Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures (32 page)

Jealousy Protects Love

At the beginning of the book I suggested that jealousy is a response to a perceived threat to a valued relationship or to its quality. In other words, jealousy aims to protect romantic relationships. It is not a useless flight of irrationality, but a useful signal people can learn to interpret correctly. It is also a shock absorber that can facilitate both personal growth and relationship enrichment.5 Every one of the positive effects associated with jealousy discussed in this chapter can be seen as a love-protective function of jealousy.

Jealousy makes people examine their relationships, with the implicit hope that the relationship and its quality will remain intact. It teaches couples not to take each other for granted; in this way it ensures that they continue to value each other and to express it in their daily interactions. It is a sign of love; it indicates that people value the love relationship it protects. This is true even in those extreme situations in which jealousy leads to violence. It is an instrument for inducing commitment; it protects the boundaries of intimate relationships. It intensifies emotions-and thus keeps the spark alive in intimate relationships. It adds passion to sex; in this way it helps maintain the quality of sex in romantic relationships.

The next story demonstrates many of the positive effects of jealousy. It also demonstrates several of the issues discussed throughout the book.

A Story of Love and Jealousy: Alan and Linda and Gail

When Alan met Linda, she was in her first year of law school and he had a small house-painting business. Linda was a brilliant student and is an exceptionally attractive woman. Despite all her acknowledged success, however, she was very insecure. Alan, a virile, earthy, and affectionate man, calmed her. His love made her feel safe. No other man had ever made her feel that secure. Alan was the man who could take care of her and give her the loving attention her successful father never had time to give.

Alan, for his part, couldn't believe a woman like Linda would even look in the direction of a simple man like him, yet she was actually reciprocating his love. Ile was thrilled. lie admired Linda's intelligence and identified with her academic success. She gave him an entrance into a world he had always considered beyond his reach. Their love for each other was passionate. Linda was the "wings" (intellectual, flighty, temperamental) and Alan the "roots" (simple, down to earth, stable). Together they felt complete. Things were going so well that they soon decided to get married.

Their marriage was passionate and turbulent. The areas in which they complemented each other intensified their mutual attraction, but the difference in their social status created a growing number of problems and conflicts. Linda complained that she couldn't talk to Alan the way she did to men in school. Alan complained that she was too involved with her studies. With a moment's reflection it becomes clear that Alan's and Linda's complaints about each other were related to the things they found most attractive when they first met. Linda was attracted to Alan's earthiness and simplicity; now he was too earthy and simple. Alan was attracted to Linda's intelligence and academic involvement; now he thought she was too involved academically.

Alan's complaints made Linda feel that he was criticizing her career goals. Isis lack of support made her withdraw even further into her academic world. Linda's complaints hurt Alan's pride. If(, became increasingly more uncomfortable in social situations involy- ing Linda's fellow students and law professors and tried to avoid these situations as much as he could.

Given the growing distance between Alan and Linda, and the intensity built into the relationships among law students, who spend long hours studying together, what happened was almost inevitable: Linda had an affair with another student in her program. She felt that this man, unlike Alan, was her equal. They shared similar goals and she could talk with him about things she could never talk about with Alan.

Alan was terribly hurt by Linda's affair and responded with tremendous jealousy. The affair was particularly painful for him, because it took away what he found most rewarding about Linda's love-her acceptance of him as an equal.

Linda's lover was someone with whom Alan felt unable to compete; he wasn't enough as a man or as a mate. The "wings" Linda's love gave him had been clipped. Now she shared with someone else what he considered an even greater intimacy than the intimacy she had with him-the intimacy of minds. Alan's pain was unbearable.

To help himself overcome the pain, Alan started playing tennis several times a week. His good looks and excellent skills made him a desirable tennis partner. After tennis, the players often would go to a nearby coffee shop. Alan found himself talking with the attractive women he had played tennis with. Unlike Linda, these women seemed to appreciate him, to share his values, and to delight in his company. It didn't take him long to get sexually involved with one of them, and later on with two more. The sexual liaisons restored his self-confidence.

Now it was Linda's turn to experience the pain of jealousy. By this time her own affair was over. The law student had returned to a committed relationship he had with someone else; his affair with Linda turned out to be only a diversion. Linda was crushed. She had failed with a man who was her equal. This reinforced her belief that anyone she found desirable would never want her in the long run. She longed for the security of Alan's love, but now Alan was giving his love to other women. Linda couldn't bear it, even though she considered the other women "stupid fools."

Linda's jealousy focused on the most important thing Alan's love gave her, the thing she was now most afraid to lose: the feeling of secure ground under her feet. If she lost Alan's love, her life would not be worth living.

Linda started to woo Alan back, using every charm she knew would attract him. Alan was delighted, and happy to return to her. His encounters with women who were "less liberated" than Linda, however, made him aware of his need for a home-not the kind of home that Linda provided, but a "real home" complete with a hot meal waiting when he came home from work. They decided to hire a live-in housekeeper who would stay in a spare room in exchange for cleaning and cooking. That housekeeper was Gail.

Gail was new in town and almost penniless. For her, the arrangement with Alan and Linda, which gave her a roof over her head in addition to a job, was ideal. As a hardworking woman, she had no problem with the house cleaning and cooking her job required.

The new arrangement worked wonderfully for everyone. Alan felt that now the house became a real home. He loved Gail's home cooking and tidiness. On nights when Linda studied in the library, he and Gail sat at the kitchen table and talked. Gail, who had a history of troubled relationships with men, found Alan to be similar to herself. They became good friends. Like Alan, Linda appreciated having a neat house and great meals to come home to. She and Gail were also becoming good friends.

All three seemed happy with the arrangement. It ended only because Gail decided it was time for her to go back to her hometown.

After Gail left, Alan and Linda discovered that her presence had been hiding a growing estrangement between them. Linda complained again about Alan's intellectual inadequacies and Alan felt again that this was not the "home" he wanted. They decided on a trial separation, and Linda moved to (11101 her aparime nt in their building. Despite their separation, Alan and Linda continued to see each other regularly.

When Linda left for a professional convention one week, Alan decided to go out of town too. It just so happened that the relatives he wanted to visit lived close to Gail's hometown, so he called her up and suggested that they meet. The meeting was more moving and emotional than either of them expected. Roth of them discovered how much they really meant to each other and how much fun it was to spend time together. Alan told Gail that he and Linda were separated and seriously contemplating divorce.

Gail, who had previously held back her feelings for Alan out of loyalty to Linda, gave in alter hearing about the planned divorce. What hadn't happened during all the time they had shared a household happened now; they became lovers. Alan felt that this time he had found a woman who was truly perfect for him. They were so much alike. It felt so comfortable, so easy, so different from the eternal struggles in his marriage.

Gail, too, felt that she had found her "match made in heaven." Unlike the men she had known in the past, Alan was a friend and kindred spirit. She could talk to him. She could trust him. And now that he and Linda were separated, she could let herself feel passion for hi►n, something she had never let herself experience before.

When Alan returned from the trip, he told Linda he wanted a divorce and that Gail was coming back to live with him. Linda, who until then had been searching for a more appropriate mate, was overcome with jealousy. It was "the most awful, consuming, heartwrenching pain" she had ever felt. She felt betrayed by Alan and by Gail. She telephoned Gail, weeping and screaming, "How can you do this to me? And I thought you were my friend!" "This is not something I did," Gail responded. "You were going to divorce Alan anyway. I had nothing to do with the problems between you two." The verbal brutality of Linda's attack made Gail even more determined to give her relationship with Alan a chance.

Linda was inconsolable. She couldn't accept that she had lost Alan to a woman she cared for and trusted. She cried incessantly and was ready to promise Alan anything he wanted. She threatened: "I'll never let the two of you be alone in peace. I'll never let you make love. I'm going to stand at the window, scream, and throw stones. When I see Gail, I'm going to bash her face." Alan was patient and understanding. He held Linda in his arms when she cried. Yet he remained determined to give his relationship with Gail a chance.

On their way home from the airport, Alan started talking to Gail about getting married and having children. Gail had to slow him down and remind him that they needed to find out if they could live together as a couple before deciding to have a family. But his enthusiasm was contagious.

The idyll between Alan and Gail was shorter than anyone had anticipated. Almost immediately after she moved in with Alan, Gail sensed his change of attitude. At first she tried to ignore it, but soon things became intolerable and the confrontation unavoidable "What's going on with you?" she asked, afraid to hear his answer. "This is not working out for me. It's not the way I imagined it would be," said Alan. "I low can you say that, when I've been here only two days?" Gail asked in tears. "You need to give us a chance to make it work." "I'm sorry. I think this is all one big mistake," Alan said quietly, and left.

Gail sank to the floor. This was a nightmare come true. This was exactly what had kept her from getting involved in relationships with men before. How had she let Alan get through her .defenses? Why did she think that being kindred spirits was an assurance for anything? What was she going to do now? She couldn't go hack home-the humiliation would be too great. She couldn't stay. Maybe it would be better to end it all right now. Life wasn't worth living with so much pain. When the phone rang, Gail hesitated, but thinking Alan might have changed his mind again, she picked up the receiver. It was Linda.

Since her arrival, Gail had called Linda several times. She had left messages for her at home and at school, but Linda hadn't returned her calls. Now, in her hour of despair, she was on the line.

Linda knew what was going on because Alan had told her about his change of heart the minute it happened. Now that she had Alan back, she could allow herself to feel empathy with Gail's pain. She knew that pain intimately.

The two women started talking. After starting, it was difficult to stop. Both of them had so much to talk about, so much that needed to be said, to be clarified. Suddenly Linda said, "I have this weekend off. How about us going skiing? That will give us a chance to talk as much as we want." Gail couldn't imagine anything she would rather do. At the ski resort, Linda and Gail had a chance to compare notes. What had Alan told Gail to convince her that his relationship with Linda was over? What had lie told Linda at the same time to keep her tied to him? Two women had been betrayed by the same dishonest and undeserving man ... "and to think that he almost managed to turn us against each other." Carried away by their excitement over renewing their friendship and sharing the pain they both experienced, they I1ugged each other affectionately.

In the romantic atmosphere of the ski resort (they were in a hot tub at the time) hugs and kisses of excitement gradually turned more passionate. Finally they made love. For both, it was their first sexual encounter with a woman.

Gail fell in love with Linda in a way she had never loved before. She had never opened up to a man the way she did to Linda. She had never felt so understood. She adored Linda. She wanted to take care of her. She moved in with Linda and started once again cleaning the apartment and cooking Linda's favorite meals. When Linda was exhausted after a long day at court or in the library, Gail would drive her home.

While this was going on, Alan was wild with jealousy and was doing what Linda and Gail described with great delight as "crazy things." Ile came to Linda's apartment raving and raging, threw her clothes out the window, screamed at the top of his lungs that they were "filthy, disgusting sluts" Now it was Alan's turn to feel betrayed, rejected, and left out by two women he loved and considered his best friends. But he also felt he was competing against something beyond him, beyond his comprehension. Only perverts were doing the kind of things Linda and Gail were doing. How could they do it? flow could they do it to him?