I was hunched behind a wall, observing every movement seen through the blinds in her window. I knew her young man was there, and the knowledge induced excruciating pain. It was a cold night, and it was raining. I said to myself: “I know I am a rational, well-balanced, mature individual. So what the hell is happening to me? Have I altogether lost my mind?” And yet, I proceeded to watch the window for ours. I didn’t leave till the light in the window was out. A power greater than myself held me transfixed to the light and to her. I have never in my lifetime felt so close to lunacy.
Whilst I knew that our relationship was finished, I still had very strong feelings for him. However one day, I saw him at the street corner near where we once met . He was with this peroxide blonde girl the kind who spends hours picking out an outfit, perfectly puts on her heavy makeup, solid hairstyle from all the hairspray she applies. I knew that I looked like a tramp; my face was stinging from the cold, my hair unwashed and dirty. I think I simply went crazy. I went up to him, kicked him in the balls, snatched the hat he was holding in his hand and ran away. I went to his car which he always left unlocked and started weeping uncontrollably. I’ve never cried like that in my lifetime. I felt I was losing my mind.
Both people in the above stories are describing powerful experiences which are in fact very common. They may be extreme and crazy, involve a lack of control, and ensue a sense of losing ones sanity but they are striking features of romantic jealousy.
Most people experience the power of jealousy as an extremely agonizing, “unhinged” feeling. A adult female who I once knew said that jealousy was the most unspeakable thing she had ever been through: “I tried everything to gain some hold over it, but nothing works. I do not think I can live with this anguish anymore.” Even when people go through extreme jealousy few have enough self restraint not to resort to actual acts of violence or aggression and often fantasize about it. A cleaning lady whose estranged husband started going out with her best friend said: “I have dreams in which I go into her apartment with a sledgehammer and start destroying everything, pieces of furniture, tapes, windows. I can just about hear the glass smashing. These fantasies seem to calm me down, even though I know would never do it
For virtually all of us, even if the green-eyed monster produces horrible anguish and suffering, it stays an inner experience that manages not to cross the boundary into hostile behavior. But anybody who has felt intense jealousy is well knowledgeable of its great power and possible destructiveness.
Jealousy is a response to a perceived threat real or imaginary to a treasured relationship or to its quality. A national survey of marriage counselors indicated that jealousy is a problem in one third of allpartners attending marital therapy. This helps explain our captivation with accountsof the wild things some people are forced to do. One woman whose husband left her for a younger model abducted her rival at gunpoint, shaved her head, stripped her and covered her with tar and feathers,then dropped her at the city rubbish dump. The story was repeated over and over again with great delight by women who identified with the revenge of the scorned wife. Is jealousy a form of insanity then?
Jealousy lies somewhere between sanity and lunacy. Some jealous responses are so instinctive that an individual who does not display them seems in in some manner “not normal.” Other people seem so excessive that you don’t need to be an expert to know that they are pathological. One such example is the man who is untrusting of his loving, innocent wife that he constantly snoops on her, listens in on her telephone conversations, checks the mileage in her car for inexplicable trips and in spite of her repeatedly proven faithfulness continues to distrust her and suffer from debilitating jealousy.
It is crucial to distinguish between”normal” and “delusional” jealousy. Normal jealousy is based on a real threat to the relationship whereas delusional jealousy perseveres in spite of the absence of any real or even plausible threat.
The good news is by recognizing the signs of romantic jealousy and realizing which feelings are normal and which are abnormal, and by examining the sources of our jealous feelings, we can learn to deal with it and change our behavior accordingly. An encouraging thought is that jealousy can be a trigger for growth and increasing our self-awareness, and enables us to get a clearer understanding of both our partner and our relationship