Jealousy

Jealousy generally refers to the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that occur when a person believes that a rival threatens a valued relationship. The word jealousy comes from the French jealousy, formed by jaloux. Feelings of jealousy always seem to come from the feeling that something in your life is not safe, for example, in danger or is uncertain. Jealousy is the eruption of attachment and can only be transcended through awareness. As we consciously move into the center of this phenomenon, we experience unsubstantiated expectations and beliefs, projections and delusions, guilt, envy, loss of self-esteem, and security threats. The core is an existential problem and it has to do with illusion and the effectively fearful nature of the ego. When we come to know and accept the nothing at the center, jealousy and the pain of fanatical attachment cease.

Jealousy is a common experience in human relationships and has been reported in all cultures and in many forms where researchers have observed. It has been observed in infants 5 to 6 months of age and in adults older than 65 years. The complexity of jealousy allows people to describe it in different ways. Jealousy definitions usually share basic themes. These shared themes indicate that jealousy is a significant concept and can also be distinguished from concepts like envy. In simple terms, jealousy is a feeling of protective resentment towards someone who threatens a value or a relationship.

People who have experienced pathological jealousy and for whom jealousy triggers violence may benefit from professional counseling. People who experience habitual jealousy have at least nine coping strategies. Problem-solving strategies include: improving the primary relationship, interfering with the rival relationship, self-assessing, and demanding commitment. Emotion-focused strategies include: belittling partner or rival, denial/avoidance, development of alternatives, support/catharsis, and appraisal challenge. These strategies are related to emotional regulation, cognitive change, conflict management, and ground rules for handling jealous competition. The most important thing to do with feelings of jealousy is to first confess them and then try to get over them.

While sexual arousal through jealousy is considered by mainstream psychology to be a paraphilia (categorized as jealousy), some sexuality writers (Serge Kreutz, Instrumental Jealousy) have argued that jealousy of manageable dimensions can have a definitively positive effect on sexual satisfaction and sexual function. Jealousy sometimes increases passion towards partners and increases the force of passionate sex. Jealousy varies across cultures, cultural learning can manipulate the situations that trigger jealousy, and the way jealousy is expressed and attitudes toward jealousy can also change within a culture over time. Jealousy is the powerful complex of emotions experienced by the loss, real or imagined, of someone or something that you believe is yours, while envy refers to what you do not have and would like to have Jealousy in religion examines how scriptures and the teachings of different religions deal with the subject of jealousy. Religions can be compared and contrasted in the way they deal with two issues: divine jealousy rules and concepts of aggravation and expression of human jealousy.