*WoManManual Currently Under Construction*: How to: get the morbid jealousy out of your relationship

Morbid jealousy, what is that? Everybody is jealous once a while, right?

Thats right and a bit of jealousy is healthy, but if it starts to control your life you have to be careful, than you're dealing with morbid jealousy. Examples of this; You get restricted in clothing-choice, your phone keeps going, your FB and twittermessages lead to fights and when you go out you don't go as boyfriend and girlfriend, but you have a bodyguard who wants to kill everyone who looks at you... 

Does this sound familiar? Find out here how to deal best with morbid jealousy.  

What is jealousy?

There are different kinds of jealousy, rational, irrational and morbid jealousy.
Rational jealousy usually has a reason, your colleague got the promotion you actually deserved, your partner is cheating on you or your friend gets the credits for the work you did. This jealousy is not always negative. 
Irrational jealousy is based on your own insecurity. For example, you compare yourself to unreachable people like actors and others, which makes it more easy to feel insecure.
Morbid jealousy happens to people who are really in love with their partner or who are really proud of their possessions. This second case is something you definitely don't want to be or experience. Most of the day you are so worried about your partners loyalty that you start controlling him or her totally and start thinking bad about everything.

How to deal with yourself if you are jealous?
* Admit you are jealous and find out which kind of jealousy applies to you. A certain degree of jealousy is normal and not a treat to your relationship. But if you fall into on of the last two categories you need to work on it. It's specially important to understand that you have to change, not your partner.

* Try to find out what the reason is. Are you insecure, cheated on in the past or is your partner behaving in strange ways and/or is he/she getting lots of strange calls/messages?
In the first case you have to work on your self-esteem, in the second you should understand that everybody is different and that it's not fare to load your old burden on your new partner, in the third care you should have an open and honest conversation with your partner about it.

* Be honest and make it discussible with your partner and friends. He/she can keep account for it, but don;t expect him/her to change for you. Friend can help you by telling how they would think or behave in certain situations. This could help you in the next time.

* Keep a diary or something like that for the moments you feel jealous. Write down what you feel and what kind of thought are going trough your mind. Read this when you are calm, how do you feel about it than?

* Work on your self-esteem. The more happy you are with yourself the more easy you will believe that your partner is with you, which makes you less jealous. Next to that you can also think: If he/she cheats on me its his/her loss, not mine.

* Make sure you have a social life. This makes sure your world is more than your partner only, and you don't have to get all of your confirmation from him/her, which makes you less dependent on him/her.

* Start loving more instead of searching for love and confirmation, in this way you will be less focused on jealousy. 

* Stop your controlling behavior. Keep in mind that there are limits in a relationship. Your partner still has his/her own life. So don't admit to your jealous feeling everytime!

* Make sure you don't fall into a negative spiral. If you are already jealous you will get totally freaked out when your partner is an hour late and doesn't answer his phone. You will think about the most strange scenes about what could have happened, when actually i can happen to everybody their phone just run out of battery at the moment they miss their train or something like that. And because you will drive yourself always more crazy, it will only get worse every time and you will end up in a negative spiral. Try to find something to do at a moment like that and try to argue if your reaction is normal or not. It could help to call someone and ask for their opinion, but don't ignore it if they say that possible there is no reason to worry. 

* Don't hesitate to find professional help if you can't solve this yourself.

What if you have a jealous partner?
* Make him/her read the above, problem solved :D Haha if it only was that easy.. But the above can certainly help.

* Don't play games or enclose yourself from him/her. So don't go testing your partner or see how far you can go with him/her. With not enclosing I mean this: Your partner has to learn what a normal degree of jealousy is so it's not fair to reject all his requests. Make agreements about your limits and remind him/her of them in case needed. This also means you are not going to have yourself cross examined by him, this would only be a reward for his jealous behavior. 

* Try to find out what the reason could be. Do you give rise to his jealousy by provoking him or by being extra careful? Cause in contrary to what you might think, being to careful can also lead to more jealousy, that works like this: You are going to avoid situations which can lead to jealousy, which makes you loose your social like and makes him only more suspicious. Normal situations suddenly get abnormal meaning and your partner won't learn what degree of jealousy is normal.

* Try to talk about it to your partner and explain why, according to you, there is not reason for him/her to be jealous. Find information about jealousy together or find professional help with it. But make sure to be clear about the fact that it's your partners problem, not yours. Don't feel guilty about that, it IS his/her problem!

* Don't feel sorry for yourself. If you really can't deal with it in this way and nothing helps, break-up.