Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures (5 page)

Because the person one chooses to fall in love with has such an important influence on one's inner life, the discovery of such a person is a powerful event. Love can give one's whole life a sense of meaning. When someone gives meaning to your life, the threat of losing that person can be devastating. Indeed, the results of a study on love and jealousy show that people who invest such existential significance in love relationships tend to be particularly sensitive to the threat of their loss (Lester et al., 1985).

Most people have some unresolved conflicts they carry from their childhood. Some have more of them, some have fewer. For some, these conflicts are serious and problematic, for others they are less so. People may experience these conflicts as fears, as vulnerabilities, as insecurities. When they fall in love and their love is reciprocated, these fears and vulnerabilities seem to vanish. They are loved despite their imperfections. It makes them feel safe. But when this love is threatened, the fears and insecurities that they thought had gone forever come hack in full force. If this person whom they love-the person who they thought loved them despite their flaws-is going to leave them for another, then there is no hope. Now they may feel insecure even in those things they love in themselves. As glowing as love was, so dark is the shadow of its possible loss.

Even people whose upbringing was loving, secure, and relatively problem-free, and who are burdened by few unresolved conflicts, respond to the threat or the actual loss of love in a similar way. Their response, however, is likely to be appropriate and proportionate to the situation. Because they are not as desperately dependent on their love relationship as is someone who is trying to work through a childhood trauma, they are less likely to perceive a threat when none exists, and an actual threat seems less overwhelming to them. Yet they, too, respond with jealousy when a third person threatens a romantic relationship for which they care deeply.

If even well-adjusted people who had a happy childhood experience jealousy, then we can assume that everyone experiences jealousy at some point in life. This seems a logical conclusion considering the origins of jealousy. All of us were infants once, and as a result we all carry certain vulnerabilities and fears. As loving as our parents may have been, we all were left hungry and cold at times and thus had an opportunity to feel fear of abandonment. Similarly, at one time or another we all have had to compete for the exclusive love of 'a parent or a caretaker, and have lost. Since these experiences are universal, say psychologists like Freud, then jealousy is universal.

Jealousy need not be the green-eyed monster that destroys people and relationships. Recognizing it as the shadow of love gives couples an opportunity to examine two important questions:

What is the essence of your love? What was it that attracted you to each other initially, and what is the most important thing the relationship has given each one of y'ou"?

What is the shadow that VOUr love casts when it is threatened? What is the threat or the loss that the jealous person is responding to? Even if the jealousy is not grounded in reality, what is it focused on: a loss of love? of face? of self-worth? (Pestrak el at., 1986).

Jealousy has been described as an eruption that can be transcended only through awareness. As people move-with awareness-into the core of their jealous)', they discover ungrounded expectations, projections, envy, loss of self-esteem, and infantile fears and insecurities (Swami, 1983). Other times they may discover extreme ego insecurity, serious hostility, low frustration tolerance, dire love needs, dependency, obsessive-compulsive attachments, misdiagnosing a partner's unloving or provocative behavior, and childhood traumas and conditioning (Ellis, 1996).

These are not "nice" discoveries. In fact, they may be so unpleasant that some people will try hard to avoid them. Yet, avoiding, denying, or even suppressing a problem from consciousness doesn't make it go away. To solve a jealousy problem, a much more effective approach is an open and honest examination of the issues involved. Such an examination can do more than help relieve the jealous person's perceived threat. It can also help enhance the relationship and deepen both mates' commitment to each other. The next chapter offers an opportunity for just this kind of examination.

A Note to Therapists

When an individual, or a couple, comes to therapy with a jealousy problem, it is important first to examine both mates' predisposition to jealousy, including cultural background, family background, family constellation, and experiences with intimate relationships.

In my experience, couples find the definition of jealousy (response to a perceived threat to a valued relationship), the distinction among its three components (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) and between chronic and acute jealousy, and the fact that it is normal and universal very comforting.

This chapter contains several exercises that can be used very effectively in the context of individual therapy, couple therapy, and couple's workshop. One is finding the connection between what attracted the couple to each other originally and what is at the core of their jealousy problem (jealousy as the shadow of love). The other entails identifying the internalized romantic image a person or a couple has and the connection between that romantic image and the jealousy problem.

 
2

Are You a
Jealous Person?

0! What damned minules tensc he o'er who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet soundly loves!

-Olhella, 111, 165

"thou tyrant, tyrant jealousy. Thou tyrant of the mind.

-John Dryden, The Sony of Jealousy

Are you a jealous person? When I asked this question of 728 people in three different studies, slightly more than half (54/0) answered "Yes, I am a jealous person." Close to half (46°/0) answered "No, I am not a jealous person."I

Nearly all of the people who described themselves as not jealous have experienced jealousy at some point in their lives. Furthermore, their experiences were rather similar to those of the people who described themselves as jealous. But as we shall see, the difference in self-perception between people who define themselves as "a jealous person" and those who do not has far reaching implications for coping.

The Experience of Jealousy

In order to identify the components of the experience of jealousy, the following exercise is recommended:

Try to recall the event that produced your most extreme jealousy. Even if this is difficult, recall the event with as much vividness and as many details as possible. What related incidents preceded it? What was your relationship like prior to it? Where and when did it take place? What was the jealousy trigger? Who was the interloper? When it happened, how did your mate look? How did you feel? What did you think? Ideally, you should recall enough details to be able to reproduce the event on stage or on a movie screen.

Once you have the event firmly and clearly in your memory, try to recall how intensely you experienced each of the physical, emotional, and cognitive (thoughts) components of jealousy presented on the next page.2 Did you experience the particular component very intensely, moderately, or not at all?

The majority of the people who responded to the jealousy questionnaire (see Appendix B) experienced many of the components of jealousy to some extent and experienced those at the top of each list more intensely than those at the bottom. People who had experienced all the items in the list very intensely, or else didn't experience any at all, belong to that small minority that is either "abnormally jealous" or else "abnormally not jealous." Abnormal, as noted in chapter one, doesn't mean pathological, but outside the middle range where the majority of responses fall.

The guided memory exercise and the jealousy questionnaire can be used by lay people as well as by therapists either in the context of individual therapy or of a jealousy workshop.

It is important to note that the experience of jealousy reported by people who described themselves both as "jealous" and as "not jealous" was similar; the only difference was in intensity. Those who described themselves as "a jealous person" reported experiencing feelings of pain, grief, inferiority, aggression, and resentment "intensely," whereas those who described themselves as "not jealous" reported experiencing them "moderately." In all other cases the differences between the two groups were even smaller. This seems to suggest that despite its complexity, jealousy has some universal and identifiable features.3

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Situations That Trigger Jealousy

The intensity of people's experience of jealousy, not surprisingly, is related to the circumstances in which it is aroused. The following situations were presented to subjects in my studies. All of them are real situations that happened to real people. Other researchers also found that situational threats predict jealous responses through their effect on the appraisal of threat (e.g. Melamed, 1991; Radecki-Bush et al., 1993).

How much jealousy would you experience when (no jealousy? n►od- erate jealousy? ex[ren►e jealousy?):

■ during a party, your mate is flirtatious and spends a great deal of time dancing intimately and behaving provocatively with someone else?

■ your mate spends a great deal of time during a party dancing with someone else?

■ your mate spends a great deal of time during a party talking to someone else?

■ you are at a party and your mate disappears for a long period of time?

■ you are at a party, and for a brief time you realize you don't know where voce- male is?

■ your phone rings and the caller either says, "Sorry, wrong number," or simply hangs up?

■ you call your mate and the line is busy?

Most of the people who answered this question thought they would be most jealous in the first situation-when their mate is behaving provocatively. They thought they would not feel jealous in the last three situations-when the phone is busy, someone hangs up on you, or you don't know where your mate is during a party. If even these last situations cause a jealous response, the person is probably "abnormally" jealous. This can be a temporary condition caused by the recent discovery of'an affair or a more permanent condition. If the first situation doesn't cause jealousy, the person is probably "abnormally" nonjealous.

The majority of people who answered the question felt jealous even in situations Icss extreme than having their mate dance inti mately with someone else; for many, such behavior is a good enough reason to get out of the relationship, not just the party. Seeing one's mate spend a lot of time during a party dancing with someone else (even if it is "only because s/he is a great dancer") is enough to make most people jealous. The same goes for seeing one's mate spend a great deal of time during a party talking to someone else (even when it is "only because he or she is working in the same company and it's good politics"). People who find themselves in such situations, and their mate "can't understand" why they are making such a big fuss over an "innocent" dance or conversation, can comfort themselves (and enlighten their mate) with the knowledge that most people would have responded the same way. In other words, contrary to what their mate may think or say, they are not "abnormally" jealous.

Here arc some other common jealousy triggers. Would you (or do you) experience jealousy when your mate:

■ has a lover?

■ has an intimate friend who is single and available?

■ has an intimate friend?

■ is associating with single available people?

■ expresses appreciation/interest in a casual ac

■ expresses appreciation of an attractive stranger passing by?

■ expresses admiration of a movie or television star?

Shirley Glass and Torn Wright, who wrote extensively about the trauma of infidelity, note that the severity of reactions varies greatly among betrayed spouses. Some appear to take it in stride and others respond catastrophically. The intensity of the betrayed spouse's traumatic reaction seems to be related to the assumptions that spouse had regarding a mutual cormnitmenI to monogamy in the relationship (Glass & Wright, 1997).

Appreciation of a good-looking movie star is not associated with shattered assumptions about the marriage and does not represent a real threat. Consequently, it does not trigger jealousy in most people. People who are jealous even in such a situation are "abnormally" jealous. People who are not jealous even when their mate has a lover either no longer value the relationship or else are "abnormally" nonjealous.

Clearly, the situation most likely to produce jealousy is one's mate having a lover. But it turns out that there are variations even here.

Would you (or do you) experience jealousy when:

■ Your mate announces he or she has fallen in love with someone else and is thinking about leaving you?

■ your mate has a serious, long-term love affair?

■ your mate has an affair, but assures you it is a result of his or her need for variety and in no way affects your relationship?