#189: Why Anxiously Attached People Struggle with Jealousy
For those with anxious attachment, jealousy tends to hit differently. It’s not just a fleeting emotion—it can feel all-consuming. And often, we carry a lot of shame about it. We judge ourselves for being “crazy” or “needy,” bury the feeling, and pretend everything is fine, while quietly spiralling inside. But when we approach jealousy with curiosity instead of criticism, we can start to understand what it’s really trying to show us.
The Roots of Jealousy in Anxious Attachment
At the core of anxious attachment lies a fear that we’re not enough. Not good enough, not attractive enough, not lovable enough. And if we believe that, it’s easy to imagine that someone “better” might come along and take our place.
So we stay hyper-alert. We scan our environment for threats. We compare ourselves to others—exes, colleagues, strangers on social media. We try to control the narrative, to protect what feels fragile. We might find ourselves engaging in behaviours we’re not proud of—stalking an ex online, obsessively seeking reassurance, snooping through a partner’s phone. And then we feel even worse about ourselves, reinforcing that deep-seated belief: “Something must be wrong with me.”
This kind of jealousy isn’t always about a specific person or threat. Sometimes it’s more subtle. We might feel jealous of our partner’s time, their work, their friends—anything that feels like it pulls them away from us. And underneath that? A longing to feel like a priority. A longing to feel chosen.
When Jealousy Is a Signal (Not a Symptom)
Of course, not all jealousy is irrational. Sometimes, there are valid concerns — boundary crossings, breaches of trust, emotional unavailability. But in this context, I’m speaking to the kind of jealousy that persists even in the absence of concrete red flags. The kind that has followed you from one relationship to the next. The kind that seems more rooted in your own self-worth than your partner’s behaviour.
When we start to see jealousy as a signal — not a character flaw — we can begin to respond to it more compassionately. What is this feeling trying to show me? What part of me is scared, hurting, or longing for something I haven’t yet learned to give myself?
The Shame Spiral
Jealousy is one of those emotions we’re culturally conditioned to suppress. It’s labelled as immature, controlling, embarrassing. So when it shows up, we often respond with shame. But shame doesn’t resolve jealousy—it magnifies it.
And when we add shame to an already vulnerable emotional cocktail of fear, insecurity, and comparison, we tend to act in ways that don’t align with our values. We might get clingy, controlling, or shut down. Then we beat ourselves up for being “too much,” which only reinforces the belief that we’re not enough.
It’s a cycle. But it’s not one you’re doomed to repeat forever.
The Role of Self-Worth
If there’s one thing I’ve learned — both personally and from working with thousands of people on healing anxious attachment — it’s this: so many of our relational struggles trace back to self-worth.
When we don’t believe we’re inherently worthy, we try to earn love. We chase it. We monitor it. We compare ourselves to anyone who might seem more worthy of it. But when we build genuine self-worth, jealousy starts to lose its grip. We no longer feel as threatened by someone else’s success, beauty, or charm. We don’t panic when our partner is late to text back or wants a night out with friends.
That doesn’t mean we never feel a twinge of jealousy — it just doesn’t hijack our nervous system. We’re able to stay grounded, get curious, and respond rather than react.
Moving Through Jealousy With Compassion
If this resonates, please know there’s nothing wrong with you. Jealousy is human. It doesn’t make you broken or unlovable. But it can be an invitation—to strengthen your inner foundation, to get to know your triggers, and to care for the parts of you that feel scared and small.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
When you notice feelings of jealousy arising in your relationship (or even outside of a relationship), what thoughts and beliefs tend to come up for you? Do you see any patterns in how you respond to these emotions?
How do you typically relate to your own experience of jealousy or envy? Is your first instinct to judge yourself, or can you approach these feelings with curiosity and compassion?
Reflect on a recent situation where you felt jealous—what do you believe was underneath that emotion? Was it a fear of being replaced, a sense of low self-worth, or something else entirely?
Do you catch yourself comparing yourself to others—friends, ex-partners, social media connections, or even strangers? What do you notice about how these comparisons impact your sense of self-worth?
In your relationships, do you ever feel like you're not a priority? How do you respond to that feeling, and what stories do you tell yourself about what it means?
When jealousy shows up, are you more likely to engage in behaviours like seeking reassurance, social media “stalking”, or over-analysing interactions? What needs do you think these behaviours are trying to meet?
Looking back, can you identify any longstanding core beliefs (for example, “I’m not good enough” or “Love can be taken away at any moment”) that might be driving your experience of jealousy?
How do you tend to handle situations where your jealousy feels overwhelming? Are there self-soothing strategies (or self-shaming habits) you notice yourself relying on?
What would it look like to address the root causes of jealousy through building self-worth, rather than trying to “fix” the jealousy itself?
How do you feel about the idea that, when you genuinely like and accept yourself, jealousy and comparison might naturally soften? What would need to shift internally for you to reach that place?
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:32]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about jealousy and in particular, why anxiously attached people struggle so much with jealousy. Now, if you are someone with anxious attachment patterns, you are probably very intimate with this struggle. It is really something that I'm answering questions on several times a week, every week from students in my healing anxious attachment course. It feels like a constant companion for a lot of us with anxious attachment patterns. And as we're going to talk about today, that makes a whole heap of sense because I think looking at the core wounds and beliefs of anxious attachment, jealousy emerges as a very, very natural consequence of feeling like we are not good enough, feeling like love can be taken away at any moment, comparison, unworthiness, fear of rejection. I think that all of those different expressions of our insecurity can often converge to create jealousy, and that jealousy can be really all consuming. I say that as someone who used to really, really struggle with jealousy. It used to be almost crippling for me, and yet it was something that I felt so much shame around that I buried it.
[00:01:44]:
No one would have known that I was wildly jealous. It's not something that I necessarily externalized and voiced to my partners. It was just something that I carried silently and yet it was so all consuming. I would engage in all of the behaviors that we'll talk about a little more in today's episode, the social media stalking, the obsessive comparison with other women, stuff like that was just, like, par for the course for me. It was a daily struggle. And so I wanna talk a little more about where this comes from, what sits underneath it in a way that hopefully allows you to reflect upon your own relationship with jealousy from a more neutral standpoint. Because I think one of the really big problems with jealousy is that collectively, societally, we tend to have a negative judgment attached to experiences of jealousy. It's not an emotion that many of us feel positively about.
[00:02:36]:
And so I think we associate jealousy with, like, craziness or being clingy or being desperate. And so then when we experience jealousy and maybe we experience it really intensely, we tend to shame ourselves for that, and that only makes it worse. It does nothing to help the underlying insecurities that are driving that jealousy in the first place. So that's what we're going to be talking about today, and my hope is that you can walk away from today's episode with the ability to look compassionately and inquisitively at your jealousy. Approaching ourselves with curiosity is so much more fruitful than just labeling ourselves as bad and going, how can I stop being so jealous because it's ruining everything? As I always say, when we kind of heap shame and blame and wrongness on top of an experience we're having that's already really challenging, that invariably makes it worse and bigger. Now before we get into today's episode, couple of quick announcements. The first being my twenty eight day Secure Self Challenge is coming back. I'm gonna be running the challenge kicking off in mid June, and Monday, June will kick off.
[00:03:40]:
It's a four week challenge all about building self worth. And as we'll talk about today, so many of our relational struggles, whether it's jealousy or comparison or anxiety, all words lead back to self worth. And that's really the core of my teaching across so many different topics is that when our relational patterns are so other focused, which they are in anxious attachment, we tend to focus so much on the relationship and the other person, and we become so preoccupied with everything that's going on out there. And that is almost always to the detriment of our inner relationship and our sense of self worth and self esteem. And rather than trying to solve those issues in isolation, I'm always telling people, focus on you, build up your sense of self worth so that you don't feel so vulnerable to what's going on out there, so that you don't feel like you are just treading water and clutching at anyone and anything that might make you feel better temporarily. So all roads lead back to building self worth, and that's what the Secure Soft Challenge is all about. It's a really nice, short and sweet, not too content heavy way to reset, irrespective of whether you're currently in a relationship and feeling a bit stuck, whether you're just out of a breakup, whether you're dating and feeling like you're spinning out a bit. It's just a really nice way to come back to center, get really clear on who am I, who do I wanna be, how do I wanna show up, and be really intentional about all of that and and really flipping the script from the inside out.
[00:05:03]:
So if you're interested in that, I'm offering super early bird pricing for the next few days. You can sign up to the challenge for just $97 US dollars, and that includes the challenge materials, a pop up community for the four weeks, as well as two live calls with me. So it's a really great value offer. And you can sign up for that by heading to my website, stephaniewrigg.com, or the link to sign up is also included in the show notes. Okay. So let's talk about anxious attachment and jealousy. Now before we get into the meat of this discussion, I do just wanna offer a quick disclaimer or caveat. And I always like to say this before going into any discussion of things like trust or jealousy.
[00:05:41]:
Because I think sometimes people can say, oh, I don't know why I'm so jealous, or I don't know why I struggle with trust. And then they go on to tell me about several experiences where trust has been breached or lines have been crossed in their current relationship with their current partner, and yet they're making it an end problem. So I just wanna frame that I'm not so much talking in this discussion about jealousy as a natural response to inappropriate behavior in your relationship or boundary violations in your relationship. I think that is a different conversation, and it's not one that we want to be solving as a, I just need to stop being so jealous. I need to make myself fine with things that I'm clearly not fine with. Really, what I'm talking about here is where jealousy has followed you throughout your life, and you know that it's something to do with your inner relationship. And maybe it's even when you're not in a relationship, you struggle with jealousy, you are very envious of other people, you struggle with comparison a lot. All of those things signal, like, this is a self worth problem.
[00:06:40]:
And so it is something that I can really get curious about in terms of what is it in my own inner relationship and my own subconscious beliefs about myself and others that is producing this experience of constant jealousy. So I think for anxiously attached people, jealousy can feel like a minefield. And I think it can be useful when we're talking about jealousy to distinguish between jealousy as in I have to be possessive and protective of what is mine, and jealousy that can take more the form of envy in that I want something that someone else has or I'm I'm envious of what they have. And I think anxiously attached people experience both of those things. So you might look at other people, compare yourself to them, and feel less than and go, I'm so jealous of them and what they have or what they are that I am not. And we can use that as a way to feed our stories of low self worth, or it can be jealousy in the sense of, like, get away from my partner. I don't trust that person. I don't want them anywhere near my partner.
[00:07:37]:
I don't want my partner interacting with them, looking at them, having any sort of proximity to them at all because I feel the need to protect what is mine against those perceived outside threats. And I think that, as I said, anxiously attached people probably grapple with both of those flavors of jealousy. But it can be useful to reflect on, like, what's this really about? Is it me protecting what is mine, or is it me wanting what someone else has that I feel I lack? And neither is better or worse there. It's just interesting always to find what is this really about for me. And I think that maybe depending on the answer to that, the the fix might be different. So I think there can be lots of expressions of jealousy for anxiously attached people. There's the comparison. There's the low self worth.
[00:08:18]:
There's the fear of being replaced. So this sense that if my partner comes into contact with other people who I perceive as being my competitors, then they're going to realize that those people are better than me. More attractive, more confident, more intelligent, more charming, more whatever. And if given the opportunity, they're gonna want them instead of me. And so I'm going to be rejected. I'm going to be left. I'm gonna be replaced. And so jealousy emerges as this way to prevent that from happening to try and control the situation because I feel that I can't just release the group.
[00:08:58]:
I can't just be because I'm not enough as I am, and I need to make sure that my partner doesn't find out about that. They don't realize that, and certainly that they don't get the opportunity to trade up if I think that that's always a looming threat. So we can see that there are a lot of really tender fears that sit underneath jealousy, and that's why it's so important to actually dig a little and try and be compassionate because this stuff runs really deep. And if we just shame ourselves and go like, oh, I'm so whatever. Why am I like this? I need to stop being like this. And when we're already feeling so unworthy, so not enough, so insecure that we think that an attractive person that our partner passes on the street is a threat to everything in our relationship. That is a very, very vulnerable way to be in a relationship, and not the good kind of vulnerability. Vulnerable in the sense of so fragile.
[00:09:50]:
It's It's little wonder that if that's how we're operating, that we feel so shaky. We feel so anxious all the time because we are so primed to see and perceive threats everywhere we look. And now I think when we are operating from those subconscious scripts and subconscious beliefs around jealousy, maybe not even subconscious, maybe they're very front of mind for you that I'm not good enough. I'm not attractive enough. I can't trust in my relationship. It doesn't feel sturdy enough for me to just believe that my partner actually values me, loves me, wants me, chooses me. My partner's gonna leave me at a moment's notice. Like, all of those beliefs can drive a lot of our so called anxious attachment behaviors, our maybe not so healthy relationship behaviors.
[00:10:37]:
So things like social media stalking, things like maybe snooping through your partner's phone if you are really jealous and you're hypervigilant about that colleague. And what are their emails to each other like? And do I need to monitor for the tone in those emails? Is that flotation? Is it all of those things? Right? And our anxious parts go, like, you need to gather information because there are threats here, and I know there are threats here, and I need to go hunting for them. Some of the other behaviors that can come from jealousy are, like, incessant reassurance seeking. So asking someone, like, do you love me? Do you love her? Do you find her attractive? Why did you and your ex break up? Are you sure you don't have feelings for her? These patterns of questioning and reassurance seeking that never really scratch the itch. And I think that is so often the case with anxious attachment. It's so hard to take it in because if you fundamentally don't believe that your partner loves you and is choosing you, and you're always testing and you're always moving the goalposts, you can never take it in because you just don't believe it. And you're always looking for more evidence that it's not true or that it's going to be taken away or that something bad is going to happen. I think that can get you in a real loop of seeking that reassurance only to not take it in, and then your partner feels a bit like, what are we doing here? What's the point? Nothing I say is enough to alleviate your fears.
[00:11:55]:
I don't know why you don't trust me, And that can obviously be very exhausting for a partner and kind of exhausting for a relationship to be in that kind of cycle. Now, again, I just wanna emphasize that I'm not so much talking about situations where there are genuine breaches of trust going on. There are genuine, like, causes for concern. I'm talking more about where jealousy arises from that low self worth place within us and drives all of these behaviors when maybe there's not much to it. It is more in the form of paranoia and fear rather than a rational response to something that is going on that is not okay. I think another really interesting branch off the tree when it comes to the jealousy conversation is feeling like you are not a priority. And so feeling jealous of anyone and anything. So it can extend beyond people, and you can be jealous of a partner's work or hobbies or things that they spend time on that aren't you.
[00:12:54]:
I think this could almost be a whole episode in and of itself. In fact, I'm sure it could be because I think it's something we don't talk enough about how anxiously attached people constantly feel like they are not enough of a priority in their partner's life. And so they fight for their place, and they feel like they have to earn their place in someone's life and work really hard for that. And so they perceive all of these other things, whether it is, like, work or other people, friends, as their competitors again. That, like, I kind of need to be scrambling, elbowing these other people out of the way and convincing you that you should wanna spend time with me and not them. And so I think jealousy can come up when we feel hurt or rejected or neglected in a relationship. And it's this sense of, like, why don't you wanna spend time with me? Why aren't I good enough? Why isn't spending time with me the thing that you wanna do above everything else? Because I put you above everything else, and I think that's the the right thing to do in a relationship is to put you above everything else. So the fact that you don't necessarily reciprocate that or mirror that to the same degree must mean that you don't love me the way I love you, and that makes me feel hurt, rejected less than.
[00:14:05]:
And so that's a really, really common one. I actually hear this a lot from people in the context of often women who are dating men who have children from a previous relationship and feeling that they rank way down the list in terms of priorities in spending time together that the person they're seeing puts their kids first and maybe even their ex first and work and all of these things. And because they're busy and they're being pulled in many directions, people feeling like, I don't know where I stand with you because there are so many things ahead of me in the queue, and I'm always feeling like I'm just waiting around for any opportunity to spend time with you. And that's not something that you're really actively prioritizing, and that can really touch at some of our most sensitive wounds and and feelings of not being good enough, of not being, you know, if I were more something, then you would wanna spend time with me. You would make me a priority. And so I try and prove my worth. I try and strive for a place in your life. And oftentimes in doing so, I just feel like a failure.
[00:15:07]:
I feel nothing I do is enough for you to make me a priority. And so even though we wouldn't necessarily think of that as a jealousy thing, I think jealousy can arise in that kind of setting because we get jealous of even a partner's kids who are in previous relationship or a partner's ex if they're communicating with them even just functionally about co parenting or a partner's friends or people they play golf with or whatever. It can feel like all of these people rank ahead of me. What would it take for me to be higher on the list? And so we can feel really envious and jealous of all of those things that are taking our partner away from us when all we want is to be close. So all of that is painting the picture of how jealousy can look and where it can come from, and the various permutations and expressions of jealousy that anxiously attached people will often experience in relationships, and some of the behaviors that can spring from it, that maybe then feed these shame cycles of I'm feeling really insecure, and so I behave in these ways that then I shame myself for, that then leads me to feel more insecure. And then on and on, I spiral into that loop of kind of berating myself for not being more secure, but that insecurity then feeds all of the behaviors that make me shame myself more. So what do we do with all of this? I think, as I said earlier, the remedy can depend a little on the specifics of the situation. Sometimes we need to have a conversation with someone.
[00:16:32]:
Maybe there are boundaries that need to be clarified. Maybe we need to advocate more for what we want and need in a relationship. But I think oftentimes, in fact, almost always, your experience of jealousy will be at least somewhat alleviated by focusing on building self worth. Because I think that underpinning all of those expressions of jealousy is a feeling of unworthiness and I am not enough. And so I have to prove myself to you so that you don't leave me, reject me, so that you want me more, so that you choose me, so that you show up for me. But I'm making whatever's going on out there a me problem, and I'm feeding the story that I have to prove myself. So when I can really heal that at the root within myself and build genuine self confidence and genuine self esteem so that I can stand firm in, like, I know who I am, and I'm comfortable in who I am. And I don't think that something as fleeting and innocuous as, like, an attractive person in a restaurant, I don't feel threatened by that.
[00:17:31]:
That has nothing to do with me or my relationship. I say this again as someone who absolutely used to see those threats everywhere and feel genuinely destabilized by them. Noticing things like, Is my partner looking at that person? Oh, is this colleague a threat? Is that person in the extended friendship group a threat? All of these things, it was just such hypersensitivity to anyone and anything that I thought could be a source of danger to me and my relationship that already felt so fragile. So, I really understand this, And I can guarantee you that when you learn to really embody sincere self confidence and really actually learning to like yourself, never mind learning to love yourself. I think that could come later, but just focusing on, can I really hand on heart say, like, I'm comfortable with who I am and I like myself? I think that jealousy falls away. It just feels less relevant. It feels way less acute. It's not something that occupies so much of your mental and emotional energy because you really start to trust in your relationships.
[00:18:34]:
And I think your relationships start to be healthier and more balanced, so that you're not constantly scrambling for someone's attention. And I think your ability to see a relationship for what it is and go, Is this aligned? Or am I asking for something from someone who's never gonna be able to give it to me? So I think that, like, it all bleeds out and ripples out into a healthier and more balanced way of being in relationship. And I think jealousy is not one that we then need to solve as a standalone issue in isolation because I do find that it naturally softens as a result of working on building self worth and and being more comfortable in who we are. So I hope that that's been helpful and has given you something to think about if you are someone who struggles a lot with jealousy and envy and comparison. Please know that it is nothing to be ashamed of. It really is, a, completely human. Like, jealousy is something every single one of us has experienced. Envy too.
[00:19:30]:
I think we can have, as I said, like, all these really heavy negative connotations attached to these emotions, but they're just emotions like any other. The more that we can look at them with compassion and and a degree of neutrality, the more we can see a point of this and go, okay, what's really going on for me here, and how might I support myself to feel a little more grounded so that I don't feel like I'm at the mercy of these spirals that I can get into around jealousy and comparison and feeling so insecure and unstable in myself and my relationships. Okay. I'm gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for joining me today, guys. I really hope that this has been helpful. A reminder again about the Secure Self Challenge, which is kicking off in a couple weeks' time. If you haven't already checked out my free training on how to heal anxious attachment and finally feel secure in life and love, that is a great free option as well if you wanna go deeper on some of the themes that we talked about here today. Okay. Thanks so much for joining me, guys. I'll see you again next time.
[00:20:27]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
healing anxious attachment, attachment styles, relationships, single vs in a relationship, personal growth, self-awareness, romantic triggers, emotional safety, inner relationship, self-esteem, corrective experiences, core wounds, nervous system, somatic healing, belief reprogramming, communication skills, setting boundaries, conflict resolution, relationship patterns, vulnerability, intimacy, self-advocacy, relationship breakups, dating, transformation, personal development, emotional regulation, being triggered, relational wounds, decision making in healing