On Jealousy

Jealousy is a normal emotion with which a person can have a healthy relationship.  Feeling jealousy is usually a sign of something bigger going on, primarily one's current situation and place in it.  It's extremely important to communicate about jealousy in any relationship, and gets even more important in polyamorous relationships.

Most often, jealousy is a prominent aspect of the fear of abandonment.  So long as jealousy is kept in check and doesn't explode, this fear can be alleviated through reassurance from one's partner.  Dismissal, invalidation, and neglect all exacerbate jealousy as they reinforce the fear of abandonment.
Sometimes feeling jealousy is brought about due to the partner's behavior.  Communicating jealousy should include learning how each person wants to be reassured - this would best be done as part of the polyamory discussion (negotiating time and safety and boundaries, etc.) but may change as time goes on.  For some people, simply having sex more often is enough reassurance; for others, it works to have a date together for each date a partner has with other people.  And if you can't specifically name what would be reassuring for yourself, it's ok!  Experiment!  Eliminate what wouldn't work!  It's a process, like all aspects of relationships.  When one's partner isn't willing to work together or insists on using only their own reassurance method, there are more issues in addition to the fear of abandonment.

And sometimes feeling jealousy is brought about due to an individual's emotional state.  Many people feel the fear of abandonment at different times in our lives for many different reasons, regardless of the current relationship(s).  An unhealthy relationship can certainly worsen that fear and sometimes a very healthy, involved relationship can alleviate an individual's fear - I recommend against using relationships for that, though.  Overcoming one's own fear, especially when it's been validated in the past, is very difficult and scars can so easily be re-opened.  Small steps, self-care, distance from incompatible/disrespectful people, and intrapersonal communication help one overcome that fear and heal from whatever has brought it about.

And sometimes jealousy has nothing to do with fear, it's envy of another person's situation and that's it.  When one's partner is out of town and having fun for example, it's entirely possible to feel jealous without fear or resentment - this is neither unhealthy nor healthy, it just is.  It's possible to feel both happy for one's partner (and the people they see), jealous of them, and have fun on your own all at at the same time.  Usually treating oneself to something special can eliminate this envy, or at least push it to the background until the situation changes.

Above all, learning to listen to one's emotions, figuring out where they come from and what they're telling you, and handling them them in a healthy way (working out at the gym, partying, cuddling with kitties, crying over a pint of ice cream, whatever) are vital to functioning as both and individual and a partner.  We all mess up sometimes, learn and apologize and move on.

Things I've Learned

- As an increasingly masculine person, I'm primarily attracted to masculine people. People who balance masculinity, not macho people. Because I must relate to a person I'm gonna date and I tend to relate more to masculine people, I date masculine people. There are a handful of feminine people to whom I'm physically attracted, but that's about it. Believe me, I respect femmes and I'm ecstatic that they're around, just not my cup of tea.
subnote: in industrial/blue collar environments,the people to whom I'm attracted are usually butch lesbians. Butches and industry go hand-in-hand, meanwhile most of the straight men there are macho. This is one of the things I miss most about Wisconsin! Chicago has been commercial for decades so the very qualities to which I'm attracted in butch lesbians occur more often in straight guys here. People look at the F on my driver's license and assume that I'm straight in Chicago but a lesbian in Wisconsin. They don't see my masculinity interacting with the masculinities of people in different cultures.

- I would love to learn more about BDSM but have yet to find a free, SAFE environment in which to do so. Recently, there was an offer for a private play party...but my discomfort outweighed my curiosity. I didn't know the people involved well enough and this would have taken place somewhere I don't know. Call me a wuss, but my safety can't be compromised. With regards to that intimacy, I'd rather be a safe wuss than brave with regrets.

- Because I'm non-monogamous, a lot of people assume that my two lovers and other dates are all needed to fulfill some voracious appetite. That is nice, yes, but that's not the motivation. If I meet someone great and we start dating/sexing/loving/etc. and then I meet another great person, I shouldn't have to choose between them. Why not both? And then people are extra-baffled that everyone involved knows about each other, but I've already written about that.

- Combining masculinity with safety, being upfront is great! Though it may be nerve-wracking and you're taking a huge risk, it's usually best to just come out and say "hey I like you, whaddaya say?" Chances are that person didn't even know! It sucks to get turned down, yes, but at least there's closure.

Cactus Tree

Up until college, the goal put into my life was to get a husband. Good grades and a degree were good, too, but paled in comparison to a diamond ring with a house and kids.
After coming out, clearly the priority of marriage fell a few notches. The idea of permanently settling down was still a goal, as though such a thing would prove my worth and heal all the instability of m life thusfar.

It got to the point, when I was 20-22, that I feared I had some flaw. Most of my friends and my girlfriend at the time had been proposed to at least once or had even been engaged. This hadn't happened to me, so something must have been wrong with me, right? This may be difficult to believe now, but I was very feminine and domestic then, still seeking out a permanent anchor.All that was missing was the anchor - which was one of the reasons why I took it so hard when that girlfriend left me to engage someone else.

Through clusterfucks aplenty, cutting contact with my mother, learning more about my father's history, studying artists who had traveled between the MidWest and the SouthWest, forming independent relationships with my "spinster" aunts, and seeing the misery of my prematurely tied-down peers, things clearly changed. I began to be grateful that a proposal had never happened. Regardless of the answer given, a proposal shifts the situation. Could a couple really go on as normal with a "no" reply? Relationships have ended even with an "I need to think about it."

About a year ago was when I finally took life by the reins - if I'm gonna make it WEST, I have to make it happen. Which means the very things I once considered fulfillment are what I must prevent now. It seems foolish to vow permanence, particularly of relationships, because that can't be controlled. People who attempt such allegiance to me, frankly, scare me. It's like they're trying to hold a slippery, writhing fish by crushing it.

Promises of always seem to value the stability of the relationship over the quality of the person. And end doesn't necessarily imply rejection or abandonment. Although it's cheesy and cliche: if you love someone, let hir go.

Love vs. Loyalty

The concepts of love and being in love have been heavy discussion topics with my lovers over the past few weeks. What's the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone? Does being in love imply priority or commitment? How do you keep your sanity when you're reeling in love? How do you handle being in love when there's a third party and potentially more?

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. Then again, I tend to fall in love fast and, without trying, pull my prey in with me. I dunno why, maybe it's because I'm a Libra or maybe it's because, like Brandie and I used to say, "I don't DO ANYTHING!" And I admit that I'm also in love with being in love; by no means do I seek out people just to get into that state, I just enjoy it that much more whenever it happens. Both of my current situations are surprises, they were not expected at all when I started my Slut Odyssey.

Being in love is an emotional/spiritual state. It heightens your experiences, it makes you floaty and art and music and good food and sensuality are all saturated. It's separate from logic and one can still function on logic while enjoying the lovey-dovey trip. And yes, it can be scary and painful - particularly when the end happens. In High Fidelity, Nick Hornby wrote that emotionally involved people can pull some cherished emotions out of bittersweet ends. Which doesn't mean that falling out of love is a goal, just that some people ride out the feelings similarly to falling in. Yeah, I've done that.

A big deal to me is to become loyal to someone. Where love is emotional/spiritual, loyalty is more logical and can also be a heightened state. Loyalty is a respect of someone's judgement and a value of someone's character. For example, X is in a situation where I'm not and I only find out what happened through a third party. Without loyalty to X, I'd say "I have no idea what happened, I'm not going to get involved." When I'm loyal to X, I'd say "I trust that X said or did the right thing, even though I wasn't there."
It takes a lot more for me to become loyal to someone, and my loyalty can outlast the period of being in love with that person. It's also much more painful for someone to betray that trust, mostly because it means the person has almost betrayed who they used to be but also because it decreases the value of my judgement. It's hurt more when exes have acted stupidly out of character than when we've fallen out of love. Just like love, loyalty doesn't necessitate commitment or obligation.