The sickly jealous is an outstanding screenwriter. Prisoner of a bad series, he sees himself in the shoes of the anti-hero betrayed by his wife and a third party, and closely films the behavior of his companions as so many clues to the crime of which he will be the victim. The other actors can justify themselves, give proof of his innocence, but he doesn’t listen to anything, obsessed with these deceitful images.

Catherine recalls: “Every night, I would wait until his back was turned to pick his pockets. A new pen, a business card, an illegible name written on a diary page, anything: I couldn’t help but consider every item found evidence of treason. And, every morning, he watched him intently: the slightest change, the slightest special effort to be attractive, and he was firmly convinced that he was going to spend the day with someone else. »

a form of paranoia

” Jealousy is a form of paranoia, explains Alain Krotenberg, a psychiatrist specializing in behavioral and cognitive therapy (author of The desire to improve, with Luc Patry, Payot, 2001). However, the paranoid, by definition, is never wrong; if he is convinced that his wife wants to cheat on him, nothing can shake him. Unless his suffering, which has become too strong and difficult to bear, encourages him to consult. It is then up to the therapist to ask become aware of the pathological degree of their jealousy.

“First, I ask the jealous person to regularly note the pace and intensity of their suffering before, during and after their jealous attacks,” explains Alain Krotenberg. This is the so-called cognitive part. The therapist then proposes a role play: “The patient puts himself in the shoes of his “victim”, I in his, then we reverse. This behavioral approach allows the jealous person to become aware of what is excessive in their way of acting and reasoning. Loved ones can participate in therapy by participating in these role plays.

However, no single spouse has the means to help the jealous person to get out of your obsessive pattern. His anxiety remains uncontrollable, obsessive and, above all, growing: “We start by swearing that we love him, that no one else can attract us, but that is not enough. After undergoing psychotherapy, Patricia, 39, ended up divorcing her husband who was too jealous of her. “To avoid arguments, I ended up breaking up with all my friends and quitting my job, until the day I found myself at home, not daring to do anything and depressed. »

“And even when the victim of the jealous ends up, locked up, for not seeing anyone anymore, it happens that the other becomes jealous even of his thoughts and says to himself: ‘She doesn’t seem happy with me, she necessarily thinks of someone else! ” “adds Violaine-Patricia Galbert, couples therapist. To get rid of these bad thoughts – specialists speak of “cognitive distortions” – the jealous person must first understand what is hidden behind them. This is what certain therapies, and in particular psychoanalysis, strive to reveal by focusing on the past of the jealous. “Since the relationship with the mother is a loving relationship that the child does not want to share, loving jealousy is never more than a reminiscence of this relationship experienced in childhood,” explains Denise Lachaud, psychoanalyst.

Emotional dependence

For twenty years, Léo Lederrey, a medical journalist and therapist, was very zealous, until he decided to go to specialists. After following several courses of Gestalt therapy, rebirth and bioenergy, he managed to break out of his obsessive pattern: “I could understand where my jealousy came from: I was raised only by my mother… One day, my father suddenly reappeared. to “steal” my affection from him. Since then, every man who got too close to the woman he loved unconsciously assumed this role of “love thief”. “It is a trauma that is part of my story, a scar that will always be present,” he adds. But why therapy allowed me to identify himIt no longer makes me suffer. »

According to Violaine-Patricia Galbert, “jealousy is born above all from the desire to possess the other; the jealous one does not want it to escape”. Behind this desire for influence lies a state of affective dependency “When he tried to justify himself for his jealous rages, my husband kept telling me that he could never live without me, that the idea of ​​being alone terrified him,” Patricia testifies. The therapist’s job is then get the jealousy out of this fusional relationship instilling in him the principles of self-sufficiency : “It’s about teaching him to flourish alone, without the other that serves as a substitute”, continues Violaine-Patricia Galbert.

learn to trust yourself

For this reason, it is necessary to work on self-esteem: if the jealous person does not feel good without the other or believes that they are constantly threatened with losing them for the benefit of a third party, it is because they do not believe they are up to the task. that. He believes himself unworthy of the affection he receives. “The jealous, therefore, will have to work to affirm the power of him, specifies Violaine-Patricia Galbert. The goal of therapy is for him to finally be able to say to himself: “I deserve to stay with her”, or even: “If she leaves, I know that I will have the means to endear myself to another…”.

Learning to have confidence in oneself in order to have confidence in others is a real job that can last, according to Léo Lederrey, one, two or even three years. “In the end, jealousy is not cured, you just learn to master it. “This jealous ex and accustomed to breakups has lived with the same woman for almost ten years. “She just signed up for Spanish classes. In the past, my reflex would have been to ask who she had spoken to, if there were many men registered in her class. Today I manage, because I understood that the problem does not come from her but from me. It’s not always easy, but in any case, my jealousy no longer ruins our lives. »

gender difference

Man, woman: who is the most jealous?
According to studies, jealousy is a feeling that fits both the feminine and the masculine. As for the frequency and intensity of jealousy, again, men and women are equal. The two sexes differ, on the other hand, in their way of reacting: “Men get angry, women get depressed,” remarks Ayala Malach Pines, a couples therapist.

Alain Krotenberg, a psychiatrist, points out that, “in women, jealousy reveals hysterical and depressive behavior while, in men, it has a paranoid and obsessive character, which makes it more difficult to cure.” Psychoanalysis considers jealousy as a reflection of the unconscious desire to deceive the other. As this desire for infidelity is unbearable, the jealous person defends himself by attributing it to the other. This mechanism, called projection, is hard to accept. For the jealous, first, that he will not admit that it is his own desires that he projects onto the other. For the spouse, then, that he is likely to conclude: “Then it is up to me to be jealous, since you want to cheat on me. Both must then admit that these desires are unconscious, therefore unrelated to reality.