Things Will Work Out

May 4th, 2013

In stressful times, it can be helpful to think that things will work out.  There are two sides, however, to believing that things will work out—a beneficial aspect and a pitfall I hope to help you avoid.

The helpful side of believing that things will work out comes from realizing that we often worry about things that will not matter in the long run.  If you worry about some everyday thing, thinking “things will work out” can be calming.  I have used this idea many times when I’m anxious about something—money, taking a test, or meeting someone new.  “Things will work out” helps me not to sweat the issue or the encounter and move forward with greater ease.

If we’re anxious about something, we can consider whether it will matter to us in five or ten years.  The answer will be “no” 99% of the time, I would say.  Another way to think of this is to imagine yourself looking down on the earth from 100,00 feet or a thousand miles or whatever distance makes you and your concern look very small.  Then ask, is it really such a big deal?  From such a vantage point, it probably is not.  You don’t have to stress so much about it.

The thought “things will work out” can also help when events occur that we don’t want.  Not getting that job, losing a relationship, or coming up short in a major competition can be disappointing.  But if we believe that things will work out, it can ease the pain.

Even major setbacks, such as a major disease or a heart attack, can seem bad, but in the long run, a person may appreciate aspects of their lives or learn something that he or she would not otherwise have gained.  In this sense, after the initial crisis, one can come to believe that things work out.

In fact, people’s experiences of major catastrophes, such as injuries in wars, major trauma of an assault or abuse, or untimely death, depends on their attitudes.  If they can draw meaning or appreciation for life from the horrible circumstances, then one can say that things worked out in some sense.

There is one way, however, in which appealing to “things will work out” can be dangerous.  If I use this phrase to avoid staying on point or to stall on action on things that are priorities in my life, I hurt myself.  Pink Floyd’s lyric tells us what can happen.  Procrastinate, depend on things working out, “and then one day you find ten years have got behind you.”

So, if you let fear or laziness dominate, if you use “things will work out” as an excuse to avoid action, mediocrity and an unfulfilled life can result.  “Things will work out” can become synonymous with just getting by.  If just getting by is enough for you, then just keep thinking things will work out, and just getting by is what you will get.

So positive thinking is helpful—“things will work out”—but action towards one’s goals is also important.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, urging you to think, “things will work out” in trying times, but also calling on you to take action toward your goals rather than just depending on things working out.

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When a Loved One Dies

March 9th, 2013

I recently had a close family member die. I draw on this experience as well as my knowledge as a therapist to address any similar occasion you may have had.

When a loved one dies, many thoughts and feelings arise. Grief, disbelief, loneliness, regrets, guilt, fears, and even thoughts about new beginnings are all possible. Coping with them becomes as important as all the arrangements and daily tasks one must do.

Grief may be the hardest thing to deal with after a loved one’s passing. A profound sadness arises that he or she will no longer be in your life. Just days before, he or she was able to talk with you and interact with you in the familiar way. Now he or she cannot. It can be hard to believe the person is gone.

Everyone grieves differently, but I think it is important, if possible, to give ourselves time off from the normal routine. Some people want to stay busy, but I think this runs the risk of running over sadness and other emotions. Of course, staying engaged with life and not just curling up in bed for days, weeks, or months is important, but so is taking time to let oneself feel and process the thoughts about the death. Because everyone is different, each person must find the right balance for him- or herself.

I recommend time to feel and process one’s thoughts because ignoring them can leave grief unresolved. People who do not grieve sometimes find themselves depressed or in emotional turmoil years later.

Another immediate emotion may be loneliness. There is a void where the person’s presence used to be, and you get lonely. Filling this void through contact with friends or a pet can be helpful.

Regrets and guilt are another prominent occurrence when someone dies. You may have regrets or guilt about things you did or did not do when the person was alive. With so many people dying in hospitals these days, you may second guess decisions you made and blame yourself for the outcome. Try to soothe yourself with the knowledge that you cannot know the outcome of the path not taken. There is no guarantee that it would have been any better. We try to do the best we know, so regretting the decisions we made means we doubt our own previous best intentions and judgement.

You may also have guilt about things you did or did not do before any final illness—taking that outing you planned but never got to, completing that task around the house that would have pleased the person, telling the person that you loved them. Here it is probably best to know that the person may not have had the expectations that you are putting on yourself and, again, you did your best.

Fear may also arise when a loved one dies, fear about a future without the person. He or she played a role in your life, whether it was to love you, to help you, to be a companion, or to support you financially. You may think, “Will I be able to make it without this person?” Fear is an ugly emotion that puts into question whether you will be all right. Finding ways to look at the future that reassure you that you can make it on your own or with the help of others is important.

Some practical steps to help with grieving and all the other thoughts and emotions that arise are to take extra time to be with friends and family members. Talk through all the events, thoughts, and feelings. It can be immensely helpful just to talk to someone.

I also encourage people to write in a journal. This helps to get all the thoughts and feelings out, so they are not rolling around in your head and chest. Be good to yourself and take the time to do this.

There is a final thing that can happen as you work through the thoughts and feelings. After grief and fears have dissipated, a sense of new opening may occur. You are more on your own now, and this presents new possibilities. A new independence is possible. Death is part of the renewal of life. When a person dies, a new order can be stepped into. It affirms what the person gave you that you may live on and look at what is next for you.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, saying that when you lose a loved one, grieve, release guilt and regrets, and conquer fear and loneliness. And once you emerge from all the thoughts and feelings, look to new possibilities, with your loved one’s implicit blessing, and step into them.

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New Hope

January 5th, 2013

A New Year dawns, and with it, new hope

Hope for change
Hope for progress
Hope for happiness
Hope for well-being.

What is this motivation that comes with the turning of the year?
It is buried deeply in the human psyche,
The hope for newness, for starting again, for taking steps not yet taken.

For now there are new possibilities, possibilities perhaps available before but somehow made now shinier, more doable, more possible to pursue with renewed vigor.

Thank you for renewal of energy and hope,
That fuels us and spurs us on to new ventures and tasks.
That we might achieve what we wish, that we might change, that we might create.

Thank you for that which is available to us, if we just believe in the new hope, if we just grasp for it, if we just make the effort.

Now but to harness this energy with a commitment, a plan, and the initial steps,
Steps to create movement and momentum to carry through to accomplishment
That which is held in the mind’s eye and desired.

Clear the decks and get ready for action!

For it takes a will with its own force that sets to,
A force of resolve that extends the energy of hope and possibility.

Thus courses new hope, renewed plans, revitalized action in the New Year.

So what is your hope?
And will you begin?

– Glenn Stevenson

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Feathers and a Berry on Black Friday

December 4th, 2012

We did not have to get to Macy’s by midnight on Thanksgiving to get our gifts on Black Friday.  We got three feathers and a berry in the park.

There they lay, our treasures, on the ground before us, to be picked and brought home, to be cherished and displayed as proudly as any gifts from the store.

A bird, though gone, graciously gifted three feathers.  And a jolly tree, standing in full splendor, replete with red, bumpy little fruit, stood before us when we raised our gazes from the scarlet berry at our feet.  The gifts had waited just for us to come and wonder at their design and color, their flash and feel.

Thanksgiving came two days in a row for us.  On Thanksgiving Day, we gave thanks for sumptuous fare and all the things we had.  On the day after, we were thankful for feathers and a berry, pleased with nature’s offerings to us.

This is Thanksgiving’s message as we transition to December holidays:  As we choose gifts in malls and stores for loved ones, be aware of all the gifts freely given to us.  Life gives of itself constantly, if we just look.  It gives much more than anything we could get at Macy’s.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, wishing for you this season and for all the year, the eyes to see what has been given to you.

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Being a “Big Person”

November 3rd, 2012

I have several clients who are becoming “big persons.” Mind you, they long ago passed age 18 (or 21 in the old days) and were officially recognized as adults. But each is beginning to be, as one of them put it, “a big person,” even when it is hard.

They are people who have identified emotions and behaviors that they no longer wish to display. The unwanted emotions or behaviors may occur when others trigger them—such people as a spouse, their children, coworkers, friends, or even people they run into in public. Or with some, the emotions or behaviors may occur in isolation, when the person is trying to do something just on his or her own.

The person may become angry or verbally aggressive with others, or withdrawn and withholding, or say “yes” when they do not want to do something. Or without another involved, the person may avoid and procrastinate on things they want to accomplish, feel overly anxious or depressed, or display some other unwanted emotion or behavior.

Often people come to me already having identified what they want to change. This is a good start, but becoming a “big person” takes additional work. We identify the fears and stuck places the person has. The person may have fears of not being good enough, of being inadequate, or of being a failure. Or they may fear being all alone, of being unworthy, or of being nothing. They may fear being a fraud, a loser, or incompetent. There are a whole host of fears that people carry around. Most of us have one or two of these core beliefs that run us in our bad moments.

Here is where the real work begins, of learning when the fear arises to be a “big person.”

How do you avoid engaging irrationally with your partner when he or she pushes your buttons? How do you say “no” when you do not want to do something but you fear rejection if you do? How do you step forward and assert yourself when you want something but it seems safer to remain silent? How do you get going at the task you really want to make headway on, but it is easier to watch TV, surf the internet, or sleep? How do you manage the anxiety or depression over how things may go or have gone in the past?

As one of my clients said, “It’s hard.” Yes, being a grown up and not falling back into old emotions and behaviors is hard. Behaving in a new way instead can be one of the most difficult things for us to do. It feels risky not to bend to the old fear but rather to try something new. Precisely when we recognize that we are acting out of an old fear and could choose a new behavior to make a difference for ourselves, we have the choice of being a “big person.”

It may mean handling our anger, rather than lashing out to defend ourselves. It may mean letting go of preferences we have or judgements about others to find a middle ground with them. It may mean not taking things personally by realizing that another person’s criticism of us may arise from their insecurity rather than saying anything about who we are.

It may mean asserting ourselves or setting boundaries, even though it is uncomfortable. It may mean being disciplined to follow through rather than avoiding and procrastinating. It may mean taking a breath and releasing anxious or depressing thoughts. In whatever way, it may mean leaving our ego out of it, and plunging ahead with what we feel least like doing.

I call these instances moments of mastery. We exercise emotional mastery when we do not let our fears rule us but rather punch through self-limiting or self-destructive behaviors and choose something new. It takes self-awareness and being gutsy to pull it off.

If you know what I am talking about, then perhaps you have recognized what it means to be a “big person” in your life. I invite you into this world of greater emotional maturity, for there are great rewards for your self-confidence, relationships, and ease in accomplishing what you want.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, encouraging you to be the “big person” you know you can be, even when it is hard.

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Fantasy and Reality in Relationships

October 6th, 2012

Fred met Elissa at a community meeting on a topic they both were passionate about.  They chatted some, and he asked her for her number.  When they met for coffee later, they found it easy to talk.  They shared their interests and some of the things they had done in life.  Fred thought Elissa was attractive, and she was drawn to him also.  He liked that she had traveled and seen some of the same places he had.  She liked that he seemed successful in his work.  They held similar political views, which helped.  They soon were seeing each other regularly.  With time, they became physically involved, which was pleasing to them both.  And, with time, they found themselves saying, “I love you.”

Fred thought, “Finally, this is the one I’ve been looking for.”  He started thinking ahead about what life with Elissa would be like.  He imagined being married to her, them living together, and each coming home to see each other every day.  He imagined taking vacations with her, driving across country or flying to destinations together.  He imagined having a fulfilling sexual relationship with her and about having children.  Fred built an elaborate fantasy of how life would be with Elissa.

Have you ever fallen in love with someone?  When you fall in love, everything seems to be perfect for a while.  You live in a series of emotional highs, as you see many similarities with the other person.  And, in the ways you are different, you find pleasure precisely because of the contrast with yourself.  You think you know the other person and see how he or she fits you.  It is easy to start to make up a story about how great he or she is and how your life with them will be.

As you make up the story in your head, though, are you seeing the real person or a fantasy?  Indeed, if what you are seeing is at least partly fantasy, what or whom have you fallen in love with?  Have you fallen in love with a fantasy or reality?

It is not to say that Fred’s love for Elissa was imaginary.  There indeed were wonderful compatibilities and complementarities.  Still, problems began to arise when he started to see things that were not part of his fantasy.  Elissa did not want to get married, as she had had issues in a previous relationship that made her cautious about marriage.   Also, their ability to talk seemed to change as Elissa became more involved in work and also wanted to spend more time with friends she had had.  Fred felt a pronounced decline in the connection he had had with her.  And there were the things that Fred had not even considered.  For instance, Elissa was not a particularly neat person, and her disorganization began to bother him.

Elissa also found her bubble bursting.  To keep the story short, though, I will stick with Fred’s side, because his tale illustrates how fantasy can delude both sides of a partnership.

So reality starts to clash with fantasy, and what happens?  There are several possibilities.  If one clings to the fantasy one might:

  1. Wish the other person would go back to the way he or she was earlier in the relationship
  2. Expect the other person to change
  3. Break up over the differences that have emerged

The 1st option can lead to longstanding, silent suffering, because relationships and how people were earlier in them rarely go back to the stage of mutual infatuation and seemingly perfect compatibility.

The 2nd option can lead to repeated fights in couples relationships, or at a minimum ongoing judgement and dissatisfaction.

The 3rd option can leave one very sad, as one clings to the fantasy of how one thought things would be.  It may include wishes of getting back together and having another chance at the fantasy.

If one accommodates reality, the options are different:

  1. Acknowledge how the other person does not conform to one’s wishes or dreams and work out a mentality to be with the person in spite of the differences
  2. Break up because of the differences

The 1st option allows one to continue in the relationship and perhaps build a deeper, steadier love based on reality.

The 2nd option arises if one or more of the differences is a “game ender.”  That is, one or more of the ways of thinking or behaving of one’s partner is incompatible with one’s values or well-being.  So one ends the relationship without regret and without clinging to the fantasy of how things should have been.

So with Fred, things could go several ways.  If the couple stays together and Fred holds onto how he thought Elissa would be, the couple may become ensnarled in repeated battles over their differences.  Alternatively, the couple might split up, but if Fred has a hard time letting go of the fantasy and how things “should have been,” he may miss her and all the things he had with her for a long time.

Or Fred could accept Elissa for who she is in all her aspects.  If so, and if he can accommodate the ones he does not like, the couple may stay together and enjoy a relatively harmonious relationship.  Or he may accept the reality of who she is and decide she and he are too incompatible to stay together.  Without regrets, he could end the relationship.  Either way, he does not hold onto a fantasy and the concomitant disappointment of “what should have been.”

Are there implications for your relationship?

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, saying watch out for making up a fantasy in your head about your partner.  Rather I wish you clarity in basing your relationship on the reality of who the person is.

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Are You a Compassionate Person?

September 4th, 2012

Are you a compassionate person?  Most of us have some level of compassion for other people.  But some of us seem to have an extra dose of it.  This is a good thing, but it can also have its problems.

Compassion connects us to other people.  It brings assistance to someone in need.  And it makes us feel good when we give.

But the compassionate person can be prone to give too much.  Others may draw on your compassion in ways that drain you.  If others repeatedly ask or demand things of you—time, help, attention, money—and you find your energy or resources depleted, things may be going too far.

If you are a compassionate person, the trick is to learn to set limits so that when you give, you also take care of yourself.  This may mean undoing guilt or negative thoughts about yourself when you do not help another.  It may mean facing the fear that others will not like you if you say no.

There is a good reason to set limits and to take care of yourself, even as you give to others.  Presumably, when you give to others, the intent is to bring goodness to them.  In turn, there is greater goodness in the world as a whole.  This is a desirable outcome for the compassionate person.

But if you allow the other person to overstep your boundaries, you deplete yourself.  There is a negative as well as a positive effect.  You may or may not increase goodness in the world.

It is like there is an equation:


        TG = YG + OG

Total goodness equals your goodness plus others’ goodness.  If you want to increase total goodness, you need to be compassionate without depleting yourself.  Setting boundaries and taking care of yourself as you give to others can increase total goodness in the world.  How cool is that?

Taking care of yourself just makes sense, so that both you and the other person benefit.

This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month wishing you opportunities to be compassionate to yourself and others.

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Do You Worry About What Others Think of You?

August 4th, 2012

Luke often worried about what others were thinking of him.  He wanted other people to like him, so he was often apologetic and tried to be nice.  In fact, people thought of him as a “nice guy,” but this did not make him feel easier.  He would say things with a nervous laugh, a sign of the unanswered question, “Was what I said okay?”  Once he even returned to a store to ask the store owner not to think badly of him after he had bought a product at a competing store.

Sabine also worried about what others thought of her.  She especially avoided acknowledging anger she had against others.  She would not speak up for something she wanted if she felt the other person would not like what she said.  She did things other people asked of her even if she did not want to.  People thought she was nice, but something in her died each time she acted just to please another.

Do you worry excessively about what others think of you?  Do you try to be super nice and end up sweating over things?  Do you often try to please others and say or do the “right thing” to avoid disapproval?

If so, you can do something about the insecurities that cause these feelings and behaviors.  Today, I describe three ideas to alleviate worry about what others think and being a people pleaser.

To begin, let’s look at where these worries about others’ thoughts come from.  Underneath the outer façade of niceness are fears about who you might be if you spoke up or did something and someone judged you for it.  If someone were not to like you, you hear the message that you are stupid, inadequate, unlovable, not good enough, nothing, unworthy, all alone, or some other such fear.

Essentially, we demand of ourselves to be nice, keep things to ourselves, apologize, or please others to avoid our deepest fears about ourselves.

So let’s look at three ways to undo these negative thoughts.

First, others’ thoughts do not make what we fear about ourselves so.  Even if another person judges what we say or do, that judgement is just an opinion, not a fact.  Indeed, what others think of us does not matter, unless we make it matter.  Negative, critical judgements of us are the other person’s problem (precisely because they are judging). We do not need to make it our problem.  We can afford to let judgements pass us by.

In fact, to help us not take on others’ judgements, it can be helpful to examine the truth of the underlying fear.  Is it true you are stupid?  No.  You have the judgement and mental capacity of most human beings.  Is it true that you are unlovable?  No.  Even if you are not around someone who loves you now, it does not mean you are unlovable.

Is it true that you are nothing?  No.  You are somebody who exists and has your own substance, worth, and unique character.  Is it true that you are not good enough?  No.  You are good enough to fill exactly the role and position you are in, and that’s okay.  (For more on this, see my post for May 23, 2011, Feeling Good about Yourself in Difficult Times.)

Knowing these negative beliefs are not true can help immensely when we get worried about what others think.

Secondly, when we take on others’ opinions about what we should say, do, or think, we implicitly assume that there is a “right way” to do things.  If we do not do them this way or if we do not create the results that others expect, we believe we have failed.  But this is a narrow view of the world.  There is not just one way to do things.  If we let go of the need to please or impress others, we can dare to be different.  We can try things that might “fail” in others’ eyes.  When we do so, we free ourselves.

Thirdly, we often worry needlessly about what others think because they are not actually thinking what we fear.  Have you ever worried about making a telephone call and rehearsed in your mind what to say, only to make the call and have the other person react receptively?  Have you ever hesitated to say something to someone and had to work up the guts to do so, only to find the other person happy that you brought it up?

Our minds make things up about what others will say or do, causing needless worry.  As Mark Twain said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

This again points to just trying things despite our fear of what others may think.  Just say or do what you have been holding back on and see what happens.  The more often you “feel the fear and do it anyway,” the more often you will find that things work out better than you feared, and the more confidence you will gain.

So lighten up on yourself and remember these three things:

  • What others think of us is not necessarily so.  In particular, it certainly does not prove we are inadequate, unlovable, unworthy, or any other fear we may have about ourselves.
  • Second, there is not just one way to do things.  What others think does not have to dictate what you do.  You can dare to be different.
  • Third, others often are not judging us in the ways we fear.  Trying out new behaviors can substantiate this and give us greater confidence.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month wishing you greater confidence and ease, no matter what others may think.

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Are Openness and Honesty Necessary in Relationships?

July 6th, 2012

People often say that they want an open and honest relationship.  But what does it mean to have openness and honesty in a relationship?  People say they want to tell and hear “the truth” and “not have any secrets.”  But do these ideals make for a better relationship?  Well, not always.  Let’s find out why.

First, let’s look at what being open or honest means.  If we are talking about honesty about your own thoughts and feelings, there are times when you may want to be open and times when you may not.

For instance, you want to be open and honest about your feelings of love for another, your preferences for doing things with him or her, and your important hopes and values, such as how to handle money, where to live, whether to have children, and how to raise them.

But there is another class of thoughts and feelings to be handled with care.  These thoughts and feelings are your opinions, judgements, and biases about the other person.  An important thing to realize about these kinds of thoughts and feelings is that they may be your truth but they are not necessarily the truth.  Your opinion or judgement about the other may not necessarily be what is true about them.  Opinions and judgements are just that.  They are not facts, not the truth.

This is important, because if you choose to withhold telling your truth, you are not being dishonest about what is so.  You are not withholding the truth. You are simply not expressing your opinion, judgement, or bias.  Sometimes opinions, judgements, and biases are better withheld.

Let’s look at an example.  What if there is something you do not like about your partner’s physical appearance?  If your partner is sensitive about their physical appearance (and who isn’t?), do you tell him or her what you don’t like?  After all, it would mean you are being open and honest.

Here is the important distinction.  You may be telling your truth, but you would not be telling the truth.  You would just be giving your opinion or judgement about the particular physical characteristic you do not like.  Another person may not mind or may even find attractive what you do not like.  So, your opinion is not the truth.

There is another class of thoughts and feelings to be careful about, your normal human tendencies that can trigger your partner.  For example, let’s say you meet someone you are attracted to and you know that telling your partner would hurt him or her.  Do you tell him or her?  Is it good to be “open and honest?”

Attraction to others besides one’s partner is normal for people in committed relationships.  It is not the attraction that makes you guilty.  It is whether you act on the attraction and violate the trust of the relationship that matters.  If you contain yourself, you have handled yourself well.

Some spouses and partners can hear about their mate’s attractions to others, and others cannot.  If you know that your partner would be hurt or overly jealous, there is no point in sharing occasional wandering thoughts and affections.

In an ideal relationship in which the other is able to hear all your thoughts and feelings, of course be honest and open.  But so long as we are human and sensitive to certain thoughts of our partners, withholding some things is not all that bad.

This is the practical approach I take to openness and honesty.  I call it “truth with compassion.”  It is telling the truth about your thoughts and feelings with some limits on what you say, the limits arising from putting an eye toward the effect on your partner and the relationship.

Let me be clear that being less than 100% open about your thoughts and feelings does not give you license to think or do things behind you partner’s back that are deceitful, violate the trust of the relationship, or subvert mutuality.  Keeping activities secret, telling your kids to keep things from the other parent, outright lying or denial, and manipulating are not what I’m talking about.  These actions go beyond “truth with compassion.”  Openness and honesty in these areas are important for the integrity and harmony of a relationship.

In summary, there are reasons to hold honesty and openness in relationships highly.  They are meant to make sure that trust is kept and mutuality is promoted.  However, as with most things, there are limits to how open and honest to be.  When openness or honesty spills over into telling one’s thoughts and feelings that are hurtful or incendiary without intention to support your partner or the relationship, then “truth with compassion” comes in.  Temper some of your truths with compassion and keep them to yourself.  Instead, ventilate them to a friend, a therapist, a coach, or a pastor/rabbi/cleric.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, encouraging you to use truth with compassion in your relationship.

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Jealousy and Infidelity

June 1st, 2012

Do you get jealous?  Do you mistrust your partner of being physically or emotionally unfaithful to you?  Jealousy is a complex emotion, because the problem may lie in your partner’s actions, in your own unjustified suspicions, or in the interactions between you and your partner in a cycle of jealousy and withdrawal.

Jealousy for a therapist can be a tremendous puzzle.  If the source of the problem lies with you getting jealous, then the therapy needs to be about helping you manage these feelings and learning to trust.

If your partner is in fact not being faithful, then individual therapy must address what to do about a relationship in which boundaries are being violated—helping you to make choices about whether to stay in the relationship and gaining strength to assert or extricate yourself.

If the issue is that your (faithful) partner behaves in a way that makes you jealous, causing you to say things that make your partner behave even more in the way that makes you jealous, then the therapy needs to occur with both of you (couples counseling), to discover the pattern and break the cycle.

The problem with jealousy is that it is hard to determine the facts, unless your partner has openly admitted to infidelity.  When there is no admission of unfaithfulness, you may obsess about suspicious behaviors and other evidence that seem to substantiate your belief.  You focus on the other person and not on yourself.  You and the therapist can enter a netherworld of suspicion and guesswork that gets you nowhere.

In individual therapy, at least, it can be more helpful to turn the focus back on yourself and try to determine where your jealousy comes from.  If it is not based on actual, admitted indiscretions by your partner, it may come from your own history and insecurities.  Generally, these insecurities can take one of two forms, fear of abandonment and fear of inadequacy.

With fear of abandonment, your fear can originate in a previous adult relationship or go way back to childhood.  It can lie in your adult life if a previous partner was unfaithful to you.  You enter a new relationship with left over distrust that you displace onto your new partner.

The fear of abandonment can also lie in childhood, if you had an inconsistent or troubled relationship with a parent.  Especially if this occurred in the early years, you may unconsciously fear losing an adult partner later in life.  This fear can mutate into being overly jealous of your partner.

The other major cause of jealousy is a fear of inadequacy.  It can play a role if you unconsciously judge yourself as inferior, either to your partner or to a feared rival.  You may feel inferior if you partner is particularly beautiful or handsome, outgoing, liked by others, successful, or some other such attribute.  Or you may unconsciously fear that your imagined rival possesses qualities superior to your own.  This fear of inadequacy gets subverted and hidden by the jealousy you have for your partner, as you blame him or her for indiscretions.

The most complex manifestation of jealousy lies in a vicious cycle of accusations and withdrawal, with both partners having insecurities that play roles.  The jealous person questions their partner’s behavior and blames him or her, expressing an underlying wish to keep them close and in the relationship.  Initially, the partner may reassure the jealous person, try to placate him or her, and make promises to behave the way the jealous partner wants.

However, with time the accused partner experiences the jealousy as controlling, restricting their freedom, or subverting their individuality.  Feeling smothered, this partner starts to withdraw to protect him- or herself.  Or he or she asserts greater freedom in order to escape the pressure.  This only increases the jealous person’s suspicions and accusations, and the cycle escalates.  This dynamic is best addressed in couples counseling.

What if you are the one who is subject to the jealousy of your significant other?  If you have been faithful, you know how frustrating it can be to try to convince your partner that this is so.  When accused of unfaithfulness, it is easy to feel you have done something wrong, get triggered, and be defensive.  This only feeds a cycle similar to the one just described.  When unjustly accused of being unfaithful, the best thing to do is to say to yourself, “This is not about me.”  It is about the fears of abandonment or the fears of inadequacy that your partner has.

This is Glenn Stevenson with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching, until next month, encouraging you to take a look at jealousy and how it may be affecting your relationship.

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Note:  I am grateful for some ideas in this article to Michele Scheinkman, LCSW, and Denise Werneck, Psychologist, “Disarming Jealousy in Couples Relationships:  A Multidimensional Approach,” Family Process, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2010, pp. 486-502.

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