Marriage Counseling Question 3 – How Do You Deal With Suffocating Jealousy?
It’s natural to have some level of jealousy regarding your spouse, but when a person feels trapped by it the marriage will suffer.
Sr. Haleh gives an explanation on how to avoid jealousy by agreeing on guidelines regarding gender relations and honor each other. Learn what is leading to your spouse’s insecurities and find out how you may be contributing to their jealousy.
Jealousy is a common problem in many of the marriages I have seen, one sister came in and she was very frustrated. She said, My husband is handsome, charming, and he loves to pour on the charm with his colleagues and coworkers, and it drives her nuts, she becomes very insecure and defensive. And she wants to just control him and prevent him from doing that. I had a brother who came in for marriage counseling, and he said he had caught his wife chatting with a lot of her ex boyfriends. And there was a lot of emotional infidelity going on. And this happened repeatedly. So you can tell that these scenarios create a lot of jealousy in the heart of the spouse, it's not easy to see your
spouse take interest in the opposite gender, it's not easy to see them have this emotional connection. So what do you do in a situation like this? And this leads us to the question, how do you deal with jealousy? That is suffocating? First of all, it's really important to have a heart to heart talk about male female relationship right at the beginning, maybe before you get married at the beginning of your marriage. And if you've never had this conversation before, it's a good time to have it. discuss what are the guidelines now we know what the Islamic guidelines are, we know that there shouldn't be that kind of free mixing and friendship and all of that. But not everyone is
abiding by that. So it's really important to see where your husband or wife stands in the spectrum, and come up with an agreement that both of you are going to be comfortable with what is appropriate and what is not acceptable. And once you do that, you need to make sure that you honor each other's wishes. Because having a relationship on the thigh with the opposite gender is like a cancer in your marriage. And you won't recognize the effects of it until it's too late. I've seen so many marriages start off with this kind of very innocent relationship or they're just chatting or meeting up and it very soon escalates. So some of that jealousy can be avoided by having some clear guidelines,
knowing where you stand, and then honoring each other. And if you find that jealousy is very excessive, I think it's important to also ask your spouse what is it that they're feeling insecure about? Maybe you're not valuing them, maybe you're not making them feel appreciated or attractive, and by you giving attention to someone else and then maybe innocent, then they're feeling insecure. So it's important to address those insecurities and find out what you may be contributing to this relationship which is causing them to be jealous. So do your share half conversation, make an agreement to avoid feeling suffocated in your marriage. I hope you enjoyed this video. My name is
Khalid banani. I'm a therapist and clinical psychology and I'm a marriage counselor. For the past 20 years I've worked with hundreds or 1000s of people. I'm also the founder of the five pillars of marriage which has helped transform hundreds of marriages and have done in law. If you enjoyed and benefited from this video, like it, share it and subscribe to this YouTube channel so I can make more beneficial videos. Thank you for watching.