The green-eyed monster is male

We were at the beach over the Easter weekend along with some guests. I mindlessly romped around in an old tank top that I had earlier unearthed from my closet, forgetting that the words printed across the chest area in bold block letters were “Mrs. Beckham.” It elicited a variety of responses depending on the age and popular culture orientation of the beholder. You can imagine the string of comments, but none more interesting than those from my 11-year-old son. You see, this child of mine is a man of very few words and a pleasant disposition — “Sunshine Boy” is what we call him.  So I wasn’t at all ready for what he dished out in reference to my tank top that day.

“Mom, who’s Beckham?” This from a basketballer — the only sport he believes should be called a sport. “Well,” I began, then enumerated a list of what I thought David Beckham to be: “Soccer great; Brit; blonde; buff; with a squeaky voice and a character of a wife.” He looked at me intently and, with that characteristic stiff jaw that signals a mix of seriousness and menace in his countenance, he said, “I hate Beckham!” And so the shirt immediately came off and stayed off.

His behavior concerned me so I traveled back to similar past incidents to try to shed light on his actions.

A year ago, I was with him at the boardwalk of a wharf in California watching street performers work their craft. This overeager mime artist, spray-painted all over in silver dust, singled me out and approached us. He started miming a manic courtship and I don’t know what had come over me but I bolted and made a mad dash for nowhere — to no specific destination, no specific direction, just onward and away.  Before I knew it, the mime was right at my tail chasing me, milking the act as much as he could to the audience’s delight. While they found the whole routine hilarious, my son, who had gone beet-red in the face, started running after the mime and screaming, “Why, why?  What do you want from my Mom?” When I realized what was going on, I circled back to my son, hugged him and calmed him down, explaining how the whole caper was part of the show. Only then did he settle down. 

Sure, it was endearing, seeing him protective of his mama like that; but it worried me briefly. The last thing I wanted was a jealous boy on my hands. But after much thought I figured that the reason he was so jealous was that he hadn’t fully comprehended the concept of the unbreakable, unconditional, and everlasting bond we have with each other. 

Children get immersed in this possessive stage (rabid separation anxiety and clinginess are symptoms and the more distant and absent a parent is, the more intense it becomes) until they establish for themselves some grasp of the concept of relationship permanence, some form of ownership, some sense of security. Only then will they be able to step back, let go and say, “My Mama will be my Mama no matter what; a tank tap bearing someone else’s name other than my own or an overzealous mime won’t change that.”

Being jealous, I think, is the biggest waste of time. It’s right up there with feeling guilty. But the irony is, it does serve a purpose. Jealousy may be self-defeating and destructive, it may feed on itself until it balloons to uncontainable proportions, poison the mind, and contaminate everyone within spitting distance of it, it may be a fast track to alienating a beloved; but it purges the jealous partner of gnawing feelings of insecurity and, once unleashed, does offer some form of relief, albeit temporary.

There are degrees of jealousy. On the one hand, there are jealous young sons who may still be considered cute by their mothers, whose temper tantrums — triggered by possessiveness — are still endearing, if not delightful.

There is the mild form of jealousy wherein a boyfriend or a husband exhorts his partner to adhere to a dress code that provides ample coverage or one who insists on knowing his partner’s whereabouts at all times. These traits may be annoying but they are quite harmless.

I have this friend who, in spite of his disarmingly good looks, is a jealous man but tolerably so, because he is big enough to own up to his jealous nature. I’ve caught him many times adjusting the neckline or the straps of his girlfriend’s top, tenderly saying to her, “Straighten up, those are just for me.” He also reminds her whenever she wears low-rider jeans to pull her shirt down every time she gets out of the car, saying, half in jest, half in all seriousness, but always full of affection, “I don’t want anybody else seeing what they shouldn’t see.” His girlfriend tells me that whenever she goes out without him to parties and clubs he asks her, “Who are the men there?  Are they better looking than me? If they are, don’t look at them.” After which, he tells her to have a good time. It comes out endearing because his girlfriend says it makes her feel special. I then asked my friend, “Doesn’t it concern you that you’re jealous? Men aren’t supposed to be, are they?” He said with full self-assurance,  “Most men feel the way I do, they’re just not man enough to show or say it.” 

There might be more than an ounce of truth to this. Most men consider petty displays of jealousy an affront to their machismo but not this friend of mine. He’s much too comfortable in his own skin to edit his feelings and his self-expression. He is a happy man.

And then there is the dreaded, vile, green-eyed monster of a mate who is a curse from the depths of hell. According to Dr. Phil, one of TV’s more famous pop psychologists, this type of man usually carries the burden of having chosen a girlfriend or spouse much more endowed in the looks department than he is — the trophy wife. Why did he give himself this problem in the first place, you ask? Dr. Phil’s answer to this is because by doing so he had hoped to turbo-charge his public image. But really, who knows anything anymore? I find that it is much more complicated than this and may require a team of expert psychiatrists and an entire lifetime to explain. And who has time for that?

There is this urban legend about a prominent lawyer who is said to be so jealous of his spouse that he monitors her every move. He calls all the people she claims she is meeting to double and triple check for the authenticity of her plans. If he as much as remotely suspects another man of liking his wife, he rounds up all of his wife’s friends to interrogate them on whether they suspect his wife of some indiscretion. If his fears are not assuaged by their replies, he then stalks the suspected man’s friends and family members and interrogates them for the same reason. Legend has it that everybody thinks this lawyer has lost all his marbles — that is, everybody but himself.

What lies at the bottom of this legendary couple’s dynamics is the man’s ego problem: a fractured sense of self and an ailing self-image. He does sound absurd — maybe even psychotic — but my heart goes out to him (if he, indeed, exists). He is certainly aware of a lack if not an absence of emotional connection with his spouse so he lives a life of desperation. The unconditional and unbreakable bond necessary for establishing a solid sense of security is nonexistent, hence the desperation. 

He will age prematurely, not to mention ungracefully. He will live a life of stress, of crippling suspicion and mistrust. He will not have a moment’s peace of mind and by the time he expires he will have wasted an entire life on sleuthing, doubting and feeling utterly miserable. To this type of man Dr. Phil might say, “Stop trying to manipulate your partner and start working on building relationships instead of breaking them down.” I, on the other hand, only have one word for him: “Chill!”

I know of a lot of women who are as painfully jealous as the legendary lawyer so I have always believed that the green-eyed monster of Shakespeare’s writings was always female. So rare is it for a man to be this rabidly and overtly jealous that when one does surface it assumes mythical proportions.

Jealousy always has malice behind it — malice that cannot speak its name, a cold-blooded but secret hostility mixed with generous helpings of rancor. Jealous women are tragic but jealous men, to me, are simply pathetic.

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.