MIND MOVES: Jealousy is one of the most painful emotions that can afflict a human being. It can torment the mind with unfounded ideas of betrayal and deception by a loved one. But it isn't a single emotion - it's a toxic cocktail of fear, insecurity and anger. If allowed to, it can reach a fever pitch that renders clear thinking impossible and can bring violence into a relationship.
The jealous person is a zealot (a word derived from the same root as "jealous") who is obsessive about guarding what he or she believes is rightfully theirs; terrified that something precious will be taken away. If jealousy gains a foothold in the mind, it may well destroy the very love it believes it is trying to protect. It can be activated by current events in a close relationship, but in its more destructive forms it involves the resurfacing of old psychic wounds.
At the healthier end of its range, jealousy can simply be a normal reaction to a partner in an intimate relationship stepping over a line in a way that causes unnecessary hurt and insecurity.
It can signal a need that boundaries should be re-established, so that both partners know where they stand. It may not be acceptable that someone shares, with an outsider, an intimacy that belongs exclusively to the two partners in a committed relationship. Intimacy is a fragile and precious gift that requires a context of trust and safety if it is to grow. Being open and communicating the hurt that is felt can be important in redefining a boundary.
The measure of a secure and healthy relationship is one where each person has a clear and secure idea about his or her unique place in the other's life. Knowing clearly where they stand in each other's eyes enables a couple to be open and welcoming to others and to share deeply with them in many different ways.
But every intimate relationship has its no-go areas to the public, reserved areas where the couple can communicate to one another in ways that define the essence of their intimacy.
But jealousy becomes a real problem where it has very little to do with repairing boundaries in a healthy relationship and everything to do with making unfounded and destructive accusations.
In recent years, I have encountered a number of men and women who contributed to appalling jealousy scenarios. They described how they repeatedly subjected their partners to abusive interrogations while trying to establish some objective grounds for their own deluded jealous thoughts.
They were aware afterwards that their behaviour was utterly irrational and they were deeply ashamed of the pain they inflicted. But at the time, their mental and emotional pain was terrible and they persuaded themselves that their partners must have done something to cause them to be in such anguish. Experiencing torment to an extent that feels unbearable, the mind can too easily assume that these feelings are being caused by another; a conclusion that only fuels rage and anger and allows jealousy an even stronger hold over one's inner life.
This "morbid" jealousy becomes the poison that taints the very essence of intimacy, the freedom and space that people need within any relationship to grow and develop.
Quite innocent behaviour on the part of a loved one can provoke this type of jealousy. Your partner laughs with another at a party, or mentions someone whose company they enjoyed over lunch, and you are thrown into emotional turmoil. Any contact with a perceived potential rival for their affections provokes a crisis.
You may tell yourself it's because you can't trust them, but in reality it's because you don't trust yourself. You don't really believe you have enough hold on their affections. Others are better looking, funnier, more interesting than you could ever be. The roots of this morbid jealousy are personal and sexual insecurities that existed a long time before you became involved with your partner. They are the psychic remnant of an unmet need to be cherished securely for one's own sake, or the premature loss of this experience in early childhood.
Morbid jealousy is an attempt to repair this basic fault in the mind through controlling another and securing an exclusivity that is no longer appropriate or possible.
Othello, the tragic epitome of jealousy, was vulnerable to feeling insecure with Desdemona, long before Iago got to him. As a child aged seven, in Shakespeare's narrative, he was snatched away from his family to become a slave. He also had to endure the pain of constant racial slurs in his military career being, as he was, a prominent black man in a white Venetian society. He was never very confident of his place in the company of others.
Iago played on these insecurities, taunting him with unfounded suggestions that his devoted wife was deceiving him. The seeds of jealousy were nourished and pushed him beyond the point of reason towards a horrific finale.
We need to be careful not to nourish the seeds of jealousy in another or in ourselves. Understanding that it is our own insecurities that are driving us, not the behaviour of our loved ones, can help us take hold of this "green-eyed monster" before it carries us away in a destructive orgy of inner torment.
Next week, we will discuss managing your own jealous feelings and what you can do if you are repeatedly the target of another's unfounded jealous accusations.
Dr Tony Bates is principal psychologist at St James's Hospital, Dublin.
