There is not one root cause for someone's jealous behaviors or feelings, but there are a few reasons why someone might feel this way, including insecurity, past history, or fear of loss. Jealousy can be triggered by these and might create tensions within your relationships.
Jealousy is often motivated by insecurity or fear. Showing compassion to your loved one for these difficult feelings is paramount. Talk openly about what triggers their jealousy and what changes may help them feel less upset.
“Jealousy is the highest form of flattery.”
Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem. And it's true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.
Feeling jealous is a signal that someone else might be putting a relationship you have and rely on at risk — and you may need to do something about it to either save that relationship or find what you're getting out of that relationship somewhere else. “Jealousy is hard-wired in all of us,” Jalal says.
Jealousy is often rooted in insecurities and fears that a person may not even realize they have. These could include fear of oversimplification, fear of inadequacy, fear of abandonment, fear of being replaced, and fear of being judged.
At some point or another, we've all gotten a little jealous. Thankfully, those envy pangs usually fade away after a little while.
It is natural to feel jealous every once in a while, but in the long-term, it can have a negative impact on the individual and their relationships. Common symptoms of jealousy include resentment, frustration, impatience, anger, and general unpleasantness.
There is not one root cause for someone's jealous behaviors or feelings, but there are a few reasons why someone might feel this way, including insecurity, past history, or fear of loss. Jealousy can be triggered by these and might create tensions within your relationships.
Jealousy can be a sign of insecurity. Jealousy is a fear of losing something you already have, like a relationship or friendship. People who deal with jealousy may often feel threatened by other people. You may also feel that you are in competition with others, even if you're not.
Jealousy, at its core, is a byproduct of fear, fear of not being good enough, fear of loss. When it hits, it can trick us into believing our relationship is in immediate danger, making it impossible to distinguish between natural feelings of protectiveness and irrational suspicion. In other words, it's pretty terrible.
The root causes of jealousy and envy are connected to a person's inability to see what God has provided in their life and a lack of thankfulness. James 3:16 states, “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”
Too much of anything can be unhealthy, but a little jealousy is not bad or unhealthy from time to time. Jealousy is a normal human emotion, and like all our emotions, they're here to tell us something about ourselves and what we need. Emotions need to be released.
Research has identified many root causes of extreme jealousy, including low self-esteem, high neuroticism, and feeling possessive of others, particularly romantic partners. Fear of abandonment is also a key motivator.
This involves a preoccupation with the idea that a partner might be cheating, which then makes a person likely to arrive at false conclusions which then feed the suspicions even more. This is the jealousy trap, which few studies have dealt with directly.
“Studies from around the world have reported that men are more jealous of sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity,” Nicholson explains. “And women are the opposite — they're more jealous of emotional cheating than sexual cheating.”
Jealous people usually are insecure and have low self-esteem. Their insecurity can manifest in many different ways. Jealousy is very unhealthy and can affect the person who harbors jealousy as well as the person whom someone envies. It can scar him or her psychologically.
Psychotherapy is often an effective treatment for jealousy. A person who experiences jealousy might benefit from working with a therapist to process painful emotions and reframe negative, damaging thoughts that affect their behavior.