Delusional Jealousy - can anyone with experience help?

[azwolfman]

My wife has delusional jealousy disorder*. Of course she will not admit it. It is tearing our relationship apart. I have gone to counsel, although she refused to go with me. I have searched on the internet for information, hoping to discover some way of removing this threat to our love. I really love my wife, she loves me, and I don't want to lose her. We have a potentially great relationship if only we could stop her delusion.

 

Does anyone have any personal experience with this? Have you gone through this and treated it successfully? Does anyone know what can cause this behavior? Is there any hope, or do I resign myself to the reality that she will always be this way?

 

 

 

*DEFINITION OF DELUSIONAL JEALOUSY:

 

Delusional jealousy is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that their spouse or sexual partner is being unfaithful. An affected person typically makes repeated accusations of infidelity based on insignificant or minimal evidence, often citing seemingly normal or everyday events or material to back up their claim. They may also take great pains to test their partner's fidelity and can go to considerable lengths to monitor their behaviour and movements.

[fredrolin]

My wife's friend has this. The friend is divorced now but she was so bad she wouldn't let her husband watch R rated movies or primetime TV shows like Baywatch, if they features sexy women.

 

Ironically the friend cheated on her husband during the whole 10 years they were married with tons of guys, mostly one night stands.

[Barby]

My ex of 2 years (but are still talking and seeing each other everyday just not intimate) has this. He is on Zoloft for OCD and since his doseage was adjusted he has done better. He harbored the belief that I would cheat on him, during the day he would call and say "i know you're talking to your lover' stupid sh*t like that and he would believe it even though I never so much as even talked to someone else.

 

It was something I believe he couldn't control and meds did help some...i wonder if there is something else that could help though.........

[Lollsabell]

Oh my god, that rang a couple of bells for me!

I know it is young and that we were probably too naive in a sense to be in a relationship, but when I was sixteen and my first boyfriend was seventeen he used to come around getting so angry that I had supposedly slept with this or that guy, once even based on some graffiti round town that was more than likely not even my name! This messed up the relationship and after a year and a half we split.

The following partner I had was the same, but less inclined to go punching things. He was (And is, I may not be with him, but he hasn't disappeared, oop! ) a beautiful person. I believe strongly that while some characteristics are imprinted, both my exes parents were divorced and that life-experience also accounts for much of what happens in a relationship (Me and my amateur psychoanalyses, tsk! )

I don't know if it's the same, maybe it's a milder version. I should probably mention that all three of us were/are depressed. Thank you for the post, it's helped to clarify some things and I hope you will be ok.

[krbshappy71]

Um. I think I have that myself. Crap.

 

The only thing that helps me is by asking my bf for reassurance. He is very frustrated at having to reassure me all the time, though, and takes it as an insult that I would even THINK he was that low and pathetic that he would cheat. I have a hard time realizing that's really what I'm accusing him of: being less than moral.

 

I have also asked him to stop the jokes about other women, I realize he's kidding, it doesn't help my fears. I realize he is teasing light-heartedly and I wish I could let him but I can't, my fear is too great at this time. Perhaps in time I will be able to chuckle and joke back, but now is not the time, not until my trust is stronger.

 

So for now we talk and talk and talk until I'm quite sure he's ready to give up on me but he hasnt' yet. Meanwhile I try VERY hard to talk my brain out of its obsession of the fear of being cheated on, I don't know if checking his instant messages and phone calls are reassuring me or only increasing the obsession, making me think about it more and I should STOP doing those behaviors so I will STOP worrying about it. Does that make sense? Every time I do this, I do feel assured, but I want to get rid of the suspicion that LEADS me to want to look in the first place.

 

If you can, I'd say just keep talking. My hope is that in time, as he continues to reassure me and show me I can trust him, the trust will build and the obsession will cease, my only fear is that he will not be able to wait that long for me to feel better. I know I can trust, I did in the past, but each time I did I was cheated on, so then I felt stupid for trusting again. Its hard to unlearn behavior that was repeated several times, I learned to "snoop" and "suspect" and sure enough with each guy I found out that yes, they were cheating and thank goodness I snooped so I could find out. Basically, I was rewarded in a sense, by snooping and suspecting because it got me away from that hell of being cheated on. Okay this is a very long post, sorry. It was interesting to see your post, the other side of this situation.

[Cis]

I'm pretty sure my friend has this. It can be devestating to a relationship. I've been trying to understand it as well. Check out this forum:

 

http://www.psychforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2488&sid=254cc7074d8d83736751b2919b412a8f

 

Good Luck.

Cis

[Birca]

Hmm. this rings some bells for me.

 

I think people can fall into these emotional states depending on circumstances and personality. Long distance and online realtionships are real breeding grounds for insecurities. Oddly enough, before my last relationship I was rarely jealous. In my last relationship I developed a jealous obsession with a preexisting online friend of my long distance boyfriend - a friend who was married but who had a friendly/flirty relationship with him. I didnt belive they were going to fly to meet each other and have sex, but the idea that they were emotionally closer than we were online did torment me. I think me asking him about it constantly tormented him too.

 

I would recommend not talking about it so much with him. You may be destroying his patience. When you are in that state of mind then you read whatever bad you can into whatever he says - and miss the signals that your doubting is upsetting him and miss the signals that he cares about you because you are just looking for more and more reassurance.

 

Before my relationship with my ex broke up, over this and other pressues I was putting him under, we talked about this and other things a lot. I thought I was "sorting the problems out" but I was wearing him down rather than working on myself. I now realise that a lot of this stuff is stuff I have to sort out within my own head. Why did this woman threaten me so much? Why didn't I trust my boyfriend? I came to realise I was jealous of her because of insecurities in myself that had nothing to do with my relationship. And that I didn't trust my boyfriend because I felt deeply for him and was scared. Well, you can imagine how hurt I was and how much I was kicking myself when he broke up with me - but it gave me the change to change myself.

[Celie]

birca:

 

your post made me so sad b/c i am in the midst of breaking up w/ my bf b/c of this exact same thing. (except my bf's special gal pal lives abroad, but they know each other through work & email/call & when she visits (& stays at our tiny apt i might add), they are like intimate soulmates which drives me nuts of course!)

 

she just left & i said to him, "knowing the way i feel about this situation, can i pls ask that next time she stays w/ her other friends? i was v. uncomfortable this week." & he blew up: "your jealousy is draining me; it's unfair; it's completely unjustified & i won't tolerate you projecting it on me!!!" ooookkaayyy... in the heat i said if you aren't willing to make this compromise of her not staying (mind you, i made clear that i didn't want him to change their relationship, no "her or me" type thing) then maybe we should break up, which i think threw him but also he is at the point where that sounds really, really good! i am deeply in love w/ him but am i just psycho, is he doing me wrong, or both? & when you're at this point is it too late or do u think we can still salvage the relationship? & btw, "he doesn't want to talk about it anymore!"

[Birca]

Yeah I think you can salvage the relationship but you need to make some changes. It can be done, I have been trying to change my attitude to my ex and his female friends (especially the one I got obsessed with) and its working.

 

I think the first thing you have to accept is that theres no reason for you to be jealous of this woman. Hes with you. He clearly cares about you. Just keep telling yourself its nothing to feel threatened by, and that his other relationships are nothing to do with you.

 

Also you need to take a step back and focus on other stuff. I know thats easier said than done. But focus on your other friends (they are important to you, right, so why shouldnt he have some ). And focus on having fun and doing other stuff you enjoy and just dont let worrying about jealousy have any of your headspace.

 

Then I seriously think you should do as he says and stop talking about it with him. If you love him - then you care about his feelings. So stop upsetting him with your jealousy. Give him a break. I told my ex I'd been stupid about this woman then have since then not brought the subject up again. Because its not worth it. The threats not real - whats real is the damage you can do to your relationship by giving your boyfriend a hard time about this. I know you're probably in a state of mind where you're thinking "if we have a relationship then I must share all my bad feelings with him for him to solve" and "if he cares then he will deal with this with me" - but really, you have to say, ok, me and him are two separate people and sometimes as adults we have to deal with **** ourselves. With stuff like this its easy to start demanding the other person become a bottomless reserve of reassurance and love - noone is - eventually he will lose it or dissapoint you in some way and then it becomes a viscious circle with you needing more and more reasurance. :confused

 

I think jealosy problems (of the irrational kind, not the really being cheated on kind) often arise out of more general problems with boundaries and fear of separateness of any kind. I think you need to do the opposite to what your scared feelings tell you - and stop focussing on this and him quite so much. Your relationship will be better for it. Since I have laid off the emotional pressure on my ex things have improved between us greatly - I dont know if we will get back together but for now I'm focussed on repairing our relationship, not our Relationship if you see the distinction.

[Celie]

thanks so much for your good advice. i agree i need to let it go but i'm also afraid he is really disrespecting me by refusing to compromise w/ my request that she stays elsewhere while she's in town. if the sitch were reverse i think i would go out of my way to accomodate him just b/c that' the way he feels & his feelings are valid. to me he's saying my feelings aren't valid (b/c they're "irrational" to him but when are feelings of jealousy rational?).

 

i brought it up again & he just squashed me again, saying i can't let go, it's his house too so his friends can stay there, etc. but i still maintain that this sort of compromise should be a no-brainer, right? (& could be a red flag for both of us). or should i truly just let it go & watch & see if he respects me in other areas? (BTW he has a tendency to be somewhat verbally abusive, a prob we are working on...)

[mandimay]

I have this same thing...Therefore any advice would be excellent.

 

With NO evidence at all I will create a perfect scenerio in my head. Maybe it's based on a scratch on his face (this happened today. He works in a factory type enviroment so it probably happened there. Yet I see it and make comments about possibly needing to check his back.) Maybe it's based on a stare at the wall moment. He must be thinking of someone else. I don't want to be this way! It's just that all of these "what if's" come into my mind...It sucks...It's almost as if I am being pro-active and assuming it will happen. But I know it wouldn't happen...my fiance adores me. So what is my problem?