Being jealous

Being jealous is about the ideas of scarcity your personality entertains. He believes that when someone else gets something, it is not available for you, and 'attention' is the subject here. On top of that, your personality is highly interested in 'being special', and the better this is expressed through exclusive attention for him, the more he likes it. Now where else than in a relation between two people can this be expressed in such a close way, more special is impossible!

Your personality believes there is a connection between focusing attention and being special. When someone else focuses his attention exclusively on you, then this is considered to be 'special enough'. He will even return the favour. Now what when the attention is focused on something else? Let's start with something neutral, like the television, a hobby or likewise. When this happens on moments where you expected the attention to be directed towards you, then this is ground for jealousy: in this case there is 'something' which takes it away from you.

Then there is the situation where it is about other people who are subject of attention besides you, and this is already the case with one new person. Now you not only have to face that the attention is taken away from you, at least for a part, the black-and-white thought patterns of your personality add another issue here (when it is true that when you focus your attention on me that I am THUS special, then I am NOT special to you when you do not focus your attention on me) the element that to your partner (let's take him as an example) someone else is more interesting, important, sweet or whatever, at least for this moment.

Actually, your personality wants you to be the only person with whom your partner can have a really good time, everyone and everything else is a threat to this status. You even suspect the risk that your partner may like this 'other person or activity' even better than you, which according to your personality means that you are 'less good' and even increases the risk that this means that even more attention is taken away from you.

By the way, jealousy applies to each and everyone who takes away the attention from your partner for you, so even the dog, the kids, the neighbor, work, thinking about former loved ones, etc. The more your personality judges this to be a risk for you, the more jealous your reaction will be. Your personality feels rejected in his specialness.

This is all apart from the fact that you yourself now have to face that you have to do something else during the time where your partner focuses his attention on someone or something else, since his time is not available to you now. This not only 'forces' you to find an activity for yourself whilst your partner already knows what to do with his time, you also are facing these unpleasant feelings, so this is not likely to become very pleasant for you. You may even add here the fact that you have limited yourself to your partner (in this example) as the ultimate source for real fun, which does not make it easier for you either.

Of course you have learned to deal with these kind of situations during your life, and your personality has developed ways like nuances, numbing, hiding, rationalizing, solutions etc., however, you know this has not taken away the real source of the issue here, your first interpretation and reaction are still repeated over and over again.

Recognizing the ways in which your personality uses this, is the start of letting go of your investment in this whole process. Do not blame yourself for doing this, this is what personalities do. When you feel like it, you might want to forgive yourself for doing this (you may look at the column forgive). Your inner Self has no need for specialness, and does not depend on the attention of another person for feelings of inner Peace and well-being. So seek, find and strengthen this aspect within yourself when you really want to make a change, other columns on this site may help you here. Like for example you may consider the BEcourse inspiration service. Also, you may want to read the columns 'when your relationship is over - more about Love' column category feelings and 'put pressure on someone' column category when things do not go the way you want.