More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (22 page)

This kind of communication is not always easy, especially when the jealousy arrives with a heaping side order of shame and doubt. Talking about it, though, can go a long way toward pulling out its fangs. One of the best ways to start addressing our fears in poly relationships is to ask our partners what they value in us…and trust that what they say is true. And if what they say doesn't stick, ask again. And listen. And keep at it until those things that make us magnificent in our partners' eyes start to sink in.

Step 5: Practice security.
A particularly insidious thing about insecurity is that it tends to find—or invent—"evidence" to support itself. It sneaks up on you to whisper in your ear that you're not valued and not loved and your partner doesn't really want to be with you, even when those things aren't true. These things
feel
real. There is always the possibility that they are real, but regardless of whether they're real or not, it can be very difficult to tell whether you're actually in danger of being abandoned.

Again, we become good at what we practice. When we practice convincing ourselves that our partners don't want us, don't value us and don't really want to be involved with us, we become good at believing it. When we practice convincing ourselves that we have value and worth and our partners treasure us, we become good at believing that.

And often a relationship
becomes
what we believe about it. If you believe your partner does not love you and treasure you, then you may act in destructive ways. You might become withdrawn, sullen or defensive, which will cause your relationship to suffer. If you believe you are cherished and valued, then you start to act with confidence, trust and openness—and people like that are great to be around. Your relationships will blossom.

The Jealousy Workbook
by Kathy Labriola, listed in the resources section, offers more exercises and advice for dealing with jealousy.

WHEN YOU FEEL LEFT OUT

"How do you deal with feeling lonely and left out when your partner is off on a date with someone else?" This is a question Franklin gets often in emails. The answer is, perhaps, not intuitive: it is not necessary to feel lonely and left out. This is more obvious when we aren't talking about polyamory. For example, what would we say to someone who says, "I feel lonely and left out for the eight hours a day my partner is at work"? We might think that was a little strange.

Our social values tell us it's okay for our partners to leave us for big chunks of time: for work, for errands, for military service, for all sorts of things. Yet we still tend to assume that if a partner is left behind for another romantic relationship, the natural response is to feel alienated and alone.

Of course, it's not only romantic relationships that trigger these feelings. Many people feel left out when their partners go to the bar with drinking buddies or join a roller derby league. It's as if we have two classes of activities: those where we don't expect to feel left behind, such as work or school, and those where we do, such as a date or a derby night. It's as though we expect to feel left out when our partner is engaged in a social activity, but not if a partner is engaged in a more mundane task. So really, the feeling isn't about a partner doing something without us. Only certain kinds of activities, usually involving social situations, make us feel this way.

Maybe this is because being in a romantic relationship carries social status. Maybe it's because we don't mind missing out on mundane activities but don't want to miss out on enjoyable ones. The solution might be to build your own hobbies and social circles, so you don't have to rely on your partner to provide for all your social needs. Or maybe the feelings come from a sense of exclusion—if a partner is building a relationship with his fishing buddies, we are being rejected. The solution to this might be to work on your sense of self-worth, as discussed in chapter 4.

Another fear closely related to the fear of being left out is the fear of playing "second fiddle." Perhaps your partner is starting a new relationship, and maybe you aren't really being left behind—but you aren't the number one focus anymore, either. This, too, isn't just a problem in polyamory. You can become second fiddle to a new child (or grandchild), to a new job, to a new hobby…hell, Franklin has seen someone whose partner became second fiddle to a pet. (It was a very cute cat, mind, but still…)

Again, the central issue is, how much do you trust your partner? If she wants to make you a priority, she will. If she doesn't, she won't. The type of relationship you're in doesn't matter. Every relationship has a natural ebb and flow. Sometimes we do get supplanted, at least for a time, in our partner's attentions. When Franklin's partner Amber started working on her master's thesis, Franklin lost some of her focus and attention. When a new baby comes along, we don't find it at all surprising when the baby becomes the center of everything. When these things happen, we trust that the time will come when we are a priority again. We understand that things happen that require more attention, and that's part of life. There is a balance; we merely need to have faith in our worth, in our partner's love for us, and in our ability to ask for the things we need to reassure ourselves that the pendulum will swing back and the balance will be restored.

KEEPING SCORE

Keeping score will drive you insane. Don't do it. If you start counting the nights (or dollars) spent together, the sexual acts engaged in, the hours on the phone or anything else of value, to compare it with what you're getting, believe us when we say that no good can come of this. You may be somewhat reassured if you come out ahead, but all keeping score will do is make you, your partners and their partners crazy and bitter without meeting the needs you're trying to get met.

AUDREY'S STORY
After years of struggling with Jasmine's concerns over "losing" Joseph's time, Audrey and Joseph began using a spreadsheet. For two years, they used it to track the time they spent together: what scheduled time they missed, what unscheduled time they added. It tracked hours spent and lost, and whether Joseph spent time with Audrey and Jasmine individually or together as family time. Time on the phone was logged in its own category. Their intention was to reassure Jasmine that their relationship wasn't growing outside of her comfort zone.

But all of this record-keeping didn't help anyone. Jasmine preferred to count only time that Joseph and Audrey added
over and above
their regularly scheduled time—a lunch, coffee date or vacation day now and then—in keeping with her fear that Joseph's relationship with Audrey was getting too big. Part of Joseph and Audrey's intent in using the spreadsheet was to also show the subtractions—dates that were missed. This was to help demonstrate that, despite Jasmine's fears that they were "growing," when you did both the addition
and
subtraction, they were actually staying "small."

However, the spreadsheet did not assuage Jasmine's fears. Joseph and Audrey are no longer keeping the spreadsheet, but Jasmine is still counting time.

If someone is keeping score, it's generally because they're afraid of something. The problem with using a scorecard to try to assuage that fear is that it does nothing to get to the root of it. Even an "even" scorecard is unlikely to diminish the fear, as Audrey's story illustrates.

Information, by itself, almost never changes feelings. If feeling secure in your relationship is contingent on seeing a certain balance on the scorecard, then you will always be comparing your relationship with another, rather than focusing on what is meaningful in your relationship: what your partner finds of value in
you
.

Taken to its conclusion, keeping score creates a relationship where people don't state their needs: they barter for what they want, using other people as the bartering chips. And this is a way of treating people as things.

PEOPLE ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE

Buried in the idea of building relationships by choice rather than by default is a powerful way to combat jealousy. All too often, our relationships
do
happen by default. We find the "best" person we can (whatever "best" means) and then stick that person into the "relationship slot." Sometimes, when we do this, we keep half an eye out for someone better to come along.

This approach to relationships is based on a tacit assumption that people are interchangeable. If you have a relationship with Zoe, and Bridget is hotter and richer, then you can replace Zoe with Bridget and you climb the ladder. This approach leads to insecurity; if Zoe knows that she can be replaced by Bridget, Zoe won't ever feel secure.

The idea that people are interchangeable is fundamentally flawed. When we value the things that make our partners who they are, no one person can ever replace another.

This is one place where that leap of faith to believe in our own worthiness really pays off. When we feel ourselves worthy of love in our own right, not for the things we do or how we look but because of who we are, we become more able to recognize our own unique irreplaceability—and the irreplaceability of our partners. When we believe ourselves to be worthy, we more easily see our partners as worthy too.

Many people in the polyamorous community say that comparisons are poisonous to poly relationships. "Don't compare one lover to another," they say. "If you do that, you'll breed insecurity." We'd like to suggest, perhaps counterintuitively, this is not necessarily so. Some comparisons are damaging. "Raj is better in bed than Franco is," for example, or perhaps "Bridget is hotter than Zoe." But there's a different kind of comparison, and that is noticing differences in a way that helps you remain aware of what makes everyone unique. That kind of comparison, which is more about treasuring the things that make people who they are than about ranking people, is awesome, because it reminds us that people are not interchangeable. Remembering that people are not interchangeable can go a long way toward calming the fear of being replaced.

SEPARATING REALITY FROM FALSEHOOD

Believing the best of your partner isn't always easy. And devils lurk in the details. Every now and then you may find yourself in a relationship that is genuinely unhealthy, or with a partner who really does have one foot out the door. It's hard to sort that out from your own insecurities and determine what is true if you don't have strong self-esteem to begin with.

There are no hard rules for distinguishing a situation where your insecurity is whispering falsehoods at you and a situation where your jealousy is a genuine signal of a painful truth. But there are external signs to look for.

One sign is a lack of empathy or compassion. A partner who brushes off your fears, or isn't willing to talk to you about your jealousy, may be telling you that she's looking to leave you for better options. If your partners want to support you, they will listen to your fears, even when they're irrational. What does your partner do when you say "Honey, I have this fear"? Does she listen with compassion? Does she empathize with your feelings, even if she thinks they're not grounded in fact? If she has done something that hurts you, does she genuinely feel sorry for it? Is she willing to take responsibility for it and make amends?

Another sign is an attitude of entitlement. This can be hard to call, because your partners are independent adults, carrying their own needs and feelings, and they really
are
entitled to make their own choices. But are they willing to work with you, to hear your complaints, and to make choices that support you in the long run even if you may not get everything you want in the short run? As we discuss in chapter 14, it may not be reasonable to restrict your partners to avoid dealing with your insecurities—but sometimes it is reasonable to ask your partners to help you, or even in extreme cases to agree to temporary and limited restrictions to give you the space you need.

What do your partners say when you ask for reassurance? If you ask for concrete reminders of how your partners love and value you, do you get them? And what does the relationship itself have to say? If we've been involved with someone for three months and already they seem restless and distracted, that might be cause for concern. But if we've been with someone for years and still wake every morning feeling that this is the day they will hopscotch out of our life, then maybe what we're feeling is more about our own insecurity than about our partner's desire to leave.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

When you've answered the questions below, you can start asking yourself why you feel the way you do. For example, let's say you answer yes to the question "Am I worried that if someone 'better' comes along, my partner will realize I'm not good enough and want to replace me?" That might mean that your self-esteem is not high enough for you to recognize that your partner wants to be with you because he values and cherishes you; some part of you may be thinking,
Well, I'm not as good as he thinks I am, so I better keep him away from other people! Otherwise, he'll dump me in a heartbeat.
The antidote to those feelings is to build a sense of worthiness and understand what it is about yourself that your partner values.