Most of us have felt the pang of jealousy at one time or another. But it is one thing to have a momentary emotional reaction and quite another to be victims of mistrust, the feeling of abandonment or violent impulses.
Enhancing communication and tolerance is the first step in overcoming this situation, although sometimes we may need outside help.
A very useful tool, there are underlying conflicts that we will have to work on through psychotherapy. In our daily life, we can adopt small changes that help us. If we are sad, the body tends to shrink; but if we straighten our back and our gaze remains firm, straight ahead, our mood will change. Alexander Technique specialist Richard Brennan says that modifying our posture strengthens the body and mind, improves well-being and prevents disease, and that a person with good posture tends to transmit self-confidence. According to Monica Calvo, each yoga posture has what she calls a semi-lla attitude. Thus, a person who feels insecure can practice the posture of the warrior: in profile with arms stretched out in a cross and looking straight ahead. With practice, he or she will internalize the attitude of pushing forward, of moving forward, despite setbacks. Yoga, tai chi or gigong exercises can bring more openness, flexibility and harmony to our lives.
If we become aware of what our posture would be if we were in a different state of mind and modify our body language, our sensations will change. I know actors who go through bad times, as we all do.
Although they come to the theater in a hurry, the fact of pretending for a while that they are someone else makes them leave the theater literally being someone else. Something similar happens with body postures.
There is a Greek goddess Hera learned that her husband Zeus had impregnated Leto -a goddess of the night- and decided to take revenge on her for all eternity, which had repercussions not only between the two divinities, but also in all Olympus.
on her for all eternity, which had repercussions not only between the two divinities, but throughout Olympus. Hera was jealous: she was burning inside, she felt furious. Because that is what this word means: it derives from the Latin zelus (ardor, zeal), which in turn comes from the Greek zein (to boil).
For most mortals, being suspicious that the loved one is transferring his or her affection and desire to another person is a complex experience that can be expressed in three different ways with different degrees of severity: jealousy as a sign of love, jealousy as a neurosis, and jealousy as zealotypy or psychotic delusions. Let us look at them.
Jealousy as a sign of love is, in principle, a genuine and «functional» emotional reaction, which we can consider healthy, because it is a proof that we are really interested in someone. As expressed by the Jungian analyst Aldo Carotenuto, jealousy «can be a feeling immutably linked to love that lovers should not be unaware of”.
Mistrust in love can lead to neurotic jealousy. On those occasions it acquires an obsessive and disturbing dimension, capable of inducing emotional states that lacerate the soul and disturb the body, associated with a possessive attitude, a reflection of the macho culture of our social and educational system.
Thus, in a relationship in which distrust and lack of complicity prevail, trivial details such as changing clothes to go to a meeting, taking a long time to open the door or answering the phone in a hurry are perceived as signs of deception, which causes a dense and suffocating atmosphere in which danger and threat become the protagonists. Ana and Felipe, two of my patients, are an example of this neurotic jealousy: they requested a couple’s psychotherapy when, after two years of happy cohabitation, they found themselves getting into continuous arguments due to the uncertainty caused by some of the other’s behaviors, and they were accusing each other of wrong attitudes in their behavior with third parties, especially when they met with their group of friends. During the sessions they realized that they were not coherent with their liberal thinking, but were full of prejudices and fears, fruit of their respective family experiences, as well as of the type of education they had received, and that they were not the confident people they pretended to be. This realization allowed them to quiet their fantasies, intensify communication and affective and sexual closeness, feel closer and more flexible, and reaffirm the love they still felt for each other. Jealousy is the most exorbitant expression of jealousy, when it is tinged with a strong and unbearable feeling of abandonment and betrayal that gives rise to delirious perceptive states, often associated with psychotic crises, or to psychopathic personalities that result in extreme, violent and destructive manifestations, which the German philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers defined in 1910 as «jealousy» or «jealous delusions».
In these extreme cases, mistrust is established in the couple for no apparent reason, to the point that any action of the other ratifies the suspicions of the jealous partner.
This confirmation even leads him or her to hear voices exhorting him or her to take revenge and making him or her fantasize about how to carry it out.
The emotional suffering is enormous, so much for the person who lives this altered state of conscience – because for a time he or she is unaware of his or her fantasy, whose impulses The destructive violence is incapable of counteracting – as well as for the one who suffers the consequences, confused between surprise and the most absolute incomprehension. In these cases, a tragic picture is generated, which is usually part of what is nowadays usually referred to in our country as «gender violence”.
Luis plunged into this hellish state after a year of living with Paula. One day, he perceived a smell on her that he associated with a male perfume.
He then began to have repetitive and distressing dreams in which she had sexual relations with other men, or with women, as well as increasingly morbid images that invaded his consciousness, preventing him from focusing on anything other than Paula’s sexual escapades and orgies. This dynamic was becoming stronger and stronger, although it did not prevent him from being aware of his disturbance: he felt extra-not himself and afraid of «going crazy.
-In extreme cases, jealousy is tinged with an unbearable feeling of betrayal and abandonment.-
He didn’t dare say anything to his partner, because he considered himself an open and sensible person, and because part of him knew it wasn’t true and thought he could get through it without help. But his concern grew when he felt he was losing control.
«I began to be overcome by angry reactions against Paula. I had violent impulses. One day I found myself insulting her and about to hit her for some domestic nonsense.» Through her friend Alberto, she came to my office and we began a crisis intervention combining individual and couple sessions with a the psychopharmacological follow-up to neutralize both the delusional (the psychotic crisis) and the psychopathic emergence. The picture subsided in a few months, largely thanks to the involved collaboration of both of them and the support of their friend Alberto.
Luis was able to understand that his crisis had been influenced by situations of the moment as well as by some childhood experiences that converged at a certain moment, disrupting his psychosomatic armor or defensive system: his economic problems, the death of his mother, his partner’s difficulties in conceiving, his own premature birth and the time he remained in the incubator without feeding from his mother’s breast, as well as his early entry into kindergarten and the episodes of school violence he experienced. And Paula, her partner, was also able to benefit from this experience, because accompanying her husband in his return from the shadows in which he was plunged allowed her to understand him better, to ratify the love she felt for him and to glimpse, at the same time, something of her own dark side, which helped her to consolidate their relationship.
We see, then, that there are considerable differences in the way jealousy is experienced, associated fundamentally with the different personality structures of each person. And also that, sometimes, willpower and rational postures are not enough. However, it remains true that, in most cases, we can manage these visceral impulses by creating couple relationships based on tolerance, complicity, direct communication and trust, and by providing family and educational spaces that meet the affective, sexual, playful and creative needs of the children, where teamwork and mutual support are encouraged.
-HOW TO DEAL WITH THE JEALOUSY
Managing the ideas, impulses and fears that characterize jealousy is a personal and couple challenge. It will help:
Accept that it can happen
Tolerance, respect, complicity and dialogue should be the main attributes of a couple’s relationship, aspects that should be encouraged. However, it should not be forgotten that jealousy is an emotional state and, therefore, may arise at some point in the cohabitation.
Keeping calm
Initially, we must doubt the jealousy, not our partner. It is therefore advisable to face them calmly, avoiding jumping to conclusions.
rational before confrontation and dialogue, knowing that jealousy cannot always be controlled by will alone.
Speak sincerely
It is essential to reveal doubts and concerns to the other person as soon as they arise, and to listen to them, if necessary, without prejudice and with affection.
Seek outside help
When jealousy causes a conflict that the couple is not able to resolve, consulting a specialist may be the solution. Preventing from infancy
Extreme situations of virulent jealousy in adulthood, and the possible destructiveness they generate, can be avoided by facilitating a loving bond with the baby during the first two years of life that meets his or her primary sex-affective needs.
