Chapter Three
Becky Advises a Man Who Writes to Her to Ask for Help Because his Girlfriend has Threatened to Break Up with Him Because of his Extreme Jealousy

During one series of the psychology programme, A man wrote to Becky, saying he got very jealous of his girlfriend all the time, every time he saw her talking to another man or even smiling at one, worrying it meant she preferred the other man to him. He said he'd started phoning her up obsessively several times a day to check she wasn't cheating on him, and he didn't even like her talking to the postman because he was worried she'd be attracted to him and leave their relationship. But she'd told him she couldn't stand the jealousy, and had threatened to break up with him because of it. At first, she'd urged him to go to counselling with her; but he'd refused, saying he didn't think he had a problem. They'd been living together; but then she moved out, and told him she wouldn't come back to him unless he agreed to go to counselling to help him with his jealousy problem; and she warned him that if he got nasty to her in any way in retaliation for moving out, she'd break up with him for good, and even get a restraining order against him if she felt threatened.

The man had started getting a bit depressed sometimes, wondering if he did get things out of proportion and get more jealous than was fair. It made him feel a bit worthless. But he wasn't sure what to do about it. But he thought that if he agreed to go for counselling, it would mean his girlfriend had won a victory over him, and he didn't like the thought of that. But he did want her back. And he was just beginning to wonder if it would be better not to be so jealous, especially because his jealousy was often tormenting him, so he felt bad a lot of the time; so he asked Becky what she thought he should do.

Becky planned what advice to give, and told the other people on the psychology programme about all the things she thought it would be useful if she said. There was quite a lot she wanted to say, and the producers decided to let her take over a whole psychology programme to say it. She was pleased. Whether the jealous man managed to tolerate sitting through the tirade she filled the programme with, the people at the radio station never found out. But she did make some good points.

When it came time to record the programme, she read out the man's letter, and then said:

"Firstly, your girlfriend probably wants you to go for counselling because she thinks that then she's going to want to stay with you more, not because she wants to win a victory over you; so if you think she'll have got one up on you if you go, it's because of the way you're interpreting things in your own mind, not because of how things really are. And it's the same with your jealousy, when you interpret even little things she does as threats to your relationship with her. But that does mean that if you can change the way you think about things, it's quite likely that your behaviour and feelings will change as a result, because you won't be acting jealous any more if you've started to think there isn't so much to be jealous about; so she might start to think of you as a nicer person to live with then, so it might attract her back to you.

"At the moment, you're driving your girlfriend away by the very behaviour you're using to try to make sure she stays with you, the jealous behaviour. Since that can't be what you want, you can tell it would be to your benefit if you change your behaviour.

"I've heard there are very jealous men who put restrictions on their wives and girlfriends, like forbidding them to see some men who used to be friends of theirs, and ordering them not to talk to male neighbours; and they hassle them all the time about who they've seen and where they've been, till their wives or girlfriends can't take it any more and leave them, sometimes getting into new relationships with other men; but then instead of realising that it was their behaviour that caused the problem, the jealous men think it just confirms their opinion that women can't be trusted, so they just get all the more resentful and bitter about women, and more jealous in their next relationships, trying to control what their girlfriends do.

"Some of them probably go online and express hatred for women on forums and in other places like that, having their bad feelings stirred up all the more when other men who've probably mistreated wives and girlfriends till they left tell their own stories about how unfair it was of them to leave them, and how much it proves women can't be trusted, till all the men are wallowing around in a mess of anger and hatred and other bad feelings, which make it even more likely they'll mistreat women in the future because they feel so resentful towards them; so they're pretty much guaranteeing that they won't have successful relationships with women in future unless they change; but they'll probably blame women for all the things that go wrong in their future relationships because of their behaviour too!

"I hope you're not that bad.

"But it seems that a lot of jealous people are so preoccupied with their own feelings and suspicions, and thoughts about how they need to restrict their partners from doing certain things to stop them getting interested in other people, that it doesn't occur to them to ever think about how their partners feel about the whole thing. And then if their partners ever say they're unhappy, instead of understanding, the jealous people can think it's proof that there really is a risk that they'll leave them, so they think they need to control what they do even more, to try to stop it. But that very thing makes it more likely that their partners will want to leave.

"For the sake of your own happiness as well as for anyone else, try not to be like that! There are ways you can control your jealousy, especially if you understand why it comes on better. This is what I've found out about why it can:

"One thing that makes jealousy bad is people's imaginations, because the more they imagine their partners leaving them for other people they've seen them with or heard about them enjoying spending time with, the more their jealous feelings will get worked up, because they'll be convinced that there's a strong possibility of it happening for real, so they think they're imagining how real life might be soon. And the more they imagine other people trying to steal their partners away, the more angry they're going to feel with those people, till they can even want to harm them in some way, not realising that if there's no actual good-quality evidence that they're trying to do any such thing as steal their partners away from them, their jealousy and angry feelings have just come on because of the thoughts and fantasies that have been going round and round in their minds, making their feelings worse and worse the more angry and worried their thoughts have got.

"So they can even end up harming people, just because of the thoughts that have been making their feelings stronger and stronger, and what they've been imagining happening, because of even just really flimsy evidence they've got that their partners are interested in other people, like that they saw them laugh at a few of their jokes, when they wouldn't think that if they themselves laughed at someone else's jokes, it would mean they would automatically want to rush into a relationship with them.

"And they can do things to their partners like interrogate them with suspicious questions, and even force them not to go out much, all because of their jealous feelings that spark off paranoid thoughts, that make them feel more and more suspicious the more they think them, just because upsetting thoughts are just bound to make people more upset the more they think them.

"I read about a man who was convinced his wife must be getting romantically attracted to one of the men she worked with. He didn't have any evidence that she was, but he thought it just must be happening if they spent so much time together, even though it was just because they worked together, and also because he knew they were friends. He thought it was probably the best-looking one that she was romantically attracted to. So he started feeling angrier and angrier with him, as he imagined them paying each other attention, and the man persuading his wife to have an affair with him.

"He got so angry, he decided to punish the man. At an office party, he spiked his drinks, and then informed the police that he was drinking under the influence of alcohol. The police arrested the man and charged him with drunk driving, and he lost his driving licence for six months. He found it much harder to get into work after that, so he also lost his job. The jealous man was pleased. But it wasn't fair.

"That was all because of how the jealous man's angry feelings had been worked up by what was going on in his imagination!

"I've heard that even worse things can happen, just because people get more and more angry and suspicious the more they work themselves up with jealous thoughts, when they really haven't got any good evidence that their partners are behaving badly.

"Jealousy can come on in the first place because for whatever reason, people develop distorted hard-line beliefs about the significance of certain things that happen, and about what they shouldn't have to tolerate. Sometimes that happens after they really have been hurt by someone's behaviour, like if a previous partner was unfaithful to them, and they want to try to make sure that never happens with anyone else. But sometimes it might be because of attitudes and messages they picked up from their own fathers who were jealous about what their own wives were doing, and wouldn't allow them to do things like talk to men outside the family and so on, so they learned as they were growing up that they ought to treat women like that.

"They can think of themselves as owning their partners, as if they're like their property, instead of thinking of them as independent beings in their own right; so they think they've got the right to control what they do. If you realise that's the way you think of your partner, ask yourself how fair that really is, and if you'd like it if someone thought of you that way. Of course, it would be horrible if she cheated on you; but isn't it better if she doesn't cheat on you because she respects you too much, and her principles are too high to allow her to give into any temptation she might have to do that, and because of her conscience and knowledge of what harm it would do your relationship, instead of her not cheating on you because she's being controlled? Isn't it better to have a partner who cares about you too much to deliberately do things that upset you than one you have to control to make sure she doesn't do them? But why would you believe your partner is someone you have to control, if she's never cheated on you before?

"Having said what I said about one reason why some men can want to control their partners, women can have jealous attitudes too, for various reasons, and try to put restrictions on their husbands in the same way that husbands can on wives.

"But if you're so jealous because you've been cheated on by a partner you used to have, and it was really upsetting, so you want to try to make sure it never happens again with another one, you could try writing down all the ways you can think of that your current girlfriend's different to the one you had before, - not just in ways that make her less likely to cheat on you, such as being more reliable, more willing to talk about the way she feels about people, and keener to fix problems in your relationship instead of escaping them by getting romantically involved with other people, if she is like that, but lots of other ways she's different too, - to try to bring it home to yourself that she's a different individual, so there's no reason to believe she'll behave in the same way as your former partner did.

"There might be other reasons why people get to be really jealous too. But whatever the reasons are, people can do their own peace of mind a big favour if they work on changing, as well as it making it more likely that they'll be able to improve their relationships.

"With you being a very jealous person, it's likely that you've got some underlying beliefs that fuel the feelings that make you jealous, beliefs that make you read way more significance into things than is really reasonable. At least, that's what a lot of jealous people do. What I say isn't meant to be offensive; it's just what I know from what I've read about jealousy in general.

"When people get jealous about things that happen when they haven't got any hard evidence that something's wrong, they'll be reading a lot more into things than is deserved, for instance if they're at a party with their partner, they go to get a drink, and when they come back, they see their partner laughing with someone of the opposite sex, and immediately assume it must mean they want to get romantically involved with them so they're in danger of losing them, even though there's no good-quality evidence that they want to do anything more than share a joke with the person, and they've never gone off with someone of the opposite sex they've only just met and had a joke with before.

"An unnaturally jealous person's worries don't depend on how incriminating their partner's behaviour is; the worries will be triggered off just by them giving someone else of the opposite sex attention, no matter how innocent it might be. The jealous feelings will just be automatic, triggered off by their worries, and their assumptions that what they're seeing is significant and will cause a problem if it isn't quickly stopped.

"And then they can think up reasons they can tell themselves as to why their jealous behaviour's justified, to convince themselves they're right to be jealous, when the reasons they think up don't prove that really, for instance if they decide that since their partner looks as if they're enjoying themselves far more than they normally do when they're spending time with them themselves, it simply must mean they're more attracted to the new person they're with than they are to them, so there's a danger that they'll start a romantic relationship with them if they're left to their own devices. Those thoughts can make the jealous person feel even more jealous; and the increase in the intensity of their jealous feelings can then make them sure there must be something to be jealous about, because they don't realise their feelings are just getting stronger because of all the thoughts going around in their heads. They assume their feelings must be telling them there's something to worry about.

"Their feelings might get less intense if they try to remind themselves that there might actually be perfectly innocent explanations for their partner's behaviour, such as that they enjoy themselves most when they're being told funny jokes, and that it's probably the first time they've heard one for quite a while. Or it might be that they enjoy themselves most when they're not having to constantly worry about not doing the slightest little thing that'll make their jealous partner start getting suspicious and hassling them about it, like even looking around and spotting a nice-looking person; so whatever it is that's given them the temporary freedom to actually manage to enjoy themselves with someone else for a little while, such as the couple of minutes they were left alone while their jealous partner got a drink, might have felt like a refreshing moment of freedom from worry.

"Having a conversation with yourself in your head, where you argue with the assumptions you're in the habit of instantly making about what must be really going on that cause your jealousy to flare up, by suggesting to yourself other possible explanations for what you're seeing or finding out, can help make your feelings fade away.

"To give an example of what kinds of alternative explanations there might be that you could remind yourself of, imagine a couple have been dating for a while, and the man phones his girlfriend up on her home phone one evening, but she isn't there, and he phones a bit later, but she still doesn't answer, and her mobile phone's turned off. He might leap to the conclusion that she must be with another man, maybe a man who works in the same place as her. But there might be quite a few possible alternative explanations, so it's worth him thinking of some:

"She might have popped out to the shop to buy something she's run out of, and met up with a female friend of hers there who she's been chatting to. She might have been made to work late. She might have received a phone call from a friend or family member asking for help with something. She might have accidentally turned the ringer off on her phone so it isn't ringing out loud. She might possibly have been in an accident. She might have been invited out to a social occasion at short notice by a friend of hers or work colleague, and maybe gone straight from work. She might be late home because her train was cancelled. She might have decided to spend some time outside enjoying the sunshine. And so on. If he tries, the man might be able to think of lots of possible explanations for her behaviour that won't make him jealous.

"Then instead of making angry accusations against her next time they meet, he can just calmly ask her where she was; and if she gives an innocent explanation that sounds believable, and he hasn't got any reason not to believe it, because she hasn't got a history of cheating on the person she's dating, as far as he knows, he can feel pretty comfortable letting the matter drop.

"So whenever you leap to the conclusion that something suspicious must be happening, just because you see your partner talking to someone of the opposite sex or something, it means you're not giving your mind time and the chance to think of possible alternative explanations for what's happening.

"Reserving judgment about what's happening till you know more can stop jealousy flaring up. So if you see your partner just laughing and joking with another man, for example, when jealous feelings start to come on, if you can think to yourself, 'Hang on, all I know so far is that she's enjoying the man's company at the moment, and that doesn't necessarily mean anything significant, especially because she hasn't got a history of becoming romantically involved with people I see her having fun with', you might be able to stop the jealousy getting strong.

"It might be difficult though, because strong jealous feelings might come on instantly. If they do, they might make you assume that the suspicious explanation is the most likely one, because you think your feelings wouldn't be coming on if there was nothing to them. But even strong feelings can come on just because the brain gets into the habit of bringing them on automatically when something that's often made a person think jealous thoughts in the past that bring on jealous feelings happens.

"It might be hard to believe that that's the only explanation for them. But you can ask yourself what good-quality evidence you have that they mean more than that every time they come on.

"The more you imagine your girlfriend getting attracted to other men when she isn't with you, the more jealous it'll make you feel, till you might get really angry with her and have a go at her when she comes back, when all her misdeeds have just been going on in your own imagination!

"So from now on, if you start to imagine her flirting with other men, and you realise it's making you feel more and more jealous, try to stop yourself. You could try to think about all the times when she told or showed you she loved you instead. Or you could try getting immersed in fantasies about how it would be if she came home from an evening out with female friends, told you about what a nice time she'd had spending the night chatting to them, and you believed her, without getting worried that she was up to no good at all, and also fantasies about you seeing her laughing and joking with men she's just met, without you feeling at all worried that she might leave you for them. The more you imagine feeling perfectly relaxed when that kind of thing happens, the more it's likely to start happening in reality.

"Your jealous feelings might make reserving judgment instead of jumping to a suspicious conclusion when you actually do see her talking to another man hard, because your feelings might make you feel sure something suspicious just must be going on, and that something bad will happen if you don't stop what's going on between your partner and whoever she's enjoying a moment with. But you can ask yourself what good-quality evidence you have for believing a suspicious explanation's more likely than an innocent one. As I said, feelings aren't good evidence in themselves. They can just mean someone's got into the habit of making them stronger with all their jealous thoughts, till they start coming on automatically when the kind of thing happens that used to make the person start thinking jealous thoughts till their feelings got stronger and stronger.

"Another reason why jealous feelings can be so strong is because jealous people can instinctively over-estimate how terrible it would be for them if their partners left them, so they think they have to do everything they can to control situations to make it less likely that that'll happen, because they think it absolutely can't be allowed to. But they can relax a bit, and their jealous feelings can become less intense, if they start reasoning with themselves that although it would be bad if their partners left them, it wouldn't be the end of the world, and they would get over it, and probably find someone new in the end, so it isn't really absolutely essential that their partner doesn't do anything that could even just possibly lead to them meeting someone else and going off with them.

"Or jealous people can over-estimate how bad certain things would be for their relationship, for instance thinking that if their partner's been in love with someone else before, it'll be terrible, because it'll be bound to mean they'll be making comparisons between their abilities as a lover and the former partner's, and will probably think the former partner's were better. But a more realistic thing to think is that it is possible that they're making comparisons, but that isn't necessarily the case, and even if it is, and the former partner seems better, there might be ways the jealous person can improve their appeal, and that after all, they must have something going for them if their partner was attracted into a relationship with them, so things aren't likely to be a dead loss at all. The jealous person might even compare favourably in some ways with the former partner.

"Another thing is that a person who gets jealous quickly can over-estimate how easily their partner could be led astray into a relationship with someone else; so whenever their partner looks at someone of the opposite sex, they feel sure there's a good chance of it happening. A more realistic and less worrying thing to do would be to think about whether the partner has ever gone off with someone they just looked at before, even someone they found physically attractive. If they've got no history of doing that kind of thing, there's no good reason to believe there's about to be a change.

"Or sometimes, people can be jealous because whenever they look at nice-looking people of the opposite sex themselves, they start dreaming about having sex with them, and they just assume that if they're doing that, their partner must be doing it too, so they want to restrict their partner's access to people of the opposite sex, to make it less likely that they'll turn their supposed dreams into reality. But a lot of people don't dream about doing that with other good-looking people; so the way their partner thinks might be completely different to the way they think themselves, so they're just not being fair to them.

"And another reason jealous people can think it's important to control their partner's movements to stop them getting attracted to other people is because they feel sure they'd look a fool and lose face in their communities if that happened. They can feel as if they're being made a fool of even if their partner just chats or has a joke with someone of the opposite sex in their presence, because they're not giving them all their attention. If they can talk themselves into believing that actually, it doesn't really reflect badly on them if their partner gives other people attention, and that in fact it's just natural for people to want to communicate with people other than their partners, they can stop believing it's so significant and worrying when that happens, so they stop believing so intensely that it means being made a fool of, so their jealous feelings can fade.

"Even if you were cheated on, and you didn't find out for ages, it wouldn't mean you were being made a fool of; your partner would be the silly one really, for putting your relationship in jeopardy.

"One thing it might be worth you asking yourself when your jealous feelings come on is, 'If I saw a friend of mine doing the same thing with someone else that's making me jealous when my partner does it with someone, would I think their own partner would have good cause to be jealous of them? Would I think it meant they were doing something incriminating?'

"If you wouldn't, then it might be worth you asking yourself if there really needs to be one rule for them and another one for your partner, or whether what's likely to be true for the friend of yours is most likely to be true for her too.

"Or do you make the same assumptions about yourself that you make about your girlfriend? I mean, when you get involved in a conversation with another woman that you enjoy, does that mean there's a danger that you'll fall in love and get more interested in her than you are in your partner? And does that happen with every new woman you meet? Do you think, 'Oh no, I'd better feel jealous on behalf of my poor girlfriend, because there's a danger of me losing interest in her?' If that doesn't happen, and you feel no need for it to happen, why should your partner be any different? Why would you think it's more likely to happen with her than with you? If there's no good-quality evidence that it's more likely to happen with her, surely that means there's no reason to get so jealous.

"And think about how you'd feel yourself if you were in a relationship with someone who treated you the way you treat your partner because of their jealousy of you. If you'd hate it, you'll get an idea of how your partner feels.

"Maybe all along, you've been blaming your girlfriend for your feelings of jealousy, thinking it's her behaviour that's sparking them off. But really, it's mostly your beliefs about the significance of her behaviour that's doing it. So if you can change any beliefs that aren't really fair to her to more realistic ones, it'll stop you feeling so jealous.

"Some jealous people believe that if their partner's allowed to get away with talking in a friendly way to people of the opposite sex, or things like that, it'll inevitably lead to them getting friendlier and friendlier with them till they want to get romantically involved with them. So they always want to stop what could be the start of that kind of thing. But it could help them become less jealous if they examine that belief, and ask themselves how realistic it really is, by asking themselves questions like, 'What good-quality evidence is there that my partner has ever been seriously tempted to be unfaithful before, especially the first time they've ever met someone? What good-quality evidence is there that normal conversation between people often leads to people being unfaithful to their partners?'

"Another thing you might believe is that if your partner left you, it would diminish your own self-respect, because you'd feel like a less valued person. But you can help yourself change that belief so it stops you thinking it's important to control your partner's movements so she'll be less likely to leave, if you reason with yourself that your worth as a person doesn't depend on whether or not you have a partner; it depends on the fact that you can be valued just for being human, and on what you're like as a person, among other things.

"Maybe one reason you get so jealous is low self-esteem - maybe the main reason you want to be in your relationship is even because you think it proves to you that someone likes you enough to have one with you, which you might think shows you're a worthwhile person. Apparently, that's the way some people think. But then they still feel like bad examples of humans, so they think they need to control what their partners do to make them stay with them, because they can't imagine them wanting to stay with them of their own accord if someone more attractive comes along, because they feel unlovable.

"If you feel like that, it might help if you think of all the reasons you can as to why you're a worthwhile person after all. Maybe you were told when you were growing up that you'd never manage to make anything of your life, by people who were either really pessimistic, or bullies, or who thought calling you worthless and other things like that would motivate you to succeed in life to prove them wrong. But maybe you took the messages to heart and believed them.

"If that's what happened, try to think of as many reasons as you can why those people were wrong, and the possible real reasons why they might have said what they said, for instance just meanness. That might convince you that you don't need to take their messages seriously.

"If you lose your partner, instead of feeling small because you think a man whose partner's left him has lost face, or whatever, so you get angry with your ex-partner because you think her actions have led you to feel like that, you could ask yourself what you can learn from the experience, to make it more likely you'll do things better in future, so partners are less likely to leave you. I mean, whether they do or not doesn't just depend on you, of course; but there might be behaviours you can tell have led to your ex-partner leaving, that you could change or get help to change, so they're not so off-putting to future partners.

"It might be very upsetting if your partner leaves you; but you don't have to believe it means you're a failure, but just that one thing you've tried has failed, and that its failure doesn't mean things are hopeless, because it's left you with experiences you can use as lessons to help you succeed better in future if you really think them through.

"But your relationship might not fail. One thing that can make a difference when you get jealous is the way you behave as a result of your feelings; someone who really believes their jealousy is reasonable, and that they truly have got good cause to wonder if anything ominous for them is going on, will ask their partner about it, not in an angry way, but just in an enquiring one to start with; and if their partner has got a good record of being trustworthy up to that point, as far as they know, they'll likely believe them, and stop worrying if they say nothing incriminating was going on. But someone who's unreasonably jealous won't just bring up concerns with their partner and ask them what was really going on, but they'll make angry accusations against them, feeling sure they were up to something they shouldn't have been; and they'll interrogate them with aggressive questions.

"It can help if you identify exactly what it is that's worrying you, so you can ask yourself if there's any hard evidence for that specific thing. For instance, is it that you're scared of losing the relationship altogether, or just that your girlfriend will want to become interested in other men besides you, or that if she has other interests and gets to be friends with other men besides you, you'll lose your status as the most important person in her life, and that for some reason, it's very important to you that you're the most important person or thing in her life?

"If the problem is just that you're worried that if she gets interested in other things or men, you won't be so important to her any more, you could ask yourself why that matters to you so much, and also how much of a threat there really is to you if she develops other interests and makes new friends. Ask yourself why it would be so terrible if she developed other interests and made new friends, or whether it wouldn't in reality be as bad as you've been assuming it will be, and whether in reality, though you wouldn't like it, you would be able to cope, especially if having new friends and interests made her happier, which would mean she was happier around you, which would make her more pleasant to live with.

"Maybe you think that if your girlfriend became, even temporarily, more interested in other men or things than in you, it would prove that you're unlovable as a person, and that's why you feel so strongly that it mustn't happen. But if she's happier around you because she's enjoying herself more because of her new freedom to be relaxed and enjoy the company of other people, she'll probably find it easier to start loving you more. It's probably easier to feel affection for someone when you're more relaxed and happy than it is if they're trying to control what you do, and getting annoyed if you show interest in anyone else.

"And if she's never before developed more interest in someone she's started chatting to than in you, then surely there isn't any good evidence that it would ever happen. You can think through that one yourself, so you can decide for yourself what the likely odds really are. Every time you feel jealous even just because you think of something your partner's done, it could help if you remind yourself of what her past record of trustworthiness is like; if what she's done has never led to anything incriminating when she's done it before, you can reassure yourself that it's more than likely that it won't this time either.

"You might think that the only reason it hasn't led to anything bad before is because you did your best to control your partner's behaviour so it wouldn't; but you must know enough about her by now to have a good idea of whether she really is the kind of person who would take any opportunity she could to cheat on you. Ask yourself if all the evidence you think you have for believing she wants to really is good evidence, or whether it's the kind of flimsy circumstantial evidence that would be laughed out of court if you tried to use it to convict her in a court of law. What would a jury make of it, if they were asked to judge how incriminating it was?

"One problem, though, is that if you really feel sure your partner's inevitably going to become romantically involved with someone if you let her talk to them for too long, then you won't want to think about the evidence against that belief, because you won't want to have to think about things that contradict it that might make you doubt it, because it'll feel safer to believe it, so you'll actually prefer to believe it, even though it stresses you out. So you might do your best to reason away or ignore any evidence that contradicts it, such as that your partner's never left you for someone she's just met before, and that hundreds of millions of people probably talk to people of the opposite sex in a friendly way every day without it leading to them having affairs, so there's probably no reason why she should be any different.

"But if you're willing to start thinking of the belief that she's bound to want to get romantically involved with them as just a theory, instead of something you think of as absolutely certain, you might be more willing to examine it for how realistic it really is; and if you do, and decide it isn't as realistic as you've always thought, then that'll be in your interests really, because it'll be good for your peace of mind, because if you can watch your partner talking in a friendly way to people of the opposite sex without tormenting yourself with jealousy, you'll be happier.

"Believing such things as that if your partner's enjoying the company of someone of the opposite sex, it just has to mean she's tempted to become romantically interested in him and leave you, might have become such a habit that those beliefs might come up in your mind and make your jealous feelings flare up every time you see her with another man. So to give you peace of mind, you might have to remind yourself time and time again that her enjoying someone else's company doesn't mean you're in danger of losing her in itself, and that lots of people enjoy each other's company without wanting to get romantically involved with them, and that you would be able to cope if the worst came to the worst and she did leave, as upsetting as it might be to have to. When you remind yourself of those things, it might help you relax, and your jealous feelings might fade.

"Not all jealousy's bad. If someone's girlfriend did something that they could tell was a definite threat to their relationship, like kissed another man in front of them or something, so they had absolute proof that she was interested in another man, or if there was a genuinely good reason for them to believe she was becoming attracted to someone else, such as them hearing her flirting on the phone with them, and she seemed more interested in them than in the man she was going out with, jealousy would only be natural, and it would be perfectly understandable. If the boyfriend didn't feel anything, it would probably mean the relationship didn't mean much to him, unless they'd agreed beforehand that they'd both be willing to tolerate that kind of thing.

"But whenever you feel jealous of your partner's behaviour towards another man, you could ask yourself whether it's possible that you're reading too much significance into the thing that's making you jealous so it's likely more harmless than you think. If you think you have got genuine cause to be jealous about it, you can have a go at thinking up reasonable questions to ask your partner, to find out what her feelings towards the man really are; and you could discuss with her how what's happened has made you feel, since it's possible that she'll be more understanding if she knows that.

"If you decide you don't want to be tormented with jealousy any more, then at first, it might be hard to change the habit of being jealous, because whenever the kind of thing happens that used to bring powerful jealous feelings instantly to your mind, you'll probably get them again, because when the brain gets used to sparking off certain feelings when certain things happen, it'll start doing it automatically, before you even have time to think about it; and the more jealous you've worked yourself up into feeling in the past, the more your brain will automatically trigger off jealous feelings in the situations that used to make you feel jealous, because it'll be as if part of your brain has learned that those things are problems that you need to be alerted to with more jealous feelings. So it might take a while before you can get out of the habit of feeling jealous a lot.

"But whenever the feeling of jealousy flares up in your mind, it might help if instead of letting yourself be tormented by the feelings, you remind yourself that it's not really your partner's bad behaviour or someone else's that's causing them, but it's just your brain being so used to triggering off jealous feelings in certain situations that it's doing it again. So maybe you could think things like, 'This is just the jealousy habit rearing its ugly head again', instead of beginning to worry that the feelings mean something bad must be going on. If you just think of it as your brain automatically triggering off jealous feelings just because it's got used to doing that, you won't think of the feelings as being so significant.

"Another thing you could try is asking yourself what beliefs you have about how getting jealous about even little things is helping you. You could write down all the ways you think it's helping you, to help you remember them till you can analyse them for how true they really are. For instance, you might think that the jealousy motivates you to keep control over your partner, and that makes it less likely that she'll go off with someone else; and you might think that being so jealous is a good way of showing how much you care that you're in a relationship with her.

"When you've written down all the reasons you can think of as to why you think it's good to be so jealous, think about each thing on the list in turn, and ask yourself whether your beliefs about it are really true. For instance, you might think you're showing your partner how much you want the relationship with her by being so jealous, but if she thinks your jealousy is an intolerable burden to bear, and stiflingly restrictive, it doesn't matter if you think your jealousy is serving a good purpose; if it ends up putting her off you altogether, it'll show that it isn't really. It's self-defeating.

"And the same thing applies if you think your jealousy makes it less likely that she'll go off with someone else. If you can tell it's putting her right off you, you'll be able to tell that it actually makes it more likely that she'll find someone new and end the relationship with you. Being kind instead might be more likely to make her want to stay with you.

"But if you still feel as if any flare-ups of jealousy you have are justified, you could try to analyse why. It might help you to write down the thoughts you have in the process of analysing it, so you can remember them better.

"So, for instance, if you get a flare-up of jealousy when you see your girlfriend enjoying a conversation with another man, at some point soon afterwards, you can write down what it was that triggered off your feelings of jealousy, for instance, seeing her having fun with another man; and then you can ask yourself what beliefs you hold about her doing that that are contributing to your flare-up of jealousy. If the main one's that she might become more attracted to him than she is to you, you can reason it through, by asking yourself why, when talking and smiling with someone of the opposite sex is a perfectly natural behaviour that lots of people engage in every day in all innocence, this particular episode of it's anything more to worry about than all the other ones, particularly if she's never been tempted into a relationship with a man she's just started a conversation with ever since you've been going out with her.

"That might be something you've thought through before, telling yourself there's no real reason to be jealous; but you might need to remind yourself of the answers from time to time.

"When you feel a flare-up of jealousy, you might be tempted to do the things you're used to doing to try and reassure yourself that there's nothing to worry about, or to find out if there is, like interrogating your partner about where she's been, and about what her feelings are for the man you've just seen her with, making accusations about how you feel sure she's attracted to him, and maybe even going further, like stealthily following her sometimes to see what she gets up to, or trying to entrap her in some way into saying or doing something incriminating with the man while you're secretly watching, or threatening to harm him or her because you feel sure she's up to something with him. Temptations to do that kind of thing might be strong if you're used to doing that kind of thing. A lot of jealous people find that.

"But you could try and take a breather when you feel the temptation coming on, maybe literally, by taking several very slow breaths to calm yourself down; and then you can think through whether you'd really benefit by doing those things in the long-term, or whether they'd actually be self-defeating, because you'll be putting yourself at risk of having your partner get angry with you, and making her more likely to want to leave you, because it'll be too much of a burden for her to want to tolerate. If you decide that's likely the case, there are different things you could do to give yourself some peace of mind, such as just asking her some non-aggressive questions about what her feelings are for the man. You could try and have a calm think about what it would be best to do.

"You could try doing a few things to clear your head of emotion first so it's easier to think, such as going for a walk around the block, or, if you feel uneasy letting her out of your sight, trying a relaxation technique to calm your heart rate and your emotions, such as taking a few more slow breaths, and every time you breathe out, imagining your emotions and worried thoughts being exhaled with your breath, and yourself feeling calmer each time it happens.

"Or another one you could try is clenching your fists tightly, and then very slowly releasing the tension in them, so you can feel it gradually dying away. If you do that a few times, you might at least feel a bit calmer by the end of it - calm enough to think a bit more clearly. Then you can try planning the best course of action, whether that be reasoning with yourself about how there isn't really enough evidence to get really worried, or planning to tell your partner about your worries for your relationship, or resolving to just keep a casual eye on the situation in case in future, you do find evidence that something suspicious is happening. You might come up with other harmless ideas too.

"If you've got no reason to believe your partner's been untrustworthy in the past, you can use that fact to reassure yourself that you don't need to be as jealous as you feel.

"You might get further reassurance by thinking about your previous partners, and whether they themselves were all eager to take every opportunity they could to be unfaithful with every man they met. You probably had the same suspicions about them as you have towards your current partner; but ask yourself if the evidence you thought you had would stand up in a court of law, where mere suspicions wouldn't count as evidence, but the facts would.

"Maybe you have had partners who cheated on you; but if most haven't, you can take it as more evidence that most people you're with just don't behave that way; so instead of just your current partner's behaviour being reassuring, when you look at the good-quality evidence, you'll notice there's in reality a pattern of reassuring behaviour from partners, so you can likely trust partners you're with more than you expect. It'll also show you that even if your current partner's unfaithful to you one day, although it would be upsetting, you could probably find another partner who's more trustworthy, considering you've found new ones in the past when relationships have broken up; it isn't as if you've got no chance of ever finding a trustworthy partner again, even if you worry you won't.

"Good luck. Let us know if you manage to get over your jealousy problem, and your girlfriend gets back together with you again."

After Becky had recorded that for the psychology programme, other people in the studio said they were impressed with what she'd said. She was pleased.

She was on the train on her way home afterwards, when she got chatting to someone who told her her name was Joyce. Becky told her about her work for the radio station, and what she'd just been recording, and Joyce was impressed too.

Then Joyce admitted to getting twinges of envy quite often when she met certain people, or looked at Facebook and saw people talking about enjoying parties and holidays in the sun, or just being out socialising with friends, since she didn't have any friends who were available to go out socialising with, and it was difficult anyway, because she had children to look after, who were often naughty, which made her feel unhappy with life. She said she didn't enjoy her job, and she felt annoyed when some senior members in the company she worked for would come in after being away for a little while, with sun tans and stories of having had lovely times abroad in the sun.

She didn't like having to go home from a boring day at work, only to have to cope with her naughty children. And she felt as if she just wasn't achieving much in life in comparison to people who were making enough money to be able to afford impressive holidays. But she didn't think there was much she could do about it, because she needed to keep earning the money she did to support herself and the children, so she didn't want to risk leaving her job to try to find another one, or going back to college to study to try to get qualified for something better.

Becky sympathised, and then said, "Maybe you could look for a job while you're still at the one where you work at the moment, or you could study some evenings if you could find a baby-sitter, or if you've got a husband who'd look after the kids while you're doing it. Maybe you've thought of those things already.

"But the thing about envy is that when people are envious of other people, they're not always seeing things as they really are, because they only know about the best bits of their lives, and there might be parts of their lives that upset and worry them sometimes, but they don't talk about those, so an envious person has no idea about them, such as misbehaving children, or parents getting more and more ill, or beloved grandparents dying, or family rows, or health scares, or all kinds of things.

"So if you knew about what their lives are like as a whole, you might not be so envious of them. Maybe you would be, because maybe their lives really are better than yours. But even if they are now, it doesn't mean they always will be. None of us knows what's going to happen in the future. There might be times in their lives where they're much worse off than you are, because maybe they'll have health problems, or accidents, or who knows what. Maybe one day, you'll feel sorry for them and want to help them. There might be quite a few times in your life when you're better off than they are, and other times when you're worse off. All you're seeing when you're envious of them is the way their lives are at the moment.

"And some things can be surprising. I read about a housewife who looked after her children all day, who wasn't very happy with her life, spending it changing nappies and doing other duties, and she was jealous of her cousin who was a bigtime businesswoman, going to exotic places, and living in luxury. At family gatherings, the cousin would be telling stories about her trips to fancy destinations, while the housewife would be telling stories about trips to the doctor to try to get treatments for the kids' ear infections and things!

"But then one Christmas, the two women were washing up together after dinner, when the rich cousin confessed to the housewife that she'd always envied her, because she was worrying that it was fast approaching the time when it would be too late for her to have children, and she felt empty every time she saw the housewife surrounded by all hers.

"The housewife was really surprised. She told the cousin she'd always envied her luxury lifestyle; and they had a laugh together. They became close after that, and made an arrangement where once a month, the rich cousin would take the housewife's children for an outing, so she could experience what it was like to be a mother, and the housewife could have some precious time alone with her husband, and then also once a month, the rich cousin would invite the housewife to one of her business lunches, so she could get enjoyment out of it.

"The housewife said she's still amazed at all the years she wasted being jealous of her cousin, when all the while the cousin was envying her!

"So you never know what might be going on in the minds of some of the people you envy.

"There might be a lot of people whose lives will always be better than yours though. That's just the way life is. But if you let that make you unhappy, you'll be worse off than you would be if you were just resigned to the fact. And don't forget that your own life will probably always be a lot better than the lives of millions of other people. So it's easy to feel hard-done-by when you only think about people better off than you, but it might help you change your perspective a bit if you think about whether you'd prefer to be living your own life, or the lives of a lot of other people, say people with terminal illnesses in hospital, or people living in countries where there isn't even a decent health service, and so on.

"That doesn't mean you ought to feel ashamed of feeling dissatisfied with your life though. One thing you could try to console yourself is joining Internet forums for other working mums, or other kinds of people you'd like to spend more time with, or people having different kinds of difficulties in life. It might cheer you up to socialise online with them; and you might also sometimes commiserate together about what's wrong in your lives so you don't feel so alone, or it might bring out sympathy in you that replaces your envy when you read about their difficulties; and you might be able to make each other laugh sometimes. So that might improve your life. And there might be other things you can think of to improve your life too, maybe step by step, till it's quite a bit better than it is now."

Joyce thanked Becky for her tips, and said she'd think about them.