Jealousy: When Does It Become Dangerous?

To have a relationship means not only to have the love, appreciation, and company of the other but also to "enjoy" his whims, pretensions, and fits of jealousy. Certainly, all people who have had a stable relationship know what they are talking about and have known, in a more veiled or more pronounced form, jealousy. And jealousy, in large doses, can be fatal.

"Blinded by jealousy" is not just an expression, but a reality

An interesting study by the American Psychological Association on Heterosexual Couples showed that jealousy can simply blind you. How? Women and men were placed in front of computers and separated by a curtain.

The task of the women was to choose only the pictures with landscapes or buildings on the screen from a sea of ​​photos that appeared one after the other, and the men to say how attractive the pictures with various landscapes seemed to them.

The researchers then announced that men should look at pictures of single women and give them grades, depending on how attractive they look. At the end of the experiment, it was shown that the more jealous the women were, the more distracted they were, and the more they could not concentrate on what they had to do.

Jealous women could no longer properly select images when they knew their men were looking at pictures of single women. This did not happen when the men wrote down the pictures with landscapes.

How do you explain this blindness caused by jealousy? The brain tends to prioritize emotional information, and when an emotional stimulus appears, it draws so much attention to it that we can no longer see what is right in front of our eyes. And for those who are very jealous and anxious about it, the distraction is even greater.

Jealousy: between normalcy and pathology

Jealousy can appear as a feeling of discomfort at the thought of losing a person's attention and affection. Jealousy makes you feel less appreciated, less important and motivates the behavior of seeking affection/reward, meaning you start to be more attentive, more loving to regain the affection and appreciation of the other.

Feelings of jealousy appear in childhood when the little one witnesses various scenes in which his parents pay attention to someone else. In adulthood, jealousy acts as a distance regulator: when the partner moves away, the other becomes jealous and begins to be more attentive, to work harder.

It usually occurs at the beginning, when the relationship is insecure, when emotional connections are created and when the two partners feel vulnerable. Thus they are motivated to become more loving, they get closer and the jealousy disappears in the end. But when the two fail to overcome jealousy, resentment takes over the relationship and blocks the connection, then degenerates into negative feelings.

When resentment replaces jealousy, it is a sign that the relationship is falling apart.

But there is also a form of jealousy that is not at all constructive. Unlike normal jealousy which makes you love your loved one more, dangerous jealousy makes you want to control or punish the other. In large doses, jealousy turns into a serious problem that often arises from an inferiority complex of the jealous person.

Jealousy usually comes to the surface in adolescence, becoming a major problem in adult life in interaction with others, destabilizing even the best of relationships.

Dangerous jealousy becomes obsessive, and the person suffering from this problem is constantly thinking about various incidents, real or imaginary, that invoke it. When she is obsessive and comes in high doses, jealousy overcomes reason and can trigger dangerous behaviors.

Therefore, when you notice that jealousy is taking over you or that the one next to you becomes overly jealous, unjustifiably possessive, and obsessed with control, it means that jealousy has turned from normal into pathology and needs to be treated.