Recently, I went to a social gathering at a friend’s house. When it comes to this circle of friends, my partner Ron and I usually drive to events together. This time around, Ron was out of town. So I asked my partner Cary for a ride since he was also going and my place was on the way.
He responded sure, FYI his new partner Shelley (my new metamour) would also be in the car.
Whoops. I realized Cary and Shelley were attending the party together. I didn’t want to be the Kool-Aid man who burst in on their night, so I replied that riding together was okay with me so long as Shelley was okay with it – and that it was totally okay for Shelley to not be okay with it.
Some background on this tangled web: At the time, Cary and I had been dating for a little under two years. Cary and Shelley had been dating for a few months. We’re all part of an extended friend group, many of whom practice ethically non-monogamy.
Up until this point, I’d socialized with Shelley in larger groups and I knew she was experienced with polyamory. Our interactions were positive, we’d just never spent extended time together. I like to be friends or at least friendly with metamours. I’d heard Shelley express a similar outlook.
Cary said that Shelley was okay with picking me up and dropping me off and our plans were set. I was optimistic and tamped down my nerves. To be honest, Shelley intimidated me a little bit. She seemed so smart and cool and impressive. I wanted to make a good impression.
My Relationship With Metamours
I’ve written before about how I prefer to relate to metamours. While friendship isn’t necessary, I like to be friendly with my partners’ partners. If someone is important to my partner, I like to make an effort to welcome and include them in my social circle. This is especially true if they’re a part of our extended community of friends so there’s a chance we’ll all be in the same space regularly.
My preferred style of ethical non-monogamy is kitchen table polyamory, where everyone in a polycule is comfortable sitting and having coffee around the kitchen table together. I prefer relationships that are open and transparent while staying respectful of partners’ privacy.
I find the monogamous idea of two people having to fulfill all of each other’s needs to be burdensome, isolating, unnecessary, and dare I say it, unnatural. I neither want nor need to be everything to my partners, nor do I want or need them to be everything to me. I want my partners to be open to the full spectrum of human connection, not limited by the connection they have with me.
For example, I hate camping but I have a partner who loves it. In heteronormative monogamy, we’re supposed to fulfill all of each other’s desires and needs. So does that mean I do something I hate to make my partner happy or does my partner stop doing what they love because I hate it? Or are we just not supposed to enjoy a relationship at all because we’re incompatible in this one way? (What a shame that would be.) With polyamory, my partner can go camping with his other partner who also loves camping. They have fun and I don’t have to poop in the woods. It’s a win-win-win!
You can extend this example to sexual preferences, sexual drive, and kinks, which can vary widely. So you can explore different styles of sensual play and express different aspects of your sexuality with different partners who enjoy the same types of activities as you.
I do have metamours I’ve never met and may never meet, especially if they’re casual partners who don’t engage with our regular social circles. I don’t avoid them, we just don’t have many reasons to meet. Maybe we’ll get a chance at our mutual partner’s birthday party or something.
I also consider myself lucky that I currently don’t have to deal with any “problem” metamours whose actions give my partners grief or disproportionately affect me or the rest of the polycule in negative ways.
What Is Compersion?
Some people describe compersion as the opposite of jealousy. Compersion involves feeling happiness or “sympathetic joy” when your partners experience happiness with other people, even if you’re not involved. Here’s an article that goes into greater depth about compersion.
In many ways, compersion comes naturally to me. I’m glad that I don’t have to carry the emotional burden of fulfilling all of my partners’ needs so I’m happy (and relieved) when they’re able to find additional fulfillment somewhere else. But I still experience jealousy from time to time just like anyone else.
After all, most of us have been trained by monogamous society to hoard our one and only partner’s love and attention lest we lose any part of them to someone else.
Hello There, Green-Eyed Monster
It’s funny how jealousy can appear when you least expect it. I don’t experience jealousy too often so when the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head I feel confounded and annoyed. I should be past this, I think, except that’s not really true because jealousy is an emotion just like any other. It’s natural to feel jealous. What matters is how you handle the feeling and what you do with it.
When Cary and Shelley picked me up that night, Cary got out of the car and kissed me before I settled into the backseat. Shelley held Cary’s hand as he drove and we chatted. I asked Shelley how her new job was going. I noticed the way they held hands was similar to how Cary and I would hold hands sometimes.
The evening went well. At one point Cary took an adorable photo of Shelley and me scheming about him from across the room. Cary and I had some time to hang out together amongst friends and we exchanged occasional touches with one another. The three of us left the party together and I took the backseat again. The ride back home felt more relaxed as we had all loosened up. Cary got out of the car to give me a good night kiss when they dropped me off. I assume Cary and Shelley spent the rest of the night together.
I dare say that it was a fun and successful night. I got feedback later that the feeling was mutual. I was glad to establish a baseline of friendliness with my metamour. I wanted her to know I was open to friendship but I didn’t want to force it or come on too strong. I also didn’t want to monopolize Cary’s time or attention at the party, but I enjoyed the opportunities we got to be affectionate. I think we were all able to achieve a nice balance.
And yet… the image of Cary and Shelley holding hands nagged at me.
Slaying the Mental Dragon
I never expected something as simple as holding hands to trigger feelings of jealousy. But the image inspired a series of comparisons in its wake. Is that how we hold hands in the same situation? Is there something about her touch that feels better than mine?
Fortunately, the stakes of this particular thought spiral remained pretty low. When I found myself ruminating on these thoughts, I reminded myself that I’m happy for my partner when he feels pleasure and that I neither have to be nor want to be his only source of pleasure. I refocused on the positives from that night – getting along with a metamour who is important to my partner, getting better acquainted with someone I’ve admired, growing my polycule in positive ways.
By redirecting my thoughts, I could move on and out of the jealousy spiral.
A few months later, Cary and I were hanging out and chatting. We don’t go into the specifics of our other relationships but we occasionally update each other on how things are going. He mentioned that his relationship with Shelley was currently taking up a lot of his mental space – not in a bad way, just intensifying. I acknowledged his feelings and we moved on.
That was the extent of the discussion. I usually like to hear about how my partner’s other relationships are going, especially if they’re going well. And yet jealousy struck, again – this time stronger than the last. This spiral was wider, easier to slip into, and deeper.
Am I not taking up enough of his mental space? Is she more interesting or engaging than me? Am I not exciting enough? Am I boring in comparison? What is he getting from her that he’s not getting from me?
Ironically, since Cary and Shelley’s relationship started, Cary and my relationship had also deepened and intensified in wonderful ways. I wasn’t being left behind or feeling like my needs weren’t being met. Quite the contrary: I was happy and satisfied. But jealousy doesn’t care about reality.
The stakes were higher in this jealousy spiral. I didn’t like how uncomfortable and unhappy these thoughts made me feel. I didn’t like how jealousy tempted me to change my behavior to act in “more interesting” ways or to demand more attention, ways that felt twisted and inauthentic. I didn’t like the zero-sum implications that one relationship must take away from another to bloom.
When this spiral threatened to pull me in, I started to entertain these jealous thoughts until they reached their logical conclusions. There, I would disarm them, like so:
- Is she more interesting or engaging than me? For the sake of argument, let’s say she is – what am I going to do about it? Do I get new hobbies? Do I try to be more like her? Except I am who I am and I have no desire to change myself to be like somebody else. Do I need to be the most interesting person ever? No. Do I even have the energy to try to be exciting all the time? Hell no. Has Cary shown interest in who I am as a person? Yes, repeatedly. Oh, right, he likes me for who I am.
- Is she more interesting or engaging than me? She does seem really interesting. Wouldn’t it be cool to be her friend? I’d much rather be included in such a cool person’s life than repel them. It’s actually kind of neat that we have this connection because of who we’re dating. (Clearly she’s got good taste.)
- What’s he getting from her that he’s not getting from me? Are Cary and I meeting each other’s needs? Yes, with no evidence to the contrary. Do I want Cary to stop sharing these kinds of updates with me? No, I like hearing what’s going on in his brain. Do I want to be the one person who meets all of Cary’s needs? No, I don’t want that from any of my partners. Do I want to deny Cary access to other people in his life who fulfill his needs? Definitely not. I’m glad that my partners have additional love and support, which takes pressure off of me to be their everything all the time.
This thought exercise helps me dial back the ruminating thoughts and step back from the anxious ledge. It helps ground me into reality on my terms, not the monogamous terms that have been drilled into me my whole life. And who knows, maybe the target of my jealousy has similar anxious thoughts about me.
I also consider the context around these thoughts. For example, Cary has other partners with whom I don’t feel jealousy. But I’ve been friends with them for years so we’re known quantities to each other. Shelley is his newest relationship. New relationship energy (NRE) can be especially intense. The fact that I admire her makes me feel insecure because she seems so cool. Plus, she seems (to me) successful in her career while I feel like I’m struggling for consistent success – a particularly sore point for me. And maybe I feel some insecurities about my relationship with Cary that manifest as jealousy aimed at his new connection.
The more I go through the disarming sequence, the less space these jealous thoughts take up.
The overarching theme of all this? My jealousy is my issue to deal with and disarm. I must look inward to untangle my mental knots. I don’t put that emotional labor on my partners or my metamours.
Most of us have internalized a lot of cisheteromononormative (that was a fun word to write) patriarchal bullshit through popular culture and social norms. We’ve all got to do our part in unpacking our own conditioning and addressing the sources of our insecurities.
Jealousy sucks, but it happens to us all, even those of us who have practiced polyamory for years. It helps to frame jealousy as just another normal emotion that will pass. Although the practice of disarming your jealousy and replacing it with compersion isn’t always easy, you can improve over time. In my humble opinion, this internal work is vital to achieving healthy non-monogamous relationships.
It’s been a few months since we all drove to that party together. Since then, Shelley and I have cuddled on either side of Cary while we watched a silly movie with friends, played friendly board games altogether in possibly the most polyamorous day I’ve ever lived, and she’s rehomed a number of her plants with me. The jealous voice still pops up every now and then but it’s quieter and takes less effort to overcome. I have a feeling this trend will continue as I get to know my metamour better.
How do you deal with jealousy? Please share your tips in the comments!