The Othello Response: Dealing with Jealousy, Suspicion and Rage in Your Relationship [Paperback]

Kenneth C. Ruge (Author), Barry Lenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Obsessive violence is the cause of more than half of the murders in the world and it is behind nearly all domestic violence. It destroys relationships. It destroys lives. Yet those facts may not touch upon the worst part of the harm done by obsessive, compulsive jealousy: the irreparable harm it can cause to us and to our most precious relationships. Now authors Kenneth Ruge and Barry Lenson coin a new name—the Othello Response—for this pervasive form of destructive jealousy and offer pinpointed advice on how to keep it from causing irreparable harm. In The Othello Response, readers discover how to recognize the Othello Response and determine whether it is doing damage, prevent the Othello Response from taking hold in relationships if it has not already, and heal one's relationship in the wake of actual affairs or infidelity. Rich in practical advice and case studies, The Othello Response brings a widespread problem to light and offers help to countless people whose lives are in turmoil.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569245037
• ISBN-13: 978-1569245033
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,415,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as helpful as I had hoped, May 17, 2005

By 

S.R.W. Phillips "StevieRae5" (Lexington, Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Othello Response: Dealing with Jealousy, Suspicion and Rage in Your Relationship (Paperback)

Anyone who has been in a relationship where unfounded jealousy has been a factor can attest to the fact that it is a miserable situation to find yourself in. When I came across this title while surfing on Amazon, I thought it could prove to be an invaluable resource. After all, the title advertises it as a book that can help you overcome the jealousy and possessiveness that has such destructive potential.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like I got much out of the book. The writing kind of makes you feel like you're about seven years old. It doesn't flow well and seems choppy and thrown together. If it had said something very valuable, though, I don't think this would have bothered me as much as it did. I kept waiting for some sound advice as to how to establish trust in a relationship that seems to be lacking in that all-important quality, but it never seemed to come. The authors seemed to spend an awful lot of time on how to heal when there has been an actual infidelity of some type that makes the jealousy justified, so I kept reading and hoping that soon they would touch on situations in which jealousy is NOT founded and the person being blamed did nothing wrong. This never seemed to come--in fact, in one of the latter chapters, they began by saying they were now going to shift focus to people who had actually had an infidelity in their relationship. This completely stunned me, since I felt like I had been already reading all about that. The case studies offered up to that point had already included couples in which an affair had occurred, so I figured I was still into the "healing relationships affected by infidelity" portion of the book. Although they use the name "The Othello Response" and discuss Desdemona's innocence, they never seem to talk about real people's innocence when battling the Othello response.

There is a quiz in this book which I found very frustrating as well. For one thing, it is incredibly badly edited. You are to answer questions and then award yourself points and add up your points, that kind of thing. However, the editing is so bad that, in the portion where they break it down and discuss each question individually, they are sometimes backward. For example, the question could be, "I feel that my partner respects me." Then, you would mark 1 for "strongly agree" up through 5 for "strongly disagree." They would have their own quiz backward, and would be discussing how it's a huge red flag if you have marked a 1 and that you should head for the hills, basically. This could be overlooked if it only happened on one question, but the last one-third of the questions on the 60-question quiz were messed up like this. I felt that this could be a huge problem for people who aren't paying close attention.

Moreover, some of the advice put forth in the quiz was a little disconcerting. For example, one of the questions was something to the effect of "My partner would be able to tell you, in detail, what I did on a day when the two of us weren't together." The authors seemed to feel that your partner SHOULD be able to tell someone else--in GREAT DETAIL, mind you--what you did on a day they weren't together, because this breeds trust. I must disagree. A relationship just has to have more trust than that to begin with. I mean, what are we coming to? Those little bracelets that convicts under house arrest wear so the police can make sure they don't leave? It just seems like, if the trust in your relationship is so corroded or was never there to begin with to the extent that you need to detail your every movement to your partner, you really shouldn't be in that relationship to begin with.

I was incredibly disappointed in this book, because I just thought it was going to be much more helpful. I am planning on reading other books concerning this topic, so I really don't have a good recommendation for anyone instead of this book. The best I can do at this point in time is to tell you that, if you're looking for a book to save your relationship from Shakespeare's infamous "green-eyed monster," pass this one up and keep looking.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real Help for a Common Problem, December 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Othello Response: Dealing with Jealousy, Suspicion and Rage in Your Relationship (Paperback)

Since I have a divorced friend who is recovering from an abusive marriage of more than 20 years, I am always scouring bookstore shelves looking for anything and everything that can help her understand what she has been through. As soon as I began to page through The Othello Response, a number of light bulbs lit up in my head all at once. I suddenly saw that many of the problems my friend had confronted (a husband who never wanted her to leave the house, one who did everything to make her feel unattractive and dumb) had a very real link to her ex-husband's unspoken fear that she would attract other men if he let her enjoy any freedom in her life. My only quibble with the book is that it gets maybe a little overly intellectual at times, delving into the hidden lessons of the Othello play. But you can skip that if you want and, overall, I think the authors of this book are right. Many of the odd anger-related problems people encounter in their relationships can be traced to unspoken jealousy. Here's a book that can help people understand and remedy some of the odd problems that unsettle their world. I also think it is great that the authors took pains to include everybody - both gay people and straight in their research and advice. It's not just a book for married people.