating it is to trust one another.