Jealousy and insecurities

We have finally got to this point and it is perhaps the thing I get the most questions about. Since I am poly/having poly relations, do I get jealous?

Of course not. That would be beneath me.

No, seriously, let's get one thing very clear:

I get jealous and insecure. End of story.

Or rather, the start of something new when I finally could admit to myself and my partners that it happened.
It was a big step for me to admit my jealousy, embrace it and take the lead over my feelings and separate them from my reactions.


Why?


Well, it is a tricky story. One thing I got to learn when I first started with poly was that if I was truly poly, I would not feel jealous. If I did that, I was the worst and should be ashamed of myself.

So I suppressed those feelings, pushed them down and kept blaming myself over the fact that while I loved two, three and even four wonderful persons at the same time; I still felt jealous and insecure over my place in their life.

With all this and getting told that I did not have the right to feel and even analyze and react to my feelings, nor communicate about them to the persons I was with; I came to the conclusion that I was the worst person in the history of humankind.

As you could guess, it did not do anything good for my relationships and it pushed my self-love to an absolutely low level.

Fast-forward to today where I wish I could go back and tell my younger self the obvious thing:

“Hey, it is ok to be jealous. It is ok to feel insecure and in need of validation from partners. These feelings are valid and you have the full right to feel them. Just don’t flip out but breathe, see what you need and then talk about it.”

Today, I am very well aware that I get jealous when I'm in a romantic relationship. I am only human and those feelings I have, show up but these days, I have pretty good knowledge of what I need in a relationship to feel safe.

I need validation, I need time, touch and words of affirmation. I need to feel that a partner is there for me, not to heal and be my second half but to know that I can rely on them and that they love and appreciate me even on my bad days.

I need to feel loved.

So when jealousy and insecurities happen these days, I dive into that feeling, I rest in it and I take control.
Meaning that I analyze what it is that lies behind that feeling.

• Is my jealousy based on a fear of being replaced?
• Or feeling that I get too little time with a partner?
• To little touch? To little sex (if the relationship contains that)?
• Do I feel insecure because I do not know the status of our relationship?
• Am I feeling like a secret and not like a part of my partners' life?
• Do I feel like I do not get a mental exchange with my partner?
• Or is it that I feel like I hold all the space for a partner but they do not hold any for me?

The reasons can be many and it is my task to sort out the root of my feelings. Then it is my responsibility to communicate it to my partner and tell them what is bothering me and what I need from them.

• It can be more time.
• More validation and kindness.
• It can be to just be listened to.

It is my task to be clear in analyzing my feelings and to communicate them but it is my partners' task to listen and hopefully meet my reaction with an open heart and understand that my will to talk about this comes from a wish for us to be stronger and better together.

Then, of course, there will always be moments when I do not separate feelings from reactions and perhaps overthink things way too much. But at least I know about it and I make it clear to my partners from start.

And with that, we can do the work together.