In recent weeks, it has been interesting to see how much of a jealous lover anxiety can be. Let me explain.

In the early days of any relationship, we tend to accept there is a bit of give and take as we get to know each other. In a healthy relationship, that give and take continues as the relationship develops, with both parties growing as individuals and as a couple. But, if one person in the relationship begins to demand and dominate, alarm bells go off, and many of us, but sadly, not all, will look for a way out of the relationship.

We often have a poor relationship with ourselves. We ignore those alarm bells that are there to protect us from ourselves. Stress is one of those alarm bells. We cannot live stress-free, nor should we hope to, but we should be aware of how stress affects us.

We can think of three different forms of stress (see, for example, Fatima et al. 2023).

• The best form to have is eustress, where we experience just the right amount of stress to help us be productive, motivated, and engaged in what we are doing.
• Then we have hypo-stress, where basically, we don’t give a damn about anything that is going on.
• Or we can move to the other extreme, where we experience hyper-stress, where anxiety, depression, and hypervigilance lead to a position where we feel stuck, spinning around like a tot.

Most men I see are stuck in a state of hyper-stress, but sometimes, we make a mistake and think we are anxious when we are in a state of hypo-stress, but that is a discussion for another day.

So, where does the jealous lover come in?

I’m glad you asked! The eustress state is so good because we are in control; we work with stress, which helps us. It helps us live in a productive state. However, as we begin to lose control, our perspective changes and stress becomes an entity we see as harmful, just like a jealous lover.

The jealous lover analogy works because most of us have had to suffer at the hands of the jealous lover, or at least have had friends that we know who have struggled. We all know that relationships begin with both parties being reasonable, but sometimes one party begins to make unreasonable demands.

We know how a jealous lover gradually begins to demand more and more; not happy taking your time, they want all of you — and are unwilling to share you with anyone else. There can be no space for family or friends, so we gradually close ourselves off from everyone around us, including, or maybe especially, those we love. We begin to live in a fantasy world where we believe either no one can help or we are protecting those we love when essentially, we are hiding away with our lover.

We don’t see how destructive this relationship is until it’s too late; we feel trapped with nowhere to go. Men struggle to finish the relationship; they prefer to struggle in silence than admit that they cannot cope or are ‘afraid of their partner – it is not the manly thing to do. The man rules dictate that it is a weakness to ask for help; men should be able to deal with anything and everything thrown at them.

Ditching Anxiety

The jealous lover is effective because it closes our eyes to reality. We begin to live in a fantasy world in which we are sure no one can help, we can’t talk to anyone about it, and people will judge us as a failure because we can’t cope. All rubbish but an effective lie.

Anxiety works because it drives us inwards, focusing on me and only me; it is selfish; the way to escape its clutches is to move outwards, reengage with family and friends, return to reality, and ask for help.

As soon as you ask for help, anxiety begins to lose grip. Like any jealous lover, it might start to fight back, but each fight back means you are escaping.