2023-08-21 03:20:00
Emotions and feelings constitute the architecture of affective life and are essential for the daily functioning of the human being. Thus, joy allows you to enjoy the good times; friendship and love, establishing gratifying ties with loved ones; or empathy, feeling and putting yourself in other people’s emotional place, which fosters group cohesion.
But emotions, even negative ones, also play an adaptive and protective role. Fear is a survival strategy that serves to alert a person to possible dangers. Sadness is the expression of sorrow, which facilitates compassion or emotional support from others when a person is feeling down. Guilt, to the extent that it entails deep suffering, makes it difficult to transgress ethical norms and calls for reparation when something wrong has been done. And anger has an energizing effect that facilitates the adoption of appropriate behaviors to defend oneself or, at least, make others aware of the discomfort experienced.
Jealousy is also a deeply rooted emotional response in the human being, but more complex than the previous ones because it consists of several of them (envy, anger or guilt) and necessarily involves other people. Like other emotions, jealousy also has a protective function, which is to preserve the stability of the couple and guarantee, where appropriate, the care of the offspring. In this way, jealousy can contribute to making an effort to live together and foster better communication between the members of the couple, which can help prevent infidelity or abandonment. Jealousy is deeply rooted in human beings and in various cultures.
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In some cultural contexts, jealousy can be more explosive in its onset or more primal in its expression, but it is always present. It is a mistake to confuse ideological progressivism with the absence of jealousy. Having a preconceived idea of freedom in a relationship with various partners simultaneously (as occurs in polyamory or open relationships) does not overcome the emotion of jealousy: it can also arise in a more or less subtle way, but, in any case, , very painful for the sufferer.
It is a mistake to confuse ideological progressivism with the absence of jealousy
It happens, however, that there are people who can feel deeply jealous for no reason. This jealousy is problematic and constitutes a reaction of deep emotional discomfort to what is perceived as an external threat, towards a relationship that the jealous person considers valuable and sees as being in danger. The components of this emotional reaction are love for the partner, the sense of possession, the suspicion or certainty of a rival, and the fear of loss and consequent helplessness. What characterizes this pathological jealousy is the lack of logical provocation, intense suffering for the jealous person and for the victim, serious interference in daily life, and involvement in controlling behaviors.
Beyond the emotional reaction, jealous people, as a result of their insecurity, adopt various surveillance behaviors on the couple: inquisitorial questions, control of the mobile phone and social networks, unexpected appearances, scenes of jealousy, by way of emotional blackmail , and even guessing your mind by attributing that your partner’s thoughts and fantasies are placed on another person in your environment (mental infidelity). In other cases, the jealousy can even be retrospective when the jealous person suspects that his partner is comparing him to other previous partners, whose memory he does not want or is unable to part with. In this way, the relationship quickly deteriorates because the jealous person feels deeply humiliated. And, at the same time, it undermines the emotional well-being of the loved one, sowing doubts, psychologically destabilizing them and generating, in the worst case, controlling and violent attitudes and behaviors towards them.
Jealousy is more frequent in men, especially when their partners are younger or attractive or have achieved professional or social success that they lack, and it is linked to anger and even aggressive behavior; in jealous women, on the contrary, they manifest themselves more in the form of sadness and self-reproach (What have I done wrong? Why won’t he find me attractive?).
What characterizes pathological jealousy is the lack of logical provocation, intense suffering and involvement in controlling behaviors
The origin of problematic jealousy can be diverse. In some people there are jealous personality styles, characterized by distrust, self-esteem deficits, emotional dependence, a lack of friends and social resources, or abandonment or humiliation suffered previously in their love life. In these cases, once the initial crush has passed, jealousy emerges impulsively in the form of controlling behaviors that represent the grave of love and, moreover, tend to reproduce in subsequent relationships.
In other cases, pathological jealousy is a reflection of various mental disorders, as occurs in obsessive jealousy: the person, even being aware of the irrationality of his suspicions, cannot avoid them and engages in surveillance behaviors that only alleviate his discomfort temporarily, until the cycle repeats itself. Alcohol abuse can also cause intense jealousy that can be associated with violent behavior. Although it occurs less frequently, there is also absurd jealousy in delusional disorder: they are paradoxical because the person can present coherent reasoning in their usual life, show behavior adapted to the environment, and yet have delusions of jealousy, that they are false, pathologically supervening and irreducible to reasoning.
In short, there should be no shame in feeling jealous at any given time, because it can be a distinctive sign of love and fear of losing something valuable. It is an emotion that needs to be accepted and channeled properly. Another thing is when jealousy invades the freedom of the couple, involves controlling behavior, prevents the enjoyment of love and even generates violent behavior. Jealous personalities are very resistant to behavior change; pathological jealousy, however, can subside if the affected person undergoes appropriate treatment.
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