In today’s video, I’m going to share five reasons why jealous behavior doesn’t work.

Read or watch below to learn about the top-5 reasons why jealous behavior doesn’t work.

Zachary Stockill: If you’re struggling with any kind of irrational jealousy in your relationship or in your dating life, this can involve things like obsessive jealousy, always worried about the threat of your partner falling for someone else, or something like retroactive jealousy, where you’re more concerned about your partner’s past.

There are many kinds of jealous behaviors that irrational jealousy sufferers engage in. In today’s video, I’m going to share five reasons why jealous behavior doesn’t work. 

Reason number one… 

If you study human history and human psychology, you will learn pretty quickly that human beings all long for freedom. Human beings don’t like feeling kept from the world or protected too much or stifled in any way. 

You can look at examples like the dissolution of the Soviet Union. You can look at things like the Berlin Wall crumbling.

As a society, what is the number one way we punish people? We take away their freedom; we put them in prison.

These are extreme examples, but if you dig down, you’ll find that this drive towards freedom is present in every single human. And thus, when you attempt to stifle your partner’s freedom–when you try to do all the mate garden kind of jealous behaviors, or you ask them a million questions, or you want to make them feel like they can never leave you and all these kinds of behaviors that irrational jealousy sufferers engage–you’re triggering a very deep, repulsive feeling in your partner.

And that repulsion is toward anyone trying to limit their freedom.

Reason number two why jealous behavior doesn’t work…

You hamper your partner’s attraction towards you when you engage in any kind of blatantly irrational jealous behavior. 

Not a good idea. And eventually, over the long term, it will push your partner away. It’ll take a toll on your sex life. Irrational jealous behavior signals insecurity. And insecurities are fundamentally unattractive.

Reason number three might be my favorite… 

jealous behavior doesn't work

Reason number three why irrational jealous behavior doesn’t work is…

There are only so many hours in a day.

As I’ve written in one of my books, the only way to “know” for absolute certain that your partner isn’t cheating on you is if you are literally chained and bound to them 24 hours a day. 

So you go with them every time they go to the bathroom. You can never have any jobs because you’re literally chained together. This is an extreme kind of example. But if you think about this, rationally, you’ll see the point that I’m trying to make here. It’s fundamentally ineffective unless you are chained to them 24 hours a day. 

Thus, any relationship you’re involved in is going to have to involve some degree of letting go of this need to constantly monitor your partner

Letting go of this need to want to make sure where they are all the time. It just doesn’t work.

I’m going to hazard a guess that the overwhelming majority of the people watching this video aren’t really interested in being chained and bound to anyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

There probably are some exceptions. But I hope there aren’t that many exceptions in my audience… And you shouldn’t be chained and bound to your partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not going to work. 

Reason number four why jealous behaviour is a waste of time…. 

It has literally never been more difficult for people to hide cheating. 

In other words, if your worst fears are true, if you’re struggling with their irrational jealous feelings about your partner if you’re actually concerned that they could be out there fooling around behind your back, or if they’re disloyal, or if they’re untrustworthy…

To some extent, I think you can have some trust in the universe that the truth will come out, eventually, with very, very little effort on your part. 

In other words, everyone’s got a camera in their pocket 24 hours a day. Everyone’s posting on social media. I don’t care if you live in the biggest city in the world. If you’re out there fooling around with your partner, eventually, someone will find you out. 

Of course, there are exceptions. But it comes down to the perspective you choose to buy into. And if you’re genuinely concerned about your partner fooling around, I believe that eventually, the truth will emerge, and rise to the surface without a lot of effort on your part. 

Reason number five, why jealous behavior doesn’t work, is: it’s very common for jealous behavior to lead directly to the most feared outcome. 

In other words, if you’re constantly concerned that your partner is cheating on you, and you’re doing all this kind of mate guarding stuff, and you’re checking their phone, and you’re making accusations, and you’re stalking them all the time, and you’re asking them a million questions, quite often, ironically, this behavior can lead to the most feared outcome. 

In other words, this kind of behavior can lead to your partner cheating. Or at least walking away from the relationship because again, human beings long for freedom.

And if you go accusing someone of something long enough, eventually they’re going to say: “You know what? No matter what I do, this person doesn’t trust me. To hell with it. I’m going to fool around behind their back, or I’m going to leave them…”

Irrational jealous behavior, ironically, often leads directly to breakups and cheating and all kinds of chaos and infidelity. You don’t want any of that.

These are just five, but I could list many more reasons why irrational jealous behavior doesn’t work.

If you are currently struggling with retroactive jealousy, you can click here to sign up for a free four-part mini-course that will help you get started. Or, if you need more help, then you can consider signing up for one-on-one coaching with me. [Subject to availability]


Zachary Stockill
Zachary Stockill

Hi! I'm a Canadian author and educator whose work has been featured in BBC News, BBC Radio 4, The Huffington Post, and many other publications. I'm the founder of RetroactiveJealousy.com, the author of Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy and The Overcoming Jealousy Workbook, and the host of Humans in Love podcast.