How to Stop Relationship Jealousy and Insecurity

Are you constantly feeling jealous and insecure in your relationship or marriage? Do you wish you could stop being a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend? If you are reading this, you sure must have come to a point where you wonder, why am I so jealous and paranoid?

Some assume that jealousy is a sign of love and this is not true. It is a sign of insecurity. Insecurity is ugly, it doesn’t look good. Constant jealousy and insecurity can ruin your relationship and make you unhappy. How can you stop this?

First, let’s explore why you are jealous and insecure all the time.

Why you are jealous and insecure

You have fear of abandonment

When you are constantly afraid that your partner will leave you, anxiety arises to an unhealthy level. You become insecure and terrified that they will leave you. Fear of abandonment arises from our upbringing.

If your parents were unavailable or one parent abandoned you, you grow up with the fear that the people you love will abandon you. This is why it is important to reparent yourself and correct the mistakes of our parents. Otherwise, all the hurt that your childhood put on you can affect all the relationships you are trying to create.

You lack self-awareness and self-mastery

When you don’t know yourself well, you don’t understand yourself and you don’t have a relationship with yourself. Sounds like jibberish? Read on.

Self-awareness is all about learning who you are, the good and the bad, acknowledging them and accepting them. When you know yourself enough, you develop a good relationship with yourself. You value yourself, feel you are good enough and no one can use your flaws against you.

How does this contribute to feeling insecure and jealous in a relationship? When you have a sense of value independently, without needing validation from your partner, it gives you security.

You don’t need your partner to make you feel good about yourself. On the other hand, when you don’t have self-mastery and a good relationship with yourself, you feel the need to cling onto your partner so that they can validate you.

What happens when they are not available to do this? It breaks you. You start thinking that they will feel that you are not good enough and leave you.

You lack confidence and self-worth

When you don’t feel good enough for your partner, you are constantly worried that they will leave you for someone else. When you doubt your abilities, think you are not good looking enough or you’re enough for them, you live in constant fear that they will one day realize that you are not worth it and walk away from you. This can also lead to you sabotage your relationship since you believe you don’t deserve them.

How to stop being jealous and possessive

Explore what is causing these feelings

Explore of you feel insecure due to fear of abandonment, low self-worth, low confidence, feeling that you are good enough. You could also be feeling jealous and insecure because you know and have facts that your partner is not faithful and trustworthy.

Sometimes, you may have created unfounded fears in your mind and entertained them long enough to start believing them,

Healthy boundaries

Healthy boundaries are important in any relationship, whether personal or professional. Form boundaries in your relationship and reduce codependency. Learn to detach yourself from your partner. You are not one item, you are two unique individuals and you need to live as such.

In a codependent relationship, boundaries are blurred such that you feel the need to share emotions or share each other’s pain. However, with detachment, can let your partner be an independent individual and allow yourself the same thing.

This means they can have their own set of friends, hobbies, privacy, and you can respect this without feeling cast out.

Get rid of irrational thoughts

If you are constantly feeling jealous and insecure and worrying that your partner will cheat on you or leave you, chances are that it is all in your head. Irrational thoughts can affect you once you entertain them in your mind until they start seeming like reality.

This is especially if you have ever been cheated on before. You constantly lookout for ‘signs’ that you had seen in the other relationships. Sometimes, you mislead these signs and hurt your relationship when you constantly accuse your partner of things that are not true.

Take charge of your thoughts and develop emotional maturity. I wrote about it in 3 thoughts that could completely transform your life; a step towards emotional maturity. Check it out and see how you can take charge of your thoughts and stop being a victim of irrational thinking.

Communicate

Open up the communication channels in your relationship. Sometimes we overthink situations simply because we don’t understand them or mislead them. These situations could have been saved if we just asked a question and got the right answer.

If you have concerns about something in your relationships, such as a colleague or someone that keeps calling your partner, ask. Then choose to trust them. If you trust them, then the answer they give you should settle you well enough not to overthink it and be jealous.

On the other hand, don’t ask about everyone in their phonebook. This shows insecurity and it is not an attractive trait. Unless you have a good reason to ask about a certain person, let it slide. Letting little things slide is the highest level of emotional maturity.

It’s what Mark Manson talks about the art of not giving a f*uck.

You can’t control everything

You can’t control everything and sometimes it’s wise to accept that not everything is within your control. Knowing this, stop worrying about the things you can’t control and focus on the things you can control. I wrote this in detail on how to transform your life using the circle of control and circle of concern.

You cannot control what your partner does when they are not out there. There is no need to work yourself over it if there is nothing you can do about it. Surely, you cannot quit your job and follow your partner around all day. This is not an attractive trait at all.

Choose to focus on improving yourself and making yourself better. You can control how you react to the feelings of jealousy. You can work yourself through your insecurities and vow to become a better person. If you can’t control it, don’t sweat it.

Date people that you trust

Trust is essential in a relationship. If you are dating people that you can’t trust, chances are you will feel insecure all the time because they have given you reasons not to trust them. If you date someone that you saw cheat on another person in a relationship, you may constantly think that they will cheat on you the same way.

This is why it’s important to develop a friendship or relationship with someone’s character so that you can love them for who they are. If you trust someone, you will sleep soundly knowing that this person chose you, and will likely keep it that way.

Respect their choices

If someone wants to stay with you, they will. If they want to leave, they will. There is no amount of worrying, controlling or insecurity will change this. When you are in a relationship with someone, you have chosen to be with them. The same way they have made a choice. You have a right to change your mind, and so do they.

Trust that the person to stay with you because they have made the choice to. Trust that they will choose you every day because they have proven that so far. And if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world.

You will be ok

Whether your relationship stays on or ends, you will be alright. Think about it, you were ok without this person before you met them, you will be ok without them should they leave. Have a little confidence and some faith in yourself.

Feelings of jealousy and insecurity are largely caused by worrying that this person will choose someone else over you. What if they do? They could! Know that it will hurt, but you will get out of that relationship wiser, stronger and you will be ok. It will not be the end of the world.

Recommended book: Models by Mark Manson