A person is rarely jealous from a state of inner confidence. More often this happens when self -esteem is swinging, and confidence in the relationship is unstable. We are not afraid that the beloved will go to “someone better”-we are afraid that we are not good enough to stay. For jealousy in such cases, there is fear of being replaced, forgotten, rejected. Anxiety inevitably arises: "What if he/she really will find someone more interesting, more fun, sexier?" And this anxiety is not about another person - it is about her own wounds.

Sometimes jealousy is not so much about another as about ourselves. We can be jealous even when we understand that there are no objective reasons. Because in the depths of us there is a dependence on the attention of a partner. We seem to “sit down” on the feeling that we are needed, important, noticed. And if something suddenly changes, the partner is busy, does not answer, he says with someone else-there is a breakdown. So it is not love, but emotional dependence, when a partner becomes the only source of self -confidence.

And it happens that jealousy is a scream of longing. We miss attention, warmth, views, touch. We lack emotional contact, and then any little things - a smile on the phone, someone else's comment, a belated answer - are perceived as a threat. We begin to fight not with the opponent, but with our own sense of loneliness inside the couple.

Jealousy in such cases is not anger, but a pain that does not find another way out. And if you just suppress it, nothing changes. On the contrary, it is important to ask yourself honest questions: what do I really feel? What is I missing? Where are my boundaries? And what am I expecting from a partner?

Sometimes jealousy can be a reason for conversation. About needs, about fears, about vulnerability. But if jealousy turns into a permanent background, constant, controls and torments - this is already a signal. Perhaps this is not love, but an internal deficit that cannot be replenished with external attention.

To understand your jealousy means to get out of the role of the victim and become honest with yourself. This is not easy. But this is the only way to turn jealousy not into destruction, but into a height point: personal, emotional and, possibly, paired.