Jealousy.

Such a scary emotion.

Think back to the last time you felt jealous; how would you describe it? It’s such a deadly combination of so many negative emotions.

Anger.

Betrayal.

Fear.

Insecurity.

Indignation.

Inadequacy.

Disgust.

Helplessness.

See? Shitty, shitty emotions. No good can come of that. So, because we are wired to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, we do anything and everything we can so that we don’t EVER have to feel this way.

Unfortunately, many of the ‘safeguards’ we put in place are actually detrimental to having intimate relationships with any kind of depth and breadth. The fear of feeling jealous causes us to construct our relationships in such a way that we think we will be insulated from all the crappy feels.

For example, I once heard tell of a couple in which the female would not allow her male partner to wear sunglasses in public so she could watch where his eyeballs went.

Read that again…

Yeah, I know.

Some couples have very strict rules about contact with exes; others want to limit or exclude any and all friendships with the opposite sex.

Guys night or girls night out are treated with pouting, or the third degree before, during, and after.

Still others track each other and insist on a grueling ‘checking in’ schedule. That’s something I used to do at the park where we spent our summers when I was a kid.

How about going through each others phones, computers, email? Look, I’m going to tell you right now, if you feel the need to play detective, it’s already over.

Whether conscious or not, these measures are put in place because people believe they will be a stopgap from feeling that asshole jealousy.

But it’s futile.

Jealousy will find its way in and close its long, icy fingers around your heart, and squeeze the fuck out of it.

Let’s peel the onion here. You need to ask yourself one question.

“What are you afraid of?”

Don’t think too hard about the answer, accept the first thing that comes into your mind.

And then ask again.

And again.

Until you get to the root of what all of these restrictions and rules are for.

Are you afraid that your partner will cheat on you? Deceive you? Leave you? Let me tell you something, if someone wants to do any of those things, there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. And you’ll drive yourself batty in the meantime trying to keep up with the monitoring.

So many couples run headlong into their relationships without any discussion of what the desires, expectations, limitations, or dealbreakers of each individual are.

We assume too much, and communicate FAR too little.

Too many people feel that they ‘have’ their partner. That they ‘belong’ to them. Popular movies, music, and media reinforce this falsehood. That there is ‘the one’ for you. And you two will spend 4 or 5 decades together, and the relationship is only deemed a success when one or both of you die.

Sounds fun.

And yet so many people end up heartbroken, why?

Because the fairy tale forgets to tell us something.

Monogamy is difficult. Really difficult. Like if you mess up once, JUST once, you are absolutely abysmal at it.

Can you think of anything else on the planet that has that same kind of demand of perfection?

I can’t.

A few months after we started dating, Dante and I were staring down the reality of being separated by a couple of continents for a couple of months. That was a lot of geographical and temporal space.

One of the things that had brought us together in the beginning was how we prioritized sex and physical affection in our lives. We each didn’t want the other to go without that physicality for that long.

We had a very honest discussion about how to navigate the next few weeks. We decided that we would open our relationship for the time we were apart and revisit when we were together again.

This was the first time I’d ever experienced this level of communication and honesty. And the first time I’d ever been in anything other than a monogamous relationship. As scary as this was, it also made me realize something.

Monogamy is not a cure for jealousy.

I thought back to some of my previous relationships, all monogamous, and could think of many times that I’d felt jealous. Like, sick to my stomach jealous. There were other times where I was accused of indiscretions (unfounded). There were arguments, threats, resentment, and hurt feelings.

Why not try something new?

The first time Dante had a date with another woman, I remember thinking, ‘I just need to go to sleep. I’ll wake up in the morning, and it will all be over.’

And my scumbag brain woke me up just in time for me to realize that shit was happening in real time.

What a mind fuck.

My first thought was panic. How am I going to deal with this? I need to go back to sleep; to quiet my mind. The waves of jealousy crashed over me; but this time, the feelings of anger and betrayal were absent.

Those feelings weren’t there because there was no deception. We had talked openly about it. This was different.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still rough. But the blind rage that some experience (and some commit murder over) wasn’t there, and I thought to myself, ‘this really sucks; I gotta peel the onion.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

That he’s having more fun with her.

‘What are you afraid of?’

That he will prefer her.

‘What are you afraid of?’

That he will fall in love with her.

‘What are you afraid of?’

That he’ll ask me not to join him like we planned, and he will end the relationship.

I stopped there. After every answer to the question, I realized that NONE of those things were likely to be true. Our jealousy lies to us, tells us the worst stories that force us to realize our worst fears about ourselves and our partners.

I rolled the last answer around in my head. If that were to actually happen, then I could handle that too, because the time we did have was full of love, communication, and honesty.

I could let him go if I needed to. Without anger, without bitterness. Just love for a human that never ‘belonged’ to me. Because you never ‘have’ your partner.

I began to breathe. In. Out. A mantra formed in my mind.

He’s having fun. He’s getting what he needs. He loves you for giving him that gift.

Over and over. My mind began to quiet.

And I slept.

The next day, I had a date with someone I had been casually seeing before Dante. He was attractive, and the chemistry was good. But it felt different this time.

I didn’t enjoy it like I thought I would. I felt…empty.

When Dante and I unpacked all of this, we realized that for the time being, we didn’t want to have sex without the other one there; what that looked like moving forward, we weren’t sure.

Sometimes to discover what it is that you want, you have to start with figuring out what you don’t want.

And Dante and I didn’t want to be separated.

There are some amazing and unexpected things about being in a monogamish (thank you, Dan Savage) relationship.

Monogamy demands that you refrain from all sexual contact from anyone except your partner.

Monogamish relationships are more flexible; expansive. It affords lots of room for communication, expression of needs and desires, and perhaps most importantly, for evolution of the relationship, while maintaining a sense of selfhood and autonomy for each of us.

Our relationship looks very different now than it did when we began.

We imagine that it will look different a year from now, or five, or 20.

We said from the beginning, ‘everything is on the table.’ Not that anything goes, just that anything is up for discussion and no one gets shut down or shamed for expressing what they want or feel.

Do we still experience jealousy?

Oh hell yeah.

Dante and I call it a ‘flash’. That feeling that instantly plunges you into the abyss and makes you want to either vomit or hit something.

He’s had them, and so have I.

The difference is that one of us will turn to the other and say, ‘hey, I just had a flash.’ And the other will say, ‘tell me about that. What’s going on?’

And we talk about it. We peel the onion.

And you know what? It slays that big, green, fear monster.

It turns jealousy from something we sabotage our relationships to avoid into something that nudges you to let you know that you feel strongly about something and should probably discuss it.

Peel your onion.

This one may not make your eyes water.

Love,

Beatrice