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.
Jealousy may be driven by low self-esteem or a poor self-image. If you don't feel attractive and confident, it can be hard to truly believe that your partner loves and values you. Other times, jealousy can be caused by unrealistic expectations about the relationship.
Jealousy can come from feelings of low self-esteem or lack of confidence. And when someone is unhappy about themselves, feels anxious and insecure, this can lead to feelings of jealousy and being out of control. Jealousy is slightly different from envy. You can envy someone for something they have.
Jealousy is an emotion reflecting weakness and desperation. Females are predominately associated with emotion, which may be why they are thought of as being more jealous than males. Males are generally associated with “tougher” forms of emotion, such as anger.
People envy you because you're living the dream. They resent you for your opportunities and accomplishments and feel like they can't compete with you. They might also feel like they don't have what it takes to be as successful as you. Such people love to stick their nose in everything you do and try to learn from you.
If you're the target of jealousy, you may feel like someone (usually a partner or friend) is trying to control your life. They might do things such as check up on you, try to tell you what to do (or not do) and how to act, or limit your contact with friends and coworkers.
Unhealthy Jealousy
Eventually, jealous people feel so overwhelmed by their emotions and insecurities that they begin to exert control over their partners. They may resort to financial abuse, verbal bullying, and violence in order to maintain control and alleviate or mask their feelings.
The current research aimed to shed light on why people differ in romantic jealousy. Our findings suggest that people differ in jealousy partly because of genetic influences, but mostly because of nonshared environmental influences.
At some point in life, you have probably encountered a jealous person either at work or in your social life. Jealous people usually are insecure and have low self-esteem. Their insecurity can manifest in many different ways.
Though most people experience a bout of jealousy at some point, it's not necessarily a good place to be—it's negative, unpleasant, and unhealthy for you; and sometimes detrimental to others. Jealous feelings can lower self-worth, increase emotional instability, and break up relationships.
This emotion can significantly affect your mental health. In terms of relationships, jealous feelings can lead to anxiety due to worry or suspicion. It may cause people to doubt themselves and their partners, leading to insecurity and a lack of trust.
It could be attention, comfort, warmth, support, etc. It could be that they are not used to kindness and so, they naturally get attracted to you like a moth to a flame. However, people like these are often insecure. And one thing about insecure people is that they quickly get jealous of others.
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.
But, unchecked, consuming jealousy can be toxic and destroy relationships. That's why we need to know how to recognize it and respond in a productive way, Stern and others say.
Delusional jealousy is a psychotic disorder and should be treated mainly with antipsychotics, while obsessive jealousy resembles obsessive-compulsive disorder and should be treated with SSRIs and cognitive-behavioural therapy.
“Another common red flag is jealousy and distrust,” says Trueblood. “Often, the red flag of a very insecure partner looks like attentiveness at the start of a relationship, but there's an underlying control problem beneath all the attention.
Jealous people are often non-confrontational. They may even come across as super-friendly; they fight their fight against you underhandedly. They will downplay your achievements, spread malicious gossip about you, or just talk crap regarding you behind your back.
Sometimes, the main reason behind gossiping is envy and jealousy. When someone is envious of someone else, he might gossip about him in order to let people hate him.
According to Jonathan Dvash, neuroscientist at the University of Haifa, the sympathetic nervous system buckles under the stress of jealousy, quickening the heart and spiking blood pressure. Left unchecked over time, this could lead to hypertension and heart disease. Holding onto jealousy isn't worth heart failure.
Consistent with this definition, Buunk (1997) distinguished between three qualitatively different types of jealousy: reactive, anxious and preventive jealousy.
Jealousy is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences from time to time. It often stems from romantic relationships and can be feelings of unhappiness, anxiety, and anger caused by a belief or fear that your partner may be unfaithful or interested in someone else.
People that are prone to intense jealousy or possessiveness often harbor feelings of inadequacy or inferiority and have a tendency to compare themselves to others. Jealousy, at its core, is a byproduct of fear, fear of not being good enough, fear of loss.
Your friend becomes clingy and shows signs of possessiveness, especially when you make new friends. They start blaming your new friends for anything that goes wrong, criticizing you, and trying to isolate you from others. Toxic people tend to get insecure and feel that they are being replaced.