You’re now in the process where it can be hard to figure out, within yourself, if you should laugh or cry.
Laughing is perhaps to exaggerate, but not compared to how stupid we can act when we are jealous.
If you have been jealous for a long time, you probably already know your own jealousy patterns. To be able to do something about them, you need to know them.

Let me give you an example: You might be jealous, if one of the same sex texts with your partner, you become angry, and one thing leads to another. In the end, you’re standing in the middle of a huge quarrel and it usual ends up with the storms raging off after a while. But it’s an unnecessary situation to bring up.
Then you have to ask yourself whether the quarrel, which came from jealousy, was healthy or unhealthy. If it was one of the unhealthy patterns, the first advice is to talk to your partner about how you could prevent it from happening again.
If you’ve tried everything there is to do, but you’re still jealous and knows it’s a foolish thing to be jealous about, it’s important that you manage to avoid getting to the point where you argue or let it control you.

There may be several jealousy patterns in your relationship, which you already know about. If that’s the case, I’ll suggest you avoid them by talking with your partner about them as soon as possible.

One of the most frequent examples why you can be jealous, is if your partner is either going to a party or other events where alcohol is typically involved.
Let me just make it clear that people are affected in different ways when they drink alcohol, but if you’ve known your partner for some time, you probably already you know him/her drinking behaviour.
No matter what, it’s very important as a couple that you can talk about going to parties in general, without it being a taboo to talk about in relation to jealousy.

A good advice could be that you promise each other always to be available on the phone, when you’re going out to party. I don’t say you wouldn’t do it, it would mean problems between you and your partner.
What I mean is by doing it; it can dim the jealousy a lot, if one of you stays at home. It would also maybe be easier to feel the peace of mind you need about your partner going out to party.

Here it’s important to remember that such a solution isn’t an alternative to trust. I will call it a temporary solution, or a supplement to the existing trust. Remember, you cannot force trust to appear in a relationship; it’s often a long process to work on, and you really need to make a lot of effort to achieve it.

An example from my own life is that I could often become jealous, if someone wrote to my girlfriend on Facebook.

I had a pattern that sounded like; I was convinced that they were flirting with her. After repeated quarrels, which was a foolishly pattern I never stopped, I realized that it had something to do with me and not her.

What made me jealous wasn’t, because she was writing with people of the opposite sex, and I didn’t have any trust in her, because I did trust her. It was the conviction that they flirted with her.
When I agreed with myself that it wasn’t true, it was a pattern, which I quickly worked on to do something about.

It succeeded because I got an overview on my jealousy patterns, and even though it was hard, I recognized that I had a problem, and then I could finally break the pattern, and now it’s a part of the past. Patterns can be difficult to get an overview of; therefore there will be an exercise to help you get it.

First jealousy exercise:

Grab a piece of paper and begin to do a brainstorming. You can alternatively open a Word document on your computer and write it there.

1. Use 5 minutes to do a brainstorm about everything you remember that has something to do with your jealousy and write it down. It can be persons, places, moods, events and so on. Just everything, that comes through your mind. The more you’ll get, the better it is.

2. Then use some time to write notes to the various things, for an example it can be when it happens, what mood you or your partner is in when it happens, where it happens and so on.

3. If something seems to be similar, or in the same category, put it together.

4. Line up all the words and categories you wrote, so you’ll get an overview.

5. Then have a good look at your jealousy patterns, point out the things where you think you can do better. And then pay extra attention these in the future.

6. Write a note, which reminds you of all your jealousy patterns, that you want to work with. It could be on your phone, computer or a traditional yellow notepaper that can hang anywhere.

When you got the overview, it’s easier for you to promise yourself to stop the unhealthy jealousy patterns, before it all ends up in a quarrel.
Maybe it’s necessary for you to talk to your partner about it, and maybe ask her or him to do the same exercise you just did. Your partner doesn’t necessary have to be jealous, but things will be easier if he or she agreed with you. If both you and your partner is working on it, it’s easier compared to if you do it all by yourself.

An alternative to this exercise would be to create a mind map based on your jealousy. A mind map is where you draw a circle or something similar in the middle on a piece of paper.
In the circle you’ll write “jealousy”.
Then you draw a line out of jealousy circle, and over to another circle where you’ll maybe write “party”.
Out from the circle where it says party, you type two lines more to new boxes. Here you could write two more things that make you jealous and related to party.

If you didn’t get the point entirely, there’s an example of a mind map too, above the text.