by Annette Schmitt

"Jealousy is a passion that eagerly seeks what creates suffering", is how the philosopher Friedrich E.D. Schleiermacher described jealousy, which is often perceived as an inner catastrophe. How is jealousy experienced? How is it communicated? What variations are there? How is it reduced or given up completely? 200 stories from those affected formed the basis of a study.

With the exception of very few lucky people who are spared this intense and stressful feeling, almost everyone has to deal with jealousy at some point in their lives. According to surveys, almost all respondents have been jealous at some point or would be if their partner started an intimate relationship with a third person. Jealousy or infidelity is one of the most common reasons for divorce or separation. Various studies also report that jealousy is the most common motive for violence and murder committed by men against their partners. In view of this, this feeling is certainly worthy of in-depth research. We tried to get closer to understanding jealousy by analysing 200 stories of jealousy that people had written down for us.

In order to make the stories of 200 narrators, which were of course each formulated in a very individual and unique way, comparable, all statements were first standardised linguistically. This was done with the help of a content-analytical categorisation system. Statements that had the same meaning but were formulated differently in terms of language were assigned to common categories. For example, the statements "The next day my partner brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers" and "But then she told me that she only loved me" were categorised as "proof of love from the partner". On this basis, different stories could then be compared with each other. (For reasons of better readability, the term "partner" is not used every time in the following).

Experiencing and expressing feelings, including jealousy, follows certain rules that are agreed upon within a culture. These cultural agreements regulate, for example, the occasions on which jealousy may legitimately be experienced and what behaviour is appropriate. A jealous person must describe their jealousy in accordance with these rules if they want to be considered a "reasonable person". To understand an emotion, it is very important to know its rules. For they not only determine the expression of a feeling, as if superimposed on the actual experience, but rather enable the experience itself.

The culturally handed-down rules of jealousy, as expressed in the jealousy stories analysed, are depicted in the void structure of jealousy (see diagram). The diagram illustrates which "empty spaces" a jealous person has to fill with concrete content in order to make their jealousy comprehensible to others. The structure of blanks can therefore be read as a "script" for jealousy dramas. Anyone who experiences jealousy and wants to communicate it to others must say something about the three major themes that we have labelled "suffering", "guilt" and "action". Conversely, we can also use this presentation as a guide to explore and categorise jealousy experiences that we want to understand better. The combination of the three areas, i.e. the attribution of guilt and the experience of suffering in connection with an "act of jealousy", is what constitutes the experience of jealousy in our culture.

What all jealousy experiences have in common is the attribution of guilt to others for an act of jealousy and a certain amount of suffering because of this act. However, the details of different experiences can vary considerably. The diagram shows these variations in the smaller boxes below the larger areas. For example, the blame for the jealousy event can be attributed to the beloved partner ("offender G"), the rival ("offender R") or to oneself ("self-accusations"). The jealous person can also experience anger and substantiate this with evidence of anger. Such evidence of anger is quasi-objective evidence that can be observed by others.

The possible causes of jealousy can also be very different. In the stories, we found neglect, suspected infidelity and certainty of infidelity on the part of the partner as possible causes of jealousy. These occasions are embedded in certain situational circumstances (e.g. "on holiday" or "at a social gathering"). In addition, circumstantial evidence and proof, the evidence of the offence, can be reported. Such clues are tell-tale love letters to the rival, excuses and lies that are uncovered or even being caught "in flagrante delicto".

Regarding the possible variants of suffering experienced in jealousy, different distressing feelings were described, namely fear, sadness, self-esteem doubts and other suffering (e.g. envy). Just like anger, these types of suffering were also made credible by quasi-objective "evidence", the evidence of suffering. On the one hand, we found partner-related modes of behaviour. These are divided into co-operative (e.g. talking to the partner), confrontational (e.g. a "jealousy scene") and indirect (e.g. increasing one's own attractiveness through a slimming diet) strategies. Self-centred approaches, on the other hand, do not aim to change the partner's behaviour, but their own state of mind. This can happen by the jealous person mentally playing down their partner's behaviour (e.g. "I must be imagining things"), distracting themselves from their distressing feelings (e.g. "I went out first to calm down") or taking comfort from others. Possible outcomes of coping with suffering are: the problem was completely solved (e.g. "My boyfriend never saw my rival again, we are still happy together today"), the problem remained or worsened (e.g. "They both continued to see each other and my girlfriend had less and less desire to sleep with me"), and the problem was only partially solved (e.g. "He never saw my rival again, but since then my trust in him has been destroyed").

The cause of jealousy, which probably appears to outsiders to be the most "harmless" cause, is neglect by the partner. This situation is characterised by the jealous person having the feeling that their loved one is paying more attention to a third person than they are entitled to and neglecting them, the jealous person, in return. This situation was often described in connection with parties and other social events where the person concerned felt "left out". A typical example: "My boyfriend and his old friend are having a great chat, laughing, looking at each other in a friendly way. Too friendly? I can't join in the conversation about their past times together and sit next to them in silence. The longer they talk, the more uncomfortable I feel. All right, I think, they haven't seen each other for a long time and therefore have a lot to talk about. But I feel left behind, ignored."

In this situation, jealous people mainly experience anger at their partner, who shows no consideration for their feelings, and a loss of self-esteem. At 94%, almost all those who tell stories of neglect report anger. Self-esteem doubts (we also use this term to describe a loss of self-esteem) are also described by the majority of narrators (78%) who felt neglected. Both feelings, anger and self-esteem doubts, are reported more frequently in neglect stories than in stories about the other two causes of jealousy described by our narrators.

While the jealous person does not (yet) think about sexual infidelity in the case of neglect by their partner, these thoughts take centre stage in the case of "suspected infidelity". Jealous people often believe that they can recognise from certain signs that their loved one has already been or will be unfaithful, but are not sure whether this suspicion is justified. Typical behaviour is that the suspected infidelity is imagined and evidence (or counter-evidence) is sought for one's own suspicions. Example of such behaviour: "After my husband had already spent two hours with his ex-girlfriend in the neighbour's house, the fire of jealousy was kindled. It was blazing with bright flames and I kept throwing more wood into it. No, I thought, it can't last that long, maybe they're making up or kissing or worse. In the meantime, I just stood at the window - was the light still on, wasn't there a shadow, didn't I hear laughter?" One narrator describes the search for evidence as follows: "I then observed my boyfriend, and every carelessness and bad mood on his part seemed to be proof of his infidelity. Eventually my mistrust became so great that I went looking for letters. In fact, I found what I was looking for when I rummaged through his desk, filled with guilt at having invaded my boyfriend's private parts. I hoped to find concrete evidence of my boyfriend's 'guilt', but what I read was ambiguous and left a lot to my imagination."

Narrators who suspected infidelity on the part of their partners were primarily afraid that their suspicions could be confirmed and that love could be lost or lost. This was reported by 80% of those narrators. This is a significantly higher proportion than was found among the authors of neglect and certainty stories.

The third possible cause of jealousy we found was certainty about infidelity. On this occasion, there is certainty about the partner's sexual infidelity. The jealous person comes to this conviction either because they themselves witnessed the intimate relationship, because the infidelity was confessed or because there was irrefutable evidence. An example: "In any case, I happened to get hold of a letter he had written to an acquaintance with whom he was seeing a lot at the time. I read in the letter that the two of them had slept together and that it must have been very nice. My physical reactions were palpitations, shivers of heat and cold, headaches and stomach pains, which recurred every time I thought about it."

Central to the experience of jealousy in this case is sadness over the loss of a partner's exclusive love. This feeling was experienced by 61% of the jealous people who were certain of their partner's infidelity. In contrast, only 33% of those who suspected infidelity and 44% of those who felt neglected reported sadness.

The ways in which jealousy is experienced on different occasions therefore differ considerably. Nevertheless, all reported experiences of jealousy have a common core: ultimately, all affected jealous people are preoccupied with thoughts of the loss of love. Another thing they have in common is that they equate the loss of love with the loss of the exclusivity of their love relationship. Love therefore seems to be lost when a relationship is maintained with a third person that has a similar quality to the relationship with the original romantic partner.

Jealousy on different occasions differs, however, in whether the loss of the exclusivity of the love relationship has already occurred (as in the case of certainty of infidelity and neglect) or whether this loss is only expected in the future (as in the case of suspected infidelity). In addition, jealousy due to neglect and jealousy due to certainty of infidelity apply different standards for the exclusivity of the romantic relationship. Jealous individuals who are certain of infidelity see the sexual exclusivity of their romantic relationship violated. Jealous people who feel neglected, on the other hand, see it as a violation of their claim to exclusivity if they no longer receive the undivided, absolute attention of their partner. They see it as a sign of their partner's lost or at least diminished love if they are no longer "the centre of the universe" for them, but instead prefer other people to talk to at times.

The common "essential" of all the jealousy experiences described here is therefore the conviction that romantic love is by its very nature indivisible. The value of one's own love relationship is seen precisely in its exclusivity and uniqueness. Even if an unfaithful partner affirms that they still love their "betrayed" partner, for the jealous person the love relationship is no longer what it once was and what they want it to be: an intimate relationship that only exists between them and their partner.

Jealousy, as became very clear in our study, arises from the desire to maintain the love of one's partner. Although jealousy is a "child of love" in this sense, it can also become an "enemy of love". This happens when partners of a person who becomes jealous frequently, intensely and/or on relatively harmless occasions experience this jealousy as a sign of mistrust and as a restriction of their personal freedom. Since jealousy also has these negative aspects, there have always been attempts to give up this feeling. In its most radical form, giving up jealousy would mean a fundamental change in romantic love: If one could say goodbye to the idea that romantic love is indivisible, then jealousy would be "superfluous".

In Western cultures with the ideal of indivisible romantic love, however, efforts to limit jealousy go less far. The American community "Kerista Village", for example, is trying to realise a non-monogamous way of life. In Kerista Village, several women and men live together and maintain equal love and sexual relationships with all members of the opposite sex in the community. However, even this apparently jealousy-free community does not completely renounce the idea of the exclusivity of love relationships. Rather, its members are committed to loyalty to the group, and sexual or love relationships outside the group are not permitted.

Another way of weakening the exclusivity norm of love relationships is to decouple love and sexuality. For example, many couples who allow each other sexual "infidelity" have norms that ensure the emotional speciality of the love relationship. Such norms stipulate, for example, that no declaration of love may be made to the partner of a sexual escapade.

But even in love relationships that adhere to the ideal of sexual and emotional exclusivity, jealousy can be avoided or mitigated in many situations. If we look at the void structure of jealousy from this point of view, then approaches to avoiding jealousy become particularly clear in the area of "action". Even a couple that adheres to the ideal of exclusivity of love and sexuality can ask themselves critically which behaviours of the other can actually fundamentally threaten this exclusivity. For example, a couple that often struggles with jealousy can consider whether they can soften their standards of exclusivity. Behaviour that was previously seen as a "cause for jealousy" (such as the partner talking to a third person) could be viewed more calmly, as non-threatening and tolerable, after a change in the absolute demands on the exclusivity of the romantic relationship.

The author
Dr Annette Schmitt (34) studied psychology at the University of Heidelberg. From 1990 to 1995 she was a research assistant at the Institute for the Study of Human-Environment Relationships in Department 5 at the University of Oldenburg. She worked in the research group "Emotion and Communication" and wrote her doctoral thesis on the topic "Logography of Jealousy". She has been working in this group since October 1996 as a scholarship holder of the German Research Foundation (DFG).