Yes, that’s a Dune reference and a Fleetwood Mac song title. I never said I was cool.
So, I feel like this is going to be something of an admission, but I’m going to put it out there.
I feel jealousy.
I imagine I feel it with the same intensity as anyone else. In the early days of exploring polyamory, I knew plenty of people who would remark “I never feel jealousy! When I see my partner with another I instead feel compersion.”
Well, I’m very fucking happy for you, but the idea of never feeling jealousy in any level is anathema to me. I’m not saying that I’m constantly mere minutes from enacting violent retribution on all of my metamours (no, really, guys … we cool), but my jealousy is a heckler in a crowded room.
Some days he’s quiet and surly at the back of the room and you barely notice him. Sometimes he’s a loud mouth drunk and raving in the front row and so much harder to ignore. But every time he’s there in some capacity. I do feel this “compersion” that people speak of, but on some level I will more or less always have a jealous reaction too. Sometimes it’s a fragile eidolon of an emotion barely there long enough to be perceived. Sometimes it’s a fist of ice around my heart.
Sounds pretty unpleasant, doesn’t it? So why do I put myself through it? Why choose to put myself in a position that will result in some level of suffering?
My answer is, “because it doesn’t matter! Not a whit!” I don’t act out of anger, I don’t act out of lethargy, I don’t act out of hunger, I don’t act out of pain. Our bodies, over the centuries, have developed a million complicated senses and that’s why we survived. They’re defences. We tell hot and cold when we touch objects that make us more hot or cold. The more it’s going to do that, the less we enjoy the feeling. When something is damaging the meat of our bodies, our bodies give us pain to drive us away from the source of the trauma.
Jealousy is just another signal my brain produces, and I decided a long time ago that I don’t need it. I consider it a vestigial emotion and I imagine it as a throwback to the stereotype of the violent caveman: “Your hold on this woman is challenged! Cave in his skull or he may take her from you! And then how will your seed continue?!”
But I don’t need this useless emotion. Like the coccyx, the appendix, or the wisdom teeth, it’s an atavism, a leftover drive from a darker time, where violence was an everyday tool of survival and civilization was a concept that couldn’t be expressed with the languages of the time.
But it’s there, and it isn’t comfortable.
I’m not meaning to sound like I conquered it; I just decided that I don’t want jealousy to motivate my decisions. That isn’t the kind of fight you win — you just win each round, knowing you’ll have to put your fists up again later. But it certainly gets easier the more you do it.
I have my wife M. and I love her dearly. When we first started dating we were polyamorous, and some days my jealousy could be palpable, but I was always knew it was my problem to deal with and not hers. We’ve been married a year and a half today, and our love is strong as can be. The heckler is a tiny voice drowned out in a sea of well wishers… but he’s there.
Doe lives 200 miles away, we rarely get to interact without the Internet as our medium, and she likes to post evocative pictures of herself to the Internet and some days the complimentary posts from faceless boys on the Internet can annoy me on some base competitive level. But she means as much to me as I do to her, and I’d never restrain her.
Jane and I have only been involved for 2 months, but it’s been intense. We’re using words like love, and meaning it. Jane has several partners and one very serious one that isn’t me, but meeting my metamours in this branch hasn’t been a challenge, as Jane has impeccable taste. And when she’s visiting a partner in another state and tells me she’s jumping offline to go make a boy very lucky, I’ll tell her to give him a high five from me when they’re done, and I’ll mean it… but he’s there, that heckler, in the back of that auditorium somewhere. He’ll never completely shut up.
I don’t want it to sound like my life is a constant struggle to keep myself from anger or black moods, my life is (to borrow a term) blessed. I have multiple women who love me, and I love them right back.
This is the life I chose and I regret not a damn thing.
I’m sure it’ll come as a terrible shock that I’m leaving this comment, what with the fact that I flat out told you I would, but:
I know you’re using the example of the caveman, and the whole violent-dawn-of-time thing in order to better illustrate the idea of a vestigial trait. Which is quite nice in its own evocative way, but I think it’s pretty unfair to make blanket statements about the darker times of civilization in a post about one aspect of human relationships. You imply that Ye Olde Cave Days were a horrible amalgam of violence and jealousy, when in fact, there is evidence pointing to the fact that our more hirsute ancestors lived in perfectly functional communities wherein monogamy WASN’T the norm.
All of your points about jealousy as it exists for *you* are perfectly valid and I’m glad you’ve sorted it out in your head. But there’s a heavy implication here that the ‘overcoming’ jealousy is somehow more evolved that whatever came before. Which, if what came before was polyamorous/polygamous social units, is not particularly true. There are arguments to be made for how monogamy isn’t the default state of being for people, and how it came about as a result of the shift from living as hunter-gatherers to living by means of agriculture. I can’t claim with absolute certainty that this is TOTALLY how it happened, and every other theory is wrong – but I can cite my sources and make a decent argument for why it’s entirely possible.
And the point of my saying so is to draw attention to the fact that you’re presenting a VERY simplified and stereotypical example of the role of jealousy in human interactions throughout time. Which, I’m pretty sure you didn’t set out to make this about the history of feelings, but you chose to use the example of cavemen and their violent ways, and if you’re going to throw that around, you might as well strive to step beyond the simplified stereotype, no matter how well it illustrates your point.
Your thoughts on jealousy are interesting and I did enjoy being able to look at things from your perspective. However, I think I there are two main issues that, in my opinion, were left out of this look into jealousy as a human emotion.
First, and foremost, jealously is often (not always, but, in my experience, a HELL of a lot of the time) created from feelings of inadequacy. What does s/he have they I don’t? Why does s/he like them more? Does s/he not care about me? Is s/he prettier? More interesting? Better in bed? Most people will admit to feeling/thinking these thoughts from time to time. I think that recognizing feelings of inadequacy and unpacking them is not only fundamental to being able to cope with feelings of jealously in poly relationships, but monogamous as well. If Partner A is always thinking that aren’t good enough for Partner B (such as is often the case in a monogamous relationships) or another person, Partner C, is better for them, then I think conflict is inevitable. Being able to not only realize, but accept, that it’s NOT about what you cannot offer, but instead about what you DO bring to the table does lot to mitigate feeling of jealously that stem from feelings of inadequacy.
Secondly, I think that in poly relationships, jealousy can often come from misplaced egos. Thinking “why isn’t this person doing/saying x,y, or z with me?” but is doing x,y, or z with another person can lead to jealousy. News flash: It’s not all about you. Learning to accept that you’re important to your other partners, regardless if you’re the first, or second, or third in importance can do a lot of challenge feelings of jealous. For me, the bottom line is does this partner make me happy? Are they living up to the expectations/responsibilities we’ve established? If the answer is yes, then what does it matter what they’re doing with other people? And if you’re feeling left out or mistreated, then perhaps it’s time to visit point 1 above (ie are you feeling jealous because you’re feeling down on yourself/inadequate?)
This may not being the case for everyone out there. But for me, more often then not, if I’m experiencing feeling of jealousy, it usually has more to do with my own self-doubt and ego than any one thing (or person) my partner is or is not doing.