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Insecurities in Relationships

Many couples experience various levels of insecurity in their relationships. The most common insecurity is jealousy and it can be very destructive to a happy and loving relationship. Jealousy takes varies forms such as anger, fear, hurt, and betrayal, just to name a few. Feelings of agitation, sorrow, paranoia, depression and loneliness often take over when a person feels jealous. A jealous person can be possessive, while feeling inadequate, powerless and excluded. Let’s look at what is at the root of jealousy and how it can be dealt with and eliminated, so that a happy loving relationship can thrive!

The first thing that a jealous person needs to do is to understand the emotions they experience when they are jealous. By narrowing things down and addressing the emotions that are at the root of jealousy, the issues can be dealt with. As a helpful exercise, a person can assign a percentage to each of the negative emotions that they feel when they are jealous. For example, a person might discover that when they are jealous, they may feel scared 50% of the time and angry, powerless, and betrayed for the rest of the time in various percentages. The emotion that dominates should be addressed first in an effort to eliminate jealousy.

After the biggest negative emotion is dealt with, the other emotions can be worked on and sorted out over time. This process of dealing with negative emotions at the root of jealousy needs to be addressed by the couple mutually. The partner of a person, who is jealous, needs to be supportive by offering them reassurance, love and understanding on their journey to moving past their negative emotions.

Basically, fear is the dominating emotion at the root of most jealousy. In particular, there are five types of fears that people are most vulnerable to; fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of losing control of being weakened, fear of shortage or loss and fear of abandonment. The root of these individual fears may be very complex and personal and it is helpful to understand where these fears may have come from. If a person knows where their fears come from, they can better process them and move past them in a positive way.

Often jealousy results from personal insecurities, such as feelings of worthiness, anxiety around being a sufficient lover and doubts about personal attractiveness or desirability. Jealousy is only the surface emotion. The real issues are deeper than that. Generally, jealousy results from personal needs that have not being met or fears of potential unmet needs. It is key to discover what needs a jealous person fees are not being met. What is a jealous person afraid of? The fight or flight mode is activated when a person feels jealous. They feel that their survival or level of security in a relationship is being challenged or threatened. The solution lies in looking deep into the insecure roots of the matter.

In overcoming jealousy, a person needs to find out what exactly it is that they are afraid of. What is required to make them feel a sense of safety or security in the situation? What is the worst thing that could happen? What are the chances of this happening? The answers to these questions can bring a jealous person some peace, contentment and trust again. Often fear takes over a person’s emotions and once fear is dealt with in a productive way, things become much better and happier in a loving relationship.