Sunday, July 12, 2009

Jealousy and the Other Woman

“The girl wants the mother and feels shame with her jealousy for wanting the mother. The father is the fulcrum in the triangle of the girl reaching for her mother.”

--from The Mermaid and the Minotaur

I found this in a file dated 1996. I was struggling with jealousy in some relationship then and trying to understand it. What is striking about this idea is that it explains something I have felt and been unable to articulate and that is the complexity of jealousy for women. Women’s jealousy about another woman gets confusing because there is an element of desire for the other woman even as we wish to kick her out. A woman not only wants her man to give up or quit the other woman but she also wants the other woman. This explains how anger gets misdirected in infidelity and affairs. It explains the obsession with “her”. There is a taboo being activated and some dark homoerotic lust/revulsion pushing up from down deep in the archetypes.

I have felt this before and I have been the object of this quality coming from other women’s jealousy toward me. I have certainly felt this confusion about John’s ex-wife, and I have been ashamed of these feelings in myself.

We are not simple creatures and so it means we must—and I must—be gentle and self-forgiving.

1 comment:

Marion said...

Wildly intelligent and terribly provocative. I am filled with awe at this insight. Thanks for this.