Suspicious minds

Chris admits she's got a problem. In fact, she believes her four-year marriage to Rick broke up because of her jealous rampages. Whenever they were out, she would watch his gaze and flip whenever he seemed distracted by another female. "I couldn't take my eyes off him," she confesses. "Finally, I started trying to keep him in the house as much as possible. I felt insecure and insufficient. I felt that, given the chance, he would go out and find another woman."

Today, Chris, 26, is involved with a new man, and was recently dismayed to realize that she was starting to act in the same old way. "Intellectually I know it doesn't make sense to be feeling these things about Barry," she says. "But I feel ugly and fat and I'm scared he's going to leave, too. It's killing me inside."

Cebulski says he would address Chris's problem in a few stages. First, he'd teach her to monitor her automatic emotional jealous thinking. "Once she's able to identify it," he continues, "we would teach her to evaluate those thoughts critically. If there isn't any evidence to support them, we'd encourage her to generate more reasonable thoughts and beliefs." For example, every time Chris thought, "Barry's going to leave me for that sexy waitress," she would replace that in her head with, "Barry thinks I'm sexy and wants to marry me."

The next step, says Cebulski, would be for Chris to act as if she really believed that. In other words, she wouldn't be monitoring his every move and flying off the handle every other day. Eventually, the theory goes, acting as if she believes in this reality will rub off, and it will become real. "It might take years," admits Cebulski, "But eventually the evidence will just hit you over the head."

Again, you may want to seek professional help if you feel you might be reaching the point where jealousy is damaging your relationship. "A little bit of help early on is a lot better than a lot of help when the problem gets out of control," says Cebulski.