Overpowering Jealousy! Help!

Is there any way you can define what jealousy 'feels' like please?
For example, love feels like requirement beyond reason and hate feels like there's something needs doing that you are not permitted to do.

Hang on got it.
Other persons have more than you and you feel the world looks you up and down then says 'never you'?.

Smile, shake your emotion and mind back to plain zero, put the smile correct again and reboot, do not leave the smile fake..
It sounds ridiculous but that's all there is, so many fail til they are so old it no longer matters, the problem is in you as you freely admit.

This jealousy makes me feel angry, anxious, stressed, and bitter. My body physically responds to the first initial jealous thought...my stomach turns in knots and my whole body shakes. That's when the yelling ensues and the arguing commences...confusion rushes over me during the arguments and headaches take over. All the while I'm crying because I feel so strong about being righteous in my jealousy as well as my thoughts tracing back to all the hurt I saw my Mother go through...

It sounds as though you have let it build to quite alarming levels, I feel for you, perhaps some practice in the lesser worrisome areas around it?.

Perhaps if your not careful you end up in a catch 22 loop, the same as depression traps people.. The simple truth's to fix it are often disbelieved.

You may have to work on some spiritual aspects if your body responds first, that implies a soul issue.. which needs a degree of ignoring or cultivating.
Upset is no good for you, reacting to it is your current issue.

I don't meant to be obnoxious, but I can't read this dense post, so I am splitting it up, probably to your own sense of paragraphs (skip a line between them, please). But I might add my own paragraphing. I'm interested as I start to read.


I'm 25 years old. My jealousy concerning other females dates back to when I was a girl, about 9 or 10. I would see my Mother get treated like garbage from her boyfriends all the time. I remember her ex-husband made her watch porn (while I was home) and constantly compared her to the women in that filth, telling her that she will never look as good as those women do...that she's fat, ugly, and no man will ever desire her. My Mother was always degraded by every man she chose to be with and she never seemed to be enough for them. She was cheated on left and right but never chose to change her situation or make her life better. She always just stayed with these scumbags because she was afraid to be alone. She always settled.

Because I was exposed to pornography at such a young age (her ex-husband had tons of porno magazines, movies, decks of cards with sex pictures printed on them, sex toys, etc), and because of the way I saw my Mother be treated and her reaction to everything, I've built a sturdy jealousy ridden wall, envying every woman I think is attractive or better than me. Every relationship I've been in, my jealousy floods my mind after the first 2 months into it. My self-esteem has always been bottom of the barrel and I seem to have a hard time valuing myself.

I'm currently in a relationship with an amazing guy; we've been together for about 10 months now and have been living together for almost 3 months. My jealousy reared it's head not too long after I moved in with him. I've made him delete girls off his facebook that he used to "be with" or even felt attracted to; I've had him throw away and delete pictures of all of his old girlfriends; I've made him delete female friends' phone numbers; I've made him throw out particular DVD's that showcased women being taken advantage of...and I've done my share of snooping on his laptop, deleting photos and documents, logging into his facebook and reading all of his messages from years ago and recent, I've de-activated his myspace...we're constantly arguing about going to the movies because there might be a hot girl in it...we argue about going out for drinks because he might check out some pretty girls...I'm constantly worrying that I'm going to lose him to someone 10x better than me...BUT...all of this is starting to push steam out of my ears because I'm so fed up with behaving like a child over every little thing regarding other females.

I know the root of my jealousy and I can embrace it because I can understand where it stems from (as I mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs). I feel like I am at a stand-still now because I've lived half of my life feeding that ugly little monster and now I just want to destroy it...I don't want to live my life worrying if he might find someone better. & I know that if I keep worrying about losing him combined with all of this jealousy, that I WILL end up losing him.

I've ruined my past relationships because of the exact same behaviors...so why haven't I learned anything from those mistakes? I'm sharing all of this because I truly do not want to be tied to the tracks while the jealousy train runs me over and over and over for the rest of my life. I need help, some advice, before I completely ruin my relationship...and possibly my life...with this bull.
Please and thank you.
Alaina


Good post, Alaina.
You seem to understand yourself, as much as most of us can do. The obvious answer is counseling, but therapists vary. I'm interested in how you can yourself move on with your own mind and emotions.

Sorry if my re-paragraphing is somehow insulting - I think you are a good writer.

I think I think that your take on what is going on is a good start.

Do you think therapists appreciate the emotional reactionary value of a million patients?..

Trying to fix it would be better than telling people to go for therapy they are unlikely to seek, given they prefer momentary responses and in fact admit they are too jealous to accept inferiority of image.

Everyone who wants in her knickers has been taught to accept it all, everyone else prefers to say 'therapy'..

Hello? I didn't tell her to go to therapy.

I doubt Alaina prefers, at least at this point, momentary responses.

Oh, yes, you are correct, I misread..
Please accept my apologies.

Thank you, I appreciate the compliment on my writing

All day I've been looking up forums about jealousy, reading other peoples' stories, I purchased a book online about living without jealousy and empowering myself, and I've searched online for psychologists in my town that specialize in sexual trauma counseling.
I am more than interested in seeking guidance from a trained professional because I need to learn new skills to adapt to such a change in my life. It's funny because I've seen quite a number of therapists in the past to straighten out my depression...but not one of those sessions did my jealousy become an important topic to cover.
As I grow older, I realize that the world around me will not change. I have no control over the way reality is and it is remarkably unreasonable to expect my boyfriend to live under a rock. The only thing I am able to control out of this whole circumstance is myself--I can only change MY perceptions.

Like I said, I just need to acquire the proper skills to maintain this mindset to avoid slipping into my old habits.

I think you will work it out, not easy, but in some combination of your own developing good sense and knowing the reality of jealousy, sometimes your nose knows.. and sometimes it reacts out of fright.

I don't dislike therapists, but I think a poor one is a sad and expensive waste of time or worse.

Jealousy comes from a feeling of not being loved
or
who we love will abandon us
or
who we love prefers another
or
we are not getting what we want.

If you look at all this, the relationship you had with your mother is where all these feelings stem.

Before you lose this man, please get some therapy, preferably with an older woman who can nurture you and help you resolve these feelings.