Managing Jealousy in Ethical Non-Monogamy
Jealousy is unfortunately not unique to ethical non-monogamy. We all deal with it! However, we must acknowledge that folks who are in consensually alternative relationship structures (CARS) have more instances of being confronted with spicy emotions and uncomfortable situations. Fine, I’ll say it: ENM generally makes us more jealous. Blame it on society, compulsory monogamy, our upbringings, insecurity, or whoever/ whatever else. End of the day, seeing our pals fuck, love, etc, with metas can be distressing (especially in the beginning).
Check out our Jealousy 101 WORKBOOK to deepen your understanding!
Jealousy is a BITCH framework:
Breathe
Breathing alone obviously won’t resolve your jealousy. But, if you’re anything like me, experiencing jealousy induces panic. Panicking makes everything so much worse and it’s a really hard pattern to change. Learn to create space to clear heads and allow emotions to simmer down before tackling an issue by:
1. Recognize & Remove Stressors
2. Distract & Deescalate Negative Feelings
3. Soothe & Slow Down Before Discussing
Identify integrity
Integrity means recognizing that even when you’re in emotionally activated states you will still behave in ways that uphold your core values and personal beliefs. When I’m acting with integrity I’m behaving in ways that feel good and do good for myself, my pals, and my polycule.
Teamwork
When you’re dealing with jealousy, often your best resource will be your pals. Treat your pal with curiosity rather than vilification. You need to know what’s going on with them too! I know it can be easy to see each other on opposite teams when dealing with conflict, but coming to compromises that work for everyone requires cooperation. Refusing to hear out your pals, stonewalling, getting aggressive, or otherwise antagonizing the situation, will make it far harder to solve the issue.
Chill the fuck out
Jealousy itself isn’t destructive, it’s what we do with that energy that can become problematic. Getting in the habit of letting small things go, or addressing them with pals in non-catastrophic ways, helps us move through jealousy more productively. My friend has a great way of approaching this: if an issue is going to continue bothering you in the future, then address it directly with your pals. But if you’re just feeling spicy and know there’s actually nothing that can reasonably be done, then work on letting it go.
Hindsight debrief
Give my pals the ability to debrief when y’all are no longer in heightened emotional states. There’s not a right or wrong timeline for doing debriefs, but I encourage the person who experienced the jealousy outbreak to take initiative in bringing it back up. Remember that no one’s to blame. The goal here is to reevaluate the situation with a fresh perspective. I also like to take this time with my pal to reinforce the good progress we made so we can continue to act kindly and respectfully towards one another when future jealousy comes up.
This framework is meant to give you the foundations for dealing with spicy emotions that commonly occur in polyamory. The BITCH acronym is meant to give you a process for dealing with jealousy while reminding you that sometimes jealousy really is just a bitch and there’s nothing else to do but sit and wait it out. After all, at its core, jealousy is simply a set of unpleasant emotions but none of them will last forever. Jealousy 101 WORKBOOK
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