Dealing with a Jealous Partner

From: Dr. Frank Gunzburg

Dealing with a jealous partner is never an easy situation. Being the object of someone’s jealousy is frustrating, worrisome, and sometimes frightening. The sad truth is that when jealousy enters a relationship both partners suffer from its effects. There is simply no way around that.

The truth is that you don’t deserve to be exposed to fits of jealous rage. No matter what you do, even if you have made mistakes in your relationship, you don’t deserve to be treated disrespectfully by a jealous partner. Again, Greg and Laura’s story is an excellent reflection of this. Though there is little question Greg could have acted in a more appropriate way, he still didn’t deserve to be exposed to Laura’s jealous outrage.

However, this truth does not give you an excuse to act in ways that are hurtful to your spouse. You are still in a marriage, and while you may not be at fault, you should still keep in mind that you want to do what you can to help your spouse feel secure in your relationship and more comfortable and positive about you when you are with others, socially or in business.

For this reason, the first thing I recommend you do is take a close look at yourself and anything you are actually doing—regardless of the innocence of your intentions—that might be invoking your spouse’s jealousy. It might also be that you are unintentionally provoking a jealous response in your partner. Perhaps you are doing something that has a seductive or provocative appearance, and in general that is not something you want to do when you can easily avoid it.

The following are a few behaviors that might be invoking a jealous response in your spouse. This list is not comprehensive, nor does it cover every possible infraction. Your spouse has her own needs, and in order to make sure you aren’t unintentionally crossing some boundaries, you should consider her needs carefully so you can identify the behaviors that are troubling her.

• Body language with people of the opposite sex that implies a physical attraction: touching, tossing hair, hugging, kissing, close dancing, ogling
• Socializing the way you did when you were single without your spouse, particularly with members of the opposite gender
• Seeing people of the opposite gender outside the context of work even when business does not specifically demand it
• Taking personal calls at home (or on your cell) from people of the opposite gender
• Coming home late without calling
• Maintaining intimate emotional relationships with people or a person of the other gender
• Being attentive to a friend or co-worker and not being as attentive to your spouse
• Acting lackadaisical, uninterested, ho-hum, bored, inured, apathetic, or some other way that shows a lack of interest and a lack of specialness toward your spouse—particularly when you speak well of someone else in your life

If you take a moment to step back and look objectively, it’s easy to see why these types of behaviors are mostly inappropriate in the context of a marriage. Even if you are certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt that you would never cheat on your spouse, behaviors such as those listed above run the risk of beginning a slippery slope towards more active involvement with someone else, and less active involvement with your spouse. If your marriage is truly the most important relationship in your life, why would you do anything even remotely risky to that relationship?

I know for some of you that may sound a little unreasonable or even unfair. Why should you act differently even though you haven’t done anything wrong? Why should you suffer because your spouse has problems with jealousy?

In the long run, you probably won’t “suffer” as much as you are afraid you will. Remember, when you’re married, you’re no longer single. You have gone through a one-way door and it isn’t right that you act the way a single person does. You need to start making decisions in your life based, not only on what’s best for you, but on what’s best for your marriage. And that will likely mean instituting some behaviors that show you cherish your spouse, and giving up some other behaviors that are creating jealous tensions in your relationship.

What’s more, you can’t allow your self-sacrifice to be taken to an extreme. It’s one thing to give up being openly flirtatious with other men after you are married. It’s another thing to have your husband monitoring the color or design of your clothing or telling you what you want for dinner. If you find yourself in this latter situation, the desire to control based on jealousy has been taken to an unhealthy extreme. And in this scenario it behooves your spouse to take some action to change his behaviors. The steps on turning bad jealousy into good jealousy should help with that process.

Once you have looked closely at your own behaviors and eliminated the ones that are contributing to jealousy in your relationship, there is another step you can take. If you can see that your partner is struggling with jealousy and he doesn’t talk with you about it, I would strongly encourage you to try and open up the lines of communication yourself.

This may not be easy. And in some cases, it may not even be possible. But learning a few techniques and taking an open, loving, reassuring stance on the issue can help you make it happen.

Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years.