What Is Really Behind Jealousy in a Relationship

Rachael Pace, Author

Rachael Pace

Expertise: Mental health, Parenting

Rachael Pace inspires with motivational articles on loving partnerships. She encourages making room for love and facing challenges together.

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Updated: 20 Apr, 2023

Table of Contents

Fear of losing your partner often lies behind jealousy, so build closeness by honesty, regular reassurance, and small acts that show you are valued and safe with each other.
Low self-esteem and insecurity feed jealousy, but you can grow by building your own worth, practicing non-possessive care, and choosing to celebrate your partner’s trust and freedom.
Jealousy isn’t love but a signal to grow; seek support together, such as counseling, and commit to honest dialogue and shared steps that deepen your emotional connection.

There are many people who believe that jealousy is a sign of love, nothing more, nothing less. But when you stop to consider jealousy in all of its glory you uncover what is really behind jealousy. We find that behind the facade of love is a whole bund of insecurity which can come in a variety of guises.

Don’t believe us?

Spend time looking at some of the best couples around you – couples who you know are in a loving, healthy and happy relationship. And if they are really as content as they seem you’ll find a distinct absence of jealousy along with buckets of trust, security, and intimacy, the total opposite to jealousy.

So if jealousy is not love, what is behind it?

For the rest of this article, we will take a brief look at some of the significant factors that are really behind jealousy.

Just remember though, if jealousy is a problem for you, and you can relate to any of these issues, you are not alone. You are also not a ‘bad’ person, but you do have some work to do on yourself so that you can fix the problems and enjoy the healthy kind of relationships that we have mentioned earlier on in this article.

Trust us it’s worth making the effort.

1. Fear of losing your partner

Fear of losing your partner combined with some of the other issues listed below could well be the driving factor behind jealousy.

After all, if you weren’t afraid of losing your partner, you’d have no need to be jealous when your partner innocently focuses on someone else. But this fear, for it to form into jealousy, is likely to be combined with other issues too.

2. Low self-esteem, or insecure or neurotic behavioral patterns

If you are afraid of losing your partner and you are experiencing low self-esteem, or don’t feel good enough to be with your partner, it’s easy to understand why you might become jealous.

One of the ways that we demonstrate insecurity is through aloof or needy patterns of behavior.

3. Narcissism

Narcissists expect their partners to have all eyes on them, they can’t have it any other way and don’t have the understanding that this is an inappropriate pattern of behavior in relationships.

If their partner interacts with others in a way that their narcissistic partner does not like, their partner could turn to jealousy as a form of control.

4. Competitive behavior

Sometimes it might not be that a jealous partner is afraid of losing you, instead, they may be afraid of not seeming to be the ‘best’ couple.

This behavior can occur amongst friendship groups, or amongst the partners of a group of siblings.

4. Lies or cheating behavior

Lies or cheating behavior

If a partner is lying or cheating, the chances are they become jealous with their partner because they are projecting their fear of being cheated on, or guilt onto them.

Similarly, if the innocent partner is picking up on lying signals or changes in the relationship, they can become needy and jealous out of instinct, insecurity, and paranoia.

5. Possessive behavior

Some people just don’t know how to relax around something or someone they value, and so they become possessive.

Hoarders are examples of this, as are people who might stash their money away or not share something that they have plenty of with others.

This possessive behavior may stem from an insecurity, insecure attachment style, spoilt behavior or strong sense of lack which probably developed in childhood and was never corrected.

In this situation, the partner of the jealous person is their property, and jealous behavior is how they stop their partner from sharing themselves with others, thus keeping their full attention on their possessive spouse.

6. Dependence on your partner

Some people put themselves in a position where they are dependant on their partner.

Their dependency could be caused by something small such as they depend on their partner to maintain a stronger sense of esteem, or to feel secure in the world. But they could also move their entire life to be with their partner so that they are entirely dependent upon their partner in all ways.

Some people might become unnecessarily dependent while others naturally do so, for example, if you’ve had a child with your partner and stay at home to bring up the children or to nurse you become dependent during that time.

Dependency can also show up through illness or disability.

When you are so dependent you have a lot to risk if the relationship breaks down – not just the loss of love. This dependency could turn into anxiety over losing your partner and your lifestyle and in turn, could be projected through jealousy.

These are just a few examples of what is really behind jealousy, each situation can be as unique as you are, most cases of jealousy occur because the jealous partner is insecure in some way and it would serve them well if they decided to work on fixing that issue.

However, in other cases, jealousy can occur as a projection of a forced sense of insecurity due to life circumstances such as in the cases of parenthood, disability or illness.

Counseling is the perfect solution for dealing with what is really behind jealousy and will give you the opportunity to enjoy life with someone you love happily and healthily in the future.

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Rachael Pace Author

Rachael Pace is a noted relationship writer associated with Marriage.com. She provides inspiration, support, and empowerment in the form of motivational articles and essays. Rachael enjoys studying the evolution of loving partnerships... Read more and is passionate about writing on them. She believes that everyone should make room for love in their lives and encourages couples to work on overcoming their challenges together. Read less