A Phenomenology of Jealousy

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DOI: 10.3109/00048679009062882

1990 24: 17Aust N Z J PsychiatryPaul E. Mullen

A Phenomenology of Jealousy

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A PHENOMENOLOGYOF JEALOUSY

Paul

E.

Mullen

Phenomenology is the study of conscious mental events [ l ] . That it is con-

scious events requires emphasis particularly at this moment in the historical

development

of

psychiatry when we are still emerging from the thrall of

psychodynamic causalities said to lie in unconscious and unknowable

realms and are in danger of descending into another mythology of extra

conscious mechanisms compounded rom neurobiologicalspeculations.

Australian and New Zealand Journal

of

Psychiatry 1990; 24:17-28

A

phenomenology of jealousy involves an explora-

tion of the experiences and activities involved in being

jealous. For such an exegesis the position from which

the reading is to be attempted and the nature of the texts

which are to be interpreted need to be clarified.

Jealousy will be approached from the viewpoint of a

clinical psychiatrist, but one concerned, in this essay,

with the jealousy which forms part of the potential, if

not the experience, of most of us, rather than with

morbid processes which afflict a disordered minority.

The material, the text, is derived by the methods of

phenomenology from written self descriptions, the

explorations of novelists and philosophers, the ac-

counts and behaviour of patients, and finally the

results of direct questioning, both systematic and un-

structured[2].

The status of what will follow is that of a tentative

descriptive analysis concerned with meaningful rather

than causal connections; it is about plausible under-

standing rather than empirically based explanations in

terms of causal mechanisms. The data on which the

analysis is based is culture bound and can only lead at

best to a narrative knowledge, which lays no claim to

being a science and cannot lead to any closed system

of certainty

[3].

A descriptive analysis such as this can,

however, give rise to hypotheses which are then open

to empirical refutation. The systematic study of

Department

of

Psychological Medicine University

of

Otago

Medical School PO Box 913 Duned in New Zealand

Paul E. Mullen FXCPsych FRANZCP

jealousy is still in its infancy, but where relevant, such

material will be drawn upon.A final caveat: this essay

concerns ealousy, not envy, and then only the ealousy

which arises in romantic and erotic relationships.

Jealousy only exists as the experience of a particular

individual, it is not a thing, but a lived relationship.

Lagache [4]

in

his monograph on jealousy wrote Un

&at de jalousie nest pas seulement une manibre de

vivre la relation amoureuse, mais une manikre

dexister. (Jealousy is not only a way in which love

is experienced but a mode of being). Behind jealousy

is the ealous individual whose own jealousy is unique.

In our attempt to grasp the manifestations of jealousy

which are measurable and reproduceable, it is all too

easy to lose the central aspects of what is a meaningful

lived experience. Even within the individual, ealousy

is a constantly changing complex. Proust [ 5 ] wrote in

Remembrance of Things

Past that Jealousy is never

a single continuous and indivisible passion. It is com-

posed of an infinity of successive .... of different

jealousies each of which is ephemeral, although by

their uninterrupted multiplicity they give

us

the im-

pression of continuity, the illusion of unity. In

abstracting the common elements from the multitude

of unique jealousies there is a danger of reifying

jealousy into a thing with an independent existence.

Emotions form a heterogenous group which vary

from reactions such as disgust and anger, which owe

much to physiology and something to culture and

individual experience, to complex states like nostalgia

and gratitude, which owe much to culture and ex-

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18

A PHENOMENOLOGY OF JEALOUSY

Figure 1 The elements o ealousy

perience and something to physiology. In approaching

the phenomenology of jealousy it is aspects of con-

scious experience which are of concern. The bodily

symptoms and physiological changes, so often em-

phasised in the studiesof emotion, are not the topic of

this enquiry, still less the genesis of emotion from

supposed drives and instincts. In describing the ex-

perience of an emotion there is utility

in

treating

separately the aspects of judgement, desire, imagina-

tion, feelings and predispositions to behave. Emotions,

like all intentional states, are about something and in

the case

of

jealousy they are about the beloved and to

a lesser extent, the rival. Jealousy occurs in the context

of relationships. The cultural and social background

determines, in large part, the expectations of the

relationship and the context in which jealousy is

evoked. These elements which will be employed to

describe jealousy

are

schematically represented in

Figure 1. The figure illustrates some of the elements

which contribute to the experience of jealousy (see

text). The Loved One is the object and central concern

of jealousy. Judgements, desires, feelings, fantasies

and predispositions to behave may all

be

directed at

the loved one and secondarily at the actual or supposed

rival. Jealousy is experienced n the immediate context

of a relationship. The social and cultural realities

determine the construction of the norms and assump-

tions which constitute the relationship for the jealous

partner and the loved one. The drama of jealousy is

played out within the experience and constraints of

time and space.

To divide and make distinctions between aspects of

a lived experience involves rending apart what is a

continuous process.

To

describe in a manner which

can be generalised involves making distinctions, but

those divisions are creatures of convention rather than

the reflections

of

reality. The caveat should be kept in

view during the over-simplificationswhich follow.

Judgements

Emotions have come to be regarded as perturbations

and agitations which occur within us in particular

circumstances;responses

to

special classes of stimuli.

They are viewed as being at the other pole to reason

and judgement. Solomon

[6 7]

has rejected this view-

point, arguing that emotions are intentional states

which involve udgements and choices. He goes as far

as to claim emotions

are

defined primarily by their

constitutive judgements, given structure by judge-



4/13

PAUL.

E MULLEN

19

ments, distinguished as particular emotions (anger,

love, envy, etc.) by judgements [7]. Emotions are not,

as so often assumed, the antithesis of reason, but the

expression of judgements. Though they can produce

an irrational outcome, in the sense of failing to advance

the subjects needs and purposes, they nevertheless

embody decisions.

The jealous individual is often unaware that passion

is dependent on prior judgments. The language and

accents of the jealous, however, reveal their judge-

ments. They speak with indignation, they speak of

betrayal, of desertion and of disloyalty. Betrayal is

only possible when fealty is judged to be due and

indignation can only arise when you consider yourself

to have a moral right.

Love is often equated with ownership and jealousy

with a resentment at the loss of a possession. What is

put in question, what is judged to be at risk, is an aspect

of property rights. Davis [8] expressed this by stating

In every case jealousy is a fear or rage reaction to a

threatened appropriation of ones own, or what

is

desired as ones own property. Such formulations are

at best insufficient as love usually involves a relation-

ship between human beings the unique feature of

which is that the lover returns affection. Sartre

[9]

states The lover does not desire to possess the beloved

as one possess a thing; they demand a special type of

appropriation. They want to possess a freedom as

freedom ... to be freely chosen as beloved. Love

cannot be vouchsafed by an oath of loyalty nor guaran-

teed by fear. The presence of the beloved is of little

value if it depends only on the desire not to go back on

a pledge or on fear of the consequences of leaving.

The need for love to be freely given puts the truth of

love continually in question. I can watch what she

does, listen to what she says, interpret her every move

and mumble, but I can never know what lies behind

the observable. The other escapes me even when by

my side. Having a mind of her own is necessary for

her to truly love, to freely chose to love me, but the

mind of another is always opaque, always in doubt. Is

it love or the performance of love? The appearance,

but not the substance? Is it true love? Once the ques-

tion is raised then it remains forever open. Once love

is put in doubt, ealousy is possible. Perhaps this is why

Nietzsche [

101

in one of his aphorisms notes, About

two persons I have never reflected very thoroughly,

that is the testimony of my love for them.

The first judgement

in

jealousy is usually that love

was freely given, the second that it is now in ques-

tion.What is put in question when love is subjected to

doubt will depend on what is believed to constitute

love. Anthony Trollopes novel, He

Knew He Was

Right, first published in 1869 [ll], deals with the

theme of jealousy within the context of the mores of

the European bourgeoisie in the mid nineteenth cen-

tury. The book chronicles the descent from jealousy to

insanity and death of Trevelyan, an English

gentleman. The jealousy is initiated by Trevelyans

suspicions that his young wife has encouraged too

great a social intimacy with a Colonel Osborne, an

ageing bachelor. There is no question at the outset of

sexual impropriety, merely

an

error of social etiquette.

Trevelyan raises with his wife the advisability of

receiving visits from Osborne in the expectation that

she will take his view as her own. Emily, while reject-

ing his view of the situation, agrees to accept, out of

wifely obedience, any order he shall give with respect

to the Colonel. Trevelyan is trapped in a cleft stick, for

to give an order not to admit Osborne will indicate that

his wife does not freely give her agreement, but to fail

to provide an instruction leaves her free to act against

his wishes. Poor Trevelyan vacillates by giving her

orders, then withdrawing them. He voices the demand

that she must know his real wishes, irrespective of

what he actually says and demands she reassures him

that their wishes are the same. It is the central

dilemma for the lover that forced compliance s useless

for it is a free and willed agreement that constitutes

love. Trevelyan bemoans the fact the Emily is no

longer content with him as her one god on earth, but

makes to herself other gods. Make me your idol and

do it freely without being asked and without question,

this is all Trevelyan, like

so

many, needs to keep

jealousy in check.

Trevelyans jealousy involves the judgement that

his wife no longer freely complies with, and shares his

views and this perforce puts her love in question. He

accepts that she will obey if ordered, but this is not

enough. Fidelity in action alone

is

never enough, it has

to be in thought as well. The Christian tradition sup-

ports this need to define faithfulness in thought as well

as action. Matthew, Chapter V , verse 28, puts it suc-

cinctly: But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh

on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery

with her already in his heart. Love voluntarily given

and fidelity even in the innermost thoughts and fan-

tasies; these are the demands, if not of the lover, then

of the jealous. Such refined sensibilities may seem far

removed from contemporary sexual jealousy. In our



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PAUL E. MULLEN 21

trusion of a third party is usually judged to damage, if

not destroy, the essence of the love relationship. Why

we believe that the intrusion of another inevitably

degrades the relationship is not open to logical jus-

tification, but hopefully immediately apparent to our

empathy.

Straus [22] argued that shame is what separates our

public and intimate modes of being. Intimate activities

such as the erotic and spiritual are jeopardised by the

intrusion of public experience characterised by the

profane gaze of the non-participating stranger. The

stranger s of necessity an observer who objectifiesand

stultifies the immediacy of intimate experience. Ob-

servation by others inserts the attributes of public

being into the heart of private and intimate being.

Those in love have no use for the dirty oke, pomog-

raphy or the self-observation of the mirror. These are

representations which make public objects of lovers,

stripping them of their intimate and unfolding unique-

ness and reducing them to frozen caricatures.

Shame understood in this manner is relevant to

jealousy. James Joyce [23] described exactly such a

disruption of intimacy by the intrusion of another with

the consequent shameful self-consciousness: While

he had been full of memories of their secret life, full

of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been com-

paring him in her mind with another.

A

shameful

consciousness of his own person assailed him.

Jealousy brings with it a feeling of being ashamed not

just because of the exposure of private vulnerabilities

but because of a feared destruction of thedevelopment

and unfolding of the love relationship. Jealousy

believes that an outsider has been introduced into the

intimacy of the relationship. The private, and to use

Strawss term, immediate, relationship has been

drawn into the public sphere by the presence of a

voyeur, the rival. The further development of loving

and erotic relationships is impossible in the face of

being ashamed.

Anger is often present in jealousy predisposing to

aggressive behaviour. The feelings of humiliation are

also expressed with the sense of losing out to a rival

and being exposed as inadequate in the eyes of the

world. Those in the grips of jealousy may describe

feelings of agitation and restlessness. This can be

experienced as a pervasive sense of unease, with a

need to act, but no clear sense of what it is that can or

should be done. Feelings of increased sexual arousal

and erotic interest toward the partner may

be

ex-

perienced and these are explored later in the paper

under the rubrics of desire and fantasy.

Artists have attempted to express the feelings as-

sociated with jealousy and to reveal through their

medium the experience of this contradictory and

chaotic passion. For example, the first step into

atonality in 20th century music was taken by Schoen-

berg. It has been suggested by some musicologists hat

Schoenbergsfinal loosening of tonal ties related to his

own jealous reaction to his wifes relationship with

their mutual friend, the painter Gerstl [24]. Though

jealousy was not the cause of what was to become the

most important movement in 20th century music, it

may have been the occasion as Schoenberg found

expression for his feelings by moving into a style

bereft of the pre-existing constraints and structure.

A number of workers have gathered data on the

feeling states associated with jealousy by the use of

structured interviews and questionnaires.A common-

ly described experience is that of the socalled jealous

flash where a brief, but intense autonomic arousal

occurs in response to a perceived threat of infidelity

[25,26]. In such studies fear and anger are the most

commonly acknowledged feelings with increased

sexual arousal being reported less commonly

[19,27,29]. Bryson [29] reported on the basis of a

components analysis of questionnaire data that three

principal patterns could be isolated. These were: emo-

tional devastation characterised by anxiety, depres-

sion and perplexity; intropunitiveness with self blame

predominating, and Anger directed at both the partner

and rival. Amstatz [30] using a similar approach,

emerged with three slightly different feeling states.

The first was characterised by anxious insecurity and

anger at the self: the second she terms relationship

dysphoria and was marked by depression with a sense

of betrayal coupled with anger at the partner: the final

type she named revitalization and involved, among

other experiences, sexual arousal.

Desires

The desires which characterise ealousy are complex

and contradictory. The desire to expose the partners

infidelities ostle for a place alongside the desire to put

the jealousy to rest by proving the suspicions ground-

less. The desire to hurt often co-exists with heightened

sexual desire as can a wish to be rid of the troublesome

partner exist alongside the fear of losing them.



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22 A PHENOMENOLOGY OF JEALOUSY

The structure of human desire and its relationship to

drives cannot be fully described here. The view of

desire as directed at maximising pleasure and minimis-

ing pain which permeates so much psychological

theorising is at best irrelevant in attempting to grasp

the nature of jealousy. If such a utilitarian economy

held sway in the human mind, jealousy would be a

transitory emotion of no consequence. The problem is

that in erotic and emotional relationships we desire not

pleasure as such but a relationship with a particular

person. The average man through mental sluggishness

and the wish to conform,comes to deceive himself into

conceiving of no other goal for his desire than the

pleasure of ejaculation[9]. This self appraisal make no

sense in jealousy where what is feared is the loss of a

person with all the properties attributed to them by the

lover. If orgasm reigned supreme, the fear of loss

would produce a rapid transfer of affection and atten-

tion, not the complex passion of jealousy.

In many jealous individuals the desire to discover

whether their suspicions are justified becomes over-

riding. Jealousy involves a passionate desire for truth,

or at least a very particular type of truth. Proust [5]

described this phenomenon in his hero Swann: All

manner of actions from which hitherto he would have

recoiled

in

shame such as spying, putting adroitly

provocative questions to casual witness, bribing ser-

vants, listening at doors, seemed to him now to be

precisely on a level with ... the methods of scientific

investigation, with a genuine intellectual value and

legitimately employable in the search for truth.

A

patient recently assured us that he would rather know

the truth about his wife, however shocking, than live

in a world where every action, every occurrence, was

weighed, considered and studied in a constant search

for knowledge about his wifes supposed infidelities.

He honestly believed that if she would gratify his

desire to know he could find peace. This was despite

the fact that his wife had been providing him with

detailed answers to his enquiries, however eccentric

and intrusive they appeared to her, on a daily basis for

over 20 years. In addition she had put up with his

almost constant observing presence. When asked what

more could she do to satisfy his desire to know, he

replied with the tearful appeal, all I want is for her to

tell me the whole truth.

In

jealousy there may

be

reported an arousal of

sexual desire and heightened erotic interest in the

partner. Minkowzki

[31]

claims that there is a charac-

teristic frigidity in mamages prone to jealousy, a

frigidity which is replaced by feelings of erotic

pleasure when the jealousy of the partner is aroused.

The heightened sexual interest which may accompany

jealousy can produce both puzzlement and distress in

those who cannot come to terms with the powerful and

contradictory desires to punish and to possess sexual-

ly. In some the conjunction of these desires may find

release in sado-masochistic fantasy and action. The

exploitation of the erotic potential of jealousy can

become a central and necessary part of sexual arousal

in certain individuals.

The capacity of jealousy to heighten and perhaps

even to induce the emergence, not just of erotic desire,

but of love itself, is a common theme in literature and

drama of all types Qui non zelat, non amat. A

standard theme from Restoration drama to TV sit-com

is making someone jealous so as to make them realise

that they love the object of their jealousy. In our

cultures discovering in oneself the pangs of jealousy

is identified with the recognition of love. If jealous

then you must desire the object of your jealousy.

Jealousy tends to find itself lauded not only as that

which reveals our love, but also as the force which

maintains those bonds. Mercier [32] a forensic

psychiatrist, expressed such righteous sentiments

noting The institution of marriage and the instinct of

jealousy work for the same end and serve the same

purpose. Love selects, ealousy mounts guard to repel

third parties from entering the sacred fold.

Imagination and

fantasy

Imagination and fantasy play a prominent role in the

jealousy complex. The activation and agitation so

characteristic of the individual in the grip of jealousy

often manifests in vivid imaginings and fantasies.

Tolstoy

[33]

describes the power of imagination in

jealousy. I lost control over my imagination: it began

to paint for me, in the most lurid fashion, a rapid

sequence of pictures which inflamed my jealousy

They were all

of

the same thing: of what was happen-

ing there, in my absence,of her being unfaithful to me

...

I

contemplated their picture, I couldnt tear myself

away from them,

I

couldnt erase them from my mind

and I couldnt stop myself dreaming them up. But that

wasnt all: the more I contemplated these imaginary

pictures, the more I believed they were real. Our

patients frequently describe vivid visual images of

their partners having intercourse with the suspected

rival. These images force themselves on the unwilling



8/13

PAUL

E

MULLEN 23

subject despite their resistance. They may exert a

fascination for the jealous individual who finds them-

selves repeatedly fantasising about the scenes which

cause them the greatest pain.

The images and fantasies of jealousy are

predominantly of the acts of infidelity. The other com-

mon group are of acts of revenge perpetrated on the

unfaithful partner and rival. The jealous individual

may derive comfort from these dreams of vindication

and retribution. In both types of fantasies when

recounted there may be prominent elements of

violence and sado-masochism.

Jealous men not infrequently describe vivid mental

images of their partners being raped or sexually

humiliated at the hands of the supposed rival. In the

mildest form this consists of the jealous males imagin-

ing that not only are their partners seduced away by

the rivals but that these other men treat their lovers

with contempt. There is an obvious incongruity be-

tween accusations of betrayal and these fantasies of

forced subjugation or rejection. Interestingly in those

men who are sufficiently introspective to comment,

their identification n the fantasies tends to be with the

partner who is the victim rather than with the rival.

This identification with the partner augments he sense

of humiliation and passive subjugation inherent in

both sexual betrayal and being sexually humiliated. In

their imagining they not only lose their lover to the

rival but that most precious possession, the lover, is

disdained and damaged. Seeman [34]has reported on

the fantasy life of a number of jealous women. These

women reported fantasies of their male partners as

seducers or rapists with the rival conceived of as the

innocent victim. In such fantasies the jealous woman

identified with the naive virgin falling victim to the

philandering husband.

The images of infidelity are usually painful and

distressing to the jealous, but their responses may be

more ambiguous. On occasion such fantasies are ex-

perienced as erotic. The increased sexual desire for the

errant partner in jealousy may be fuelled in part by the

erotic nature of these fantasies of infidelity. This ap-

pears to be true for both images of the partner enjoying

sexual relations with a rival and those involving sado-

masochistic elements. In some individuals the jealous

imaginings become a major source of erotic arousal.

This group overlaps with those partners who swap

stories and fantasies of sexual adventures with others

in the service of increasing their mutual excitement.

In the jealous the dividing lines between imagina-

tion, belief and the certainty of experienced reality

often become vague and ill defined. The fascination of

jealousy, for the psychopathologist, lies in large part

in the ease with which otherwise normal individuals

in the grips of this passion can generate beliefs, in a

manner and of a type, which would in other cir-

cumstances be regarded as delusional. A middle aged

executive who had been receiving counselling for

marital problems, including ealousy, gave an account

of such a development. He was away from home on

business and phoned his wife in the evening. She, after

answering the phone, asked him to wait a moment

while she closed the door because of the noise of the

television. He heard in the background the sound of

music and what he took to be a mans voice. He

thought once the brief phone conversation was over,

that his wife had seemed flustered and keen to shorten

the call. He ruminated for a while on whether the

sounds he had heard could have been the television or

whether a man was with his wife. An hour or so later

when lying in bed he turned his suspicions over and

over in his mind. He began to imagine a scene at home

with his wife listening to music in the arms of her lover

when his phone call intruded. The imaginings gave

rise to a detailed visual image of the conceived in-

fidelity which he ran through again and again. Unable

to sleep he began several times to phone his wife, each

time failing to complete the call because of the absur-

dity of phoning her in the early hours of the morning

on such a foolish pretext. Finally after further futile

attempts to sleep, he packed and left the hotel to begin

the drive of several hundred miles to his home. As he

drove the imaginings became for him more and more

a conviction that his wife was at this moment with her

lover and if he could reach home in time he would

catch her

inflagrunte

In the event, he did not arrive

in his home town until mid morning when his wife had

already departed for work. He frantically searched the

house for signs of what he now was convinced had

been a love tryst the previous night. Subsequently this

man could not accept that this event was a product of

his imagination. He no longer believed it had occurred;

he knew it had with all the certainty that imbues direct

experience. The lurid and detailed nature of the fan-

tasies seemed a proof of the reality of the imaginings.

This certainty co-existed with the capacity to recount

in detail the above story of how the suspicions gave

rise to images which merged into beliefs which in turn

became knowledge.



9/13

24

A PHENOMENOLOGY

OF

JEALOUSY

Behaviour

Jealousy watches. Its organ is the eye, an evil eye

[35].

The jealous are constantlyvigilant for the tell tale

signs of betrayal. Mental processes are often described

as heightened and speeded up. To use the words of

Henry Fielding [36]from his novel

Tom

Jones: Noth-

ing is

so

quick and sudden as the operations of the

mind, especially when hope or fear; or jealousy to

which the two other are but journeymen sense it to

work. The jealous are alert to their environment,

scanning for anything out of place which would point

to the feared infidelity. Robbe-Grillet

[37]

in his novel

Jealousy catches this quality of the watchful and self

referential aspect of jealousy.

Checking is an almost universal behaviour among

the jealous, checking that the lover is where they say

they are and with whom they say, cross checking,

re-checking. Dickens [38]describes he progress from

suspicion hrough checking to conviction of infidelity:

from suspicion to jealousy

Mrs.

Snagsby found the

road natural and short (suspicion) prompted her to

nocturnal examinations of

Mr.

Snagsbys pockets; to

secret perusals of Mr. Snagsbys letters; to private

researches in the ledger, till, cash box and iron safe; to

watching at windows, listening behind doors and a

general putting of this and that together by the wrong

end. Life for the jealous is an unending task. Nothing

is irrelevant, a clue or even final information may be

awaiting them in the next mail delivery, in the

husbands coat pocket, in the wifes purse. A jealous

patient complained that what she resented most was

the sheer waste of time and effort her jealousy in-

volved her in by the checking on every aspect

of

her

husbands life. Perhaps the one virtue of jealousy is

that it develops an interest in all the partners activities.

Jealousy, like love, involves focussing an intense at-

tention on to the partner. It compliments with

curiosity. The inquisitional cross-questioning of the

lover by their jealous partner is frequent and may

involve attempts to threaten or cajole admissions from

the partner. The harassed lovers may satisfy the jealous

partners by admitting, or even inventing, acts of in-

fidelity. This can produce temporary respite, or some-

times violent reaction. The jealous subjects need to

extract a confession is caught with dreadful vividness

by Emile Zola [39] in his novel The Beas t in Man

Rouband is questioning his wife about his suspicions

that she has had a sexual relationship with her guar-

dian. In fact she had been the victim of this mans

sexual attentions when she was under his care as a

child. Confess he repeated, you did sleep with him

...

he knocked her down, grabbed her hair and by it

held her head to the floor.

Confess.

You

slept with him. Confess you

slept with him God damn you he cried or Ill

knife you She could see murder plain on his

face ...Fear overcame her; she capitulated ust

to end it all. All right then, yes its true. Now

let me go. After that it was frightful. The

admission which he had so savagely extracted

was a direct body blow He seized her head

and banged it against the table

..,

The violence continues and escalates and the ques-

tioning of Rouband begins again and again demanding

more and more sexually specific details of the wifes

previous sexual encounter. The insatiable need to

know inherent in jealousy cannot be satisfied by con-

fession. Jealousy demands repeated revelation gar-

nished with the minutest detail. What confession

rarely succeeds in doing is satisfying the jealous, for

just as no evidence of innocence can convince, so no

confession is sufficiently detailed.

Behaviours aimed at attaining reassurance by the

jealous partner are equally common and may alternate,

or even co-exist, with behaviours aimed at exposing

the suspected nfidelity.Thequest forreassurance, like

that for the true account of the infidelity, is inex-

haustible. Such activities can never produce the

desired result, for any assurance is inevitably called in

question, and the repetitive unvarying demands for

further reassurance continue without respite.

The jealous may also indulge in actions aimed to test

the fidelity and devotion of the lover. This can vary

from behaviours which stretch the tolerance of the

partner to direct attempts to provoke infidelity. It is

surprising how often jealous individuals either verbal-

ly, or in their actions, invite their partners to take an

interest or start a relationship with a potential rival.

The why dont you;

I

wouldnt mind if you did

speeches and the surely youd like to stay on a little

longer with Tom, Dick or Harry, theres no need for

us both to leave just because Im tired provocation.

This type of testing can never comfort the jealous. As

Lothario, in Cervantes [40] tale, tells his friend An-

selmo when he persuades him to

try

his wifes virtue,

such a course cannot reassure and can only lead to

disaster. However, the desire to know for certain

which harasses and oppresses Anselmo is irresis-

tible though he recognises it as extravagant and



10/13

PAUL

E

MULLEN

5

beyond the least shadow of reason. O ne of ourjealou s

patients went as far as to persuade his wife, much

against her will, to accom pany him to a wife-swapping

party. This led to a predictable disaster, with a few

weeks later the unfortunate man making

a

determined,

but fortunately non-fatal, suicide attempt.

Jealousy, with its angry feelings, judgem ents of

betrayal and destructive fantasies, is all too often in-

volved with behaviours aimed at hurting or harming

the lover. The seventeenth century divine, Richard

Burton, [411wrote in The Anatomy ofMelan choly that:

Those which are jealous proceed from suspicion to

hatred; from hatred to frenzie; from frenzie to injury,

murder and despair. Fortunately not everyone who

falls under the sway of jealou sy proceeds all the way

down this path from suspicion to murder. T he impulse

to hurt or harm is intimately linked to the experienc e

of jealousy, but it doe s not necessarily find expression

in the battering of the lov ed one or the rival. The rage

stirred up by jealo usy has as its object both the loved

one and the supposed rival, but it is

on

the loved one

that the aggression usually falls. Th e dou bts about who

falls victim to jealo usy ar e dispelled by the studies of

the violence engendered by jealousy [4,42,43].

Jealousy motivates a significant proportion of the

serious violence in our communities.

In

a number of

studies of domestic violence jealousy has been iden-

tified as a significant contributor [44-461. Amongst

homicide offenders jealousy is one of the m ore com -

monly reported motivations [47,4 8] and Daly and

co l l eagues [49 ] conc luded t he i r ow n s tudy o f

homicide in Detroit be noting that male sexual

jealousy may be the major source of conflict in the

overwhelming majority of spous al homicide in North

America.

A

study of aggression in a cohort of 138

patients presenting to the psychiatric services with

problems of jealou sy, revealed that over half had com-

mitted physical assaults on their partners, in some

cases inflicting serious damag e, though none had been

charged w ith an offenc e as a result [43].

On the basis of diaries recording the behaviour and

thoughts of a relatively large sample of jealous sub-

jects, White [ 9] was able to identify a number of

behavioural responses. The most frequent response

was to attempt to improve the relationship by doing

such things as making oneself attractive, giving com-

pliments and attempting to be m ore helpful.

Demanding that the partner declare their commit-

ment to the relationship, or alternatively seeking sup-

port and reassurance from others, were also comm on.

A significant proportion of those expo sed to actual or

potential infidelity attempted either to deny the exist-

ence of the threat, or avoid confronting the problem by

such mec hanisms as re-interpreting the partners ac -

tions, in a m anner which purged them of any intention

to be unfai thful . Attempts to break up the rival

relationship by metho ds including ag gres sion , both

verbal and physical, were also recorded.

Temporality

An

integral part of any state of mind is the ex-

perienced relationship to time.

In

joy, for exam ple, we

are immersed in the present with the passage of time

and the future it brings only a dimly conceived threat

to our present state of being.

In con trast, in depression

the focus of our being is

on

the past, rep lete as it is with

its perceived deficiencies and guilts. The future closes

in

or

ceases to ex ist, as, for the depresse d, the passage

of lived time slo ws to an endless painful dragging.

Th e relation to temporarality in jealou sy is complex

and variable. R amm has argued that there is in jealousy

the elem ent of a valued present which is slipping away

as an unwanted future approac hes [50].

In

jealousy we

bring forw ard the feared future to confr ont and distress

our

very being in the present. Jealousy is about

premonitions. The fear is of the partners future loss

but jealousy believes that this loss is occum ng now.

Tellenbach [131 refers to this as a portentous shift in

which an anticipatory fretting begins in which loves

withdrawal is felt as inevitable. In the experien ce of

jealousy the feared future com es forw ard into our lived

present.

Fear is part of the jealousy com plex. Fear occurs in

the face of a threat; in the exp ectat ion of an oncoming

evil. Heidegger [51] argues that the future is the

primary m eaning of fear and that one s having been is

of the least consequence to the temporality of fear.

Fear is characteristically an awaiting which lets the

threatening future come back to confront us in the

present. In the face of this potentiality, Heidegger

suggests the individual be come s bewildered and con-

fused in the present so that they lose any sense of

proportion and become unable to make any definite

choice. A frantic restless confusion in the present

results.

This explication of the temporality of fear can be

applied to the experience of jealousy, with benefit in

som e cases. We occasionally en coun ter individuals in

states of acute distress about the feared loss of a partner



11/13

26

A PHENOMENOLOGY

OF

JEALOUSY

in whom the distress is generated entirely by a future

possibility. One man d escribed several days of intense

agitation and vivid fantasies of his wife deserting him

for another. This had been precipitated by learning of

his wifes promotion at her work which would put her

in a position of greater responsibility and earning

potential than himself. This man had become over-

whelmed by the fear of losing her which rapidly trans-

lated into a conviction she was now, at that moment,

having an illicit affair. In the absence of any obvious

contender for a rival, this mans mind leapt from one

possibility to the next, finally focussing on an acquain-

tance who in fact had never seen let alone related to

the wife. His fear having been brought forward into

the present became embodied in a man chosen almost

at random forgetting the usual constraint of what is

likely, let alone possible. In the face of the potentiality

in the future of losing his wife, he backed away from

the fear in bewilderment and becam e lost in fantasies

of infidelity and an absurd search for a rival in the

present. The jealousy com plex often has this element

of fear of future loss present to some degree and can

to that degree be expected to be infused w ith this type

of temporality.

The ealous, though oppressed by a feared future, are

nevertheless intensely concerned with the present. In

some, as described above, this may represent only the

bringing forward of a threatening future but they are

not only afflicted with a fear in the face of an approach-

ing threat, but also distress at an actual or feared

betrayal in the present which presages a future deser-

tion. The future fear is transformed by jealousy into an

experience of present betrayal. The extent to w hich the

jealous are o verwhelmed by the present possibilities is

often demonstrated by the need to keep the suspected

partner under constant observation.

A s

soon as the

lover is out of sight the rich panapoly

of

the possible

overwhelms them. They are transported in imagina-

tion into the infidelities occu mn g at that mom ent. The

suspicions

of

some jealous individuals would provide

a source of zany humour if they were not

so

tragic. The

fantastic creations of the jealous imagination which

suggest illicit intercourse to be possible in the most

unlikely of places and at the speed which w ould defeat

even a severe case of premature ejaculation. The

image of it happening now, at this very minute, is the

plague of the jealous. Their present

is

overwhelmed.

Time drags slowly by for those in the grips of such

jealousy, for every instant is crowded with im agining

the infinite possibilities which open up before the

errant lover. This type of jealous experience traps the

sufferer is an endlessly expanded lived time of im ages

of present betrayal and future desertion.

The

loved one

Jealousy has as its primary object the partner or

loved one and only secondarily the rival. The account

already given of the judgements, feelings, desires and

actions are all to some degree descriptions of the

properties intended by the jealous individual as part of

their consciousness of the partner. It is perhaps worth

highlighting a few ad ditional aspects of the co nscious-

ness that the jealous have of their lover.

Desirability is a characteristic attributed to the

partner by jealousy. The fear of loss assumes that the

partner is valued and is capable of attracting the atten-

tion and desire, if not love, o a rival. Jealousy dresses

the partner in desirability. On occasion when viewed

from an o utside perspective the partners desirability

may be far from obvious. Karl Marx [ 5 ] n a footnote

in Das Kapital stated that man sees and recognises

himself and his value; in other men , he knows himself

by his reflection. Jealousy is, in some respects, a

flattering mirror in which to recognise and measure

oneself.

The attributes of the lover reflect back on the

jealous. In jealousy there may be boast: the boast that

what I have is highly desirable which in turn makes

me special. One of our patients would expound at

length about how many men desired his wife. He

talked of her being constantly ogled and said should

he leave her side she would be inundated by offers she

might find im possible to resist. The p ride in his object

of jealousy was as obvious as was her pleasure in

preening herself whilst he spoke.

The lover in the mind of the jealous

is

flawed by

infidelity or its possibility. Not only are they desirable

but also wayw ard. Those in the grips of jealousy are

often aware that the infidelity they believe to be occur-

ring may arise not from the concrete guilt of the

beloved but from the influence of jealousy colouring

their judgement. When the jealous identify their ex-

periences as arising from the passion itself, then their

suspicions are transformed from signp osts to infidelity

into symptoms of jealous ailmen t. Jealousy then need

have no significance for the actual behaviour of the

lover. To quote Proust

[5]

once more: The hypotheses

according to which it was his jealous imagination

alone that blackened what was in reality the innocent



12/13

PAUL

E. MULLEN 27

life of Odette, this hypothesis which after all was

beneficent since,solong as his amorous malady lasted,

it had diminished his sufferings by making them seem

imaginary.

A number of our patients insisted that they never

truly doubted the fidelity of their partners; it was only

the jealousy which created the suspicions. It was

clearly a comfort for these people to relegate the belief

in their partners transgressions to the realm of

symptomatology. The doubts were metamorphosed

into acknowledged delusions. On occasion, the

suspicions of infidelity have more substantial corre-

lates in the external world than the sufferers wished to

face.

Jealousy like love is a state of intense pre-occupa-

tion with the partner. Jealousy arises from a fear that

the relationship will be

lost and in response generates

a state of mind which focuses attention and concern on

the lover. In the mind of the jealous the relationship is

sustained for every thought and action of the lover is

attended to and kept alive. One man recalling this

period in his life talked of the attempts to keep the

jealousy alive, to hold back the depression and empti-

ness which he know would follow when that passion

was replaced by an acceptance of the loss.

The rival

The rival can exist for the consciousness of the

jealous individual as an object with no certain correlate

in the external world. Even when the rival is known or

identified with an actual person, there is still consider-

able scope for the attribution of qualities to the rival.

The rival is often conceived of in extreme form and

invested with either strongly positive qualities or an

odious absence of virtue. This is true even when

jealousy can put no name to the shadowy figures which

plague its consciousness. In jealousy where no certain

rival exists, then someone in the jealous individuals

own circle of acquaintancesmay be focussed on as the

likely offender, even when no contact exists between

the lover and the supposed rival. In these circumstan-

ces it is often a figure who is admired or envied by the

jealous individual who is selected as the likely rival.

In other circumstances, the jealous individual may

suspect members of their own family, choosing those

whom they see as having their own qualities, but in

greater degree or graced by youth. A figure whom they

had previously wished to emulate or whom they had

envied in some regard is likely to be selected as can-

didate for the rival. In these circumstances the jealous

individual experiences themselves as devalued in

comparison to the idealised image of the rival.

Envy of the rival may therefore constitute part of the

structure of jealousy. This envy may be both the

destructive envy which wishes to deprive the other of

what they have or emulation where the desire is to

become like or to obtain like. The jealous individual

may construe the rival as possessing attractive

qualities which they lack and this then explains why

the lover is drawn away from them. These attractive

qualities may be of any type, though interestingly they

often appear to reflect the pre-occupations of the

jealous individual rather than the partner. Thus the

greedy selected their rivals from amongst the wealthy,

the ambitions from those with high status, and the vain

from those who appear to them more physically attrac-

tive. Confronted with the superiority of the rival they

have constructed the jealous are overwhelmed by their

own limitations and inferiority.

The jealous individual may conversely have a con-

sciousness of the rival as without positive qualities.

How could anyone with any self respect or sense

become involved with someone like that? The rival is

conceived as lacking good qualities and as outside of

the social norms, as marginal. Lacking wealth, posi-

tion, intelligence, status, the rival is therefore free of

responsibility and moral commitment. The lack of

qualities attributed to such rivals is usually coupled

with the fear of the freedom this lack of encumbrance

gives them. The denigration of the rival devalues the

partner and allows expression of rage against both, but

it rebounds on the jealous who is left to contemplate

what is so dreadful about them that such a rival may

be preferred.

conclusion

What of the effects on those who suffer from

jealousy. What does it make them? Barthes

[53]

x-

pressed their plight succinctly, As a jealous man, I

suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because

I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my

jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself

to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being ex-

cluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and

from being common.



13/13

28

A PHENOMENOLOGY

OF

JEALOUSY

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Documents

A Phenomenology of Jealousy