How to handle jealousy

[zooeym]

My boyfriend is going on holiday with some of his friends from uni. This includes a close female friend and her sister. I've known about this for ages, and there are circumstances as to why I couldn't go with them. He's leaving tomorrow, and before now I've been totally cool with it - I don't tend to be a particularly jealous person. But today it's hit me that he's going away with another girl, and the fear that something might happen while they're drunk and half naked at the beach has just sunk in. I'm also worried about her taking lots of pictures of them together and people feeling bad for me - especially because there aren't many pictures of us together online (we aren't really that type). What's worse is that I'm going on holiday straight after so I won't see him for ages, and I feel like if something did happen I wouldn't find out for as long.

I've half-jokingly mentioned I'm feeling a bit paranoid and he's told me not to be silly, and I do trust him.

This is mostly a new feeling for me and I'm aware I'm being irrational and jealous. Is there anything I can do to let go of it?

[Eddie C]

Hello there, zooeym.

Sorry you are feeling so conflicted, I know is not nice.

The thing about feelings is that, the more you try to make them go away, the stronger they get, you know? Maybe, instead of trying to just get rid of this what you need is to accept it. Feelings are not bad, even the ones that don't feel very nice. We need all of them so we can make good decisions. We need all of them so we can know the difference between what works for us and what doesn't.

Sometimes what we need is not to just "let it go" but to sit with those feelings for a while and really think what we can get out of them. If you sit with your jealousy now and spend sometime with it, maybe you can realize a couple of useful things like, how much you trust your partner or what you need to trust more your partner. You can learn a lot when you spend time with your emotions.

Have you tried to talk with him (not just in a "jokingly" way) about how you really feel?

[zooeym]

Thank you

That's good advice. I totally understand the need to process feelings rather than ignore them.

Because he's on holiday now it's a bit difficult to have a serious chat with him. But I've decided to recognise that I'm feeling paranoid but not to dwell on it, and to try to be happy for him. Besides, I'm going to have to get used to him spending a lot of time with his female friend because we go to different unis. I have absolutely no reason to suspect he has any feelings for her, and he's told me many times he wishes I was coming with him on holiday. Does it sound like I have trust issues or is this a normal level of worry?

[Eddie C]

Normal is such a relative concept, you know? Is really hard to define what "normal" can be when we talk about something so widely different like people and human emotions. I would better ask, is this a feeling that helps you in any way? What can you learn from it?

[Heather]

We've got a great piece on jealousy on the main site here -- http://www.scarleteen.com/article/relat ... ed_monster -- that may also come in handy!

I'd also add that there's no medical or clinical (or really, even practical) definition for "issues," in the way you're using. Whether or not you feel something is an issue for you is really about if you find something is a pattern for you over time, and something you pretty persistently find to be a challenge.