Jealousy; It is an emotion that exists together with the relationship and is seen by society as an integral part of love. Underneath the feeling of jealousy lies the fear of losing an important person and the anxiety about the deterioration or loss of the relationship. It is also an emotion based on fear and pain that a person feels in order to protect and maintain his/her relationship.
“A person who loves becomes jealous.” His judgment appears as a prejudice transmitted from generation to generation. The person presents this as a reasonable explanation for the intense feeling of jealousy he experiences. So, is jealousy really related to love? Research shows that jealousy has a very low connection with love. Because jealousy contains both love and hate. An emotion that contains such a strong hatred cannot only be related to love. So we can say; Jealousy is not an indicator of love, but its shadow.
If we examine jealousy in depth, it is an emotion related to the individual dynamics of the person, whose origins go back to children and adolescence. In other words, it also manifests itself as a delayed reaction to a period when the individual feels humiliated, inadequate or helpless. It is closely related to a person's individual identity and self-esteem.
If we look at the socio-cultural approach; Jealousy is a social and cultural phenomenon. The individual learns to be jealous based on the rules he learns and the attitudes he observes in the society he lives in. It has been observed that the individual learns jealousy and develops this attitude by taking the people who care for him as a model through selective internalization.
Individuals with intense feelings of jealousy generally describe this situation as a way to protect and protect their relationships. If we consider ways to protect the relationship; This can be achieved in a way that requires more sharing, dedication and understanding. However, jealous individuals do this by getting angry, resentful, threatening or using force. He tries to ensure his partner's loyalty through threats or pressure. But loyalty is achieved through love, not threats. All behaviors involving control and pressure as a result of jealousy will only cause the partner to drift away and the efforts we make to protect him will be destroyed. It ends with the loss of the relationship.
At the same time, jealous individuals tend to constantly find a rival and compete with him. Here too, the situation is not the love attributed to the partner, but rather the rivals that the person creates for himself due to his personal inadequacy, his belief that he is worthless and flawed. The tendency to feel inferior to the person with whom one competes forces one to defeat him. But the problem is often not the competitor; The problem is the individual's internal processes. This situation becomes a cycle and constantly reproduces itself. Even though the person believes that he will be comfortable when he eliminates these rivals, unresolved processes related to himself will push him to find a rival again and he will always find himself in this exhausting war.
When we examine jealousy, we also encounter differences between gender and relationship types. Women perform more control interventions for emotional cheating and men for sexual cheating; It has been determined that women show more jealousy reactions than men, and single people show more jealousy reactions than married people. According to research, married individuals' less jealous reactions indicate that they have reached relational satisfaction, their relationships are more secure, and they now have less anxiety due to the belief of possessing the other party.
If we examine the causes of jealousy; We can base it on three main factors. First of all, factors such as the individual's insecurity about himself, his own essence, inadequacy and worthlessness affect low self-esteem and form the basis of the feeling of jealousy. A second factor is the fear of loss or abandonment, which is based on one's past and affects the present. These people may have experienced abandonment in their past lives or may have grown up with the fear of it. It is possible that they grew up with caregivers who were often inconsistent, unstable, had sudden outbursts and angry outbursts, and were exposed to experiences that disrupted secure attachment with their parents. A child exposed to this experiences intense anxiety about losing his parents or caregivers. When he grows up and becomes an adult, this anxiety that he cannot resolve does not leave him and he may make an intense effort to control himself in order not to lose his partner. The other factor is trust. trace. In insecurity, factors such as being exposed to abuse by parents or caregivers, taking the suspicious and insecure attitudes of parents as a model, growing up with anxious, violent, trust-shattering, damaging attitudes, and being constantly warned that others are untrustworthy can create the perception of insecurity in the person, and this perception affects the established relationships. It may be reflected as jealousy.
Individuals have a lot of responsibility in resolving jealousy. First of all, it should not be forgotten that the problem in relationships is the reactions to jealousy rather than jealousy. Therefore, the person must first evaluate and filter the behaviors that arise as a result of his thoughts.
Changing the judgment that jealousy is the criterion of love is also one of the effective ways. If you want to show love, it will be easier and healthier to show it directly and with positive attitudes, rather than through jealousy.
One of the points that a person must realize in order to solve jealousy, and the point where people make the most mistakes, is the "I" in the relationship. It means that there can be no “us” by destroying the “we”. When jealousy comes into play, the person expects the other person to compromise on himself, and in order for the other person to do so, he first compromises on himself. However, within a healthy "we" there must be a "me" and a "you". Instead of giving up ourselves and our values for our partner or trying to dissuade him/her, we should try to be "we" by preserving the "I". This is how the strongest "we" survive.
Finding the underlying reason for one's jealousy will show what one needs to solve. The primary goal of people who want to get rid of the intense burden of jealousy and the pain, fear and anxiety it causes is to discover the cause. It should not be forgotten that if the reasons do not change, the events; If events do not change, the results will not change.
If, despite all this, the person still cannot get rid of the burden, anxiety and fear caused by the feeling of jealousy, continues to harm both himself and his relationship despite all his efforts, and has to lose all his values just because of this. , the primary goal should be to receive psychological support.
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