How to Handle Jealousy

Video Transcript

"Fragile, handle with care. How to handle jealousy. This is Dr. Paul, author of Boomer Girls! A Boomer Woman's Guide to Men & Dating, and host of Ask Dr. Paul. Jealousy is a very fragile item. Handle it with care, because jealousy can ruin a relationship, or on the other hand, it can strengthen the relationship. Sometimes, people attempt to make their significant other; be it man or woman, jealous because they want to see if they really care. I don't recommend it, but human nature being what it is, sometimes people think well, she doesn't care about me. I'll just kind of flirt over here and see how she reacts. That may make the problem you have worse, or on the other hand, the same thing that a woman may do. You handle it very, very carefully, because if you're internally jealous you wait till you get to a point where you can communicate with the other, and sit down with them and say look, I want to let you know about something that occurred this evening that concerned me, and what concerned me was the way in which you reacted to this man or woman. I want you to tell me about that. Now, if they're defensive, and that may be typical; listen. Don't try to nail down the defense. But you've established something already. They already have been put on notice that number one, you were aware of it, number two, you care, and number three, yeah, you're jealous, okay. Now, let them know at that point that you're going to be very specific next time if it happens, and you don't choose to have a next time because it can be very detrimental to our relationship for either one of us to be jealous, so we really don't need to be jealous with each other if we really have trust. So, that's the way to handle it. This is Dr. Paul. May your fantasies of today be your realities of tomorrow."