Are you unhappy when your spouse spends time with someone else?

Do you often find yourself questioning what he or she thinks and does?

Then this could be the beginnings of jealousy in your relationship.

Unfortunately, if jealousy is left unchecked it can ruin your marriage, and even extend beyond the end of the relationship, should it end, often evolving into a dark, long-term vendetta.

But jealousy is a common problem that can be solved.

Usually, it’s feelings of insecurity and neglect that trigger jealously. And here are some typical situations that often give birth to those feelings:

1) The current partner feels insecure because of a former spouse who is still around (which often happens when children are involved.).

2) When a spouse brings the baggage of mistrust from a previous relationship into the current relationship; they never feel totally safe or secure.

3) Some people are natural flirts; they enjoy getting attention from the opposite sex despite being married (obviously this doesn’t sit well with their spouses). And although this can create feelings of insecurity in their spouse, the flirting spouse usually has no idea how their partner feels about their actions.

4) Infidelity breeds jealousy in relationships. If one partner has cheated in the past, it’s only natural for the other partner to feel insecure.

If the marriage survives the infidelity, both partners need to put serious measures in place to keep infidelity, jealousy and other marriage problems at bay.

5) When divorce occurs, the spouse who gets custody of the children will be under more demands and stress because of the added responsibilities and time constraints. So usually they will put their dating life on hold for a while. But their ex-spouse is free to start dating immediately, which can obviously trigger feelings of jealousy and resentment.

6) When a new baby enters the family, marriage problems often arise because of the massive amounts of time and attention it takes to raise a child. Needless to say, this can be unhealthy to the marriage because mom and dad can quickly begin feeling unwanted or neglected by each other.

7) Nothing breeds insecurity in a marriage like working long hours as this means less time together. Unfortunately, long hours and continuous travel are some of the most dangerous causes of marriage problems.

Jealousy in itself is not necessarily a bad thing because it shows that you care about your partner.

But unfortunately, most married people allow jealousy to consume them and fuel their anger.

What can you do about jealousy in relationships?

The first and most important step in dealing with jealousy is to find what’s causing it.

Review the above scenarios. Is one of them causing jealousy in your marital relationship? If so, then address it by initiating a loving conversation with your spouse.

Another thing you can do is evaluate your feelings to determine if they have any basis. Has your spouse done anything to make you jealous, or have your emotions just gotten a little out of control?

If during this process you realize that you are at fault, then acknowledge your mistake, for this is the first step to eliminating jealousy and other marriage problems in relationships.

Once you have done this, discuss your fears and insecurities with your partner and ask him or her to help you overcome them to build a stronger marital foundation for the future.

As you may already know, communication is the key to a happy marriage.

For this reason you must learn how to share your feelings with your partner in a non-accusatory and non-confrontational tone.

Instead of saying, “I think you’re cheating on me”, explain to your spouse that you feel something has changed in your marriage. Share your thoughts and feelings and ask them to help you sort it out. Blaming your partner only adds fuel to the fire.

Unfortunately, all too often we expect our spouses to know what we think and feel. But most of the time, they have no idea they’re doing something that is hurting us.  So unless we COMMUNICATE our fears and insecurities to our partners, how can we expect them to do something about it?

So begin the process of eliminating jealousy in your relationship by sharing how you feel, and why you feel this way, to your spouse.  I think you might be pleasantly surprised how easy it will be to fix this common marriage problem called jealousy.