I watched a horrible episode of Dr. Phil today...

Not a criticism of the episode but a critique of the situation I saw today.

Yesterday we met a couple where the husband was totally obsessed with his wife. Well that was the title of the episode and the story was so compelling that there were three televised episodes and we'll still see updates. I probably only started to see the episode only about halfway in so I'll just tell you a little about what a know about this situation.

Dr. Phil visits the home of Jeffrey and Jennifer when they find that he will place bugs and hidden cameras around the house just to track her every move. I wonder what's that about? Does he think she's cheating on him. Well that element is still there.

Anyway, Jeffrey is undergoing some type of treatment where we see him discuss with his doctor how he would have liked the treatment to go and he understand that he's the only one standing in his own way. He wanted them to think he was OK but they proved to be tough and he figured out that he was no where close to being well with whatever angst he had. Eventually Jeffrey got to talk to Dr. Phil himself.

This was a rambling segment where he expressed how much he wanted to see his wife and kids. He wanted so much to see his wife and hoped to be able to join her and bring her in for some of his treatment. One guy who was involved in the situation said his (own) head was going to explode. Dr. Phil and his colleague said that this situation was going to be dangerous.

Guess what?

In the next episode we see that after leaving the studios Jeffrey would make his move and bolt from his SUV back to his clinic. He was riding around in Taxi cabs in Los Angeles making demands. Talking about writing bad checks to get a plane ticket back home. All kinds of stuff.

All the while Jennifer got in touch with her attorney and they talked about writing up the papers for her divorce from Jeffrey. She had to have already made up her mind and unfortunately feared for not only her safety but that of her children. She was strategizing on how to get her children squared away with her babysitter on the east coast but she didn't figure on one thing.

Jeffrey got home first and was already looking up phone numbers and email messages of Jennifer. He tried to hug her and she tried to tell him to leave their home. Jeffrey was still acting crazy and decided to take their daughters and out he went. Police was called with him at first convincing them that she was crazy then she had to convince them that he was a danger.

She got her kids and made for the midwest where she's from originally. Jennifer was quite concerned that Jeffrey was gonna to not only contact her there but that he was going to pay her a visit in the midwest. Obviously this situation was getting to Jennifer and definitely unbeknownst to Jeffrey.

In the meanwhile Jennifer's lawyer was making those moves trying to get an early courtdate so that he can deliver some papers to him. Jeffrey wanted to deny this situation and threw the papers back, but the lawyer explained that this was almost like putting some toothpaste back in the tube. When ever they went back to court Jeffrey lost badly in that he could only see his children until he has seen a psychiatrist and that he can have absolutely no contact with Jennifer forever. I mean WOW!!! It was that serious.

You would think that was the end of the story but it wasn't. Jeffrey at some point expressed interest in resuming his treatment and he called Dr. Phil producers. They arranged for him to be readmitted back to his clinic only for him to leave a few day later. During this time he concocted the story that his wife was cheating on him with another man and he wanted to be sure that his children would not get too close to this new man. There were pictures of this man with his face pixelated as his wife explained that she has met him maybe five minutes before that picture was taken.

Well his behavior got more bizzare before we found out what happened to Jeffrey. He disappeared and there were concerned that he would hurt himself. This story even made the local news in their homestate of Virginia. While he was ordered never to contact Jennifer again he continued to call and attempted to visit their home. Before he moved out he even went so far to as to snatch her underwear and sleepwear and post "I love you" notes all over their home.

Eventually he was caught attempting to contact her one last time before he was arrested for violating a court order prohibiting his contact of Jennifer and was put in jail without bond. He is awaiting trial. It was that bad.

If only we could know how far people can go in their behavior. What caused Jeffrey to go to such extremes with his wife? Why would he think it was appropriate? And for him to do all this would it be love? At what point does love become obsession?

There are a lot of questions to be asked. For those of you who saw the show in question, I hope you learned something. I hoped if give someone pause before they fell in love and got married to someone who can be a problem. I hope both guys and gals are re-evaluating their relationships and how they behave towards their partners. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here.