Another form of jealousy transfers itself from one object to another, or to the whole surroundings. Such transference of jealousy serves the purpose of masking from self and from others the real object of the original jealousy.
73. Mrs. H. G. is a woman, 38 years of age, who has been living happily with her husband. At present she is unhappy on account of jealousy. Here is her statement: “I have called on you to ask you to relieve me of a condition which I find simply unbearable. I have a good, fine husband against whom I cannot complain of anything. He is a splendid and model man in every way. I am the more distressed therefore to be so jealous of him. I felt that way, first, while my husband was ill with typhus which left him with heart trouble. He has to be more careful of himself because of the illness he has been through, and whereas formerly he had intercourse with me two and three times a week, now it happens only about once a month. My husband is not well,—I know it; his physician has expressly told me that he must keep very quiet and avoid all excitement. Nevertheless I cannot help feeling that he is untrue to me. I am so ashamed of it that I have not yet breathed a word about my jealousy to my husband. In fact, we are nearly always together. I know all his affairs and I often go along wherever he goes. But I cannot hang on to him every minute. So I hold the watch in hand and count the minutes, even the seconds, for him to return. Always the one thought: He is untrue to you this very minute! If he goes to another office, I think he does it because there is a pretty office girl there with whom he is in love. If he takes a meal at a restaurant, it is because he has a rendezvous. If he is a few minutes late coming home from the office, he was with a street woman. In short, I am tormented all the time by these evil thoughts, I struggle against them but cannot put them out of my mind.”
“How long have you been in that state?”
“It began when he went to Franzensbad on account of his heart trouble. There he became acquainted with a spinster, a girl 46 years of age, who was also alone. They two got together and kept each other company. I know the girl; she is very honorable, and when my judgment is uppermost, I say to myself: Nothing has happened; the two have merely felt a temporary intellectual interest in one another. But in my evil hours my mind conjures up the worst thoughts. I have once read a letter which that woman had written my husband. She thanked him for his interesting company during the cure. A few weeks after the Franzensbad cure, there came a box of flowers and a letter for my husband. The woman wrote thanking him for his pleasant company during the cure,—she was very glad to have made the acquaintance of so prominent and intellectual a gentleman and hoped their friendship would endure beyond the time of the cure. At that I reproached my husband and tortured him with my jealousy. He gave me his word of honor that his relations with the woman were strictly of a friendly and formal character; aside of his own considerations, he was a sick man and satisfied to be left alone. But I asked him to give up all further correspondence with the woman and he readily consented. He is really a fine fellow who grants me everything I want, a man who reads in my eyes every wish of mine, and I am ashamed to think ill of him all the time.”
Here we see one source of her jealousy. The woman was married to a man who gratified her in every respect; suddenly she had to restrict herself to an abstinent life. The enforced abstinence suggested the thought: You are still young and attractive, so many men are after you! Take a lover. She was filled with fancies of longing and projected them unto her husband. If he were unfaithful it would furnish an excuse for her. She needed it; she wanted him to be unfaithful, for that would have served her as a defense. Her compulsive thinking is the masking of the thought: Oh, that my husband were unfaithful so that I, too, might take a lover!
The thought was suggested to her by the fact that the wife of one of her husband’s colleagues, a very light-minded person, was able, nevertheless, to keep up a very handsome social position. She spoke with great feeling about that woman.
“Does that woman not take loyalty so seriously as you do?”
“That woman? She does not have one lover; she has six at a time, and even more! She certainly enjoys life. And the lovers pay for everything. She has the finest wardrobe, the prettiest hats, takes wonderful journeys and her husband knows everything.”
“Isn’t her husband jealous?”
“Oh, no! He knows everything, and consoles himself in his own way. But, do you know the curious part of it all? That flighty woman is jealous of her husband! She quarrels bitterly with him when she hears of his escapades, although she has no right. The two have taken reciprocal freedom....”