Hi there,
Jealousy in love is a pretty bad thing that brings a lot of harm to all involved. But it’s also a common emotion many can’t help but feel.
How can characters be shown to feel jealousy without immediately blaming them for it? And is “get over it and trust your lover” good enough of a lesson or can we delve deeper into it without looking like we’re supporting toxic behavior?
– Thomas
Hi Thomas, fantastic question.
The big problem that we’re seeing right now is that many stories actively romanticize jealousy by framing it as an expression of affection. This often happens before characters in a romance are official partners, and storytellers find it useful because jealous reactions can show feelings that characters are otherwise trying to conceal. However, this pattern inevitably spreads the idea that jealousy is romantic, when it actually indicates relationship insecurity and is a warning sign for controlling and abusive behavior.
However, I do think that jealousy can be worked into a story constructively, and doing so can be really helpful to people who don’t know what to do with these feelings when they have them.
This is what I imagine a positive depiction of jealousy looks like:
- A character recognizes they are jealous. They can admit it to someone else, or if you’re writing in their viewpoint, just think it.
- The character acknowledges that their jealousy is an issue they should take responsibility for. It could cause behavior that’s unfair to others, motivate them to respond to situations in unproductive ways, or if they’ve kept a lid on it, the jealousy may just be unpleasant for them.
- Instead of focusing on the person they are jealous of, the character considers their relationship with the person they care about. Do they feel like that person doesn’t care about them? Is there something they want from that relationship they aren’t getting, such as enough quality time? The jealous character addresses this by either talking to the person they care about what they want from the relationship (generally if the relationship is already established) or otherwise working to build up their relationship with that person in a positive, non-competitive way.
- If the issue can’t be resolved that way – maybe feelings are unrequited or the jealous character is simply inclined toward feeling insecure – the character should look for other constructive ways to channel that insecurity or make themself feel better.
I hope that gives you some ideas.
Happy writing,
Chris
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A forced smile emerged across their face and they said flatly, “I’m happy you’re dating again. I hope it works out well for you. Please, excuse me.”
People are often weird about jealousy. Either it’s romanticized, or else it’s treated as THE WORST emotion, like, if you feel jealous that the person you have a crush on is into someone else, or worry that your partner might leave you for someone else, this goes to show that you’re a HORRIBLE person who doesn’t respect your partner as a person but think of them as a possession etc. I haven’t seen the latter view portrayed in literature exactly, but I’ve seen people argue like this on the internet.
But the mere feeling of jealousy, if you don’t act on it, really doesn’t make you horrible or evil. People have all kinds of feelings that are unpleasant and potentially destructive. We might want to get rid of them, but often, it’s not that easy, so we just have to live with them. And that’s alright. That’s just life.
Yes, the feeling itself is natural to a degree – it’s just a feeling which people have.
I think it depends very much on how you write a jealous person. Are they trying to ‘get their partner back?’ Are they trying to undermine their ex-lover’s new relationship? Or are they dealing with it by themselves, trying their best to overcome the feeling, because they won’t be able to have a new relationship, either, until they let go of the old one.
You aren’t clear about who the person is jealous of, and if the person feeling jealousy is a viewpoint character. So, let’s assume they are a) a main character, and b) the person they are jealous of is the person they are currently in a significant relationship (either sexual or not, your choice). All of Chris’s suggestions are good options.
A fifth option, if you want to do a story about overcoming jealousy. For a realistic arc, you could show them 1. behaving possessively, 2. their S.O. reacting to this possessive behavior and calling them on it. 3. The main character complains to a 3rd character who also calls them on the bad behavior. 4. They ruminate on the behavior, at first rejecting the S.O. and 3rd character’s viewpoints. 5. After witnessing another character behaving possessively, they recognize the behavior is not acceptable.
Then in a similar situation, they do better. They start the possessive behavior, recognize they are doing the same thing they did last time, stop and apologize. The S.O. recognizes that they stopped their bad behavior on their own and compliments them on the change. They can have a moment of self-satisfaction over the change, as well as recognition that they aren’t completely where they need to be.
Then you show them in a third situation and this time no possessive behavior. This time the SO does not need to recognize the change (though the S.O. can if it is a romance and the possessive behavior was a point of conflict), but the character needs to recognize they’ve reached the correct end point and are happy with their progress for themselves.
This requires them to be a significant character, you need enough space in the story to cover the arc, and they need to be introspective enough for this to work.
One of the best ways to handle jealousy and even envy is that you first ask yourself why this Person and thing is so important to you and are the people who have what you yearn for really better people and have it always better than you? Grass is not always green on the other side, so there is little reason to be green-eyed.
Your character who is jealous could as a sixth option to the above ones learn that the person they are envious or jealous of isn’t having it much better and has just as many problems as the jealous character. Maybe they would also be forced to question if really the affection of their loved ones is always that important to them. They could also accept the fact that they are not together with someone else by seeing how happy they are and learn to put their desires behind someone else.
If it’s jealousy induced by distrust, the lesson to trust more is important, because trust is the foundation of any meaningful relationship for any place and time on this universe.
Just confront this feeling in your work and decide how you want to treat it, how you do it is dependent on your ability to handle that emotion or your knowledge as to how to treat it.