How to deal with a jealous boyfriend

The best tips and strategies to save your relationship

The jealous boyfriend. Mildly flattering at first, increasingly annoying as time goes by. Especially since you know he has absolutely nothing to worry about. Still, he keeps acting jealous. Mistrusting you in different ways, and picking fights over insignificant incidents. If this sounds familiar, you need to find a way to deal with your jealous boyfriend.

Jealousy is toxic

Jealousy has a way of destroying what could have been an amazing relationship. So make no mistake. You need to deal with his jealousy. He needs to deal with his jealousy.

How to deal with the situation

Ask yourself if you are totally innocent? You also need to communicate your frustration without picking a fight.

Let him know why he is so special to you and explain the seriousness of the situation.

Don’t compromise your freedom to try and make him less jealous. In some cases, love is not enough, and the best thing you can do is walk away.

Jealousy shuts down logic

Jealousy is a hard beast to combat.

The feeling originates in the primal fear of abandonment.

Think about the intensity of jealousy as if you are a baby and your parents walk away, and you have no way to defend yourself, and you have no way of getting food. The terror is intense.

This is the reason why jealousy cuts so deep. When we feel jealousy, our body enters into an emotional panic over the strong fear of abandonment. Logic shuts down.

An abandoned child

We are, in some sense of the words, an abandoned baby.

But as with all other feelings, there are ways to handle jealousy.

It just takes a bit of work.

It’s not you

There are a lot of different strategies you can use to deal with your jealous boyfriend, but as you try to improve yourself and the relationship, always remember that, most likely, his jealousy has nothing to do with you.

To better understand the mechanics of jealousy, check out our article targeted at someone dealing with their own jealousy How to stop being jealous in a relationship.

Are you totally innocent?

This is the first question you need to answer, just for the record. I trust you, but I thought it best to ask. Is your action in any way feeding the situation?

Sometimes, when we need validation from our boyfriend, we resort to less-than-ideal behavior.

You want attention

For example, you feel like he has not given you enough attention.

Instead of stating this feeling and asking him to be more loving, you chose to flirt with someone else or act secretive around your phone.

You get the validation you crave

Your behavior triggers his jealousy. He gives you attention. You get validation. He does care about you. He is afraid of losing you.

Think about your behavior. If you are completely innocent and his jealousy is both unwarranted and hasn’t been provoked by anything you’ve done, time to ask him about it.

Improve your communication to deal with a jealous boyfriend

The ability to communicate is what makes any romantic relationship successful.

The more sensitive the subject, the more important that the two of you can talk about it in a constructive, fruitful way.

Communicating with your partner is both about expressing your feelings and about listening to his feelings. Both of you should feel heard.

Remember that no one wants to feel jealous. He is probably as frustrated with the situation as you are.

Try to see things from his perspective

Ask open-ended questions, ask him about his feelings, try to get him to open up.

The more levelheaded you can be, the more likely you will succeed in dealing with your boyfriend’s jealousy. Instead of criticizing him or being judgmental, try to understand. Ask him about what triggers his jealousy.

Ask him about what he needs from you to feel less jealous.

It’s equally important that you communicate your desire to be trusted. Explain why his jealousy is destructive to the relationship. Explain how it makes you feel.

Be vulnerable and share your feelings from your perspective.

Come up with a solution together

Talk about different ways the two of you can handle this problem. The solution should be something both of you are comfortable with.

Don’t pick a fight when you deal with a jealous boyfriend

The communication mentioned above should ideally take place separated from the incident when he acted jealous.

Pick a time when both of you have time to have a  deep talk.

Stay calm

When he does act jealous, it’s important how you react. Be as calm and relaxed as you can be. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t start talking about his shortcoming. Just listen and be present.

This way, you are showing him a healthier behavior.

Meet him with your best behavior

When someone is showing us their worst, it is easy that we, against our will, react to their behavior with our worst.

Try and be strong and break this negative circle. Be compassionate toward your boyfriend.

Also, don’t start acting jealous yourself. This is not a good way to show what it feels like to be mistrusted.

Let him know why he is so special to you

We all need a bit of extra love and attention from time to time.

Sometimes we are not sure where we stand with our partner. We should be sure, but our past bad experiences, and our bad self-esteem, might get the best of us.

Show him appreciation

Do tell him why you love him and why you are in love with him.

Don’t just do this when he is acting jealous. Do this often, at random times. If you give him a lot of love and attention when he is acting jealous, you, unfortunately, condition him that acting jealous is a way to get affection from you.

He will know you have his back

Spend some time thinking about him, what makes him unique, what makes you like him so much?

Don’t only think about him as a romantic partner; also think about him as a human being.

Tell him why he is special to you. Always strive to build him up. Never put him down.

You help build his confidence

If his jealousy is not so bad, this method will work, and you will get a stronger, more confident man. He will know how much you adore him and that you always have his back.

Explain the seriousness of the situation

If his jealousy is a serious problem, and it often is, you have to make him understand exactly how serious it is.

When we are in a relationship with someone, we become good at seeing the world through their eyes. We know their secrets.

Our boyfriend might have been abandoned by one of his parents or had a violent upbringing. He might have had a bad relationship where he was betrayed.

Thus there are reasons for his jealousy.

He is responsible for his feelings

We know exactly how far our partner has come.

We know that their jealousy is only a symptom of past trauma. We understand exactly where they are coming from, and this empathy is a beautiful thing between humans.

But it is also important that you acknowledge the experience you are having right now.

He needs to know exactly how destructive his jealousy is for the relationship. Deal with your jealous boyfriend by explaining that he is responsible for not acting on his feelings.

Is the relationship worth it?

You want a partner. Not a project.

If you found a rowing boat full of holes, would you jump in and start rowing? Of course not. You know it will sink.

And yet, when it comes to relationships, we tend to see all the obstacles and still think we can make it work. We think we can make the boat float. We just have to row hard enough.

The solution needs to come from him

If your boyfriend wants to change his behavior and is willing to respect your feelings and listen to your needs, jealousy is possible to overcome. But for him to do this, he needs to realize how serious the situation is.

Try therapy

Suggest therapy as a way for him to learn how to handle his emotions. With the help of therapy, he can work on his jealousy, and you can be supportive of this work.

It’s his problem, not yours

This might be an unpopular opinion. But even in a romantic relationship, there are two individuals that should take responsibility for themselves.

Don’t change your behavior. Don’t work too hard towards reassuring him or changing your plans to make him feel safe in the relationship. You should explain your feelings and thoughts and make him feel safe.

He has to be the change

But you should not be doing his emotional work for him. You can’t. You can be there for him. But only he can change himself. Only he can work on himself towards better self-esteem and fewer insecurities.

Since it’s his problem, he should be the one dealing with it.

Don’t give up your freedom to deal with his jealousy

You should not have to compromise your freedom to satisfy his need to feel safe. Say, for example, that he wants to check your phone. You have nothing to hide, so you give him your phone.

But since the problem was not real, to begin with, this action does not solve the problem. The problem was in his head. It had nothing to do with your phone.

He will only demand more sacrifices

No amount of you giving up your integrity and freedom will change what’s going on in his head. Next time he wants you to keep calling him or not go out at all, you might oblige.

But whatever you do, it will never be enough because you and your action were never the problems. For the two of you to have a nice healthy relationship, he has to understand this.

Walk away

Sometimes love is not enough. You love him. He loves you. But love is not in itself an indication that the two of you should be together. Love alone is simply not enough. Sometimes the only way to deal with a jealous boyfriend is to end the relationship.

A healthy supporting relationship, free from excess drama and invalid jealousy, is more important than love.

Don’t lose yourself

When we try too hard to satisfy someone else, we lose ourselves. The more years this process is allowed to go on, the more we lose. Don’t lose yourself.

To fall in love again is much easier than to rebuild yourself after having someone mistrust you.

Humans are wired to fall in love. It will happen. But if you compromise when it comes to your integrity, you will feel like your borders are not respected.

A Final Note

Mild jealousy is possible to overcome by the different methods I have presented above. But if his jealousy is bad and, on top of that, he is acting possessive, you should be careful. Those kinds of behavior are often indications of worse things to come.

I think you already know this, deep down. Being jealous is not a small problem. It’s not easy to deal with. Jealousy will eat away the foundation of the relationship until there is no love left.

If you want to know more about destructive behavior, you can read my very comprehensive article about manipulative behavior, you can also check out How do you know if you are dating the right person? for signs of a healthy relationship.

Spend a couple of months trying the methods I have presented in this text. If his behavior doesn’t change, it might be time to walk away. If the techniques in this article do work, congratulations, it means he is a keeper.