(this article was published in the journal "Lady Vita" may 2014)

thousands of horrible fantasies, and thoughts of betrayal and deceit permeate our consciousness... we think our mate wants us, and someone else... Jealousy! The feeling is familiar to almost everyone, it sometimes can destroy the relationship, if gets the size of the disaster and has no boundaries. However, it can and give the relationship a new paint, add "pepper". So what is jealousy and what to do with it?

In the middle ages that jealousy made knights and barons before his departure to distant lands to put on her chastity belt. Because then only physical cheating could be a cause for jealousy. Now things are different: enough hints, sentences, texts that kindled a fire of jealousy.

Mary, 30 "Oleg climbed in with my laptop and read the correspondence with my ex-boyfriend. This correspondence for me had deeper meaning, but rather were in the nature of the game and light flirting. However, he made a scene of jealousy, and in the rush vehemently asked to leave."

Eugene, 28 years old "Kirill did not come from his email being home and my hands stretched themselves to her. Curiosity moved me in the first place. When I saw how many girls he writes and that there is an intimate correspondence, it became difficult to breathe. I thought I would break the keyboard into pieces. Our relationship has suffered greatly after that, and now I find it difficult to gain credibility, I'm jealous even when he is stuck at work for an hour."

Vasilisa, 25 years "One night I was awakened Bob. It seemed to me that he is in anger, he asked me to leave because you won't see me anymore! Turns out he read my text friend, where I talked about her friends who was cute to me. And my attempts to explain that nothing happened between us except for sympathy nor to no avail. We broke up."

Many men and women suffer painfully from their impulses of jealousy and feel helpless at such moments. Burning desire to stop the suffering and pain inside. Jealousy has many faces, it can be tested as to the real and imaginary opponent, man or woman, the child, parents, or even animals.

What is?

Doubt, infidelity, distrust and anguish. Perhaps it is these concepts that unite the many attempts to find a definition for the phenomenon of jealousy. However, the main ingredients of a potion called jealousy is fear and anger. Fear is directed at finding solutions, anger on the person to whom jealousy is directed.

Jealousy carries a trail of other no less important and, sometimes, more than speaking of emotions and feelings: a strong fear of the loss of a loved one, or anger, if all attempts to return the attention, love and sense of security was not successful. Jealousy is accompanied, as a rule, thoughts about the real or the fantasy of treachery, and anxiety, disappointment, shame, bitterness.

Jealousy by its nature has the shape of a triangle, which, respectively, three sides: the first is jealous, and the second one who is jealous and the third is the person or persons to whom jealous. The third party is perceived as the jealous rival who also claims the love, attention, or favor with an important person (people).

According to the same research, men and women with a high level of jealousy is approximately equal to 51.6 and 50.8, respectively. Whereas a low level of jealousy almost was not identified.

the Feeling of jealousy arises when a person fears losing what he has, and it means a lot to him. First experience sibling rivalry teaches us that we are not the center of the Universe and that love is not given simply so, and need to fight for it and earn it. It is essentially designed to maintain our values as we are with her begin to notice what is important to us and when there are some reasons to doubt that we'll have it.

what results? Or consequences

Answering the question of whether the benefits of jealousy, rather than not. However, in society it is widely assumed that jealousy is something negative and unacceptable, that it is necessary to hide, and probably why it is so closely bound up with shame. In fact, it is extremely important the way in which we handle that feeling. Yes, like any feeling, we can't rule out jealousy of our soul or of temperament, but we can do so that it did not destroy the people, did not destroy our relationship.

the Negative impact of jealousy obviously. First and foremost it hurts the most jealous, then often it affects someone jealous. At least it brings sadness and anxiety, as a maximum, jealous maybe from their experiences to want to end their and other people's suffering, and thereby break the relationship. There are cases where jealousy leads to suicide. However, this is not the only thing that can affect this feeling.

it so Happens that the partner is systematically talking about his jealousy, and then arranging on this background, the scandals and quarrels, unconsciously pushing his mate to meet his "expectations." Someone able to do it on evil, someone not realizing he is in a situation that until now he himself seemed incredible, however, the fact remains that the regular doubts in our partner is able to undermine and destroy confidence in the pair and the need to maintain it in principle.

In General, jealousy is a normal phenomenon if it occurs very rarely. She is even able to bring pleasure to someone jealous. Also in defense of jealousy can be noted that some psychologists think that feeling reflects the level of claims personality. Therefore, it is critical to deal with jealousy as this turn of events may reduce in turn konkurentnosposobnost person. And, for example, a psychologist-researcher as He in his longitudinal study found a correlation a high level of jealousy with the relationship satisfaction of partners and duration of over 7 years. As a result, he concluded that jealousy protects and promotes love.

Ways to overcome.

As a rule, no parity, partnership is fertile ground for the emergence of jealousy and confrontation: "who is the boss and who belongs where". If you don't change partner, this does not mean that you have nothing to worry about. At first glance, contrived jealousy can be a sign of lack of attention, savings on compliments, indifferent relationship to a life partner.

Answer yourself honestly to the questions: Perhaps jealousy is nothing else than the fear of being alone? Is it possible that you are inclined to treason, and you judge a partner?

In the second place, it is important to understand whether there is a real reason. Try to highlight the facts, which could confirm that the reason of jealousy is still there.

third, share your feelings with someone, whom you trust, with someone close to them. Sometimes explaining the situation can find the solution yourself, and sometimes just empathy facilitates a state.

fourth, change anything in the way of life. Probably not a secret that when a lot of free time, the head is able to get a lot of unwanted thoughts. Therefore not the superfluous will get a nice hobby: whether it's a trip to the gym or socializing with new people.

Talk with your partner about your feelings, try to do it in spite of your fears. It is important expressing your feelings not to slide into the accusations, but mostly to talk about himself: "I'm jealous when I see that you're surrounded by so many attractive women." Really, listen to yourself to understand what causes distrust. You may not have enough attention or time spent together, then this conversation could be the beginning to change in a relationship and care about them. Spend more time together, find common ground for both of you.

Importantly, the jealousy became pathological and swallowed you and, of course, categorically should not cause jealousy in response. In the words of Henry Mencken: "in Order to keep her husband, make him a little jealous; to lose a husband, make him jealous a little bit more."