Relationships

The Ultimate Guide To Stop Being Jealous And Clingy

It is engraved in your nature, though.

How jealous are you? The truth is, most people won’t answer this question honestly. When a relationship starts, a little bit of jealousy can be attractive.

Nevertheless, as with everything else in life, there’s a line nobody should cross. If you’re going through a jealousy-related crisis, you’re a jealous person or have been involved in this type of relationship, this article is for you.

I’m not in the position to write an overly general ineffective guide on how to change your partner’s distrustful ways. Yet, I can help you understand why you’re feeling attracted to their jealous and possessive personality.

The dark side of romance:

Want to know how my day went? I dare say we all expect our partners to show such a level of interest every day. We all want to feel desired, noticed, valued.

There are healthy levels of romantic interest that are part of our evolutive development.

Yet, when you caught your lover digging through your stuff, looking for clues, scents, or stains, everything starts feeling different.

Jealousy is the inevitable dark side of love that nobody wants to acknowledge, and everyone has experienced it at some point in their love life.

Sometimes jealousy becomes a noticeable symptom of a mental health problem that’s showing you its dangerously possessive teeth.

These are the things you should keep in mind when dating someone:

Are jealous boyfriends better? Yes. In a very unhealthy way, they are incomparable.

Please bear with me while I make my point.

As a person who went through a seven-year relationship with a jealous man with mild OCD (you cannot imagine how unbearable that mix was), I can tell you that having an extremely jealous boyfriend is fantastic because they really make an effort to get to know you.

So they can use everything they know to manipulate you later. My ex-boyfriend was “amazing” because:

• He remembered everything I said.
• He also learned each tiny little detail about me.
• He bathed me with a type of attention that made me feel unique, cared and loved as never before

Regardless of their gender, a jealous partner will always know what the best gift to give you is, the place you’ve always wanted to visit, and will make tremendous efforts to get involved with your family, your friends, perhaps even your co-workers.

At first, a relationship with such a person feels like being heard for the first time. It feels like true love… until it doesn’t.

After the first year, I started noticing subtle changes. The insinuations of infidelity that I used to think were sexy -as they reinforced my self-esteem- became so constant that they made me lose my patience.

Why do we get jealous?

I know this is a familiar subject for everyone. Nevertheless, let’s start by defining what jealousy is so we can be on the same ground for the rest of this journey:

“Sexual jealousy is a basic emotion.” — David M. Buss.

So, first of all, there’s more than one type of jealousy. There’s sexual jealousy, but there’s also emotional jealousy, which according to studies, is more prevalent in females than males.

But why do we need to be either emotionally or sexually jealous? Well, that’s a question answered in this phenomenal video with Leif Ottensen’s dissertation.

Nevertheless, we can also sum it all up, by quoting Buss’ work on “Sexual jealousy,” our possessiveness towards our mates is an evolutionary trait:

“It evolved because it solves adaptive problems of mating. Some adaptive functions are similar in men and women at one level of abstraction, such as warding off potential mate poachers and deterring relationship defection. Other functions are sex-differentiated, such as increasing paternity probability for men and monopolizing a mate’s economic commitments for women.” — David M. Buss.

Are men more jealous?

Not exactly.

When we talk about jealousy, we are putting culture, personality, and evolution on the table. In a very elementary sense, jealousy assures survival. How’s that?

Imagine you’re a male, and you want to pass your genetics into the next generation. How can you be sure of staying around in the genetic pool? By making sure your female companion won’t mate with another male.

Now, imagine you’re a committed female. How can you be sure to bring your offspring to this world? Considering us humans are one of the most vulnerable creatures there are to raise, you’ll obviously need help.

The go-to option is, of course, the baby’s father. So keeping him away from other potential reproductive rivals is vital for you and your baby to survive.

That’s why sexual jealousy is more prevalent in men, while emotional jealousy is more prevalent in women. Finding the origins of romantic love is helping us thrive by having babies changes things a lot.

So the paradox that we evolutionarily run into is that a possessive man is perceived as a suitable mate that will stick around. Yes, we rationally know that this is far from the truth, but still …

They will aim to become all you have:

A couple of years after we started dating, my life only consisted of keeping my job and keeping him happy. Slowly but surely, I’ve complied to his every whim.

Sometimes, a jealous boyfriend also gets jealous of your family because he disagreed with how they treat you, so you also stopped visiting them.

Until one day (true story), I was in the shower shaving my legs, and he asked me why I was shaving my legs on a Thursday when I usually do it on Fridays? Of course, he didn’t believe that I woke up that morning wanting to wear a skirt. “Who would be stupid enough to buy that?”

“Were you trying to feel attractive today? How could you do that to me?” He asked in tears while screaming his heart out.

In the end, it all comes down to that. What matters the most were my jealous partner’s feelings and insecurities, his desire to control everything in my life.

Whether that reflex is there because of preservation instincts and evolution, I remember standing in the shower wondering: how I got here? We fought all the time, but it didn’t break us.

I’m not like that; we’re civilized now!

Yes! We are way beyond that. We have spaceships, internet, and chocolate cronuts now! Yes, all of that is true, but our brain’s emotional evolution isn’t as quick as our analytical evolution. Our ability to reason can help us trust each other, while our amygdala will always remain true to our rudimentary past.

Now that we made our case on how jealousy is part of us, let’s talk about some real-life experiences that portray a jealousy dynamic. I know that anyone in a similar situation will relate, so it might trigger memories some of you prefer to leave behind.

But, if you’re still trying to find the strength to leave that toxic relationship or think jealous behavior is “natural,” this is how things evolve with a highly jealous and possessive partner.

A jealous person won’t respect your boundaries:

Being in a relationship with a jealous person means you have to share everything with that person. And I literally mean everything.

I realize that because whenever I got upset and tried to set boundaries, my jealous partner interpreted it as defensiveness. “If it bothers you this much, it must mean that my suspicions are right.”

A jealous partner can’t stop guarding you as if you were about to leave with another person. Deep down, they never feel like they are enough for you or anyone else.

That’s why their attention and focus are invested entirely in making sure you’re not having a great time with another person. Instead of making love, cooking together, or contemplating life’s perils, they have something very different in mind.

What they want is to make sure you can’t find joy in anyone else, only with them, and sometimes not even that.

Avoid falling right into their trap:

I eventually started playing the same game. How else could I hang out with my friends but lying to my boyfriend?

Of course, I needed to do it because telling the truth always brought endless fights. So, there I was having a coffee with my friends, and suddenly I saw my boyfriend’s car going down the street. I was caught red-handed with a mocha mustache that proves everything.

Then, we went through a “trust” crisis. After the coffee shop incident, he had reasons to doubt me, so I agreed to stop seeing my friends. The rope got even tighter.

Then everything repeats itself:

Did you think we had reached the worst part? Of course not! Have you been through a toxic relationship before? If the answer is yes, you already know that the pinnacle of possessiveness is having your phone checked, your passwords and emails hacked, and, of course, all the physical and emotional violence that follows.

But then, the “honeymoon phase” starts again, and you get caught in 2 more years of this vicious cycle.

How can anyone manage to get out?

What you can do if you’re in love with a jealous person:

If I had to define jealousy in my own words, I would say it’s a painful predisposition to be distrustful based on a mutual lack of self-esteem.

Of course, the responsibility to fight their demons is theirs. So you need to understand:

There is nothing you can do to help, apart from attending couple’s counseling with them if you truly believe there’s hope for your relationship. Yet, keep in mind that, for the most part, the ball’s on their court when it comes to analyzing why they feel so insecure about being loved.

It took me seven years to realize that all of that attention he gave me, in the beginning, were small bricks of the wall he built around me. I helped him all the way through until I almost wasn’t able to breathe.

The funniest thing was that being so worried about me cheating on him -who was always full of suspicions and accusations- also gave him an excuse to cheat on me every time he could.

What got me out of there:

After a relationship like that, what you need is to focus on yourself for a while. In my case, the combination of dance, therapy, pets, and friends helped me tremendously.

Figure out what makes you stay for so long and how to prevent that from ever happening again.

What to do if you’re attracted to a jealous person?

There is a lot to analyze inside of your mind too. Jealousy seen from afar is very similar to romantic interest. Ask yourself:

• Why are you attracted to people who show you an unhealthy level of attention?
• Why do you keep returning to occupy the abused role?
• Is jealousy a part of your family history?
• Are you afraid they’ll leave you?
• Does the persecution to which you’re submitted make you feel special?
• Have you considered that you’re being seen as property, as an object, and therefore disposable?

Our presuppositions define the world. From the way we long to be loved to the abuse we tolerate. Accepting your worth, working on your self-esteem, and letting go of toxic relationships in time is part of a virtuous circle in which, every time, you’re going to be growing into your true loving self.