By far my favourite blog lately has been Not an Odalisque‘s. She writes beautifully – and has recently been exploring issues in a way that has repeatedly struck perceptively at the heart of many of my own scene debates and dilemmas. One such a few weeks back was about “Jealousy”, where she wrote:
Non-poly people, on learning I’m polyamorous, always want to know if I’m jealous. I say that I’m not, and receive a puzzled look, then usually a statement that they would get jealous, that they just couldn’t do it, which is strange because I’ve never invited them to. It’s a lie, of course… I do get jealous. I get horribly, irrationally jealous. I get jealous of people I hardly know. I’m jealous of friends of friends for being diverting and funny. I’m jealous of kinksters on Twitter who have more play and have better pain tolerances than I do…
Now, jealousy for me is an emotion that sits very uncomfortably with being poly. How can I be jealous, when I’m in / have been in multiple relationships? I really don’t have the right. But it can be a hard fight. Here’s what I wrote as a comment:
I’ve never been jealous of my partners. Love, trust and honesty go hand in hand – and a slightly voyeuristic streak means I’ve found the thought of them doing hot and interesting things with others to be rather exciting. And, not least, I’ve been happy for them; glad that others love them as I do; glad they’re being taken care of and enjoying themselves.
But when partners do deep things with others that they no longer do with me, even in ways that are entirely understandable (and where we’ve mutually agreed that they’re not right)? When they’re no longer partners, per se? When I fear, more than anything else, losing what share of their love and emotion I have left? Then… OMG, then, the insecurity – and hence the (shameful) jealousy – is hard to stave off.
I think I’m coming to terms with the fact that the Jealousy Demon does lurk within, driven by deep-seated fears of rejection and loneliness. In good times, it’s easy to keep at bay – hence my previous avowed denials. But when emotions are more confused and in tougher times, the battle’s more difficult to win. Perhaps, it’s easier for me to genuinely not be jealous by acknowledging that deep-down I sometimes can’t actually help it.
Maybe jealousy itself just has a bad name since it seems to be a pretty honest emotion. What we get hooked on is that we shouldn’t *feel * it, particularly if poly, instead of actually thinking about what we *do* with the feeling.
What always makes me sad is that once jealousy becomes an active emotion over the long term it makes ‘true’ what wasn’t so at the beginning. It is difficult to live with being seen through the villainous green pantomime smoke where delight gets punctured and every action is suspect.
I don’t think I always know how being on the inside of a set of relationships looking out together turns to leave one feeling on the outside looking in but the only way I’ve ever found of getting out of it has been by being able to acknowledge what’s happening and finding the core which makes a relationship between any two people uniquely different from that either of them has with any other.