Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners (22 page)

Sophia and Rick had enjoyed an open marriage for twelve years. During this time, each has had other relationships separately and sometimes dated as a couple as well. Sophia is an attractive and confident woman who was proud that she’d never been jealous or possessive of Rick. She was much admired for this in the sexually open circles in which they’d always found their other partners. When Rick began a relationship with a woman he’d met at a business conference, Sophia experienced jealousy for the first time. “His business associates are bound to notice,” she complained. “They don’t know what kind of relationship we have, that we’ve done this kind of thing for years, and they just won’t understand. I’m afraid they’ll think he’s cheating on me.”

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Exclusion jealousy
, which is sometimes also called
time jealousy
, is very common in polyamory. Like ego jealousy, people often resist identifying this variation as a form of jealousy, but the bodily sensations and behaviors are often indistinguishable from other types of jealousy. The issue is not reluctance to share a partner but rather fear that others are not going to share with you in turn. Sometimes there is a desire to be included at all times instead of having separate dates. Exclusion jealousy is triggered when the jealous person feels that he or she is being left out of the fun or deprived of equal time and attention. This kind of jealousy can be especially intense when a new and exciting lover has recently arrived, and the perception of neglect is real. When this is the case, I coach people to remember that “new relationship energy” is temporary but intoxicating. A partner can easily get carried away by new relationship energy but eventually will come to his or her senses. A long-term partner has a history of commitment and loyalty that no newcomer can match, while any new love can get those euphoric neurotransmitters pumping. It takes some maturity and willingness to surrender control, but that’s what this form of jealousy is asking of us. Sometimes time jealousy can be managed by scheduling

“date nights” when all partners see outside lovers at the same time or by prioritizing quality time with an existing partner before seeing others.

Glamorous Rachael had recently left a ten-year open marriage with Henry, an older man who was a popular workshop leader and therapist. She approached Bev and Gene about developing an intimate relationship with them and went out of her way to cultivate a friendship with Bev before requesting permission for a sexual encounter with Gene. Bev and Gene had been lovers for five years. They were strongly bonded with an agreement that each could include others sexually. Bev and Gene chose not to live together, partly to facilitate their open relationship. When Rachael suggested that they all have a three-way date the following week, Bev readily agreed. On the afternoon of their date, Rachael stopped by to visit Gene and ended up having sex with him and coaxing an ejaculation from Gene, who had a strong preference for nonejaculatory orgasms. When Rachael and Gene showed up at Bev’s home for the planned date, Gene was feeling withdrawn and sexually depleted and suggested that they go to
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a movie instead of making love as planned. Bev tried to be accepting and understanding, but jealousy overtook her, and she had a “hissy fit,” as she put it. When she later consulted me for help in “curing” her unanticipated jealous reaction, she was confused and bewildered. “I can’t understand it,”

she sobbed. “I thought Rachael was my friend, and I was excited about getting closer to her. Gene wasn’t that enthusiastic about her at first, but now he doesn’t want to agree to stop seeing her.”

A woman who tends to be competitive with other women often had a mother who didn’t support her feminine expression. Both mother and daughter are insecure in their own power as women. This kind of mother may have been jealous of her husband’s attention to the daughter or fearful of incest because of her own background and try to come in between them.

She’s threatened by her daughter’s innocent childlike sexuality and may punish it because she feels uncomfortable with and cut off from her own sexuality. A woman who had a mother like this must try very hard to appear feminine and sexy to make up for her inner doubts. She’s often seductive and flirtatious but doesn’t really want the man once she has him. She tends to play a submissive role with a dominant man whom she ends up resenting and fearing. She desperately needs the support of other women but has trouble getting it because she’s always competing with women to win the prize of male attention.

When this type of woman is unaware of her inner dynamics, she often imagines that she wants a relationship with an established couple. Consciously, she may be seeking a close relationship with a woman who will be the supportive “good mother” and role model she didn’t find with her own mother and who will protect her from becoming lost in the man’s orbit. Unconsciously, her agenda is to reenact her childhood drama and to take Daddy away from Mommy. Sometimes the woman in the couple will sense this and become inexplicably jealous. If she overrides her intuition, she may find that the newcomer who seemed so agreeable has seduced her partner away while refusing any intimacy with her. Meanwhile, the interloper justifies distancing from the coupled woman on the grounds that she’s too angry and emotionally unsafe.

A man whose father was insecure in his masculinity and was constantly trying to prove his worth by competing with other males, including his son, also tends to have a difficult time with same-gender cooperation in polyamorous relationships. This type of man, who can often be described as dominant, alpha, or macho, enjoys having a harem of adoring women but
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has trouble sharing their affections with other men. Like his father before him, the son didn’t get the male support he desperately needed because his father viewed him as a threat to be battled for the love and attention of the boy’s mother. As an adult, if he hasn’t consciously transformed his childhood patterns, he will deny that he’s jealous while unconsciously competing with any man his partner tries to introduce into their relationship.

He will often deny any responsibility for driving prospective partners away and project his competitiveness onto the other man. The scenario of the other man whose agenda is to “cut that little filly out of the herd” is also a common one in men with unresolved father issues. His target can be either a monogamous or an open couple or a powerful man who has acquired more than one woman. He often loses interest in the woman once he’s wooed her away from her partner.

The intoxication of a new romantic relationship can easily override the discernment of those involved. Consequently, in an open relationship, cues may be missed by the individual with a new lover but show up loud and clear to an established partner who is then accused of jealousy and possessiveness when they share their fears. For this reason—and many others, as we discuss in the next sections—those who hope for successful polyamorous relationships would do well to clear up their family-of-origin issues before they begin.

Compersion
is a word created by the Kerista Community to describe an emotion that is the opposite of jealousy. Compersion means to feel joy and delight when one’s beloved loves or is being loved by another. Compersion is especially strong and accessible when all the people involved have feelings of love for each other, but that’s not a necessary precondition.

Some people have spontaneously had the experience of compersion, much to their surprise, when they were anticipating feeling jealous. Some find compersion as natural and inevitable as jealousy seems to be for others. People like this instantly recognize their feeling as compersion as soon as they hear the new term.

However, since most of us have been raised with an expectation of jealousy, compersion is an alien concept. Learning theory tells us that it’s always easier to replace one habit with another than to just eliminate the first one. If you can’t imagine feeling compersion instead of jealousy, you
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can try the following experiment the next time you feel jealous. Instead of focusing on your own discomfort and fears, try putting your attention on your partner. Think of the happiness and pleasure your partner may be experiencing and how your partner’s good feelings will eventually be passed on to you. If this seems impossible, try imagining a situation which is less threatening to you but still touches on your jealousy triggers.

Just having a concept that acknowledges that you have an alternative to feeling jealous can go a long way toward transforming jealousy. It really is possible to feel joy and expansion rather than fear and contraction in response to a loved one’s sharing their love with others, as thousands of people can attest. But it’s not always easy. My e-book
Compersion: Using
Jealousy as a Path to Unconditional Love
offers ways to reprogram your thinking away from jealousy and toward compersion while bringing the valuable messages jealousy brings into awareness.

Jealousy has a spiritual dimension. In essence, jealousy indicates a crisis of faith. It is part of conditional love. If you will love only when you’re assured of having your love returned, then you make yourself vulnerable to jealousy. On a more practical level, we could say simply that jealousy is a sign that your relationship needs work of some kind. For example, jealousy can be a message that your relation
is
changing. Rather than fearing the changes and struggling against them, jealousy can instead be a message to surrender to change and trust that if you set her free, she’ll return if she truly belongs with you. Or jealousy could be bringing your attention to your own fear of abandonment, showing you that if you fail to address the source of this fear in you, you may indeed drive your partner away.

In order to make the most of jealousy as an opportunity for growth, I always coach people to discharge or manage the intensity of the emotional reaction itself so that jealousy’s teachings can be received. Sometimes all that’s needed is to wait for a more suitable time to confront jealousy head-on rather than foolishly rushing in where angels fear to tread. If your bodymind is swamped with overwhelmingly chaotic sensations, you’re in no position to learn anything.

I always encourage people to find an appropriate balance between becoming skillful at finding ways to sidestep jealousy and avoid the turmoil it
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brings and inviting jealousy to become a powerful teacher who can show us the places we most need healing and motivate us to grow beyond our perceived limits so that we’re capable of more love. Part of the difficulty in managing jealousy is that most people have gotten conflicting messages about it. One the one hand, it’s inevitable and part of love. On the other, it’s shameful and a sign of weakness. Hence, working with jealousy always entails working with the shadow. When people manage their jealousy too well, they limit their own potential or may find themselves adapting to a disempowering situation.

The first step in managing jealousy is admitting to yourself and your partner(s) that it’s a problem. When people try to keep a stiff upper lip and deny that they’re jealous, they usually sabotage themselves by allowing their jealousy to build until it really is unmanageable. It’s far better to acknowledge the first stirrings of jealousy and learn to listen respectfully to the part of yourself that feels jealous without believing everything you hear. If this isn’t a process you’re familiar with, seek the help of an experienced therapist until disidentifying with your emotions and dialoguing with conflicting parts become second nature. Most people tend to leap prematurely into action to change the situation instead of pausing a moment to integrate this uncomfortable experience and reclaim their shadow self.

Asking for support from friends as well as partners is an important way to take care of yourself even when you’re familiar with navigating these turbulent emotional currents. Communicating as clearly as you can what you’re experiencing and making specific requests without engaging in blame or making demands can be amazingly effective.

Chuck noticed a churning sensation in his gut when he saw his girlfriend Janice holding hands with Frank and looking adoringly into his eyes. As soon as Janice and Frank disengaged, he asked Janice if she could spend a few minutes with him. “I notice that I’m feeling separate from you,” he said, “and I don’t want to feel that way. Can we hold each other so I can connect with you again?” Janice quickly agreed, happy that Chuck wasn’t blaming her for his upset, relieved that his request was so easy to fulfill, and genuinely appreciating and loving him more than ever.

Not everyone is as self-aware and skillful at communicating and letting go as Chuck. Just taking some deep breaths, vigorous exercise, yoga, dance, massage, listening to relaxing music, a breathwork session, or even watching a funny or uplifting movie are all good ways to dissipate the
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charge of jealousy
before
thinking about or discussing the specifics of the situation that triggered the jealousy. Trying to have a rational and reasonable conversation with a jealous person is useless at best and very likely counterproductive.

Once the emotional storm has passed or before it has blown in is a far better time to work on identifying your personal jealousy triggers and ask your partner to help find ways to work around them. Many partners will resist taking total responsibility for managing another’s jealousy but are usually happy to negotiate solutions that help each get what they want. The key is to approach managing jealousy as a shared project both can cooperate on instead of pitting one person against another or allowing one partner to use his or her jealousy to manipulate the other or make the other wrong.