Jaewan+Kim

Jaewan Kim

WHAT IS JEALOUSY ?

J ealousy today is a problematic aspect in the world, which tends to lead to  broken hearts and broken relationships. But what exactly is jealousy? According to Hara Estroff Marano, from __ Psychology Today __, “Jealousy is a killer, and [that] relationships end because of jealous conflicts and people kill other people because they are jealous. “  Jealousy arises when a relationship is __infringed__ on by a rival who threatens to take away something that is in a sense rightfully yours. Jealousy, however, also has its ups too. Jealousy makes you feel that someone is threatening to take away your partner, whoever it might be, husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. Hara Estroff Marano from __Psychology Today__ said: “ Jealousy may be losing its utility in contemporary life, more useful to our ancestors than to us, given our penchant for changing partners.” Before modern society and it’s obsession with love began, it was normal for a caveman to marry one woman and then marry another. To adapt to this situation, the human body developed a feeling called jealousy, which keeps your partner next to you and prevents him/her from floating away. Unfortunately, today is not exactly a “caveman and cavewoman” scenario, and you can easily see why jealousy tends to break up relationships. Robert Leahy talks about in the article __Jealousy is a Killer:__ __ How to Break Free from Your Jealous Feelings __, about when we are jealous we worry about us. Since we feel threatened that our partner might find someone more attractive, we may and we fear that he or she will be jealous as a way to cope with this threat. We may believe that our jealousy may keep us from being surprised, help us keep our rights, and force our partner to not be interested elsewhere. Similar to worry, jealousy may be a “strategy” that we use so that we can figure out what is going wrong or learn how our partners feel about us. We may also think that our jealousy can motivate us to give up on the relationship—so that we don’t get hurt any more. If you are feeling jealous, it’s important to ask yourself what you hope to gain by your jealousy. We view jealousy as a coping strategy to break ups, which is a genetic thing in us that was in Cave people mentioned above. Here is an outline from a Leahy and Tirch article in 2008, explaining the nature of jealousy.

** Tips **

Here are some tips to avoid being jealous.

** Step 1 **
 * Jealousy can come from many ways, and many things. You have to acknowledge jealousy and find out why and what are you jealous about.

** Step 2 **
 * If you are currently jealous, it’s not recommended that you be angry, and by more positive. The newspaper “Seattle Times” reported that “ bank tellers who were most envious of a colleague’s promotion subsequently improved their job performance more than did their non-jealous co-workers.”

** Step 3 ** ** Step 4 **
 * If you are proud about yourself and think that you are special in some kind of way, there is a less chance that you will be less jealousy than other people. However, if you keep contrasting and comparing yourself to other people, this can arise jealousy. So try to find something that will up your self esteem and make you think “Nobody can beat me at this!”
 * Sometimes, even though jealousy is usually a bad emotion, it can help you decide that your partner is acting weird and may be dating someone else. In this case, jealousy can be pretty positive. But the there is a problem when the jealousy is given out too much. So when in a suspicious situation, it’s important to remind your partner that you are still partners. For example, when they are flirting someone, you can tap them to remember YOU are their partner.

Hope this helped! But remember, and never forget that jealousy is a totally natural instinct that runs through our bodies. You can’t live without it, so don’t blame it for broken relationships. Who knows, maybe it can keep save one of your relationships someday…

Works Cited: http://www.asij.ac.jp/middle/lib/BibliographyFormat/Bibliography%20Format.htm Marano, Hara Estroff. “Love’s Destroyer.” __ Psychology Today __. Feb. 2002. Web. 3 Mar. 2011 Leahy, L. Robert.” Jealousy is a Killer: How to Break Free from Your Jealous Feelings”. Psychology Today. May 19 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2011 Singer, Glenn. “How to Prevent Jealousy.” Livestrong. Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2011