Ask Philippa: Jealousy

And how to work with it, not for it, and not against it

Write to me with any problem or dilemma at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

Dear Philippa

I’m not a jealous person, well, not until now. Over the past year jealousy been creeping up on me and I find it unbearable. When I first met my partner, we were very sexually active, but some really tragic life things happened that affected her mental health and also her sex drive. We’ve been together three years and this has been ongoing for about a year, and whilst I’m sad and hurt that we haven’t been connecting sexually, I love her and want to support her through this.

The emotional impact of the tragedy also makes it difficult for her to talk about our future together. I’m trying to be patient and supportive despite wanting to feel a bit more secure. I’ve also been really physically ill recently and she’s been amazing at looking after me, but this has added a feeling of exhaustion in the relationship.

I believe that most of this we can work through because we love each other and are open with each other about what’s going on, but there’s also my feelings of jealously that I’m trying to deal with on my own.

My partner is very gregarious and is instantly warming to be around. She has to travel away a lot for long periods because of her work, which regularly involves her socialising a lot. Rationally I trust her and on the surface ok about this, but deep down I panic that she’s going to meet someone less complicated, and she’ll leave me for them.

I want to be supportive of her independence and lifestyle, so I keep these feelings to myself. I feel like if I talk to her about my feelings, it will be too much pressure and we’ll break up. At the same time I’m finding it hard to deal with them on my own. I don’t want these thoughts and feelings – it’s torture. Any advice on how I manage these feelings

The Answer

Jealousy doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Like pain, it arrives with meaning, even if the meaning is not always what it first appears to be. You may say you are not a jealous person, you may hate the idea of yourself of a jealous person, but here it is. We are not always fully known to ourselves. So rather than seeing this feeling as a betrayal of who you are, think of it as just more information for you about you.

Jealousy often emerges when the place we believe we hold in someone else’s life feels uncertain. It can feel like the self is being rearranged. This is part of the drama of the imaginary, where the self exists in relation to others. When those relationships shift, or when we imagine them shifting, our sense of stability can falter. Jealousy asks: what am I to you, really? Am I still chosen? These questions and doubts will be exacerbated by your partner not wanting to discuss your future together.

You are carrying your pain of this insecurity quietly. Not wanting to burden your partner, not wanting to appear fragile or anxious. This silence becomes its own form of pressure. It appears to protect the relationship at the cost of hiding part of yourself. You may tell yourself that speaking your fears would be too much. But not speaking sounds like it is also too much. The fear that the truth might drive the other away leads to a performance of strength, but love does not flourish in performance.

There is a larger context. You are physically depleted, sexually disconnected, uncertain about the future. Perhaps your partner’s world seems to you to be lit up with energy and motion while yours is dimmed by recovery and quiet longing. The fear that she may choose someone less complicated is not so much about her as it is about how you are seeing yourself. And how we see ourselves is shaped by habit more than fact.

Jealousy often carries shame, but it is not inherently shameful. Shame grows when we confuse jealousy with the desire to control. Jealousy says: I am afraid. Control says: you must not go. These are not the same thing. Wanting to possess the freedom of the other turns jealousy into something darker, more reactive. But if you can sit with jealousy without needing to act on it, without turning it into rules or tests, it doesn’t have to be destructive.

Your jealousy may be harking back to early fears of being left out or unchosen. The baby who once cried for connection does not disappear. It becomes the adult who fears that attention given elsewhere means love withdrawn. The task is not to banish it, but to listen to what it is pointing towards, you now? And/or you then?

You do not need to bring your jealousy as an accusation or as a need to control. You can bring it as a question, a wound, a hope to be seen. You do not need to demand change. You can speak from the place of uncertainty. That alone can change things. Not because it resolves the feeling, but because it stops pretending it is not there.

So the question is not whether you can manage or suppress your feelings. It is whether you can continue in a relationship where you do not allow them to be known. If the answer is no, then the work is to let them live, to talk about them out loud. Separate the feeling from the urge to control. Jealousy is not the same as control. When you disentangle the two, the shame begins to lift. You can feel afraid of losing someone without trying to stop them from being who they are. You can feel jealous and still choose not to act from it. As I said above, these feelings often run deeper than the relationship itself. They may reach back to early places in us, where love once felt uncertain or attention felt scarce. You can own your jealousy, your neediness, and still not become a controller. You can speak without needing predict or control how you are heard. When jealousy stays unspoken, it grows. Not because it is dangerous, but because it wants to be met. Like any feeling, it gets louder when ignored. Speaking about it may not resolve it, but it might stop it from festering. What is named can move. What is hidden, hardens. Being human means feeling things that trouble us. But it also gives us the chance to be known. Not admired. Not tolerated. Known. By being known we can connect and reconnect.

And, sex needs talking about too. People avoid talking about sex because the stakes feel high. But the silence carries its own weight. It’s not about frequency. It’s about making space for that part of your connection to exist again, even just as a conversation. Sometimes you need to start by talking about, what it would feel like for both of you to have a conversation about sex. You need to give your intimacy somewhere to live besides your imagination. This will change things.

Your Jealousy Needs Somewhere to Live

Write to me with any problem or dilemma at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions