Jealousy Is The Biggest Problem In Relationship 

When it comes to relationships that develop between people, there are challenges they face during their time together that can either build their relationship or break it, depending on how things are handled. One of the negative challenges they have to face during their time together is jealousy. Jealousy can involve a variety of feelings, ranging from sad dejection to actual pride, when it comes to one’s partner is desirable to others. (Miller, 2018, p. 310) Jealousy can turn someone’s love into a rage acts of anger, fear, hopelessness, and sometimes even suicide. There’s a notorious amount of relationships that go through this struggle and ultimately couples break up in the end if not fixed. It’s definitely one of the serious problems a couple can struggle with. Due to these problems, it has prompted research on how jealousy can affect a relationship. This paper will analyze the impact jealousy has on relationships such as the impacts, gender, social media etc.

Now, when it comes to jealousy it is important to look at gender. Both male and females play a role when it comes to jealousy in a relationship. It is known that both men and women have both been jealous of one another at one point in their relationship. Men and women although different, do not differ when it comes to their jealous tendencies. For example, both men and women are strongly jealous when it comes to sexual and emotional infidelity. Historically it has been known that women have been considered “property” of men. Even in modern times men have a fear of being cheated on, they have a fear of losing their property and pride as well. Although women have been dependent and their jealousy is usually brought upon due to having fears of losing safety and resources. One obvious precursor of jealousy is dependence on a relationship ( T. C. Marshall, 2012 p. 2). Another problem that both genders face is paternity uncertainty. Women know if their child is hers or not men on the other hand, unless they are confident that their spouse didn’t have sex with other men, can not be certain that he’s the father of the child. Men have a fear of being cuckolded, his fears may include the idea that someone is taking something that is rightfully his. (Scheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p. 487). Being cuckolded and raising another man’s offspring is an evolutionary dead end (Miller, 2018 p. 314). Another example on how there is a difference in jealousy when it comes to both genders is women tend to react to a rivals interference as a way to improve their relationship. They like putting on a show of indifference and like to compete with them so they can look more attractive towards their partners. On the other hand men strive to protect their egos, they’d rather get drunk, confront and threaten their rival and pursue other women. Women try to preserve what they have in an existing relationship while men leave and try healing their wounded proud with finding new partners. Sex differences such as these have also been obtained in other studies (Miller & Maner, 2008). Women are known to most likely want to try and get their partners jealous, by usually meantioning or over exaggerating how attractive they are to other men, by flirting or dating them. They do this just to test if the man they are with cares, they do this just because they want their man to respond the way they do when they get jealous, and so they can put in more effort into protecting and maintaining the relationship. The only problem in this is men don’t typically react this way. As the text puts it, women who seek to improve their relationships by inducing jealousy in their men may succeed only in driving their partners away (Miller, 2018 p. 321). Both genders have different approaches and ways to deal with jealousy. Research suggests that men and women have different triggers for and experiences of jealousy (Buss, 2000)

Physical attractiveness and self esteem play another role when it comes to jealousy. People often worry that they can’t measure up to their partner’s expectations or what their partner is looking for. They are less certain that their relationships will last, and they are more prone to jealousy than people who feel certain they can keep their partners satisfied (Redlick, 2016). Self confidence in a relationship is often affected by a person’s global sense of self-worth. People who have high self-esteem are prone to be less jealous than those who are low in self-esteem (DeSteno et al., 2006). However, even people with generally high self-esteem can be prone to jealousy if they doubt their ability to fulfill a particular partner. (Miller, 2018 p. 312). People will often fill themselves with doubt with what kind of value they can bring to the table in their relationship. An example being that if one person is more attractive than the other person when it comes to “possessing” wealth, attractiveness and talent the less attractive person will feel as so and this can cause problems. Women who are attractive have been known to have low levels of being jealous in their relationships as well. Women who pose a high potential of attraction which resulted in low levels of threat, which means there was a low level of jealousy. As the passage (Miller, 2018 p. 313) states “The less desirable partner is likely to be aware that others could be a better match for his or her lover, and that may cause a sense of inadequacy that does not exist in other areas of his or her life (or with other partners).” This often leads to people matching themselves with other people who they think have similar values as they do. People often want to get the most desirable partner they can, but they are often scared that they can do better than them if they wanted to.

Jealousy in relationships often turns out to become a jealousy triangle. People become jealous when their partners are interested in someone else, but not all rivals are created equal. (Miller, 2018 p. 313) Friends tend to horn into romantic relationships and it’s even more upsetting when a friend turns out to be a rival rather than a stranger. No one likes to view a friend as competition when it comes to you and your significant other. Friends aren’t the only ones that can be viewed as competitors though, ex’s, children from different spouses, parents etc. can also be seen as rivals in a relationship. Sometimes the rival is someone from the past who is viewed as a preferred; the perception that someone else that was once very special, can stir up feelings of exclusion and betrayal (Sheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p 489). It’s always painful when a partner expresses renewed feelings towards a former lover. Former lovers tend to have high mate values and they can make the other person look bad which makes them worry, making them a threat in their relationship. People aren’t the only things that can cause a jealousy triangle such as work, smart phones, the internet, pornography etc. Anything that can consume the other person's time and interests can trigger jealousy between the partners.

As mentioned before, anything can come between two people and can create jealousy, one major item is social media. Majority of the time we spend on our phones or computers is on Facebook, It’s an amazing website that allows people to reach out to new and old friends. It can also become a new way to get our feelings hurt. There are a lot ways people get their feelings hurt, such as getting a friend request denied, rude comments, uploading unflattering pictures etc. As Utz, S., & Beukeboom, C. J. (2011) states, “SNS jealousy is more pronounced for individuals with low self-esteem.” There are ways that couples tend to use Facebook to show off their relationship by adding pictures of themselves or making their relationship status “official” on the website. People tend to view couples who put “In a relationship with ______” as them being committed to each other since they have put the message out into the world. Although women tend to assume that a status is more meaningful, entailing stronger feelings and more exclusivity, than men do (Fox & Warber, 2013). There are also ways people can get rather suspicious when being noisy on a significant others Facebook page which then leads to them getting rather jealousy upon the things they find. Findings can include, pictures of your lover with an old partner or still being friends with an old partner. Facebook jealousy operates in a feedback loop, such that spending more time on Facebook increases exposure to information about one’s partner that may arouse jealousy. (T. C. Marshall, 2012 p.2). It is true that women spend more time snooping, they love to monitor their partner’s Facebook activity particularly when they’re rather scared about abandonment (Muise et al., 2014). Men on the other hand, don’t do as much like women do. Facebook has pros and cons to it, a pro being that it is such wonderful ways to connect with friends and family, but it also has its cons such as making yourself worry about the things you find while snooping around your partners page. Sometimes people need to close that screen and just walk away.

The impact of jealousy can vary depending on the person and what the degree of their jealousy is. People are unable to control their emotions and it will sometimes lead to depression, anxiety and anger. These feelings tend to cause problems to human health. An example being that some people who are anxious in these situations tend to turn towards alcohol to soothe their anxiety. Even when this unhealthy coping crosses the line into alcoholism, they often don’t realize or acknowledge the full extent of their problem because that would only upset them more. ( Becker-Phelps, 2014 p.62) People also take these emotions out on partners, where they tend to act with violence physically and verbally. Even having the intention of making their partner jealous in return. There are also three degrees of jealousy , the first one being the normative jealousy where feelings are feeling momentarily threatened by a publicly recognized outside relationship (Sheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p 489). The second degree being that people have a sense of vulnerability which then has them feeling fears and obsessiveness. Finally the third being what is called “Othello Syndrome” symptoms include delusions, paranoia and even delirium (Sheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p 489). People often respond by having the intention of helping the relationships but due to their fears they can sometimes take things further than intended. Such as spying on their partner or taking away their freedom from doing things on their own or even threatening them. In many situations, the jealous person is vulnerable because of betrayals in previous relationships or there may be a legacy of perceived betrayals in the family of origin (Sheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p 489). Although it’s not always that bad, sometimes people respond positively to jealousy and will express their concerns to their partners and try to work things out. They usually tend to this by making themselves or the relationship they are in more desirable, by making themselves look better or by doing more work around the house.

Now, I have mentioned before how jealousy tends to drift couples apart and leads to breakups at times. Jealousy is a natural thing that people feel, but it’s an ugly habit that can result in nasty behavior. So because of that behavior, people often wonder what they can do so they don’t behave in such a destructive manner. One thing that can be done is having self-awareness, learning how to value yourself, work on your emotions and also to risk vulnerability. You should also be more open to positive feedback from caring people in your life (Becker-Phelps, 2014 p.161). By doing this, it can increase your better way of doing things such as being honest with your partner and listening to them as well! Another great way is to ask for support, The approach of directly asking for what you want provides you and your partner with the chance to work together on nurturing your relationship (Becker-Phelps, 2014 p.162). A person can practice two ways on asking for support. One being that they can share their needs, feelings and wants and the second being to ask concretely and directly what you want from your partner. A different approach when starting a difficult conversation conversation helps with the situation as well (Becker-Phelps, 2014 p.163). There are several steps to getting bringing a conversation up and the first step is the tone in a person's voice and the second one being that they need to pick a neutral time to talk, especially when the couple are both in a good mental and emotional state to calmly discuss things. Then you state what the problem is, always state the problem succinctly and go straight to the real issue, telling them how you are affected by the situation (Becker-Phelps, 2014 p.163). Never blame one another, never point out all the bad things that person has done because it won’t make them feel better and they can get emotionally distant and defensive. There will be times where a person may want to just lash out or run away from the situation, but the only way a couple can work through this is if they share their feelings and thoughts with one another. Being clear about one’s feelings, once someone is clear with their feelings, it's a great opportunity to share them with their partner. Lastly they can state what they need from their partner but they have to be specific, talking it over can help that person feel better and can help find a solution in the end.

If someone can’t help themselves than formal therapy is a beneficial solution. Clinics try and approach jealousy in different manners. Some of them being they try to reduce irrational, catastrophic thinking that exaggerates either the threat to the relationship or the harm that its loss would entail (Miller, 2018 p. 313). They also try and enhance one's self esteem of a jealous partner. Improving skills regarding communication so that partners can talk among themselves on their expectations and can agree on the limits that can prevent misunderstandings that can cause jealousy. Theory is often needed if a jealous partner often fear that the present situation is a replica of a betrayal or rejection that happened in the past, and these overlaps of meaning lead the individuals to overreact. (Sheinkman & Werneck, 2010 p 489). Some people don’t need therapy to help with their jealousy and need to question themselves of the relationship they are in.

People often have to ask themselves if it is even worth it in the end, having to ask themselves if the relationship they are currently involved in. Is even worth all the hassle they go through? As (Richo, D. 2011,) states “We can take both trustworthiness and untrustworthy as information about whether a relationship can go on but never as an incentive to hurt back if we are betrayed or to stay put if we are hurt”. People with these thoughts have to look at their relationships and might have to make the decision that will have to end it and it won’t be easy. There are ways to figure out if it’s worth sticking around, one of them is you have to consider how your relationship fits the requirements of a healthy one. People have to remember that they are likely to feel the happiest in a relationship if their significant other can do certain things. Such as valuing them as a person, comforting them when upset or even being responsive to their wants or needs as mentioned previously. In order for the couple to feel like equal, they have to be there for one another in the same ways. By acknowledging their emotional desires and needs, having their partner treat them with respect and also comparing the picture of their relationship with past experiences. If in the end they decided to leave their partner than there are plans on how to walk away and keep moving forward in life. It’s always a good thing to build a support system ahead of time, by turning to other people to have them as a safe heaven and to comfort you when in distress. People can also mourn, it’s important when losing a person they have been with for a while. They should remind themselves of their value and strength which can be hard but can be done to make themselves feel better. Lastly, always forgive yourself if you go back, breakups are the easily thing but with knowing what went wrong, you can have a better chance of having a healthier and more secure relationship with jealousy not involved.

In conclusion jealousy is one of the major problems that can happen in a relationship. This paper’s research analyzed the different situations that can make someone a jealous person. Such as social media, jealousy triangles, gender differences etc. As well as examining jealousy in a relationship and coming up with solutions for it. It’s remarkable how both gender and jealousy can’t be separated, as well as attractiveness it can either reduce or increase jealousy in a relationship. There are so many issues that can play in the overall fall or rise in a scale of jealousy. Overall, there is a tremendous amount of both physical and emotional attributes that come into play. That often times a relationship should come with warning signs depicting that should say “ if you do not know beyond doubt that you are a valuable and worthwhile human being with or without your partner’s love” (Miller, 2018 p. 321).