Control, Jealousy And WhatsApp: An Explosive Cocktail
The ease of communicating brings with it a danger, that of wanting immediate answers and, if they don’t reach us, imagining the darkest motives.
Every day fifty million wasaps are sent around the world. The mobile phone application that makes this exchange of messages possible has changed our way of relating in a few years.
We type a few words on the screen of our mobile and, in a few seconds, a person can read them even if they are very far away.
We tell each other more. Couples can communicate better (that is to say, because it is a very limited communication) and immediately. But it generates more misunderstandings, with which, the jealous ones have more and better excuses to justify their fears and misgivings.
Controlling people can intuit what the other is doing. Or, at least, know if it is connected or not. From there they can imagine if you chat with someone they don’t know. Or to think that when it is two in the morning and he says he is going to the bathroom, perhaps he is sending messages to who knows who.
What was before, WhatsApp or jealousy?
WhatsApp is not the cause of jealousy, obviously. Jealous people would be the same without this application, but now they have more justifications to unleash their desire for control.
The psychologist Monia Presta says that in her office she recently experienced the case of a very insecure woman who needed her boyfriend to respond to her wasaps and he not only did not answer when she wanted, but also spent a lot of time writing with other people. As she had a controlling behavior, the boyfriend became more and more distant. Until they broke the relationship.
“WhatsApp feeds the feeling of involuntary control of people,” says Mati Segura, a psychologist.
Respect the spaces, essential
The solution is not to stop using the application, but to reinforce the spaces of the two members of the couple; be aware that they do not have to tell you everything or broadcast your life live.
They are not half oranges, two halves of a whole, but two beings who share a common space, but who have their own life and must preserve it.
By the way: nothing to reveal passwords with the excuse of falling in love.
And a positive message for jealous readers: if they know that their behavior – wanting to control their partner through WhatsApp – is irrational, they already have a lot of cattle. From here, it is recommended to visit the psychologist and do some personal work.
A challenge: learning to wait
To the not so jealous, and to everyone in general, the two psychologists advise to make good use of this application. Knowing that our partner does not have to answer us immediately. Maybe he has other priorities at that time and that does not mean that we become secondary, much less that he no longer loves us.
Monia Presta recommends viewing these messages as we used to see SMS (which now seem prehistoric to us). A message that the other responded when he could. He didn’t have to answer instantly, and the world didn’t end if he didn’t.
The same thing that happened with letters in a past that also seems remote: nothing happened if it took a few days or even weeks to get home. What a good times!
The difference is that with WhatsApp “the letter” can appear at any unexpected moment, with which we spend the day anxiously consulting the phone, to see if happiness finally arrives.
If you need to control the emotions that this waiting generates, we recommend reading Emotions. Free from fear, jealousy and anger . Edaf Osho suggests that we go to the root of our emotions, understand them and learn to calm our interior when we experience situations that overwhelm us.
