Jealousy shouldn’t be confused with envy. Envy is something you want but don’t have, whereas jealousy is something you already have but are afraid of losing. There is a big difference. Jealousy makes you feel inadequate. In the case of a relationship, jealousy show’s itself when your partner likes, or is liked, by someone else and you become threatened.
A little bit of jealousy in a relationship can be healthy. However when jealousy shifts into high gear it can drive your partner away. Jealousy of this nature, or morbid jealousy as it’s clinical term states, can extend from immaturity, insecurity, anxiety or in extreme cases a mental health disorder. It can absolutely ruin a relationship.
When you have to bear the brunt of this kind of jealousy, a partner will go to extreme lengths to control the threat of losing their boyfriend. Attempting to try and control their feelings of inadequacy with questioning, tactics, manipulation and lies is common, it becomes relentless, ruthless, unjustified and seems far from fair. Whether their jealousy stems from a real threat or an imagined one, is irrelevant, it’s the behaviour and response to those feelings that will ruin a relationship. Imagine being so caught up in jealousy, that you weren’t enjoying the relationship that you were in, and were in fact destroying it as a result. Disintegration of the relationship ensues when constant jealousy starts chipping away at it.
Here’s 10 signs jealousy is ruining your relationship.
1. You constantly check social media
All of us from time to time check out social media out of curiosity. We check to see what our boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend is doing or what she looks like now. Admit it, we all do it. All kinds of willpower is needed to avoid doing it once or twice in your relationship. If however, you find yourself checking a potential threat’s social media account, or Facebook check-in status’ constantly to see if she is in the same vicinity as your boyfriend, you might have a problem. Do you know the password to your boyfriend’s account and log in to check his profile to keep tabs on him for the same reason? Are you blocking a perceived rival and then continually unblocking her to keep a close eye on her? Social media has ruined many more than one relationship through jealousy and cyber stalking, be careful it doesn’t ruin yours.
2. You go through his phone
If you find yourself picking up his phone when he is asleep or in the bathroom, rummaging through his text messages and call log, then not only is this a jealousy issue but it’s a trust one as well; and that’s a completely different article! If you get caught fishing through his phone then you may be packing your bags.
3. You call him 10 times while he is out with the boys
He’s on a night out with the boys and you’ve already called him 10 times to “check in.” Enough said, you clearly want to make sure he’s not in a strip club, talking to other women or having too much fun without you.
4. You control which female friends he can see
If you have jealousy issues, this is a big one. If you find yourself controlling your partner’s female friend circle by allowing him only to be friends with the ones that you don’t perceive there to be any risk involved. For example a married female friend as opposed to a single one, then you almost certainly have a jealousy issue that could potentially ruin your relationship.
5. You check his bank statements
What are you looking for here? Hotel room payments on the credit card? Big cash withdrawals on a night out with the boys? Stop rushing to the letterbox every time the mailman turns the corner it will send you crazy looking for reasons to justify your jealousy.
6. You lose the plot when he comes home late from work
Jealousy doesn’t have to stem from the threat of another person, although mostly in a relationship it does, it can be anything that threatens to take your boyfriend away from you and your time together, like his job. As soon as he walks in the door are you putting him under the spotlight asking him 20 questions of who, when, why and what? And why was he home in 25 minutes when you know it only takes 10. Stop with the barrage of questions.
7. You send text messages or make calls to numbers on his phone you don’t recognise.
Are you sending random text messages or making calls to numbers in his phone that you don’t recognize in an attempt to bait who the caller might be? Classic jealous and manipulative behavior. There is nothing else to say here except this kind of high gear jealousy is almost certain to ruin your relationship.
8. You manipulate & fabricate the truth
When a threat to the relationship is present, the jealousy manifests largely in the form of manipulation of situations and fabrication of the truth. When someone can’t control you, they tend to try and control how another person is perceived. In an attempt to pull you into their jealous realm, a jealous person will simply start making up lies to their benefit and manipulating situations to make themselves look better. When the truth comes out, and it will, the only person who looks bad is the jealous manipulator. Game over.
9. You watch his every move.
Jealousy will send this one from 0-100 in 10 seconds. When you feel there is a perceived threat to your relationship you become a better detective than Sherlock Holmes. Be careful, the tables may turn and the only person who will be under the magnifying glass is you.
10. You blame everyone else
A threatened partner will always try to find a scapegoat to lay blame in order to justify their jealousy. They will find any way possible to manipulate the situation to make it appear that their jealousy has validity, even when it doesn’t. Deflecting inadequate jealous feelings away from yourself in an attempt to make it appear that the problem lies in another person’s behaviour, is classic jealousy. Scapegoat’s make it incredibly easy for jealous feelings to remain well hidden.
Let me re-iterate that jealousy and envy are two completely different things. It’s natural to want to protect what you have if you feel you are going to lose it. Maybe your jealousy radar is right, in which case, you don’t want to be in a relationship with him anyway. If however, your jealousy is constant, unjustified, based solely in your imagination, or stems from your own anxieties and insecurities, then more than likely you are pushing away the very thing you are trying so desperately to hold on to.
