Key Takeaways
- Jealousy and envy are different emotions but both can harm your relationship if not addressed.
- It’s important to self-reflect to ensure you’re not making your partner’s jealousy or envy worse.
- Talk with your partner at a set time so they don’t feel surprised or attacked.
Any time we engage with other people, it’s normal to experience various emotions. Some emotions can be challenging, such as envy and jealousy.
You may have experienced envy at your partner’s career success, or jealousy over them flirting with someone else. “Jealousy and envy are normal parts of every relationship to some degree,” says sex therapist Kaylee Friedman, M.A., LPC, who notes that “as a society, we tend to demonize them simply because we don’t understand how to navigate them well.” Though some amount of jealousy or envy can be considered healthy, if left concealed or unrecognized, things can take a terrible turn and create major problems.
Being able to work through jealousy and envy, as well as any other complex feelings that arise in us, is key to a successful relationship. Knowing how to recognize these feelings is also vital, and enables us to address them head-on.
Read on to learn how jealousy and envy can affect your relationship, how to be on the lookout for signs of it, and how to deal with it.
What Being Envious or Jealous of a Partner May Look Like
These are some examples of how jealousy and envy can manifest in a relationship.
Jealousy
- Feeling threatened when a partner pays too much attention to someone else
- Being upset when a partner is attracted to someone else
- Wanting your partner to spend less time with other people
- Mistrust of a partner during time apart
- Obsessively checking social media to keep tabs on a partner’s activities
- Discomfort at how a partner is dressing or presenting themself
Envy
- Praise around a partner’s success that feels disingenuous
- Feelings of upset when a partner has a successful moment
- Constant or frequent comparison of wages or job positions
- Discomfort around a partner’s quantity of friends or their social life
- Negative commentary about a partner’s job, or success at their job
Is Your Partner Jealous or Envious of You?
Though we use them interchangeably sometimes, jealousy and envy are actually different emotions. Explains Friedman, “jealousy is a fear that we will lose something we need and deeply value because another party will receive it instead of us.”
Conversely, “envy, on the other hand, is the feeling that you desire something that someone else already has, or is.” She explains that it’s possible to feel both emotions at the same time.
Signs Your Partner Is Jealous of You
Jealousy usually involves a relationship to other people, and doesn’t occur only between you and your partner. Says Friedman, jealousy can be seen as “anything that has the potential to threaten their connection or primacy with you,” and can manifest as emotions such as shame, sadness, fear, or rejection.
If you can resonate with any of the above manifestations of jealousy, including your partner tracking your social media usage, having issues around what you wear, or acting distrustful of you when you aren’t together, they may be experiencing jealousy.
Signs Your Partner Is Envious of You
Unlike how jealousy centers around other people in addition to you and your partner, envy is more personally oriented. “Envy tends to happen between just the two of you and usually has to do with qualities or accomplishments you have and your partner doesn’t,” Friedman says.
Your partner being envious of you will probably look like one of the examples given, such as them not seeing genuine about their happiness for your work accomplishments or them seeming disapproving of you having a rich social life if they do not.
An envious partner might also minimize your accomplishments, according to Friedman, or criticize parts of your life that are important to you.
How Jealousy and Envy Can Affect Your Relationship
As you probably suspect, the emotions of jealousy and envy towards a partner can have a large and negative impact on your relationship.
Friedman says that if left undiscussed, “these emotions can cause resentment, trust ruptures, abusive control dynamics, and ultimately end a relationship.” If you are feeling uneasy about your relationship due to your partner’s envy or jealousy, there is nothing to feel bad about—it’s a normal response to a tough situation.
That doesn’t mean that if your relationship suffers from your partner being jealous or envious you should give up hope. Friedman tells us that these emotions, “if we process them well as a couple, and come up with agreements to help manage them…can be a small and normal part of a healthy relationship.” Next, we’ll discuss how exactly you can better deal with your partner’s jealousy or envy.
How to Cope When Your Partner Is Envious or Jealous of You
Self-Reflect
The first thing you want to do if your partner is jealous or envious is self-reflect to make sure you aren’t exacerbating the situation.
Ways that exacerbating the situation could occur include if you make a point to flirt with other people to incite a jealous response in your partner, or if you gloat about your work accomplishments when you know your partner is feeling low about their own place in their career.
Establish a designated time to talk
Once you’re clear about how your own actions have affected the envious or jealous nature of your partner’s behavior, Friedman recommends that you “start by making an appointment for a time to talk so your partner doesn’t feel attacked or blindsided.” Once you’ve done that and are ready to begin the discussion, avoid directly asking your partner if they’re jealous of you, as that could make them feel attacked. Instead, she suggests that you “share what you’re noticing, how you’re feeling, and ask your partner to do the same.”
A conversation is an excellent step in alleviating difficult feelings. Says Friedman, “learning to have open and curious dialogues with your significant other(s) around what is underneath their jealousy or envy leads to deeper understanding and the opportunity to support your partner as they take responsibility for and process their own feelings.” In addition to helping with jealousy and envy, open communication in relationships lead to improved happiness and well-being overall.
Consider couples therapy
Of course, you may not be able to work through all of this alone. Friedman recommends couples therapy or coaching for everyone who has a challenging time communicating their feelings openly and calmly.
While these steps will ideally help your relationship, not everyone is open to discussion about their behavior. You shouldn’t have to minimize your own accomplishments or deal with controlling behavior.
Friedman suggests that “if open communication isn’t on the table, set firm and clear boundaries with your partner. Let them know that you will not engage in conversations where blame, criticism, or control attempts are part of the dynamic.” To keep yourself she, she recommends you “offer to support them when they’re ready to reflect on their deeper feelings, but don’t engage when the conversation feels unproductive or volatile.”
When Is It Time to Break Up?
In a perfect world, an open discussion about one another’s feelings will pave the way to a better relationship. Unfortunately, that desired outcome isn’t always the one that occurs. As you work with your partner on this, be sure to maintain firm boundaries around how they treat you, as it is never ok for someone to behaving in a controlling or abusive way over another person.
You’ll know a breakup is on the horizon if you don’t see the changes needed for you to stay together. “If your partner is not able or willing to do the inner work to discover where their jealousy/envy is coming from and learn ways to communicate that clearly so you can work towards agreements that will help your partner manage their feelings, breakup is often necessary,” explains Friedman.
She says that it’s the right move if your partner’s behavior doesn’t change, if they can’t reflect upon their own feelings or actions, or if they continue attempting to control your behavior. While this doesn’t necessarily make the partner a bad person, she says they may just not have the skills needed to be in an intimate relationship.
Breakups are upsetting, but they are better than staying in an unhealthy relationship. All people deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. If a breakup is the right answer for you, seeking therapy can help you work through it effectively.
