Jealousy, polyamory and open relationships – Walking into the fire
OK I’ve been meaning to write something about my views on jealousy, open relationships and polyamory for a while, so here it is. All opinion and ‘in my experience’ obviously.
Let’s start with some questions…
Would you agree that jealousy is basically a feeling that someone else has something you don’t, that you can’t compare, or that, for whatever reason, you are in danger of being side-lined or losing the person you care for?
Would you want to be stuck in a relationship with someone who was unhappy, with someone who preferred someone else but felt trapped with you, or with someone who was lying to you?
If you love someone, would you want them to be happy, to be free to choose their own life and to be fullfilled in whatever way they want?
As far as I can see, jealousy is striving for the first sort of relationship, and trying to stifle the second… but I get that it still seems like the sensible option somehow, even though all of the results of it are horribly destructive and negative. So let’s consider what happens without jealousy…
Without jealousy, you run your relationships entirely on the idea that if a partner would prefer to be with someone else, there is no point in trying to trap them into being with you; that if they want to leave, there is no point trying to force them to stay; that if they see someone you feel is better than you, they are seeing a great person, and if they prefer them to you, it was never going to work anyway, because you need someone in your life that prefers you. They haven’t done anything bad by finding someone that suits them better – you love them, so you are happy that they are happy. It might be a shitter for you, but the only other option (trapping them and forcing them into a lesser relationship) is worse for both of you.
A far more healthy way to keep somebody, IMHO, is to be the best person you can, so that you are actually the one they want to be with.
Now, this doesn’t always work your way. For instance my first wife decided she preferred my best friend and wanted to try monogamy with him. That’s a shit situation, and bad luck for me, but I still feel that if I had stood in their way and tried to stop her even finding out she preferred him by being jealous and gaurded, I might have kept her, but I know it would not have been the marriage she wanted. There would always have been something missing, and in the end we would have both been unhappy. It’s like stopping someone from getting their dream job by telling them they should be satisfied with their lot. IMHO that’s not something you do to someone you love.
Which brings us to open relationships and poly. You could argue all of the above and still say ‘Yeah, but monogamy is still great if you find the right partner’.
However, that assumes a human can only have strong or sexual feelings for one person. This is nonsense for the vast majority of humanity, as is proven by the fact that most monogamous relationships involve affairs at some point, or prostitiutes, or repressed longing, or dissatisfaction, or whatever. Often the relationship recovers and carries on, and that is considered a success in monogamous terms. But the fact that one of the partners wanted time with someone else demonstrates that the jealousy of the other monogamous partner is limiting them and not allowing them to be free and fulfilled.
So that all sounds great, in theory, but doesn’t deal with feelings of insecurity, and worries that other people are better or that you might lose your chosen partner, right?
Well, for me the best thing about being open and poly, is that once you truly ‘get it’ it actually does deal with your feelings of insecurity! In a jealous/monogamous relationship those feelings are there, because you are always wondering if your partner would prefer to be elsewhere. In an open, or poly, relationship that ceases to be an issue. If your partner would rather be with someone else they would be. So if they are spending time with you it’s because they want to, not because they should. At that point you know they are happy and fulfilled with you, and would not prefer someone else.
OK, there is the risk that they will decide they do like someone else better and move on; but that happens in monogamous relationships too. Break ups are always shitty, either way, but even then, if you view relationships this way, there’s a level where you are happy that at least they have what they wanted and you know you never got in their way, and it’s a lot easier to handle a breakup without recriminations and hatred getting involved.
So, IMHO, over time, poly lifestyle actually deals with jealousy and insecurities by it’s very nature. If everyone is 100% honest and open it proves you are safe and secure. Complete openness, good communication and honesty are absolute pre-requisites and deal breakers, but then they should be in any romantic/sexual relationship IMHO.
It’s like being confronted with a wall of fire, with a magical world beyond it. Somebody tells you the fire won’t burn you, but it seems insane to chance it. In the end you go ‘fuck it’ and walk into the fire, only to find it really doesn’t burn you. Everyone outside the fire thinks you are crazy and will get burned, whereas in fact you can freely explore the world beyond the fire in the full secure knowledge that if it was going to burn you it would have by now. Everyone back on the ‘safe’ side has an example of a friend that entered the fire and got burned. This is because some bits really are hot, and you might well get a few burns as you explore, but if you learn what to avoid, you can pass back and forth unscathed.
Even if you do get burned a few times, it’s better than the alternative of of being trapped and limited by fear of the unknown and unfounded beliefs IMHO.
I have no issue with monogamy, especially if people have a positive jealousy-free outlook and decide they are both only interested in the other partner, so have no desire to see anyone else. That’s just great. But I think setting it as a ‘rule’ is unhealthy. I also can’t deny that I would worry about people who are only capable of loving one other person. There is no ‘maximum capacity’ for love IMHO, so that just seems to suggest they don’t have much love to go around, and/or are really just looking for something to cover their own needs, rather than seeing love as something that is giving. I’m not, however, saying that people who choose to be monogamous are wrong! Maybe they just see walking into the fire as an unnecessary risk since they have everything they need on this side, or maybe they really do have a limitation to how much love they can give – either way, if it’s right for you and you are both happy, that’s wonderful.
If you are embarking on a new open or poly life, however, and finding it difficult to challenge your jealousy and insecurities, maybe this philosophy could be helpful. Sometimes it’s good to have an idea why you are doing something, especially if it goes against social norms and your upbringing. If this writing can help one person to face their own feelings in a positive way it was worth the effort to write it.
I find that reconsidering this outlook if things get rocky is useful, because it identifies real feelings. If you are feeling jealous and think through the sequence of ideas I offer above, you might realise it’s actually something else: maybe fear you are losing someone for instance. By putting that feeling into this context you might find yourself dealing with it very differently. Whereas a jealous reaction to that feeling would be to fly into a rage and have an argument (thereby almost certainly damaging the relationship you hope to save), the rational response to a fear you are losing someone (rather than jealousy) is to sit down and explain to them how you feel, and ask what the deal is. NOT that you are feeling jealous – there’s nothing anyone but you can do about that – but that you are afraid something is going wrong with the relationship. Neither approach will stop you losing the person if they are unhappy, but the second way avoids nastiness, is far more likely to repair the relationship, and avoids anyone being trapped in an unhappy situation.
So that’s what I think. Now you can all tell me I’m an opinionated asshat 