How can you brush off your own feelings of jealousy?
That's a loaded question because jealousy itself is usually just a symptom of something else. People feel jealousy for a number of reasons. But let make sure we are talking about "jealousy" and NOT "envy".
Jealousy is an emotion that deals exclusively with internal fear and insecurity in a relationship of some kind. But envy is not relationship specific and can be associated with myriad external factors. Jealousy is about trying to "keep" something and envy is about trying to "get" something.
Jealousy is not always unfounded. And neither is it always a negative emotion. In some instances it's not even jealousy at all... it's intuition.
Every romantic monogamous relationship has a healthy level of protective jealousy/intuition infused. It is human nature and Biologist, Psychologists, and Sociologists have recognized studied the emotional, physical, and chemical effects of this natural human reaction in children as young as 5 months old.
However, jealousy can quickly become unhealthy when the person experiencing that emotion feels trapped, helpless, or lacks the skills to communicate / resolve their feelings rationally. Uncontrollable jealousy leads to outward physical manifestations of depression, aggressive disposition, even rage and very possibly violence.
If at any point I felt any form of jealousy forcing me to do things out of character I would immediately talk to someone in a professional capacity.
But short of such drastic measures most people simply need to learn to recognize what they are feeling. Identify the source of those feelings. And then learn to articulate why the situation makes them feel that way.
In every healthy relationship resolution of such feelings requires that both parties be aware of the source and take measures to increase trust and decrease uncertainty.
In cases where both parties are unwilling to make any concessions at all for the other the unresolved emotions can become a cancer that ultimately destroys the relationship.
I advise all couples to take Communications Counseling/Coaching as early in the relationship as possible. Let me know if this helps.
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