If you’ve ever had a jealousy “meltdown” and accused your partner of something which may or may not be true, you know that it just caused even more problems than you had before.
Jealousy can ruin your relationship and wreck havoc with your life if you don’t do something about it–and fast!
If you want help stopping jealousy, our “No More Jealousy” book and audio program will give you the tools to stop it BEFORE it rips your relationship to shreds and you find yourself looking for a new partner or in divorce court.
Okay, so you were out with your spouse or lover and IT happened–
You think you saw your partner paying a little too much attention to someone else or someone else got a little too close to him or her.
You tried to hold it in but IT finally came out with more force and emotion than you realized.
You had a huge fight with your spouse or lover that ended with you feeling very alone.
You totally embarrassed yourself and your partner because now EVERYONE knows about your jealousy.
Your jealousy meltdown might even have happened at home watching television when your partner commented on a beautiful person of the opposite sex. You may know that your jealousy is totally illogical but somehow you can’t seem to stop the accusations from exploding from your mouth.
So, whatever and however it happened, you’ve really done it this time.
You’ve apologized and may have even begged but your partner is angry, distant and may even be threatening to leave the relationship if you don’t get your act together.
What do you do?
Here are 4 things you can do right now to salvage your relationship and get your jealousy under control…
1. Stop focusing on the embarrassment factor — It’s over
While it’s very tempting to keep reliving that horrible scene, whether it happened in public or in private, and beating yourself up…Don’t.
What happened is over and if you want your spouse or lover to stop punishing you by his or her silence, distance, coldness, disgust or anger.
You have to stop beating up on yourself.
Believe it or not–this jealousy meltdown is a sign for you to make some changes and in a weird way, is a gift .
(We can hear you disputing that thought but it’s really true.)
2. Look within to find out what triggered you
Rewind the incident one more time and go back to when you initially felt that familiar tightening in your chest or fear in your gut.
What were you thinking?
What were you feeling inside you?
What were your suspicions?
It’s helpful to put your recollections on paper and just allow yourself to write without censoring.
Were you making up assumptions and untrue stories about what happened or do you really have a reason to be concerned about your partner’s actions?
It’s very important for you to make that distinction with a clear head and not from the guilt over your outburst.
So stop the replay of what happened before your emotional outburst.
What do you see and feel?
3. Get a plan for stopping jealousy
Taking action without creating a conscious plan for getting where you want to go is a little like shooting in the dark.
You have no idea of where you are aiming and you aren’t even aware if you happen to hit the target by chance.
In our “No More Jealousy” program, we make it very clear that jealous behavior that comes between you and your partner is a habit.
But before you can stop the habit, you have to find out if you really have something to be jealous of or if your jealousy is a response to a perceived threat that isn’t real.
If you don’t know–find out. (We’re coming out with a new program in a couple of weeks that will give you the tools to help you find out once and for all.)
If you do know and your partner isn’t doing anything to provoke your jealousy, your plan is simple.
You have to learn techniques to stop your jealousy (Check out “No More Jealousy”) and you have to practice rebuilding trust with your partner.
If your partner is less than saintly and you do have a reason to be fearful and angry with him or her–
The good news is that you don’t have to have jealous meltdowns to get your point across that something’s wrong.
But you have to have a plan!
4. Communicate with your partner about what changes you’re making
If your partner will talk with you, great.
If your partner won’t talk with you, write a letter.
Find a way to communicate your plan for changing you and your relationship.
If you’ve had many jealousy meltdowns, you’ve been forgiven but nothing has changed, your partner will probably not believe you.
This is where you give specific ways you’re going to change.
Tell him or her how you’re going to deal with similar situations in the future and you can even ask for help in making those changes.
Be very specific in how you plan to stop your thoughts and fears that have no basis of truth behind them.
Build in some ways to practice before the real-life situation happens again that triggered you this time.
If your jealousy is warranted?
Present the “evidence” you discovered and then set boundaries around what you want.
We know that it sounds simple and not so simple to actually do…
But if you want to stop your jealous reactions and create the relationship that you want, that’s one of the surest ways to do it.
Jealousy meltdowns don’t have to happen.
It doesn’t have to happen to you again.
We urge you to take some positive steps toward what you want instead of what you don’t want.
For some great ideas for overcoming jealousy, get our free ebook “7 Jealousy Stopping Secrets.”