When a new woman started work at her husband's office, Beverly couldn't help feeling a few twinges of jealousy. Mark brimmed with praise for his new colleague. He spoke of Alicia, it seemed, almost every day: her brains, her creativity, her wit. At first, Beverly stifled the jealous pangs, putting them down to some sort of insecurity in herself. After all, her husband wouldn't talk to her about this woman so much if there was anything illicit going on, right? Finally, after months of Mark's anecdotes and admiration, Beverly could stand it no longer. She put it to him straight: Was Alicia merely a colleague -- or something more? Mark hesitated before answering, and in that moment, Beverly guessed the truth. Almost immediately, she was sorry she'd trusted him -- and not her own instincts.
Historically, jealousy was considered one of the natural, if not essential, emotions of love. When Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) asserts that his wife "trusts me implicitly" in The Seven Year Itch, his sexy upstairs neighbour (Marilyn Monroe) cries, 'What's the matter with her? Doesn't she love you?" That pretty much sums it up: Not feeling jealous about someone you love wasn't quite, well, normal - not to mention a sign that you really weren't that much in love.
Then came the '60s and '70s and free love. Traditional commitment was out, and so was jealousy, which came to be a sign of immaturity, insecurity, and unhealthy possessiveness. And that attitude seems to persist today. Even if we are jealous, we're loath to admit it -- unless, of course, we have absolute proof that there's actually hank-panky going on.
But do we need to know for sure that our mate is fooling around in order to feel jealous? Hardly. Jealousy is one of the most basic human emotions: "It's hard-wired," says Ottawa psychologist Larry Cebulski. "I don't think we can avoid jealousy in our lives." Cebulski points out that jealousy is part of our evolutionary inheritance -- an old response that helped to keep the bringer-home-of-mammoth-steaks from skipping out. In our early history, he says, females required the support of males to provide food and material things for offspring. "If a male showed interest in other females, his partner might experience jealousy, which would lead her to some action to prevent his defection."
But does that mean all jealousy is OK now? Surely not. Accusing or even suspecting your mate of having successive flings with co-workers even though you have no evidence can not only give you many unnecessary gut-wrenching moments; it can cause intense friction in your relationship. Insisting that you and your spouse move out of town because of your unfounded jealousy of your husband's ex-wife isn't even close to reasonable. At the same time, those feelings don't have to mean you're crazy, immature or neurotic -- just human. So how do you deal with them? And what about Beverly? When can jealousy be taken as a hint that you should ask a few pointed questions?
