It’s an unfortunate reality of the dating world: There’s going to be some jealousy sometimes. And jealousy is a tricky subject, because reassurances often sound like confirmations of wrongdoing to someone with insecurities. A little jealousy is completely normal in a relationship, such as if a partner does something that raises obvious red flags. You spent the night at your ex’s house and didn’t tell your girlfriend until two weeks later? Yeah, expect to be in trouble. But too much jealousy isn’t such a good thing – and if it starts to get in the way of both of your happiness, you’ll need to address it.
But how?
Start the conversation.
The first step will be to let your girlfriend know that her jealousy is actually a problem. There might be some compromises necessary, which you two will work out together. Are there certain things that you do that make her jealous? Try to work on those issues, but also remind her that you’ve done nothing wrong and you need a little trust.
Recognize the early signs.
Most likely, her jealousy follows a pattern. Recognizing the pattern when it’s still early enough to stop it can sometimes make all the difference. You should decide a sign for you to give when her jealousy is becoming a problem – a way you can let her know gently. Confronting her aggressively will make things worse, so try to be fair.
Don’t cater to her.
Yes, there are some things you should do to prevent unnecessary jealousy with your partner. But if you remove all the triggers, you’re not fixing the problem – you’re encouraging the bad behavior by giving it a positive response. (That is to say, she wants you to avoid all situations where her jealousy is triggered – if you do this, you’re enabling her.) Instead, you should focus on the feelings of jealousy themselves. If you’re respecting your partner, she should be able to give you some breathing room.
Go to therapy together, if necessary.
In some cases, the jealousy might be impacting her life in a very serious way, too, and you might need to go to a counselor to address these issues. Chances are, she’s not going to like the idea right away, but that’s just because our society has conditioned us to think that counseling is something we should be ashamed of. It’s not. These counselors wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t a common problem – and they just might be able to help.
Be patient.
Of course, we all want to stop jealousy as quickly as possible, but realistically that’s probably not how it’ll work out. You need to be patient and realize that some problems take a while to sort out, and her jealousy and insecurities are probably going to take a little while. You’ll need to work together, too – neither of you can do this entirely on your own, and it wouldn’t be fair to try.
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