"But to bring to light, some day, those passages in the life of Odette to which he had owed his suffering had not been Swann's only ambition; he had also resolved to avenge himself for his sufferings when, being no longer in love with Odette, he should no longer be afraid of her; and the opportunity of gratifying this second ambition had now presented itself, for Swann was in love with another woman, a woman who gave him no grounds for jealousy but none the less made him jealous, because he was no longer capable of altering his mode of loving."
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 564-565
Another reflection from Proust on Swann's tortured love affair with Odette. Swann eventually realized that "if Odette had loved him more than he supposed, she had also deceived him more." So, maybe there was some justification for his jealousy, but it's odd how a person can not have one jealous day in his life and then suddenly, in regard to one woman, suddenly become a massively insecure and almost insanely jealous person. In this case, and so many others, once that switch is flipped you can't turn it off. I have been involved with a few intensely jealous women in my life, and I would have to balance out the fact that maybe their jealousy did actually mean that they loved me passionately. And that passionate love might have had many beneficial consequences that more than made up for the jealousy, which is tough to reconcile with the fact that I abhor jealousy. It does destroy relationships. However, I've also had relationship with women who seemed much more distant emotionally, which could be frustrating, but it also meant that I had more freedom - even though I often found myself wishing that they a little more clingy. Yes, we will always fine a way to make ourselves unhappy, because we are idiots.
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 564-565
Another reflection from Proust on Swann's tortured love affair with Odette. Swann eventually realized that "if Odette had loved him more than he supposed, she had also deceived him more." So, maybe there was some justification for his jealousy, but it's odd how a person can not have one jealous day in his life and then suddenly, in regard to one woman, suddenly become a massively insecure and almost insanely jealous person. In this case, and so many others, once that switch is flipped you can't turn it off. I have been involved with a few intensely jealous women in my life, and I would have to balance out the fact that maybe their jealousy did actually mean that they loved me passionately. And that passionate love might have had many beneficial consequences that more than made up for the jealousy, which is tough to reconcile with the fact that I abhor jealousy. It does destroy relationships. However, I've also had relationship with women who seemed much more distant emotionally, which could be frustrating, but it also meant that I had more freedom - even though I often found myself wishing that they a little more clingy. Yes, we will always fine a way to make ourselves unhappy, because we are idiots.
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