jealousy-men and women

yeah i agree with what you have said, i think men may show their jealousy in a more aggressive way yet women try to keep their jealousy behind closed doors.

Jealousy is a mixture of emotions including anxiety, sadness, maybe sometimes even shame but certainly much jelousy has to do with anger.

It's not easy for the jealous person (some one who feels jealous even when there is little external cause to be so) it is also very hard for the partner of a very jealous person.

From hiring private detectives to planting video camaras to try and 'catch' them in the act. The world of the partner of a jealous person can narrow right down if they start to become controlled by the jealous partner. I have worked with both very jealous women and men.

Strangely enough it's the partner on the receiving end of jealousy who can start to distrust the behaviour of the jealous person who will constantly try to catch them cheating and do this in a secretive manner.

Mark

isn't jealousy fueled by the low self-esteem of the person? So then they get angry because they feel they aren't the 'one'?

I wouldn't say that jealousy is necessarily linked to low self esteem. It may be but there is no research corrolation between jealousy and low self esteem.The jealous person may have been brought up with 'an over blown sense of entitlement' i..e some people feel they own other people in the same way they may own a car or a toy (when a child) this psychology may extend into adult hood.

I think it's a fundemental mistake to assume that the ills of all psychopathology can be laid at the feet of low self esteem. Extensive research (by Professor Nicholas Emler 2001, Maurice Rosenberg etc.) show that things like drug taking and child abuse are not the result of low self esteem at all.

People with genuine low self esteem tend to treat themselves badly not other people. In fact people with very low self esteem are perhaps less likely to feel jealous because maybe they don't even feel deserving of the sole attention of their loved one.

Mark.

yeah i see your point with the latter part about they may feel they don't deserve their partners attention, i never looked at it like that before but do agree that because of that, they are probably less likely to be jealous in relationships.

i always thought that it was simply guys are more jealous of sexual infidelity, and girls were more jealous of emotional infidelity

That may be generally the case, I'm not sure. What do you mean by emotional infidelity as opposed to sexual infidelity? Do you mean if a women feels a man has real feelings for someone else she is more likely to feel jealous but if she feels he has just had a sexual connection with someone else but had no emotional involvement she would feel less jealous or threatened by this?

Maybe for a man the act of his partner having sex with another man (whether she's emotionally involved or not) is the worst 'offence.'

Mark

Sexual infidelity: a man can never be sure to know whether the child is his. Only one way, and that is to make sure his wife never has sex with another man.

Emotional: when the child is there, the women depends on the man to bring up resources. When he spends emotional time with other women not all his potential goes to the baby.

Research has shown that jealousy is most of the time an indicator of there being really something wrong, eg the man indeed has another girl.
Research concerning evolutionary psychology and jealousy has been done eg by David Buss.
http://www.psy.utexas.edu/psy/FACULTY/BussD/bussD.html
http://drdrew.com/article.asp?id=453

yes, i was referring to the evolutionary perspective before. but as for your remarks that jealousy is usually the indicator that something is wrong, i have to disagree, as i believe that jealousy is quite natural, and is generally not substantiated. i would think it shows a decrease in levels of trust, but that is something that is easily remedied with an open talk.

You are right in thinking that jalousy is something natural, at least when you mean natural from an evolutionary perspective. But let me make the point regarding there being something wrong more clear: I do not mean to say there is actually something going on that already crossed the line, although this could be the case of course. It is also possible that it is a reaction for things that form a threat to the relationship. Eg, when a man is jealous because his wife spends more time with a good friend, the man generally is indeed jealous for a valid reason. Jealousy is more often than not valid. Because those situations are what we evolved jealousy for: to bring a "solution to the problems posed by real threats to relationships" (http://www.sssswr.org/page20.htm, my italics).

yeah jealousy at moderate levels is a great thing for it will usually mend or end a relationship because it leads to confrontation, but if gets out of control, like in the case of actual infidelity, homocide can be the result.

Do you not think that the jealousy itself can be the problem in a relationship? Can someone be pathalogiaclly jealous and suspicious withoutgood cause to be from their partner. Some jealous people also become jealous of their friends as well as their partners-feeling bad if their friends seem to be getting along well together....

Mark

Sure. It's not that because on average a certain correlation exists, this is true in all cases.
Or what to think of people who get jealous because the neighbours bought a bigger car? Just an unintended side-effect of our 'ability' to be jealous, or something completely different?

Hi
Looking back over the clients who have come along with problems of jealousy there seems to be an equal number of men and women, it also seems to take a similar pattern ......of obsessive behavior stemming from a high anxiety state. I haven't noticed any gender differences.

Sometimes there is a reason to be mistrustful of a partner, but in the majority of cases the partner is desperate for the relationship to work, and is driven to dispair from the unrelenting checking, questioning and unreasonable demands.

The person who constantly feels that their partner is going to form a relationship with someone else is in a constant state of hypervigelance, I worked with one person who called her boyfriend about 40 times a day, and if they were out could not go to the bathroom for fear of leaving him on his own, wouldn't let him sit ina bar facing everyone incase he looked at another woman.

Once someone can learn to relax they then can begin to learn some relationship skills, and take on board new views but taking a step back is the first key step.

Jill