Let’s talk about jealousy.

A partner once said, "you haven't got a jealous bone in your body" to me, he was mistaken but it inspired this writing. Being polyamorous people can assume that I never feel jealousy, but I do. I feel jealousy - but instead of lashing out and becoming possessive I question it, I try to hear what it's really telling me.

• Do I feel that my needs aren't being met?
• Do I feel I'm not being heard?
• Am I comparing myself? Why?
• Am I feeling insecure? Why?
• Is something that's happening reminding me of a past incident that was not good?
• Am I feeling vulnerable for some unrelated reason? External stress, health issues, being dehydrated, being tired, etc?

And then I work out what the best next move is based on the underlying cause of the jealousy.

Sometimes it's sitting with myself and my feelings, allowing them to be, holding myself, processing stuff, journaling.

Sometimes it's messaging a friend and doing the jealous rant to them because they get it, and then once it's out I know they'll help me figure out a useful way forward.

Sometimes it's booking an appointment with my therapist because "I thought I'd dealt with that but here it is again."

And if and when it is something I need to speak to a partner about, I wait until I am not in that agitated, emotional state to do it, so that I can more effectively explain what I need, whether that's as simple as "I need or a hug," or a deeper discussion about how affection is expressed or something else.

That doesn't mean that I avoid speaking to a partner about it unless it directly impacts them, not at all, but often the discussions don't sound like jealousy, they sound like "so this thing came up and it made me realise ___," or "can we do more X together?" or "how would you feel if that nickname was just between us?" or "could we watch this workshop on how stress impacts brain function together?"

Just because it doesn't start with "I don't want you to see them anymore," or "you doing this thing makes me feel jealous," doesn't mean it's not jealousy, it just means that effective communication and healthy relationships need more than "I'm jealous." They need us to know the why and to approach it from a collaborative stand point - how can we work through this together?

So my name's Lex and I do get jealous, but that leads me on to another thing...

Jealousy isn't bad, actually.

A key thing I do, or have learned to do over time, is to not judge myself for feeling jealous.

Within the polyam community "jealousy is bad" can often feel like the thing that's being unsaid in all the writings on compersion and happy polym ever afters. But jealousy isn't bad, it's an emotion like any other, it's what we do with it and how we behave when feeling it that matters.

Just because I sometimes (more often than I think some people would believe) experience jealousy, doesn't mean I don't also experience compersion. I can both feel bloody thrilled that people I care about are having a blast and experiencing awesome things, and also feel sad or angry or numerous other emotions because I am a complex human being with a (neurodivergent) human brain which often thinks and feels things that don't seem to make sense.

And that's OK.

Jealousy, like other emotions, tells us something. It's our job to find out what and work on the real issue, because whatever our relationship style, controlling our partner (in the non-fun, non-consensual ways) and expecting them to change to "fix" our issue isn't OK.

So if you feel jealous, regardless of if you're monogamous, polyam, ENM, or anything else, it's OK to feel that way, now you have to decide are you going to dare to find out what's underneath it and be vulnerable enough to share it with those who need to know?