4.5: Jealousy

Learning Objectives

• Summarize the differences between rational jealousy and irrational jealousy.

Watch this video or scan the QR code to see how you can deal with jealousy.

One downside to love is the possibility of jealousy. There are two types of jealousy, or at least two different kinds of conditions under which it occurs. One type is rational jealousy involves feelings that are justified for a reason, based on an actual threat to the relationship.  involves a justified reason for such feelings. The other type, irrational jealousy occurs when someone perceives an unjustified threat to the relationship, and is based on one's own insecurities. Even though irrational jealousy is not based on any sort of justification, it is at least as powerful, probably even more so, and is certainly very devastating when it occurs.

Rational jealousy, jealousy for a justified reason that is based on an actual threat to the relationship, involves someone unfairly depriving you of the joys and benefits you should have with your partner. If a man, for example, talks his wife into accompanying him on a business trip she would rather not go on, and then spends his free time with other people, ignoring her and letting her be miserable, she has a right to be disappointed and angry, as well as jealous of whoever monopolizes her husband’s time.

Similarly, if a parent spends an unwarranted amount of time with one child at the expense of another (roughly equating quality and quantity of time here just for the sake of discussion), it seems justified that the neglected child should feel hurt and jealous.

This is not to imply that people in a relationship are always responsible for their partner's entertainment or well-being, nor that a parent is always responsible for their child’s entertainment. However, there are some times and some situations where one does have an obligation to spend time with one’s partner or one’s children. And when such an obligation is inexcusably not met, the partner or child being neglected has a right to be disappointed, hurt, or jealous of whoever is taking up the parent’s or partner’s time.Further, I doubt most people even want to have daily 24 hour companionship with their loved ones; people often want to be alone for time to themselves, and sometimes they want to be with other people for variety, change of pace, learning new things, getting new perspectives, or even to talk (or complain) about their partner. In general, we simply depend on a number of different relationships and different sorts of relationships as we go through life. It is rare and highly unlikely that any two people can provide each other with all the joy and benefit either of them would ever need or want.In real life, most people do not tend to be particularly jealous of their partner’s past loves, only ones that appear during or after their own. This is, of course, only when old ghosts are laid to rest and old flames are not rekindled (some people need reassurance that, as the song goes, old flames can’t hold a candle to them). People tend not to take kindly to being compared to their partner’s ex-loves, and often people get very jealous when old (and known to be dear) flames reappear.

Now, I have not mentioned sex in particular in regard to jealousy, since sex is not the only consideration for jealousy, and in some cases is not a factor in jealousy at all, even when one’s love is known to be engaging in sex with someone else. Jealousy can be over a loved one’s work that takes time away from a partner; it can be over a partner taking someone to lunch while their mate has to work; it can be over a partner having too animated a conversation with someone else at a party, particularly when they were not so animated in a conversation with the jealous partner earlier. It can arise because a loved one helped someone a little too willingly (particularly if the jealous partner thinks the beneficiary was attractive) or because the loved one accepted help a little too readily from the other person. Ex-wives and ex-husbands, even those who wanted and initiated the divorce, often find themselves terribly jealous when their ex-spouse remarries, even though they do not want the spouse themselves. And in one such case, the ex-wife was particularly jealous and upset, not because of the sexual aspect of the new relationship, but because he now did the kinds of things graciously with his new wife that he would only do grudgingly, if at all, with his former wife. He bought and wore the kinds of clothes now that she had always futilely wanted him to; he happily went to parties and outings with the new wife and not with the former, etc. He seemed to willingly do for (and with) his new wife all the kinds of things he had avoided or had done unwillingly for his ex-wife. It is often nice to have a relationship with someone who has been “broken in” the right way by someone else, but it is rather hurtfully disappointing to have been the one doing the “breaking in,” only to have someone else reap the benefits of your work and aggravation at making your (ex-)spouse receptive to your way of doing things.

Relationships can result in vulnerability, and jealousy can be difficult to distinguish from feelings of insecurity. In the case of rational and irrational jealousy, it is generally more effective to try to figure out just what you feel and why before you angrily denounce an innocent partner for a disappointment which you strongly feel as a wrong but that is not really justified. It is more productive to begin a conversation talking about how you feel jealous, hurt, left out, or unappreciated rather than how your partner has hurt you, unless you have conclusive reason to believe you have been wronged. Starting off a discussion by angrily accusing someone of wrongdoing on the basis of a feeling, particularly one that may not be what you think it is, could do much more damage to the relationship than good. And if you do find out for certain that you have a right to be angry and rationally jealous, you can always then make that point.

Key Takeaways

• Rational jealousy is justified resentment, disappointment, and hurt of someone else’s depriving one of the joys and benefits one should have with one’s partner, by the other person’s having or giving the partner those joys or benefits instead. Irrational jealousy is the resentment of anyone’s benefiting your loved one in a way or under circumstances which you could not benefit them anyway and which does not take anything away from you.

Key Terms

• To feel guilty in a relationship is to feel you have intentionally done something wrong with no excuse and to regret having done it.
• Feeling fear of being caught may have nothing to do with your feeling you are doing anything wrong nor with remorse, but may have to do simply with fear that others who might discover you would disapprove and invoke a penalty or humiliation for your action.

Review Questions

• Question: What are the conditions in which jealousy occurs?
• Question: When is jealousy justified?