Jealousy

Friendships and relationships should be based on trust and respect.  When you allow jealous feelings to take you over and start to doubt your friends or boyfriend/girlfriend, then this can damage this trust and respect.

If you feel jealous about your friends spending time with other people, it might be because you are worried that you are going to lose their friendship. If it is your boyfriend/girlfriend, you might be worried that they will stop loving you and want to be with someone else. You might confuse your feelings of jealousy with thinking that you love someone or care about them. Jealousy isn’t about love and caring about someone, it’s about trying to control that person and their feelings.  When you do this you let your fears take over.

If you are experiencing feelings of jealousy, it can be good to talk about how you are feeling and what is happening for you. You can always talk to ChildLine about your feelings.

When someone in a friendship or relationship begins to get jealous, it can make that person difficult to be around.  People don’t want to be controlled or told what they can or can’t do. If someone starts doing this, or questioning them about who they have been with, then their friend or boyfriend/girlfriend may not want to spend as much time with them. The problem then becomes self-fulfilling because the worry that started the jealousy – that this significant person won’t want to spend time with them – could become the reality.

It can be hard if someone appears to be angry with you and you don’t know what you have done. If you are worried that one of your friends or your boyfriend/girlfriend is jealous, you could try talking to them about how they feel. They might need reassurance from you and might welcome the chance to open up about how they feel. However, some people may not want to talk about the way they feel.

If your friend, boyfriend or girlfriend is showing feelings of jealousy, you can always talk to ChildLine.

It can be hard if one of your friends is jealous and tries to control what you do or who you spend time with.  You might feel very angry and resentful of the way they are behaving and feel crowded or under pressure.  It can be hard to understand why they feel like they do. Although it may not seem like it, they probably don’t mean to upset you.

You could try talking to your friend about how they are behaving.  Reassure them that you like them for who they are and like spending time with them, but that you have other friends too. They should feel secure in themselves that you are still their friend, even if you have lots of other friends you enjoy being with too.

Jealousy can destroy a relationship, as it shows that there is a lack of trust which is vital for a relationship to work. You have to decide if the relationship is worth fighting for, and if it is, be prepared to help your boyfriend or girlfriend work through their feelings and reassure them.

Getting to the bottom of why they feel like this is important. They might have been cheated on in a previous relationship, or they could be having a tough time and feeling low about themselves. These things can make feelings of jealousy worse. You could suggest they talk to you about how they are feeling and tell you when they feel especially insecure. This might help you understand why they feel like they do.

You could also encourage them to talk to ChildLine – we are here 24 hours a day seven days a week and we will listen to you.  No worry is too big or too small to contact us about and we won’t judge you.