I know a woman who suffers from very low self-esteem. This affects all her relationships because she doesn’t believe she’s good enough for her partner. Why would he want to stay with her? What could he see in her? Surely he’ll realise soon that she’s not worth the effort, and he’ll go off with someone else. What if he’s already started to do that … ? Was he really working late last week? You can see how her insecurity and fear of losing her partner leads easily on to becoming jealous and possessive.

This is sad enough, but what happens next is sadder in my view: she becomes so jealous that he can’t stand it any longer, and he goes off with someone else. Her self-fulfilling prophecy has just reinforced her belief that she’s not good enough and any partner is bound to leave her in the end.

It’s easy to feel sympathy for her. But now look at it from her partner’s perspective. He started off devoted and loyal, and she was so possessive, and mistrustful, and accused him of flirting or cheating endlessly, that in the end he decided he’d be better off out of the relationship.

It’s no fun living with a jealous partner. Indeed, jealous friends and siblings and family and colleagues can be pretty stifling too. There is a difference between jealousy and envy. You might be envious of what others have, but jealousy is much more painful – it is the terrible fear of losing someone (or something you have) to another person. It generally has a lot to do with insecurity and low self-esteem.

So someone may be envious of what they perceive as your perfect relationship, or beautiful house, or career success, because they fear they will never have it themselves. Maybe because they don’t think they deserve it.

But some friendships are beset by one person’s jealousy that the other will find a ‘better’ friend soon and abandon them. This can be a huge problem in friendship groups, especially three-person ones, where one friend is convinced the other two are closer to each other. Some people can become very manipulative to prevent this happening, even though it might never have been a real threat.

You can help a jealous person by not antagonising them, and by avoiding behaviour that will rile them. But only up to a point. A partner whose experience has made them jealous may be mollified if you avoid flirting with other people or staying out all night without warning. However, if they start insisting on this, if they try to control your behaviour, you need to draw a line. This is their stuff and, while you can take care not to provoke it, the answer lies in them and not you. In the end, they have to learn to trust you or the relationship is doomed.

Your jealous friend needs reassurance, but also needs to understand that manipulative behaviour is the one thing that actually will push you away – the thing they fear. Your jealous sibling or colleague doesn’t need to hear about your new job/car/house/clothes, so don’t rub their nose in it. In the end though, if they have self-esteem they’ll stop needing the trappings of success.