A cry for help!

[Mark Ziemann]

My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.
Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly
monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to
accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
work on this problem.

We love each other very much & neither one of us wants to end our
relationship. But it is making it very difficult for both of us. I know he
is unhappy & trying to come to terms with being poly as he has finally been
able to put a name to his feelings.

I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without him.
We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.

Louise

--
Mark Ziemann: voice 250 367 6684 fax 250 367 7099
Canada: P.O. Box 467, Montrose, B.C. V0G 1P0
U.S.A.: P.O. Box 707, Northport, WA 99157
Email: mzie...@wkpowerlink.com

[Jim Roberts]

Jeez, Louise, who is writing?

Mark Ziemann wrote:

> My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.
> Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly
> monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to
> accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
> work on this problem.

[rest deleted]

First reassure us on who is writing. Second on why you don't have a separate
account. Third on why you are jealous. Your post was very lackng in info to
establish confidence. We don't like to be jerked around, not that that's what
you were trying to do.

jimbat

[Sakar]

On Sun, 28 Jun 1998 21:16:31 -0700, "Mark Ziemann"
<mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:

Hello Louise or Mark,

>Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly
>monogamous.

I live in a triad, for a decade now and we define ourselves as being
quite "monogamous" or rather as staying within this threesome. What
has your husband in mind? Several or changing poly partners? My
experience is that it depends on the kind of relationship looked for.
I thought myself to be strictly monogamous before entering our triad
too. It was a surprise to me that I apply that term rather in a way
which means "fidelity", instead of "not more than one partner".

>We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to
>accept this situation.

Tell us a little more about what your husband wants and what you feel
you can't accept.

>I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
>work on this problem.

Jealousy is insecurity. I'd wager that your husband has finally found
enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
break that trust. Did he say he *has* to have a poly interest? Or did
he just pose the topic? I am someone in the situation of your husband,
my SOs are in yours and let me reassure you, I don't love one less
then the other. Our situation arose from my intensely loving and
cherishing *both* of them, equally, though for different reasons. That
does not mean either is - to me - lacking in any way.

>We love each other very much & neither one of us wants to end our
>relationship. But it is making it very difficult for both of us. I know he
>is unhappy & trying to come to terms with being poly as he has finally been
>able to put a name to his feelings.

Help him. If you truly love him, you love all of him, even those
aspects you are uncomfortable with or right now can't deal with. They
must have been there always, not just since he told you. Regardless of
the outcome of your discussions, you need to face that his needs and
emotions exist.

>I don't want to live without him.

That is the key phrase. Try to imagine a situation when he can't go on
being with you, because he knows you don't in any manner accept a poly
relationship and at the same time he has met someone else he can't be
without either. Would you rather live without him, than try to follow
him on this?

Also try to discuss variations or possibilities, what would be
bearable for you, what absolutely not? E.g. we live in the same
household, sleep in one bed and both my men are usually present when
either has sex with me, oftentimes we have sex simultaneously. They
have - conceded - had to accustom themselves to that first, not me, I
liked it right away. But there are different ways of being poly.

>Mark Ziemann: voice 250 367 6684 fax 250 367 7099
>Canada: P.O. Box 467, Montrose, B.C. V0G 1P0
>U.S.A.: P.O. Box 707, Northport, WA 99157
>Email: mzie...@wkpowerlink.com

Dear me! I'd never do this! Be more cautious.

Sakar

[piranha]

In article <35971...@news.vphos.net>,

Louise Ziemann <mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:
>My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.

>Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly

>monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to
>accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
>work on this problem.

you're not able to accept what, his feeling polyamorous,
or his potentially acting on it? i think that it helps
to define in detail just what it is i can't handle, ra-
ther than have a nebulous feeling of terror about a vague
definition. if you can't bear the thought of him acting
on it, what about that in specific is so difficult?

i'm not very jealous, but there are thing that do make
me jealous, and i don't like such things to happen in my
close relationships.

what things make you jealous?

what does it mean for him to be polyamorous? exactly
how does he wish to express that?

do any of you have close friends now?

>I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
>any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without him.
>We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.

i've been in the situation of having been happily in a
monogamous relationship, and having my partner tell me
of zir polyamorous feelings. that felt quite like an
emotional lightning strike out of the blue. but, like
you, i loved my partner very much, and it was more im-
portant to me to be able to sustain that love and be
with my partner, than it was to have a specific type
of relationship.

what helped me was a combination of things -- lots of
talking and listening and trying our best to understand
each other. that meant taking our feelings apart in
great detail and analyzing which parts were the really
important ones. and then finding solutions to dealing
with them so they didn't feel so huge and destructive
anymore.

we were also progressing at my speed (if you read here
for a while you'll find this is a common factor in re-
lationships that have to change drastically and handle
it reasonably well). this requires that one is honest
with oneself and doesn't overblow emotional pain just
to stop the other person from acting in zir own inte-
rest; there really has got to be progress overall, or
one's partner's trust will diminish.

changing from mono to poly is a huge change. it took
your partner almost a year to come to terms with his own
feelings, and he felt them directly. he should not ex-
pect you to be able to move any faster; you might, in
fact, need more time.

do feel free to ask questions here; you'll find quite
a few people who've gone thru what you're going thru,
and who will be sympathetic at least.

and, since stef is on vacation, let me recommend quite
a good book: harville hendrix, _ keeping the love you
find_. it isn't a poly book, but it has a lot of good
stuff on conflict resolution.

best wishes!

-piranha

------------------------------------------------------------------------
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[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>>I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
>>work on this problem.
>

>Jealousy is insecurity.

How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
feeling.

If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous when
I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?

What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
that? Is that insecurity?

Jealousy is very complex, and has different elements for different people.
If you want to simplify your *own* emotions by pinning a different label
on them, that's fine, but doing it for other people isn't very nice.

>I'd wager that your husband has finally found
>enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
>break that trust.

Do you really think squelching one's feelings is a better option?

Me, I'd rather have relationships with people who are honest with
themselves about what they feel, and try to manage those emotions by
reacting to them in ways that don't hurt themselves or others. Not with
people who tell themselves that they're wrong, or "breaking trust", for
feeling certain emotions in the first place.

---
Jennie D-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> http://home.intranet.org/~jenniedo/

[Mark A Kille]

In article <6n8iba$er...@crash.videotron.ab.ca>,

JennieD-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> wrote:
>
>What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
>spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
>that? Is that insecurity?

Yes, but it's _justified_ insecurity :).

--Mark Kille

--
"For relaxation the King breeds dairy cattle, raises improved strains of
rice, plays badminton, and runs a home workshop in which he has assembled
both a sailboat and a working helicopter."
--Thailand Today, c.1968

[Jim Roberts]

Jenniedo, you have missed the measure of your respondent. She's miles ahead
of most of us. I'd listen, if I were you, which I'm not. I'll try to
reinforce Sakar's responses in my poor, clumsy way, because she's correct in
my view. She's a Muhammad Ali of poly.

JennieD-O'C wrote:

> Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
> >>I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
> >>work on this problem.
> >
> >Jealousy is insecurity.
>
> How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
> feeling.
>

Well, she has a point, but she's a bit incomplete. Jealousy can arise from
other sources than insecurity - cultural conditioning for instance. But my
wife has had all the cultural conditioning that America has to offer, yet she
has not a possessive nor jealous bone in her body, Sometimes I have wondered
whether this character trait is genetic. My first wife, who was raised in a
much more permissive environment, could smell my attraction to other women
across all time and space. She once destroyed our entire apartment over it.

> If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous when
> I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?
>

In a way. But there are ways of dealing with it.

> What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
> spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
> that? Is that insecurity?
>

That's loss, not insecurity. That's different. Loss is terrible. Take that
from someone who has a terror of abandonment (me).

> Jealousy is very complex, and has different elements for different people.
> If you want to simplify your *own* emotions by pinning a different label
> on them, that's fine, but doing it for other people isn't very nice.
>

You are reading too much into what she wrote. You are overwrought. Jenniedo,
you have demonstrated great sympathy in other posts. You are projecting onto
Sakar emotions that you have no idea that she actually puts up front. Sure
she feels all, but she seems to have a grip on what's important. Right now,
it's the foals.

> >I'd wager that your husband has finally found
> >enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
> >break that trust.
>
> Do you really think squelching one's feelings is a better option?
>

No, but getting a grip on them is a very good option.

> Me, I'd rather have relationships with people who are honest with
> themselves about what they feel, and try to manage those emotions by
> reacting to them in ways that don't hurt themselves or others. Not with
> people who tell themselves that they're wrong, or "breaking trust", for
> feeling certain emotions in the first place.
>

There may be some grammar problems here, since it seems incoherent. The best
bonds are with the honest and the trustworthy and the constant. "Live with
you for the rest of our lives" should mean exactly what it says.

jimbat

[Sakar]

On 29 Jun 1998 17:19:38 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
wrote:

>How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
>feeling.

Not simple, nor simplistic. Insecurity is a concept which is
dreadfully complicated, as it can stem from a huge variety of causes.
The very first step however is to REALIZE that jealousy is based on
your *own* insecurity, whatever the cause of that.

Let me explain a bit of what I encountered in myself and others.

Michel, the younger of my SOs has been extremely jealous in the
beginning of our relationship and still can be to quite an extent. If
you remember (or go back and call up the "Tentative Delurk" thread),
he is the non-achiever of his family in almost every count and has a
very low self-esteem. In his own eyes he is ugly, fat, unsuccessful
and he _grew up_ believing himself to be all this.

He has had several relationships before ours, including a failed
marriage, of which he had reached or has been forced to reach the
conclusion, that his overweigt, his lesser looks or his failures in
professional life (moneymaking) had been the reasons of failure.

All of this plus a few other things have made a highly insecure person
of him, as in that he does not accrue value to himself, he compares
himself with others and usually that results in feeling the lesser,
insecurity (the inability, in his case, to "secure" himself as a being
cherished and wanted) the result again. And on top he always has and
had the counter-example of his much beloved brother (and family)
before him.

Any time I'd meet someone else, am friendly with him, maybe even flirt
or dance, he starts to compare himself to that person, finds himself
lacking in his own opinion = he is jealous of that person (and the
imagined qualities which he is sure will pull me more than his,
because he counts his own so low).

From my vantage point this is non-sensical. There is naturally no
reason he should imagine that I grade along his own mode. For me - or
I wouldn't be with him - he has all the qualities I seek and cherish.
*I* am secure in my knowledge that not only he deserves every ounce of
attention and love I give him, but also that I wouldn't consider any
change as (the situation) is. *He* is insecure in that his self-esteem
has been so downtrodden, that he can't believe in my secure knowledge
or the value of himself.

FYI, I'm mostly talking past right now, it isn't now as bad as ten
years ago, halfway along that time Michel has begun to accustom
himself to the fact that our "status quo" seems to be one not easily
unbalanced. He trusts in my knowledge of myself, though he sometimes
needs a reminder.

I have been jealous in a past relationship too. My causes were however
different from Michel's. I was possessive. I was jealous of my then
SO's emotional attachment to a "best friend" (male buddy, LOL). I
grudged him every minute he spent with him and would sit at home,
stomach churning with a mixture of fury and jealousy.

It took me a long time until I was able to see, that a) my jealousy
stemmed from possessiveness (I wanted to possess every emotion, every
thought, every minute of spare time) and b) that my possessiveness
stemmed from the of course faulty idea, that he only loved me, if he
spent indeed every moment, emotion and thought with me. I couldn't
allow him the freedom of being an own person and it was *my*
insecurity which blocked me. I felt insecure as I couldn't - if
freeing him to others - control him.

Naturally this is a stupid concept, as I learned the hard way. There's
absolutely no need to control someone else to assure continued
affection. And once I grasped that, really wholeheartedly grasped and
understood this, not only was "control" suddenly the "letting-go", it
also was security. I suddenly felt firmly rooted in myself - secure in
my own person. And jealousy was completely gone.

These are but two examples, there are many more reasons and causes for
insecurity and along with that - fear.

>If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous when
>I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?

Yes.

>What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
>spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
>that? Is that insecurity?

Of course. You have been dumped, while someone else has been chosen.
You experience feelings of loss, you also feel now insecure in
yourself. If you were secure or sure of yourself, your reaction would
in all probability be different.

You'd maybe see the reason why your ex has chosen someone else over
you and be able to accept that.

I have been in exactly this situation, though I have been prepared to
it. As cute as this may sound, but I have had a relationship with a
man who had been a virgin at age 22 (I was 23 then). I had known that
our time together was limited, because I knew that the moment would
come when he'd want to know "how it is with others". I had asked him
aforehand to - when that moment comes - be absolutely forthright with
me. He'd denied the possibility, but of course it happened as I'd
predicted and, lucky me, he was forthright.

I still know and meet him, we are still good friends, very good
friends. And I was not jealous, even though I lived in the same
apartment house as him and his new love interest. I probably would
have been jealous before, but after the incident I wrote of above I
never have been again. I could let go, being secure in the knowledge
that I wasn't any lesser or non-lovable just because a man's interests
change.

That is the difference - if you're secure in yourself you can examine
the real causes and reasons. And react accordingly and not according
to your fears and jealousies.

>Jealousy is very complex, and has different elements for different people.
>If you want to simplify your *own* emotions by pinning a different label
>on them, that's fine, but doing it for other people isn't very nice.

See above. Of course the background of jealousy is complex, but I
still say that a person who's secure in him/herself either is not
jealous or deals with the background of jealousy in a manner which
results in a state of equilibrium.

>Do you really think squelching one's feelings is a better option?

I never said that. I said to examine them and to check feelings which
have no bearing on what is the real problem. And I have the distinct
feeling that the original poster already knows that, else why does she
acknowledge the need to do something against jealousy?

She needs to find out why she is jealous and examining her fears and
insecurities is the first step towards that.

And regarding the breaking of trust - view it from the point of view
of the husband. He finally, after more than a decade, owns up to the
fact that he thinks he's poly. That's a whammy! After all that time.
Think of how long he must have been pondering the problem, "do I tell
her?" or "do I keep it bottled in myself?" or "do I cheat instead?".

In my book the guy deserves a medal alone for owning up to that. My
personal experience is that most would rather cheat or simply keep it
firmly squashed, than to find the guts to speak about that to someone
who professes so very obviously to a jealousy-problem! So, my
conclusion is, that if this is not an attempt at ending the marriage
(and what she wrote does not imply that), that he implicitly trusts
her and her love enough to face up. That should be rewarded in my
book.

And while a reaction of jealousy may be acceptable, as in a reaction
of first panic, the window of time while that trust stands may be
restricted. That's what I meant with breaking the trust he has put in
her, because - as she implies that jealousy is a consistent (not
simply current) problem for her - he has trusted her to go for a
non-jealous approach and for him to overcome her jealousy far enough
to open the topic.

>Me, I'd rather have relationships with people who are honest with
>themselves about what they feel, and try to manage those emotions by
>reacting to them in ways that don't hurt themselves or others. Not with
>people who tell themselves that they're wrong, or "breaking trust", for
>feeling certain emotions in the first place.

You may have misunderstood me. I explicitly encouraged her to be

honest with her emotions. She writes:

>I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to work on this problem.

As I said, she first has to find out why she is jealous. And I still
think that she would be wise to answer trust with trust, meaning to
for the moment stash away her reaction of jealousy (and deal with it,
that for sure!), but instead concretely react to her husband's
disclosure. And that is another thing - *unless* she can master her
current reaction of jealousy, she can't deal with the problem at hand.
It's painfully obvious - poly means someone else may or could be(come)
involved, thus jealousy forecludes any chance at a meaningful
discussion of it.

Greetings,

Sakar

[Sakar]

On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:29:57 -0400, Jim Roberts <jim...@erols.com>
wrote:

>Well, she has a point, but she's a bit incomplete. Jealousy can arise from
>other sources than insecurity - cultural conditioning for instance. But my
>wife has had all the cultural conditioning that America has to offer, yet she
>has not a possessive nor jealous bone in her body, Sometimes I have wondered
>whether this character trait is genetic. My first wife, who was raised in a
>much more permissive environment, could smell my attraction to other women
>across all time and space. She once destroyed our entire apartment over it.

See the other post, of course I meant insecurity as a starting point
of the search. I doubt that cultural conditioning is a deciding factor
(though an influential one, sure). Maybe definition gets easier when I
say that fear and insecurity are for me close sisters.

>No, but getting a grip on them is a very good option.

Yup - what I meant. You can't meaningfully act and react in a state of
emotional distress or panic. And it's much easier to miss out on
someone or be nasty where undeserved if you "ride the dragon".

Greetings
Sakar

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <35983152...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 29 Jun 1998 17:19:38 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>wrote:
>>
>>How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
>>feeling.
>
>Not simple, nor simplistic. Insecurity is a concept which is
>dreadfully complicated, as it can stem from a huge variety of causes.
>The very first step however is to REALIZE that jealousy is based on
>your *own* insecurity, whatever the cause of that.

Nope.

If your jealousy is caused by your partner getting involved with someone
else and neglecting you, is that insecurity? Only if you twist
"insecurity" so far that *any* negative emotion is caused by insecurity.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)

Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het

Usenet is not a democracy. It is a weird cross between an anarchy
and a dictatorship.

[Sakar]

On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:51 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>Nope.
>
>If your jealousy is caused by your partner getting involved with someone
>else and neglecting you, is that insecurity?

You could argue that this is fear of (imminent) loss. And in some
cases you also could argue that you are - in such a case - insecure
enough to think that you *need* to build your self-confidence on the
amount of time and care your partner accrues you.

Personally I don't (anymore). If I were in a closed relationship,
meaning that as in closed = faithful to each other(s) and my partner
or one of my partners decided to dally elsewhere, I'd put the question
to him of what he wants, continue ours or start a new one. And if it's
the latter, okay, topic closed, relationship ended. It would hurt and
maybe I'd feel anger, but I doubt that I'd ever again feel jealous.

If I had an open relationship, which allows for outside interests,
then there is no other reason *but* insecurity to feel jealous in such
a situation. If you aren't secure enough to trust the other to have
his fun and then come back - what's the purpose?

>Only if you twist
>"insecurity" so far that *any* negative emotion is caused by insecurity.
>--

I don't though. There are causes for jealousy which cannot be
(exclusively) pinpointed to insecurity (though my definition of
insecurities may be much wider than yours!). There are certainly
non-related (to the insecurity-issue) causes for jealousy.

If you're hung up on a professed cheater and lier, you may have a very
valid reason. But again, my opinion is that a self-assured or
self-certain person will let go of such a cheater/lier and look on to
find someone more deserving of oneself, instead of going through
jealousy hell.

But we were discussing within the context of someone who professed
that she is not jealous of a specific situation, but instead has a
"jealousy-problem" in general. And this - I hope you will hand to me -
is in almost all cases based on personal insecurity *or* on a near
pathological possessiveness (which again in many cases can be traced
to some feeling of insecurity).

Greetings,

Sakar

[piranha]

In article <35994e6e...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:51 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:
>>
>>If your jealousy is caused by your partner getting involved with someone
>>else and neglecting you, is that insecurity?
>
>You could argue that this is fear of (imminent) loss.

i'm pretty sure that it's _actual_ loss for me. that is,
in fact, the only thing that makes me jealous, the loss
of something i value, which is no longer offered to me,
but to somebody else.

>And in some
>cases you also could argue that you are - in such a case - insecure
>enough to think that you *need* to build your self-confidence on the
>amount of time and care your partner accrues you.

uh, no. i am not building my self-confidence on this;
i feel just fine about _myself_. it's that i no longer
have something i value. the loss is real. and maybe
it needn't be there.

>Personally I don't (anymore). If I were in a closed relationship,
>meaning that as in closed = faithful to each other(s) and my partner
>or one of my partners decided to dally elsewhere, I'd put the question
>to him of what he wants, continue ours or start a new one. And if it's
>the latter, okay, topic closed, relationship ended.

if your life is that simple, great. mine has usually
been less than clear cut. we're talking poly here, so
ending relationships isn't the only option. to me jea-
lousy is a serious warning sign. i act on it by thin-
king about what it's signalling, and by talking about
it with my partner.

i don't make scenes, but i also don't think it's the
end of the world as we know it, and it's all my own
stupid insecurity. i know myself rather better than
the average person. i'm very, very rarely jealous (i
haven't been in 4 years now), but when i am, it's not
a good sign, and the cause is always external.

>It would hurt and
>maybe I'd feel anger, but I doubt that I'd ever again feel jealous.

let's hope you don't get to find out. this seems to be
something where a number of people i know have disco-
vered that no matter how unjealous they thought of them-
selves, when push came to shove, there it was anyway,
the green-eyed monster.

and no, it was usually _not_ insecurity for them. it's
more likely (IME) to be insecurity for people who're
jealous all the time, and of all sorts of things.

>If I had an open relationship, which allows for outside interests,
>then there is no other reason *but* insecurity to feel jealous in such
>a situation. If you aren't secure enough to trust the other to have
>his fun and then come back - what's the purpose?

maybe i need or want zir here right now? maybe i liked
things how they were just fine, and i like them less now?

i am not saying that jealousy isn't often born of insecu-
rity, i believe it is. but that's not its sole source.

[brigid]

Sakar wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Sakar

Sakar, i din't like the fact that in your original post you seemed to
imply that if she could simply get over being jealous, she'd get into
being okay with her husband's poly-ness. it's not that simple. some
people are keyed to having only one sgnificant other, even when they
aren't jealous. it's okay for her to be monogamous, if thats what she
needs.

brigid

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>If I had an open relationship, which allows for outside interests,
>then there is no other reason *but* insecurity to feel jealous in such
>a situation. If you aren't secure enough to trust the other to have
>his fun and then come back - what's the purpose?

Maybe he or she has a history of getting very wrapped up in someone or
something and running off with that person with no notice, nevermind all
of the plans they've made together. For example. In a circumstance like
that, I could be *very* sure of myself, and still be jealous as hell.

>There are causes for jealousy which cannot be
>(exclusively) pinpointed to insecurity (though my definition of
>insecurities may be much wider than yours!). There are certainly
>non-related (to the insecurity-issue) causes for jealousy.

Yep. That's just what Aahz and I have been trying to say. Simply stating
that "jealousy equals insecurity" is overly simplistic, since it's not
true that in all cases, and for all people, jealousy is identical to
insecurity.

I believe Stef once said that for her, jealousy most often has to do not
simply with insecurity, but with a situation being contrary to how things
"should be", according to either her own morals or ethics, or some
preconceived notion of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable'. I've found this
to be true for me sometimes.

[Lyre]

In article <35971...@news.vphos.net>, "Mark Ziemann"
<mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:

>My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.
>Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly
>monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to

>accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
>work on this problem.
>

>We love each other very much & neither one of us wants to end our
>relationship. But it is making it very difficult for both of us. I know he
>is unhappy & trying to come to terms with being poly as he has finally been
>able to put a name to his feelings.
>

>I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
>any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without him.
>We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.

I'm sort of in a similar situation although my partner and I have
been talking for a bit longer. One thing that's been helping my
partner and me is reading a *lot* of books, essays, whatever we
can get our hands on that has anything to do with polyamory,
jealousy, strengthening relationships, and so forth. It's been
a real help for us. We communicate better now than we ever have
before, which is awesome, regardless of what ultimately happens
with our relationship.

I'd be willing to talk some more if you could be a bit more specific
about what exactly your concerns are.

-Lyre

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>>How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
>>feeling.
>
>Not simple, nor simplistic. Insecurity is a concept which is
>dreadfully complicated, as it can stem from a huge variety of causes.

Maybe. But the same can be said of jealousy, which is not identical to
insecurity for everyone. That's what I meant by 'simplistic' -- simply
assuming that your own experience directly maps onto a generalization is
simplistic.

>The very first step however is to REALIZE that jealousy is based on
>your *own* insecurity, whatever the cause of that.

No. Maybe jealousy is always based on insecurity for *you*, but I assure
you that this is not the case for everyone.

>>If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous
when
>>I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?
>
>Yes.

Insecurity about *what*? I can't be afraid of losing something I've never
had. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

>>What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
>>spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
>>that? Is that insecurity?
>
>Of course. You have been dumped, while someone else has been chosen.
>You experience feelings of loss, you also feel now insecure in
>yourself.

Well, since I've never experienced a situation like this, I can't tell you
exactly what I would feel. I might very well feel insecurity along with
loss. But both of those would be distinct from the feeling of jealousy
that would most likely result from having been "replaced" (and in a poly
relationship, even).

>If you were secure or sure of yourself, your reaction would
>in all probability be different.
>You'd maybe see the reason why your ex has chosen someone else over
>you and be able to accept that.

So if you're secure in yourself, you can understand why someone would
prefer someone else over you? That doesn't necessarily follow. Can you
explain?

>That is the difference - if you're secure in yourself you can examine
>the real causes and reasons. And react accordingly and not according
>to your fears and jealousies.

You're confusing *feeling* jealousy with *reacting* to it again. I prefer
to separate the two. If I feel jealous, I admit this wholeheartedly and
openly, and knowing that I don't have to "put away" the feeling helps me
cope with it in a way that's healthy and honorable.

>>Do you really think squelching one's feelings is a better option?
>
>I never said that.

Not in so many words, but you did say that feeling jealous is a breach of
trust. Now, how is that supposed to make the original poster feel? If I
were new to the concept of poly, and someone told me that I was breaking
my partner's trust by feeling jealous, I'd either feel like I was totally
incapable of polyamory, or like I should push my feelings down so that I
wouldn't be doing something so horrible as breaking my partner's trust.

>And I have the distinct
>feeling that the original poster already knows that, else why does she
>acknowledge the need to do something against jealousy?
>She needs to find out why she is jealous and examining her fears and
>insecurities is the first step towards that.

Yes! This part I agree with. But finding out why you're jealous and
thinking about the other emotions that might accompany jealousy helps you
*deal* with them. It doesn't automatically make them go away.

After many, many years of a successful poly relationship, I still get
jealous. So do my partners. We're not breaking each other's trust with
our feelings -- we're demonstrating each time that we trust each other
enough to show our scariest, innermost feelings to each other.

>And regarding the breaking of trust - view it from the point of view
>of the husband. He finally, after more than a decade, owns up to the
>fact that he thinks he's poly. That's a whammy! After all that time.
>Think of how long he must have been pondering the problem, "do I tell
>her?" or "do I keep it bottled in myself?" or "do I cheat instead?".
>In my book the guy deserves a medal alone for owning up to that.

Exactly this happened to me. And it was a very long, very scary process
for me, too. But if someone had told my very frightened partner right
afterwards that he was breaking my trust by being jealous, and he believed
it, he probably would have left me then and there. "Advice" like that
doesn't help someone cope. Telling someone that jealousy is okay, but
needs to be managed, *does*.

>As I said, she first has to find out why she is jealous. And I still
>think that she would be wise to answer trust with trust, meaning to
>for the moment stash away her reaction of jealousy (and deal with it,
>that for sure!),

How can she deal with something that she's "stashed away"?

I think that the jealousy is something to deal with openly, in the
relationship, together. Not something for her to attend to on her own
time, when she has a stolen moment from the time spent validating her
partner's coming out.

>but instead concretely react to her husband's disclosure.

By saying/doing exactly *what*? Something she doesn't mean, or feel
(yet)?

Saying "I feel jealous" *is* a concrete reaction to her husband's
disclosure. And as long as she's coping with those feelings in
non-hurtful ways (to herself, the relationship, or her partner), it's
*not* an unhealthy reaction.

>It's painfully obvious - poly means someone else may or could be(come)
>involved, thus jealousy forecludes any chance at a meaningful
>discussion of it.

This certainly wasn't the case for us. Someone else *did* become
involved, and my first partner's jealousy most certainly did *not*
forclude any chance at meaningful discussion of it. In fact, it was only
up *until* the point that he admitted his feelings of jealousy and we
discussed together what was behind them that we were unable to have
meaningful discussions.

[Jim Roberts]

JennieD-O'C wrote:

> Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

[...]

Jenniedo, you are not giving Sakar enough credit. Step back and listen to
her. You have your blinders, or obsessions, on. You *can* listen, I've seen
you do it. She has a touch of wisdom.

jimbat

[brother ed]

> My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was
polyamorous.

> We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to...

This whole thread -- as a long-time true polyamorist (before I knew the
word) --
to me the question is begged;
Is the husband truly porlamorist?

That means that the wife is accepted to do what she wants as well,
including but most certainly not limited to nothing of the sort, if that's
what she wants.

What I have experienced in life is lots of people espousing polyamory until
it comes down to it -- then it comes out that they want the freedom for
themselves but not their partner(s).

My experience is that this is more common but most certainly not limited to
males.

This is NOT polyamory, just sexual greed, and that distinction is
quintessential, in my most humble opinion.

If the husband would not accord the same freedoms he desires, the honorable
term of "polyamorist" does not apply to him, and the wife is dealing with
something different, though I leave to someone else to come up with a word
for this latter.

One girlfriend I had, it finally boiled down to, "This is my girlfriend --
*she* has an open relationship."

[Jim Roberts]

brother ed wrote:

> > My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was
> polyamorous.
> > We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to...
>
> This whole thread -- as a long-time true polyamorist (before I knew the
> word) --
> to me the question is begged;
> Is the husband truly porlamorist?

Given your e-mail address, one has to assume that this posting is not sincere.
In Juliette, Ga, there is no Frank on the menu today (Fried Green Tomatoes),
but perhaps tomorrow.... Beware.

jimbat

[Sakar]

On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 20:37:25 -0500, brigid <mdb...@acs.tamu.edu>
wrote:

I see now that many apparently did not make the connection which to me
was *self-evident* that which I was commenting. Sorry!

a) poster defines herself being (for want of better description)
"chronically" jealous (as I understood without poly debate even
entered in this and she calls it "a problem")
b) poster describes husband to have a poly-come-out after 15 years of
marriage

My reasoning was as follows (and I don't say it's right, I posted it
as what I feel when represented with the situation as she did present
it to us):

If the jealousy problem is chronic and a recognized problem (known
one), then her husband is aware of her jealousy.

The fact that for 15 years he hasn't been able or put a name to his
being poly may not but in all probability is related to the jealousy
problem of hers in any one way.

He obviously *cares* for her (or he'd just have said that he is poly
earlier and gone on with it or any such similar thing).

There must have been a process during which he found enough trust in
her (stable, as in non-jealous or non-too-jealous) possible reaction
to his coming out. That even is implied (at least I see the hint as
such) by her acknowledgement of "having a problem". You don't do that
if you don't work on something. Even becoming aware of a problem
already *is* working on it.

What I then wrote was meant as a warning rather than as saying it has
already happened (grammar problem here maybe, in the original post of
mine) - meaning that if now (after he trusted her not to react
outright with jealousy) she does however react mainly with her chronic
jealousy problem - THEN she breaks his trust in her.

Does it become clear now? Ooof. I hope so.

And OF COURSE it's okay for her to be monogamous!

Also - I didn't say that she'd be okay with her husband's poly-ness
once she overcame her jealousy, I NEVER WENT THAT FAR AT ALL!

I was exclusively talking about that phase they are in right now, she
and her husband discussing his state of being poly and solutions
feasable for them both or maybe not feasable at all. Depending on the
outcome of the discussions.

What I wanted to bring over was to not break the trust her husband
placed in her by going into "jealousy mode" instead of hitting the
nail where it belongs and to also try to find out what about all this
is feasable for her (in relation to his wishes).

I never went as far as implying that she'd be okay with poly if only
non-jealous.

BUT she'd do okay by her husband and his trust if she reacted to the
whole up-front debate *without* jealousy. Hey, she didn't say he
already has asked for outside interests, they were only talking! At
this point jealousy has no business to dictacte or pace a discussion.
It's a "what if" discussion.

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 30 Jun 1998 18:23:09 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

Hi Piranha (I like that alter ego!),

> i'm pretty sure that it's _actual_ loss for me. that is,
> in fact, the only thing that makes me jealous, the loss
> of something i value, which is no longer offered to me,
> but to somebody else.

Is that jealousy or envy? Both are *not* the same.

> uh, no. i am not building my self-confidence on this;
> i feel just fine about _myself_. it's that i no longer
> have something i value. the loss is real. and maybe
> it needn't be there.

Again, something you don't have or have definitely lost and which you
want and get wrought over is in my understanding feeling "envious
for".

> if your life is that simple, great. mine has usually

Would that it were, LOL! But I have a distinct streak of stubbornness
and usually stick to what I decided to stick to. I've been down the
road and back regarding jealousy and discovered that for me there is a
solution to it.

> been less than clear cut. we're talking poly here, so
> ending relationships isn't the only option. to me jea-

To me there are but two options - discussion and solution (as I wrote)
and ending the relationship. Being miserable, hankering or hounding
myself or the person I love isn't any sort of option in my book. I've
been down that road in the past also and have never seen a positive
outcome of something like this. For none of those involved. You cannot
un-break what is broken. Or - as in a local saying - better an end
with terror than a terror without end. Life's too short for the
reverse.

> lousy is a serious warning sign. i act on it by thin-

> king about what it's signalling, and by talking about
> it with my partner.

You are right of course here. And I didn't say I don't feel occasional
twinges of jealousy. However I found that in most cases I could
resolve or pinpoint those quickly and privately. If however I should
see cause for all out jealousy I prefer to deal with the underlying
problem right away and without even allowing the dragon to singe me or
the others.

> let's hope you don't get to find out. this seems to be
> something where a number of people i know have disco-
> vered that no matter how unjealous they thought of them-
> selves, when push came to shove, there it was anyway,
> the green-eyed monster.

I have and must say that I kept to what I had resolved myself to keep
to. To say it in a less impersonal manner. It hurt like hell, sense of
loss and rejection wasn't nice at all, but I firmly kept my goal in
view of not hurting us (me and the other) more through a jealousy
tantrum. I mean - I loved him still (or it wouldn't have hurt), why
would I make him yet more miserable than he already was? And in
hindsight, meaning in the long run, I say it was the better way. Maybe
lashing out brings relief to others, it doesn't for me. I later
cringed, always, at how much hurt and pain I'd inflicted formerly when
doing just that. And it never changes things to the better. Never.

> and no, it was usually _not_ insecurity for them. it's
> more likely (IME) to be insecurity for people who're
> jealous all the time, and of all sorts of things.

THAT is what I was talking about right from the beginning, please see
my other posts of today. It maybe the point of misunderstanding here.

> maybe i need or want zir here right now? maybe i liked
> things how they were just fine, and i like them less now?

Sure. But then I'd say it's time for a raincheck, no? If you discover
- after entering such a relationship - that you cannot deal with an
open relationship, you should probably rediscuss.

> i am not saying that jealousy isn't often born of insecu-
> rity, i believe it is. but that's not its sole source.

As I said before, of course. But we were talking about a situation of
someone who's got a jealousy problem, not any occasional, once-every
4-years-or-so and valid twinge of it!

Greetings,

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 03:02:02 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
wrote:

>Maybe he or she has a history of getting very wrapped up in someone or
>something and running off with that person with no notice, nevermind all
>of the plans they've made together. For example. In a circumstance like
>that, I could be *very* sure of myself, and still be jealous as hell.

??? Please explain what you mean a bit more.

>Yep. That's just what Aahz and I have been trying to say. Simply stating
>that "jealousy equals insecurity" is overly simplistic, since it's not
>true that in all cases, and for all people, jealousy is identical to
>insecurity.

I have the impression that we at least have to differentiate between
jealousy, chronic jealousy (which was what I was reacting to in my
original post!), envy and fear of loss. Those are different things
each from the other.

And, again, in all those past years I have never met a much (as in
very often) or chronically jealous person whose jealousy was not -
eventually, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly - based on
his/her OWN feelings of insecurity. Never.

I'm not talking here about someone whose SO is cheating or who once in
a while feels - for very valid reasons - set back (I'd say this is
envy though), I am talking about a person who is again and again, at
slightest provocation, at - especially - imagined provocation or as a
rule jealous. Or a person to whom (and the original poster hinted
clearly at that) nearly every thought of outside activity (regardless
of type) of her SO can be sufficient cause to feel jealous, even if
the cause is not born out or absolutely harmless.

Again, never did I meet such persons without a grave underlying
insecurity problem. If you say there are, okay. Your experience then.
But I'd be interested to know these instances. I still doubt the
possibility.

>I believe Stef once said that for her, jealousy most often has to do not
>simply with insecurity, but with a situation being contrary to how things
>"should be", according to either her own morals or ethics, or some
>preconceived notion of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable'. I've found this
>to be true for me sometimes.

Is this jealousy? Again I have problems with grammar and words here
maybe. Because I cannot see a connection between feeling jealous and a
situation which "should be different according to own morals, ethics
or sense of acceptability". I'd rather say something like this is some
sort of vague "angst" or a more general discomfort. What are you - in
those instances - jealous or envious of? That the other manages to
live with such a situation better than you can? Or are you angry at
him/her for placing you in a situation you cannot come to terms with?

Interesting this aspect. Tell me more!

Greetings

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 04:03:06 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
wrote:

>Maybe. But the same can be said of jealousy, which is not identical to

>insecurity for everyone. That's what I meant by 'simplistic' -- simply
>assuming that your own experience directly maps onto a generalization is
>simplistic.

See other post, I was specifically reacting to that person's facts.

>No. Maybe jealousy is always based on insecurity for *you*, but I assure
>you that this is not the case for everyone.

See above.

>>>If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous
>when
>>>I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?
>>
>>Yes.
>
>Insecurity about *what*? I can't be afraid of losing something I've never
>had. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

In the above case you can feel envy (which I think we've too much
thrown in as being the same as jealousy and it isn't at all) or you
feel jealous because *you* indeed *have* that person, as you are in a
possessive mode of love with him/her, regardless of whether that
person knows that or not. Possessiveness has firm roots in insecurity.

Envy needs not be based on insecurity at all. Maybe that's why you
balked in the first place at what I'd said.

>But both of those would be distinct from the feeling of jealousy
>that would most likely result from having been "replaced" (and in a poly
>relationship, even).

Jealousy out of being replaced? No. That's not the correct correlation
of feeling and goal. Jealousy needs to have a precise (imagined or
real) target. One is not jealous of "because one's been replaced", one
is jealous of the replacing person. You can feel angry or hurt because
of the replacement.

Again I sense the need to clear up semantics. Sorry if I come over as
nitpicking here, but a) I constantly have to deal with three to four
languages (German, French, English and Russian) often simultanously
and b) I tend to want to be absolutely clear about motives, causes,
results and relations between those, as a writer I have this tick of
being highly analytical of written words. LOL.

>So if you're secure in yourself, you can understand why someone would
>prefer someone else over you? That doesn't necessarily follow. Can you
>explain?

That was an example, and not necessarily "why", but at least "that".
and if you're that far the next step of finding out "why" is not so
difficult. Because then you're open to discussion or information. Or
to the insight that there needs to be no "why" at all.

>You're confusing *feeling* jealousy with *reacting* to it again. I prefer
>to separate the two. If I feel jealous, I admit this wholeheartedly and
>openly, and knowing that I don't have to "put away" the feeling helps me
>cope with it in a way that's healthy and honorable.

You're however thus doing already what I described! Maybe that's one
facet of misunderstanding.

>Not in so many words, but you did say that feeling jealous is a breach of
>trust. Now, how is that supposed to make the original poster feel? If I
>were new to the concept of poly, and someone told me that I was breaking
>my partner's trust by feeling jealous, I'd either feel like I was totally
>incapable of polyamory, or like I should push my feelings down so that I
>wouldn't be doing something so horrible as breaking my partner's trust.

See my other post. I didn't get the idea that we were talking about a
person who precisely, that moment and with regard to a poly interest
in evidence was being jealous. She spoke of a chronic jealousy
problem, one she had been already trying to do something against. One
which existed *before* her husband came out about poly.

And see my reasoning of why I spoke about breaking of trust, maybe it
gets clearer then. :-)

Let me build a similar situation with different facts and maybe it
gets understandable then.

Let's say we have a married couple. She is pathologically afraid of
illness, someone who won't go visit people in hospitals because she's
afraid of catching a disease or who reads about an illness and has the
symptoms within the next hour. She knows that she is deviant and she
should do something against this. And she does begin work on that. Her
husband of ten years has been diagnosed with cancer, quite a while
ago. He never dared tell her, because when he was diagnosed she hadn't
been dealing with her phobia at all. Now he sees she does. He rustles
up enough trust in her love and her process of working on her phobia
that he tells her. If she now allows her phobia to overrule dealing
with the problem at hand, she breaks the trust he put into her. It
would even be understandable for her to have a bout of that phobia,
BUT she needs to stash that away to be able to deal first with her
husband's approach. She just might be able to deal with both
simultanously, that would be perfect. But her husband's trust and need
of her clear head precedes.

>Yes! This part I agree with. But finding out why you're jealous and
>thinking about the other emotions that might accompany jealousy helps you
>*deal* with them. It doesn't automatically make them go away.

Yup, as I wrote.

>Exactly this happened to me. And it was a very long, very scary process
>for me, too. But if someone had told my very frightened partner right
>afterwards that he was breaking my trust by being jealous, and he believed
>it, he probably would have left me then and there. "Advice" like that
>doesn't help someone cope. Telling someone that jealousy is okay, but
>needs to be managed, *does*.

Sorry, disagree here. If my partner told me - WITHOUT any poly
relationships going or commencing or about to commence - that he feels
poly, there is no reason to feel jealous! That's like telling me he
prefers red wallpaper to white. He hasn't yet painted the walls red,
the cause is missing. If I reacted to that with the anger I would
react with, had he painted the walls red, I'd overreact, I'd react
without cause! As far as the original poster wrote there was no other
interest involved. He just told her. Any jealousy would be unfounded
and again that points towards the possibility of breaking his trust.

>How can she deal with something that she's "stashed away"?

Apart from the present discussion with her husband.

>I think that the jealousy is something to deal with openly, in the
>relationship, together. Not something for her to attend to on her own
>time, when she has a stolen moment from the time spent validating her
>partner's coming out.

I understand what you mean, but this wasn't the basis on which I gave
that advice to not react with chronic jealousy to a coming out of her
husband WHO GAVE HER NO CAUSE. You are talking about jealousy which
already has a cause.

>By saying/doing exactly *what*? Something she doesn't mean, or feel
>(yet)?

By discussing it with him, by learning out more about it, by being at
least open to information, by analyzing herself, by finding out
whether and if yes how she can deal with that disclosure.

>Saying "I feel jealous" *is* a concrete reaction to her husband's
>disclosure. And as long as she's coping with those feelings in
>non-hurtful ways (to herself, the relationship, or her partner), it's
>*not* an unhealthy reaction.

she didn't say "I feel jealous", she said "I have a jealousy problem"
and she implied it to be longstanding.

>This certainly wasn't the case for us. Someone else *did* become
>involved, and my first partner's jealousy most certainly did *not*
>forclude any chance at meaningful discussion of it. In fact, it was only
>up *until* the point that he admitted his feelings of jealousy and we
>discussed together what was behind them that we were unable to have
>meaningful discussions.

Your husband had a concrete cause to be jealous, there *was* someone
else.

Greetings

Sakar

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

>> i'm pretty sure that it's _actual_ loss for me. that is,
>> in fact, the only thing that makes me jealous, the loss
>> of something i value, which is no longer offered to me,
>> but to somebody else.
>
>Is that jealousy or envy? Both are *not* the same.

You're right. In my book, envy says: "I want that too". Jealousy (in
this case) says: "If I can't have that person, I don't want the other
person to, either." Envy is simply unpleasant. Jealousy is overtly
negative (like anger).

That doesn't mean it isn't possible to be jealous in a situation like
the one described.

>You are right of course here. And I didn't say I don't feel occasional
>twinges of jealousy. However I found that in most cases I could
>resolve or pinpoint those quickly and privately.

That's fine if it works for you. For me, if it's strong jealousy, I've
definitely found that it helps to share my feelings with my partners (at
the very least), and probably with the person I'm jealous of, too.
Discussing the emotions and realizing that the people involved take them
seriously helps me a lot to deal with them.

>If however I should
>see cause for all out jealousy I prefer to deal with the underlying
>problem right away and without even allowing the dragon to singe me or
>the others.

You're confusing behaviour and emotion again. It's entirely possible to
feel very strong jealousy without allowing it to "singe" anyone. I've
done it. Other people here have, too.

>> and no, it was usually _not_ insecurity for them. it's
>> more likely (IME) to be insecurity for people who're
>> jealous all the time, and of all sorts of things.
>
>THAT is what I was talking about right from the beginning, please see
>my other posts of today. It maybe the point of misunderstanding here.

Well, since what you originally said was "jealousy equals insecurity", I
don't know how we could have *possibly* misunderstood a thing! ;-)

But even there, I'm not sure you're right. As someone who gets jealous
often (though not all the time), and of all sorts of things, I can tell
you that it only occasionally has to do with insecurity.

What I most often get jealous of is one of my partners' tendencies to get
so wrapped up in computer games that the whole evening has then gone by
and he doesn't have any time left to spend with me. If anything, it's my
self-confidence that causes this feeling, not insecurity, since I strongly
believe that I'm worth spending time with. Instead, the jealousy (and
yes, it's definitely real jealousy; I've felt it and it's quite icky) has
more to do with feeling like I want to be with my partner and something is
preventing me from doing that.

>> maybe i need or want zir here right now? maybe i liked
>> things how they were just fine, and i like them less now?
>
>Sure. But then I'd say it's time for a raincheck, no? If you discover
>- after entering such a relationship - that you cannot deal with an
>open relationship, you should probably rediscuss.

Unless what you really *want* is polyamory, but you're having trouble
dealing with it. Or unless there's something about the particular
situation that bothers you a lot, whereas polyamory in general wouldn't.
Et cetera. It's really not as black and white as you seem to want to make
it out to be.

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>What I wanted to bring over was to not break the trust her husband
>placed in her by going into "jealousy mode" instead of hitting the
>nail where it belongs and to also try to find out what about all this
>is feasable for her (in relation to his wishes).

What do you mean by "jealousy mode"? All the original poster said was
that she felt jealous; she didn't give us any information about how she's
been reacting to this feeling. Maybe she's also trying to find out "what
about all this is feasible for her"?

I still don't understand why you think that simply feeling jealous is
tantamount to breaking someone's trust, unless you think that there are
inevitable horrible negative reactions to feeling jealous. Let me assure
you, there aren't.

[bearpaw]

"brother ed" <e...@misogyny.com> writes:
> ...

>If the husband would not accord the same freedoms he desires, the honorable
>term of "polyamorist" does not apply to him, and the wife is dealing with
>something different, though I leave to someone else to come up with a word
>for this latter.

"Polyamorous". At least possibly.

While some folks have rules/guidelines that are exactly symmetrical
for both/all parties, not everybody's relationship works best that
way and it's not an automatic poly disqualification to have
asymmetrical rules/guidelines. It's far more important that everybody
is at least roughly equally comfortable with whatever agreement has
been made, and that everybody has a part in forging that agreement.

Bearpaw

--
bea...@world.std.com ~~ http://world.std.com/~bearpaw/
Educate yourself. Ask questions. Listen. Think. Act.
Repeat as necessary.

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C) wrote:

>>Maybe he or she has a history of getting very wrapped up in someone or
>>something and running off with that person with no notice, nevermind all
>>of the plans they've made together. For example. In a circumstance like
>>that, I could be *very* sure of myself, and still be jealous as hell.
>
>??? Please explain what you mean a bit more.

If I have a partner who's demonstrated both in past relationships and in
the present relationship with me that when he falls in love with someone
new, he neglects me, that could very easily be jealousy resulting from a
trained response rather than from insecurity.

(For those of you who expressed concern -- this is simply a hypothetical
example. I don't really have a partner like that!)

>I have the impression that we at least have to differentiate between
>jealousy, chronic jealousy (which was what I was reacting to in my
>original post!), envy and fear of loss. Those are different things
>each from the other.

Okay, off the top of my head, I'll try to define each term, and maybe you
can tell me where our definitions differ.

Envy is feeling like you want something *too*, like you're willing to
share. It's also not an overtly negative feeling, but merely a "sigh, oh
well" feeling.

Jealousy is feeling like you *don't* want to share something, or (with
lesser forms of jealousy) like it's at least uncomfortable for you to do
so. This feeling can have many origins. It's also overtly negative, and
hurts a lot to experience it.

Chronic jealousy is a tendency to get jealous easily, and over many
things.

Fear of loss is being afraid that you're going to lose something. This
feeling can be well-founded and based in fact, or not.

>And, again, in all those past years I have never met a much (as in
>very often) or chronically jealous person whose jealousy was not -
>eventually, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly - based on
>his/her OWN feelings of insecurity. Never.

Well, I wonder how you'd know that, first of all, since you can't get
inside other people's heads, and I doubt you've discussed origins of
jealousy with every person you've ever met who's felt jealous.

But you may well be right that with every single "chronically jealous"
person in the world, *one* of the sources of jealousy is at least
*sometimes* insecurity. But if we have to say "one of the sources" and
"sometimes", it's not very meaningful to simply equate jealousy with
insecurity.

Again, when you feel jealous (even chronically jealous), I think it makes
more sense to think long and hard about exactly what you're feeling, and
try to sort out what it is *for you*, without any preconceived notions
from someone else about what jealousy necessarily *has* to be.

>>I believe Stef once said that for her, jealousy most often has to do not
>>simply with insecurity, but with a situation being contrary to how things
>>"should be", according to either her own morals or ethics, or some
>>preconceived notion of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable'. I've found this
>>to be true for me sometimes.
>
>Is this jealousy? Again I have problems with grammar and words here
>maybe. Because I cannot see a connection between feeling jealous and a
>situation which "should be different according to own morals, ethics
>or sense of acceptability".

I have a general tendency to get jealous, but the *biggest* influence on
whether or not I get jealous, and on how strongly I get jealous, is
whether or not the situation is (by my estimation) "as it should be".

Example 1: One of my partners has a primary relationship with someone
really wonderful. This is "as it should be", so I don't get jealous at
all. Now, I'm not saying that it would be *impossible* for me to be
jealous in this situation -- I'm sure that if she decided to dump me
because I was distracting her from him too much, I'd learn to be jealous
of him pretty quickly. :-) But the fact that I care about him as a
person, and the fact that he was "there first", so to speak, helps me to
not feel jealous in that particular situation.

Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the
time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
inappropriate. She wasn't that bright, and she had many superficial signs
of being more interested in appearance than in someone's mind (including
her own). I was so jealous I couldn't see straight. I didn't eat for
days at a time, I cried myself to sleep every night, I could think of
nothing else. When they spent time together, I couldn't handle it at all.
They didn't end up getting involved (thank God!), but the super-strong
reaction on my part led me to think a lot about what was behind it. And
the biggest factor was her imagined "inappropriateness". If I don't like
the person, or can't respect the person, it drastically increases the
jealousy.

Example 3: I have a lot of trouble with the idea of casual sex. I don't
do it, myself, and I'm uneasy with my partners doing it. Somewhere, back
in the back of my mind, I've got an idea that sex shouldn't be casual;
that it should always have strong emotion accompanying it. So the more
strongly my partner feels about the person (and the less it's "just about
sex"), the less jealous I tend to get. This, again, comes from the
feeling that casual sex "isn't as things should be".

Maybe Stef can come in and give her examples, too, since she's also said
she feels something like this.

>What are you - in those instances - jealous or envious of?

Oh, I'm still jealous of the other person (or something else, like a
computer game), but the strength of the feeling, and sometimes even the
existence of it, is directly traceable to how "right" things feel to me.

>Or are you angry at
>him/her for placing you in a situation you cannot come to terms with?

No, my jealousy only rarely has anything to do with anger, and only then
when an overt rule has been broken.

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>>Insecurity about *what*? I can't be afraid of losing something I've never
>>had. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
>
>In the above case you can feel envy (which I think we've too much
>thrown in as being the same as jealousy and it isn't at all) or you
>feel jealous because *you* indeed *have* that person, as you are in a
>possessive mode of love with him/her, regardless of whether that
>person knows that or not.

Those are two possibilities. There are many other possible reasons for
feeling jealous of someone who's involved with someone you'd like to be
involved with. Not all of which necessarily have to do with insecurity.

>Possessiveness has firm roots in insecurity.

Here you go again. Not necessarily, not always, not for everyone.

I sometimes feel possessive of a partner when really *good* things are
happening. If I've been noticing how wonderful the person is, and we're
walking hand in hand on the street and being cute, I may well think
something like: "Mine, mine, mine! Oh, how lucky I am!" Does this come
from "insecurity"?! If anything, it comes from a feeling of *security*!

>>But both of those would be distinct from the feeling of jealousy
>>that would most likely result from having been "replaced" (and in a poly
>>relationship, even).
>
>Jealousy out of being replaced? No. That's not the correct correlation
>of feeling and goal. Jealousy needs to have a precise (imagined or
>real) target. One is not jealous of "because one's been replaced", one
>is jealous of the replacing person. You can feel angry or hurt because
>of the replacement.

You feel jealous *of* a person or thing, yes. But the *reason* for or
*result* of that feeling can be "having been replaced".

>Again I sense the need to clear up semantics. Sorry if I come over as
>nitpicking here, but a) I constantly have to deal with three to four
>languages (German, French, English and Russian) often simultanously

As a linguist, and a professor of German in a modern languages department,
this is all too understandable to me. :-)

>and b) I tend to want to be absolutely clear about motives, causes,
>results and relations between those, as a writer I have this tick of
>being highly analytical of written words. LOL.

You'll fit in very well here, then. :-)

>>You're confusing *feeling* jealousy with *reacting* to it again. I prefer
>>to separate the two. If I feel jealous, I admit this wholeheartedly and
>>openly, and knowing that I don't have to "put away" the feeling helps me
>>cope with it in a way that's healthy and honorable.
>
>You're however thus doing already what I described! Maybe that's one
>facet of misunderstanding.

But in my example, I still feel the jealousy, I just cope with it in a
productive way. In your scenario, simply feeling the jealousy was a
breach of trust.

>>Exactly this happened to me. And it was a very long, very scary process
>>for me, too. But if someone had told my very frightened partner right
>>afterwards that he was breaking my trust by being jealous, and he believed
>>it, he probably would have left me then and there. "Advice" like that
>>doesn't help someone cope. Telling someone that jealousy is okay, but
>>needs to be managed, *does*.
>
>Sorry, disagree here. If my partner told me - WITHOUT any poly
>relationships going or commencing or about to commence - that he feels
>poly, there is no reason to feel jealous!

Maybe, but if I were in that situation, I'd need to be very clear about
what "feeling poly" meant before my jealousy could be quelled. I might
well worry and fear that my partner had been attracted to particular
people, which led him to realize he was poly, and I might feel jealous of
that.

>As far as the original poster wrote there was no other
>interest involved. He just told her.

Well, we don't know that for sure. Which is why, in piranha's response to
the original poster, piranha asked her to define what she meant by her
partner "feeling poly".

>>How can she deal with something that she's "stashed away"?
>
>Apart from the present discussion with her husband.

For me, at least, that would be disasterous. The best way -- in fact, in
my experience, the *only* way -- for me to cope with my jealousy in a sane
way, is to be able to talk about it with my partner, and perhaps also the
person I'm jealous of. Luckily, I have partners who are interested in
hearing about what I'm feeling.

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <6ndcia$1j...@crash.videotron.ab.ca>,

JennieD-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> wrote:
>
>You're right. In my book, envy says: "I want that too". Jealousy (in
>this case) says: "If I can't have that person, I don't want the other
>person to, either." Envy is simply unpleasant. Jealousy is overtly
>negative (like anger).

Not really disagreeing with you, but just as it's difficult to cleanly
define "love", "sadness", "anger", and "irritation", it's really
difficult to categorize "envy" versus "jealousy".

I generally apply envy more to objects and impersonal relationships
(e.g. being envious of friends coupled up, but not wanting their
partners in specific), whereas jealousy applies more to wanting time
and/or energy from a specific person.

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <01bda4c0$9fc36220$33e3...@console.misogyny.com>,

brother ed <e...@misogyny.com> wrote:
>
>What I have experienced in life is lots of people espousing polyamory
>until it comes down to it -- then it comes out that they want the
>freedom for themselves but not their partner(s).

That's true, but what relevance does that have to this thread? This
thread started with a monogamous person having problems with zir poly
partner. I saw nothing about, "My spouse claims to be poly, but every
time I try to start a relationship, zie won't let me."

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <3599dad6...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 20:37:25 -0500, brigid <mdb...@acs.tamu.edu>
>wrote:
>>
>>Sakar, i din't like the fact that in your original post you seemed to
>>imply that if she could simply get over being jealous, she'd get into
>>being okay with her husband's poly-ness. it's not that simple. some
>>people are keyed to having only one sgnificant other, even when they
>>aren't jealous. it's okay for her to be monogamous, if thats what she
>>needs.
>

>I see now that many apparently did not make the connection which to me
>was *self-evident* that which I was commenting. Sorry!
>
>a) poster defines herself being (for want of better description)
>"chronically" jealous (as I understood without poly debate even

>entered in this and she calls it "a problem")

For someone who claims to nitpick about words, you're not reading very

carefully. Here's what the original post said:

I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to work on this
problem.

In the absence of further information about the nature of the jealousy
it is at the very least in poor taste to over-analyze this one comment.
Jealousy, like anger, is an emotion primarly generated by external
events, though *which* events generate the emotion varies from person to
person. Unlike anger, however, few of us are taught to *manage*
jealousy, which leads to the binary positions of "stuff it" or
"explode".

For all we know, the full extent of Louise's problem is simply that zie
needs to learn how to express jealousy in productive ways. But until
zie returns to the discussion, it is unproductive at best to continue
this debate about jealousy in the specific -- abstract or personal
examples only, please.

>What I then wrote was meant as a warning rather than as saying it has
>already happened (grammar problem here maybe, in the original post of
>mine) - meaning that if now (after he trusted her not to react
>outright with jealousy) she does however react mainly with her chronic
>jealousy problem - THEN she breaks his trust in her.

Let's say we have a chronically angry person (AP). Suppose that AP's
spouse spent all the money in the bank account. Is AP breaking trust by
reacting with anger?

>BUT she'd do okay by her husband and his trust if she reacted to the
>whole up-front debate *without* jealousy. Hey, she didn't say he
>already has asked for outside interests, they were only talking! At
>this point jealousy has no business to dictacte or pace a discussion.
>It's a "what if" discussion.

Okay, continuing my example, are you saying that if AP's spouse was
simply talking hypothetically, that it's less appropriate for AP to be
angry?

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <3599f243...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
>Let's say we have a married couple. She is pathologically afraid of
>illness, someone who won't go visit people in hospitals because she's
>afraid of catching a disease or who reads about an illness and has the
>symptoms within the next hour. She knows that she is deviant and she
>should do something against this. And she does begin work on that. Her
>husband of ten years has been diagnosed with cancer, quite a while
>ago. He never dared tell her, because when he was diagnosed she hadn't
>been dealing with her phobia at all. Now he sees she does. He rustles
>up enough trust in her love and her process of working on her phobia
>that he tells her. If she now allows her phobia to overrule dealing
>with the problem at hand, she breaks the trust he put into her. It
>would even be understandable for her to have a bout of that phobia,
>BUT she needs to stash that away to be able to deal first with her
>husband's approach. She just might be able to deal with both
>simultanously, that would be perfect. But her husband's trust and need
>of her clear head precedes.

That's a reasonable stance for *you* to take. I think it's
inappropriate for you to tell someone else that it's the *only*
appropriate solution.

>Sorry, disagree here. If my partner told me - WITHOUT any poly
>relationships going or commencing or about to commence - that he feels
>poly, there is no reason to feel jealous! That's like telling me he
>prefers red wallpaper to white. He hasn't yet painted the walls red,
>the cause is missing. If I reacted to that with the anger I would
>react with, had he painted the walls red, I'd overreact, I'd react
>without cause! As far as the original poster wrote there was no other
>interest involved. He just told her. Any jealousy would be unfounded
>and again that points towards the possibility of breaking his trust.

Again, that may work for you, but that's not the way lots of people
relate to each other. If my partner told me zie was thinking about
painting the house red, I'd assume zie was at least somewhat serious and
that objecting strongly (assuming I cared) would be the simplest way of
heading it off early.

And much as I dislike this line of argument, I think it's clear that
relationships are not the same thing as wallpaper -- there's an
understandable presumption that a person is bringing up polyamory for a
*reason*, and while reacting as strongly as if the partner had actually
started a new relationship is probably excessive, the confusion brought
about by discussing something completely outside of one's universe can
easily aggravate any emotion.

>I understand what you mean, but this wasn't the basis on which I gave
>that advice to not react with chronic jealousy to a coming out of her
>husband WHO GAVE HER NO CAUSE. You are talking about jealousy which
>already has a cause.

And, besides, how do you know whether there's no cause? It's certainly
happened often enough that someone discovers polyamory as a way to cover
up zir cheating. If Louise is feeling jealous, maybe zir subconscious
is trying to tell zir something.

[Mark A Kille]

In article <6ndeeh$1j...@crash.videotron.ab.ca>,

JennieD-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> wrote:
>
>Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the
>time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
>inappropriate. She wasn't that bright, and she had many superficial signs
>of being more interested in appearance than in someone's mind (including
>her own). I was so jealous I couldn't see straight. I didn't eat for
>days at a time, I cried myself to sleep every night, I could think of
>nothing else. When they spent time together, I couldn't handle it at all.
>They didn't end up getting involved (thank God!), but the super-strong
>reaction on my part led me to think a lot about what was behind it. And
>the biggest factor was her imagined "inappropriateness". If I don't like
>the person, or can't respect the person, it drastically increases the
>jealousy.

I've been in a situation a lot like this...for me, it ties into jealousy
being a feeling that something is being taken away from me. In this
case, having someone I was very close to get involved with someone
I just couldn't "grasp" made me worry about the implications for
our relationship. Because I could not see how they could value
what this person represented at the same time as valuing what I
represented--and since they were so obviously valuing this person,
it seemed pretty clear which one was going to go.

You could call that insecurity, and in one sense it was; I was afraid
that our relationship couldn't handle the contradiction. (In fact,
it couldn't, but that's another thread entirely...). But it was a
lot more than that, and not primarily that: mainly I couldn't stand
that the love of my life was turning into someone I considered
less ethical, less interesting, and generally less _good_. And that
was a concern that held regardless of whatever kind of relationship
(in form) I had with them. And the loss that I felt was not lessened by
the fact that they still loved me, and still were with me (for a
while anyway). And I was very, very, very jealous.

--Mark Kille

--
"For relaxation the King breeds dairy cattle, raises improved strains of
rice, plays badminton, and runs a home workshop in which he has assembled
both a sailboat and a working helicopter."
--Thailand Today, c.1968

[JennieD-O'C]

Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the

time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
inappropriate. She wasn't that bright, and she had many superficial signs
of being more interested in appearance than in someone's mind (including
her own). I was so jealous I couldn't see straight. I didn't eat for
days at a time, I cried myself to sleep every night, I could think of
nothing else. When they spent time together, I couldn't handle it at all.
They didn't end up getting involved (thank God!), but the super-strong
reaction on my part led me to think a lot about what was behind it. And
the biggest factor was her imagined "inappropriateness". If I don't like
the person, or can't respect the person, it drastically increases the
jealousy.

Example 3: I have a lot of trouble with the idea of casual sex. I don't

do it, myself, and I'm uneasy with my partners doing it. Somewhere, back
in the back of my mind, I've got an idea that sex shouldn't be casual;
that it should always have strong emotion accompanying it. So the more
strongly my partner feels about the person (and the less it's "just about
sex"), the less jealous I tend to get. This, again, comes from the
feeling that casual sex "isn't as things should be".

Maybe Stef can come in and give her examples, too, since she's also said
she feels something like this.

>What are you - in those instances - jealous or envious of?

Oh, I'm still jealous of the other person (or something else, like a
computer game), but the strength of the feeling, and sometimes even the
existence of it, is directly traceable to how "right" things feel to me.

>Or are you angry at
>him/her for placing you in a situation you cannot come to terms with?

No, my jealousy only rarely has anything to do with anger, and only then
when an overt rule has been broken.

---

[JennieD-O'C]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>>Insecurity about *what*? I can't be afraid of losing something I'venever
>>had. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
>
>In the above case you can feel envy (which I think we've too much
>thrown in as being the same as jealousy and it isn't at all) or you
>feel jealous because *you* indeed *have* that person, as you are in a
>possessive mode of love with him/her, regardless of whether that
>person knows that or not.

Those are two possibilities. There are many other possible reasons for

feeling jealous of someone who's involved with someone you'd like to be
involved with. Not all of which necessarily have to do with insecurity.

>Possessiveness has firm roots in insecurity.

Here you go again. Not necessarily, not always, not for everyone.

I sometimes feel possessive of a partner when really *good* things are
happening. If I've been noticing how wonderful the person is, and we're
walking hand in hand on the street and being cute, I may well think
something like: "Mine, mine, mine! Oh, how lucky I am!" Does this come
from "insecurity"?! If anything, it comes from a feeling of *security*!

>>But both of those would be distinct from the feeling of jealousy

>>that would most likely result from having been "replaced" (and in a poly
>>relationship, even).
>
>Jealousy out of being replaced? No. That's not the correct correlation
>of feeling and goal. Jealousy needs to have a precise (imagined or
>real) target. One is not jealous of "because one's been replaced", one
>is jealous of the replacing person. You can feel angry or hurt because
>of the replacement.

You feel jealous *of* a person or thing, yes. But the *reason* for or

*result* of that feeling can be "having been replaced".

>Again I sense the need to clear up semantics. Sorry if I come over as

>nitpicking here, but a) I constantly have to deal with three to four
>languages (German, French, English and Russian) often simultanously

As a linguist, and a professor of German in a modern languages department,

this is all too understandable to me. :-)

>and b) I tend to want to be absolutely clear about motives, causes,

>results and relations between those, as a writer I have this tick of
>being highly analytical of written words. LOL.

You'll fit in very well here, then. :-)

>>You're confusing *feeling* jealousy with *reacting* to it again. Iprefer

>>to separate the two. If I feel jealous, I admit this wholeheartedly and
>>openly, and knowing that I don't have to "put away" the feeling helps me
>>cope with it in a way that's healthy and honorable.
>
>You're however thus doing already what I described! Maybe that's one
>facet of misunderstanding.

But in my example, I still feel the jealousy, I just cope with it in a

productive way. In your scenario, simply feeling the jealousy was a
breach of trust.

>>Exactly this happened to me. And it was a very long, very scary process

>>for me, too. But if someone had told my very frightened partner right
>>afterwards that he was breaking my trust by being jealous, and hebelieved
>>it, he probably would have left me then and there. "Advice" like that
>>doesn't help someone cope. Telling someone that jealousy is okay, but
>>needs to be managed, *does*.
>
>Sorry, disagree here. If my partner told me - WITHOUT any poly
>relationships going or commencing or about to commence - that he feels
>poly, there is no reason to feel jealous!

Maybe, but if I were in that situation, I'd need to be very clear about

what "feeling poly" meant before my jealousy could be quelled. I might
well worry and fear that my partner had been attracted to particular
people, which led him to realize he was poly, and I might feel jealous of
that.

>As far as the original poster wrote there was no other

>interest involved. He just told her.

Well, we don't know that for sure. Which is why, in piranha's response to

the original poster, piranha asked her to define what she meant by her
partner "feeling poly".

>>How can she deal with something that she's "stashed away"?

>
>Apart from the present discussion with her husband.

For me, at least, that would be disasterous. The best way -- in fact, in

my experience, the *only* way -- for me to cope with my jealousy in a sane

way, includes being able to talk about it with my partner, and perhaps

also the person I'm jealous of. Luckily, I have partners who are
interested in hearing about what I'm feeling.

---

[piranha]

In article <3599e081...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 30 Jun 1998 18:23:09 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:
>
>Hi Piranha (I like that alter ego!),

thanks. me too. :-)

>> i'm pretty sure that it's _actual_ loss for me. that is,
>> in fact, the only thing that makes me jealous, the loss
>> of something i value, which is no longer offered to me,
>> but to somebody else.
>
>Is that jealousy or envy? Both are *not* the same.

agreed, they're not the same. in my case it tends to be
jealousy, because once i feel this way, i don't really
want the third person around anymore (it takes a long
time for me to get this way, and somebody has to show a
marked disregard for my feelings, and i don't want peo-
ple around who don't give a hoot for my feelings).

if i was just envious, i'd have a bit of a whistful sigh
about the situation, and would have no thoughts of wish-
ing the other person gone. envy doesn't get very strong
in me.

and neither is about insecurity for me.

>Would that it were, LOL! But I have a distinct streak of stubbornness
>and usually stick to what I decided to stick to. I've been down the
>road and back regarding jealousy and discovered that for me there is a
>solution to it.

good for ya. i've had to learn to respect other people's
feelings of jealousy, because i don't really feel it in
the same ways myself. (this group's been good for my edu-
cation in that area.)

>To me there are but two options - discussion and solution (as I wrote)
>and ending the relationship. Being miserable, hankering or hounding
>myself or the person I love isn't any sort of option in my book.

sure. but "discussion and solution" can take quite some
time in my life. i have a strong loyalty streak, i don't
give up easily on something that was once really good.
it took me about a year to get used to a poly relation-
ship (we had been monogamous before, and i had no concept
of polyamory). while i wouldn't say i hounded anyone, i
certainly was at times miserable, more so than i had been
before the introduction of a third person. i didn't give
up on it tho, and neither did my partner, and we came out
of it just fine.

it's all a matter of dynamics for me. i can be out of
there in a flash if there wasn't much to hold me, or i
can hang on tenaciously, if we have a solid history and
communicate well.

>I've
>been down that road in the past also and have never seen a positive
>outcome of something like this. For none of those involved. You cannot
>un-break what is broken.

i disagree. i've fixed a few broken relationships in my
time, and it can be done. it takes some bigtime effort
tho, and i can't say i'd blame anyone for not wanting to
invest that. i'd only invest it myself under certain cir-
cumstances.

>> lousy is a serious warning sign. i act on it by thin-
>> king about what it's signalling, and by talking about
>> it with my partner.
>

>You are right of course here. And I didn't say I don't feel occasional
>twinges of jealousy. However I found that in most cases I could
>resolve or pinpoint those quickly and privately.

that's your prerogative. i tend to be the same way when
i just have twinges of some particular feeling. i first
discuss them within myself to see whether it's worthwhile
to mention them to my partner, or whether i'm being un-
reasonable, or whether the feeling is so fleeting that
it isn't worth bothering with.

but since my feelings of jealousy result from a very spe-
cific type of situation, and are fairly strong and solid,
i would most definitely talk to my partner about them, be-
cause, frankly, something needs to change, or the relation-
ship is headed for the rocks.

>If however I should
>see cause for all out jealousy I prefer to deal with the underlying
>problem right away and without even allowing the dragon to singe me or
>the others.

ah, now i see where the misunderstanding lies. you think
that feelings of jealousy must automatically result in a
jealous temper tantrum, or some similarly nasty behaviour
towards one's partner? i call it jealousy merely when i
have the _feeling_. i do not consider temper tantrums an
appropriate behaviour choice, and i _do_ have choices on
how i care to behave even when i am jealous and angry.

>I have and must say that I kept to what I had resolved myself to keep
>to. To say it in a less impersonal manner. It hurt like hell, sense of
>loss and rejection wasn't nice at all, but I firmly kept my goal in
>view of not hurting us (me and the other) more through a jealousy
>tantrum.

yeah, here it is again. i agree. i dislike tantrums of
any kind, i prefer to talk about my feelings in as calm
and rational manner as i can muster. but i do also very
firmly believe that talking about feelings is part of a
good partnership for me. i don't want to have to walk
on eggshells, i don't want to have to hide feelings be-
cause they'd make my partner miserable. those sorts of
considerations go into my partner choice; i would probab-
ly choose not to be with somebody who had a much thinner
skin than i, and who would be much more easily hurt.

>> maybe i need or want zir here right now? maybe i liked
>> things how they were just fine, and i like them less now?
>
>Sure. But then I'd say it's time for a raincheck, no? If you discover
>- after entering such a relationship - that you cannot deal with an
>open relationship, you should probably rediscuss.

why should all the onus be on me? what if we have had
an agreement to behave a certain way, and then, in the
throes of NRE (new relationship energy) my partner for-
gets all that? why does that imply to you that i cannot
deal with an open relationship? maybe it should imply
that reality sometimes tosses monkey wrenches into even
the finest agreements, something i've seen happen a fair
amount. there are lots of ways of doing poly, it need
not be a free-for-all.

that's why i asked the original poster to tell us what
her husband meant by being polyamorous. because stated
as is, it only means "loves more than one person roman-
tically/sexually". it says nothing about how one acts
on those feelings, how one conducts one's relationships
with those persons one loves. there is no one way to
do polyamory.

>As I said before, of course. But we were talking about a situation of
>someone who's got a jealousy problem, not any occasional, once-every
>4-years-or-so and valid twinge of it!

right. but your original wording didn't specify that,
it was a generalization (or you wouldn't have heard the
outpouring you're getting now :-).

i think we've mostly cleared that up now.

[JennieD-O'C]

Mark A Kille <maks...@pitt.edu> wrote:

>I've been in a situation a lot like this...for me, it ties into jealousy
>being a feeling that something is being taken away from me. In this
>case, having someone I was very close to get involved with someone
>I just couldn't "grasp" made me worry about the implications for
>our relationship. Because I could not see how they could value
>what this person represented at the same time as valuing what I
>represented--and since they were so obviously valuing this person,
>it seemed pretty clear which one was going to go.

This is how I felt, too. In my case, it wasn't entirely rational -- my
partner was perfectly capable of finding things to like about this other
person without loving me less. I just had a lot of trouble wrapping my
mind around that at the time.

>You could call that insecurity, and in one sense it was; I was afraid
>that our relationship couldn't handle the contradiction.

In my case, it wasn't insecurity. I was *also* insecure at times during
this episode (though I'd say that it was the jealousy that made me
insecure, not the other way around -- I feel bad about myself when I get
that jealous), but it was more incidental.

[Libris Solar]

On Sun, 28 Jun 1998, Mark Ziemann wrote:

> My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.

> Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly

> monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to
> accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
> work on this problem.

Hello Louise, I've been with my partner for 23 years.

I informed my partner who is also a woman (assuming you are using your
husbands internet account to post this, or a friends) that I considered
myself polyamorous by nature.

She too had adverse reactions to it and is still opposed to the idea. I
respect her decision and am doing my best to work with it.

I hope your being informed did not include something like being told he's
seeing someone else without your having known. If that were the case, I
would not necessarily consider your husband to be what I think polyamorous
is, but simply cheating behind your back with polyamory as a convenient
explanation for his unfaithfulness. I hope that is not what you are
dealing with. It does not sound like it so far.

> We love each other very much & neither one of us wants to end our
> relationship. But it is making it very difficult for both of us. I know he
> is unhappy & trying to come to terms with being poly as he has finally been

> able to put a name to his feelings.

I must admit, when I resolved it to myself once and for all that I truly
wanted, needed to love others, it was a weight off my chest.

> I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
> any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without him.
> We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.
>

> Louise

Advice: Know what you need for happiness. Don't let what he is choosing
for himself be what defines what you choose for yourself.

Don't automatically choose the opposite of what he feels he needs but talk
about the possibilities. If he's willing to talk, you will learn more
about what he feels and have a basisi to communicate what you feel in
return.

Identify for you what you need to be happy. Communicate what that is when
you are certain what it is and do take a lot of time to think about what
that is. Write it down. Discuss it.

If it is incompatible with what your husband needs and you are unwilling
to share him with others, you must let him know, otherwise, if you are
willing to experiment with the possibility of allowing him to love others,
then you should work out rules together so he will know what you can
handle and what you can't handle.

If you can't handle any possibility of sharing him, make it known to him
clearly. If he feels he cannot live without polyamory and you feel you
cannot live with it, then you should probably consider ending your
relationship lest you wind up terribly unhappy with the arrangement and
become completely heart broken, something I would not recommend allowing
to happen.

Louise, this is no easy experience, I'm sure.

I commend you for seeking advice in as responsible a place you can find
and I hope you don't feel much despair in your heart about this.

The best thing you've shared about all of this is that he's informed you
of his feelings. That counts for a lot if he has not become involved with
anyone yet because it means you and what you feel are supremely imortant
to him as opposed to someone who has gone out and been unfaithful behind
your back.

I hope you'll be able to discuss this with your husband in a good way.

I'd recommend planning times to discuss it and not just falling into it
and any particular part of the day when one of you might be irritable,
tired or something. Try to discuss it when you both are feeling okay, but
not necessarily after being fulfilled in sexual intimacy because if the
discussion does not go well it could ruin the good freelings of your
intimacy.

My best to you in seeking a way to resolve this matter in a good way for
both of you.

libris

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>Jealousy is insecurity. I'd wager that your husband has finally found
>enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
>break that trust.

This is too simplistic. Jealousy and insecurity are intersecting sets but
there's much more to both of them. It's also too blame-oriented. When a
relationship may need to change, that is scary for everyone. Labeling one
person with insecurity (which is commonly thought of as indicating
something bad or wrong with the person) and blaming one person for breaking
trust is harmful. You could say that it was the husband who broke trust by
saying that he isn't or can't be monogamous, and you can also label an
interest in polyamory negatively (unable to commit, immature, etc.) but
that's not helpful either. It's important to explore the issue without
blame.

>Help him. If you truly love him, you love all of him, even those
>aspects you are uncomfortable with or right now can't deal with. They
>must have been there always, not just since he told you.

"If you truly love..." statements are manipulative and they don't help in a
difficult situation. It's true that love provides some impetus to work on
accepting things one is uncomfortable with. But if the acceptance doesn't
come, that doesn't mean love never existed.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------
Can anyone love so much that they will never fear, never worry, never be
scared? The answer is no-one can love this much. Nobody can. This is why
I don't mind you doubting. -- Howard Jones (via Thida Cornes)

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:29:57 -0400, Jim Roberts <jim...@erols.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Well, she has a point, but she's a bit incomplete. Jealousy can arise from
>>other sources than insecurity - cultural conditioning for instance. But my
>>wife has had all the cultural conditioning that America has to offer, yet she
>>has not a possessive nor jealous bone in her body, Sometimes I have wondered
>>whether this character trait is genetic. My first wife, who was raised in a
>>much more permissive environment, could smell my attraction to other women
>>across all time and space. She once destroyed our entire apartment over it.
>
>See the other post, of course I meant insecurity as a starting point
>of the search. I doubt that cultural conditioning is a deciding factor
>(though an influential one, sure). Maybe definition gets easier when I
>say that fear and insecurity are for me close sisters.

Cultural beliefs (beliefs about how people should behave and what the
behavior means) are for me absolutely intertwined with jealousy. I don't
get jealous without the belief "zie shouldn't be doing that." And I do not
have to feel that I am permanently losing something or feel afraid that I
can't get what I want in order to feel jealous. So insecurity is not always
a factor either, although it certainly can be.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

Love: a blurring of the distinction between selfish and selfless.
-- Ofer Inbar

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 29 Jun 1998 17:19:38 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>wrote:
>

>>How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
>>feeling.
>
>Not simple, nor simplistic. Insecurity is a concept which is
>dreadfully complicated, as it can stem from a huge variety of causes.

Perhaps you don't understand the common implications of the word
insecurity. The label insecurity implies an internal problem, a neurosis, a
mismatch between one's beliefs and reality. It's not an appropriate label
to apply in situations where discomfort comes because something *really is*
changing and someone doesn't want it to change. If someone is sad because
zir parent died last week, you don't call it depression, you call it
mourning. If someone is upset because zir relationship is changing in ways
zie doesn't like, you don't call it insecurity. Now there *may* be some
insecurity operating in such a situation, but it is incorrect that jealousy
always arises from a neurotic mismatch between belief and reality.

>The very first step however is to REALIZE that jealousy is based on
>your *own* insecurity, whatever the cause of that.

I would say one of the first steps is to figure out what internal beliefs
and past history may be contributing to the feelings AND what *external*
factors may be contributing. It doesn't make sense to focus *only* on the
internal factors. That's like trying to build a house with nothing but a
single screwdriver.

>All of this plus a few other things have made a highly insecure person
>of him, as in that he does not accrue value to himself, he compares
>himself with others and usually that results in feeling the lesser,
>insecurity (the inability, in his case, to "secure" himself as a being
>cherished and wanted) the result again. And on top he always has and
>had the counter-example of his much beloved brother (and family)
>before him.
>
>Any time I'd meet someone else, am friendly with him, maybe even flirt
>or dance, he starts to compare himself to that person, finds himself
>lacking in his own opinion = he is jealous of that person (and the
>imagined qualities which he is sure will pull me more than his,
>because he counts his own so low).

That is certainly one way jealousy can arise. It's not the only source of
jealousy. Someone who is reasonably comfortable with zirself can still feel
jealous if there are changes that zie doesn't like (especially changes that
involve another party's getting involved in another interest).

>It took me a long time until I was able to see, that a) my jealousy
>stemmed from possessiveness (I wanted to possess every emotion, every
>thought, every minute of spare time) and b) that my possessiveness
>stemmed from the of course faulty idea, that he only loved me, if he
>spent indeed every moment, emotion and thought with me. I couldn't
>allow him the freedom of being an own person and it was *my*
>insecurity which blocked me. I felt insecure as I couldn't - if
>freeing him to others - control him.

I don't see that form of jealousy as arising from insecurity at all. I see
it as arising from an incorrect belief -- that true love means a person
wants to spend every minute with zir love, and therefore if zie doesn't
it's not love.

>>What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
>>spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
>>that? Is that insecurity?

>Of course. You have been dumped, while someone else has been chosen.
>You experience feelings of loss, you also feel now insecure in

>yourself. If you were secure or sure of yourself, your reaction would

>in all probability be different.
>
>You'd maybe see the reason why your ex has chosen someone else over
>you and be able to accept that.

Feelings of loss do not always lead to feelings of insecurity. Also,
security does not mean lack of feelings. Understanding doesn't mean lack of
feelings either. I understand lots of things that I also have negative
feelings about. When I feel jealous, it's with full knowledge that I can
survive on my own, and often with full knowledge that any loss I am
experiencing is temporary (i.e., I do not really believe my partner will
dump me).

>I have been in exactly this situation, though I have been prepared to
>it. As cute as this may sound, but I have had a relationship with a
>man who had been a virgin at age 22 (I was 23 then). I had known that
>our time together was limited, because I knew that the moment would
>come when he'd want to know "how it is with others". I had asked him
>aforehand to - when that moment comes - be absolutely forthright with
>me. He'd denied the possibility, but of course it happened as I'd
>predicted and, lucky me, he was forthright.
>
>I still know and meet him, we are still good friends, very good
>friends. And I was not jealous, even though I lived in the same
>apartment house as him and his new love interest. I probably would
>have been jealous before, but after the incident I wrote of above I
>never have been again. I could let go, being secure in the knowledge
>that I wasn't any lesser or non-lovable just because a man's interests
>change.

I'm glad it worked that way for you, but knowing you are lovable and
knowing your worth don't always prevent jealousy.

>That is the difference - if you're secure in yourself you can examine
>the real causes and reasons. And react accordingly and not according
>to your fears and jealousies.

You can examine causes and reasons and avoid reacting in harmful ways
even if you are not entirely secure. It might take longer to sort out all
the different contributing factors.

>See above. Of course the background of jealousy is complex, but I
>still say that a person who's secure in him/herself either is not
>jealous or deals with the background of jealousy in a manner which
>results in a state of equilibrium.

I deal with jealousy in a fairly productive way. It involves asking my
partners to avoid some of my triggers and talking to my partners about my
feelings. It does not involve assuming that every situation that produces
jealousy for me is entirely about my own unreasonable neuroses.

>And regarding the breaking of trust - view it from the point of view
>of the husband. He finally, after more than a decade, owns up to the
>fact that he thinks he's poly. That's a whammy! After all that time.
>Think of how long he must have been pondering the problem, "do I tell
>her?" or "do I keep it bottled in myself?" or "do I cheat instead?".
>
>In my book the guy deserves a medal alone for owning up to that.

Sure, and part of the reason someone deserves a medal for being honest
about poly desires is that it is likely to precipitate a strong reaction
and difficulty in zir relationship. It's unreasonable to expect the person
who hears this (presuming zie isn't poly) to have no negative reaction, and
to blame zir for breaking trust is harmful, as blame produces defensiveness
and more blame and polarization.

His behavior should be rewarded and many couples who go through a poly
transition find a reward in deeper intimacy and better communication. But
the reward is often a long time in coming and takes more work than simply
saying "hi honey, I'm poly."

>As I said, she first has to find out why she is jealous. And I still
>think that she would be wise to answer trust with trust, meaning to
>for the moment stash away her reaction of jealousy (and deal with it,

>that for sure!), but instead concretely react to her husband's
>disclosure. And that is another thing - *unless* she can master her
>current reaction of jealousy, she can't deal with the problem at hand.

>It's painfully obvious - poly means someone else may or could be(come)
>involved, thus jealousy forecludes any chance at a meaningful
>discussion of it.

Certainly if her jealousy reaction involves locking hubby out of the house
or throwing knives she should moderate it, but stashing it is a horrible
idea. If you stash it, then your partner doesn't know it's there. Strong
jealousy really cannot be stashed and if it pops out all of a sudden,
especially when another person is actually in the picture, it can cause
much more damage than talking about /expressing mild to moderate jealousy
during a transition period.

Poly people need to figure out ways of managing jealousy. There are a lot
of ways of doing that. Examining one's beliefs is part of it, but many
people bring a lot of other tools to bear as well.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

The Goddess moves mountains -- bring a shovel. -- Heather Madrone

[Jim Roberts]

Stef Maruch wrote:

> Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
> >Jealousy is insecurity. I'd wager that your husband has finally found
> >enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
> >break that trust.
>
> This is too simplistic. Jealousy and insecurity are intersecting sets but
> there's much more to both of them. It's also too blame-oriented. When a

Oh, give us a break, Stef. Venn diagrams of jealousy?? This is just plain
meaningless, unlike Sakar's post, which might be assailed for not being
sufficiently inclusive, but *if you pay attention* to her, you will find out
what she means. I have, and I mostly do understand. This is a subject that no
one understands fully, and never can, since the forms of jealousy and
possessiveness and envy are endless in any one culture, and then there are
other cultures. So call off your attack dogs and try to broaden understanding,
if you can. The essential truth is that jealousy and possessiveness are
clearly gnetically predisposed, learned emotions. We have many others like
that. We know they are genetic, since we can see them all in primates studied
in the wild. We know they are learned, because they can be unlearned. Read
the book "Bonobo", by Frans de Waal, and then pontificate for us all.

> relationship may need to change, that is scary for everyone. Labeling one
> person with insecurity (which is commonly thought of as indicating
> something bad or wrong with the person) and blaming one person for breaking
> trust is harmful. You could say that it was the husband who broke trust by
> saying that he isn't or can't be monogamous, and you can also label an
> interest in polyamory negatively (unable to commit, immature, etc.) but
> that's not helpful either. It's important to explore the issue without
> blame.
>

That's not what she is saying. She never claimed that the insecurity was a
personality defect. Just a fact. You are putting a negative moral tone on
something quite simple. And trust is often in the eye of the beholder, as I
have learned through painful experience, Jerry Springer notwithstanding. 8^)>

> >Help him. If you truly love him, you love all of him, even those
> >aspects you are uncomfortable with or right now can't deal with. They
> >must have been there always, not just since he told you.
>

Wise.

> "If you truly love..." statements are manipulative and they don't help in a
> difficult situation. It's true that love provides some impetus to work on
> accepting things one is uncomfortable with. But if the acceptance doesn't
> come, that doesn't mean love never existed.
>

Beep. Wrong. But there is no accounting for some tastes. Love has many
forms. What Sakar is trying to say, I think - don't forget that English is not
her native language and think how you would do in hers - is a statement of
romantic love that arose in the West in Langue d'Oc in the age of the
troubadours. It's a matter of faith. If you don't have that faith, which it
seems you don't, you can't comment on its validity. It's a conditioned feeling.

jimbat

[Jim Roberts]

Stef Maruch wrote:

> Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
> >On 29 Jun 1998 17:19:38 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
> >>feeling.
> >
> >Not simple, nor simplistic. Insecurity is a concept which is
> >dreadfully complicated, as it can stem from a huge variety of causes.
>
> Perhaps you don't understand the common implications of the word
> insecurity. The label insecurity implies an internal problem, a neurosis, a

Beep. Wrong, again. Read the word, look it up in the dictionary. What you
say is simply absurd and shows an appalling lack of aquaintance with the
English language. If I am sitting on a mound of dirt being eroded in a flood -
a situation I have experienced - you feel insecure. Is that a neurosis?? No,
it is reality! Jeez, get a life!

[rest of weird rant deleted]

jimbat

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 30 Jun 1998 18:23:09 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

>> let's hope you don't get to find out. this seems to be
>> something where a number of people i know have disco-
>> vered that no matter how unjealous they thought of them-
>> selves, when push came to shove, there it was anyway,
>> the green-eyed monster.

>I have and must say that I kept to what I had resolved myself to keep

>to. To say it in a less impersonal manner. It hurt like hell, sense of
>loss and rejection wasn't nice at all, but I firmly kept my goal in
>view of not hurting us (me and the other) more through a jealousy

>tantrum. I mean - I loved him still (or it wouldn't have hurt), why
>would I make him yet more miserable than he already was? And in
>hindsight, meaning in the long run, I say it was the better way. Maybe
>lashing out brings relief to others, it doesn't for me.

Jealousy doesn't mean lashing out or having tantrums, any more than anger
does. The feeling and the behavior are two separate things.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

Any emotion can arise because of something unhealthy or undesirable in
your psyche. Any emotion can also arise because of something healthy and
desirable in your psyche. Jealousy is no exception. Neither is love.

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 12:23:36 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

> thanks. me too. :-)

Where does it come from?

> agreed, they're not the same. in my case it tends to be
> jealousy, because once i feel this way, i don't really
> want the third person around anymore (it takes a long
> time for me to get this way, and somebody has to show a
> marked disregard for my feelings, and i don't want peo-
> ple around who don't give a hoot for my feelings).

That's the most founded explanation for being jealous I read so far.

> good for ya. i've had to learn to respect other people's
> feelings of jealousy, because i don't really feel it in
> the same ways myself. (this group's been good for my edu-
> cation in that area.)

Does respect mean that any sort of expression of a negative feeling
which will touch others negatively is okay? If we were not talking
about jealousy, but of hatred instead or of violent anger, would there
be an equal respect?

> sure. but "discussion and solution" can take quite some
> time in my life. i have a strong loyalty streak, i don't
> give up easily on something that was once really good.

Nor would I. As you say discussion and solution can take time. I
didn't imply it wouldn't!

> i disagree. i've fixed a few broken relationships in my
> time, and it can be done. it takes some bigtime effort
> tho, and i can't say i'd blame anyone for not wanting to
> invest that. i'd only invest it myself under certain cir-
> cumstances.

It depends on the amount of broken. If someone, outright, has lost
his/her love for you and on top is in love with someone else, then
broken is broken. I was speaking about this. No amount of fixing can
make someone love you again.

> that's your prerogative. i tend to be the same way when
> i just have twinges of some particular feeling. i first
> discuss them within myself to see whether it's worthwhile
> to mention them to my partner, or whether i'm being un-
> reasonable, or whether the feeling is so fleeting that
> it isn't worth bothering with.

That is also the approach I spoke about.

> but since my feelings of jealousy result from a very spe-
> cific type of situation, and are fairly strong and solid,
> i would most definitely talk to my partner about them, be-
> cause, frankly, something needs to change, or the relation-
> ship is headed for the rocks.

That is absolutely right, of course.

> ah, now i see where the misunderstanding lies. you think
> that feelings of jealousy must automatically result in a
> jealous temper tantrum, or some similarly nasty behaviour
> towards one's partner?

No I don't, though I include that kind of behaviour. But regardless of
whether someone has a fit/tantrum or just often feels jealous by
him/herself, it always will affect his/her SO(s), unless (s)he is a
very good actor. Mistrust can be sensed and is a slight, it hurts.

> yeah, here it is again. i agree. i dislike tantrums of
> any kind, i prefer to talk about my feelings in as calm
> and rational manner as i can muster. but i do also very
> firmly believe that talking about feelings is part of a
> good partnership for me. i don't want to have to walk

I understand that when you decide to talk you obviously have cause to
bring up the topic. But bother your SOs because you feel jealous of
their pastimes, their friends, their choice of lover, their manners of
sex, their ...and and and? Bother your SOs because you imagine this or
that? Bother your SOs because you go off half cocked or feel that they
don't get a situation "right" as you think it should be? Sorry, that's
a bit too much bothering others for my taste, that's above the pain
threshold. That's the point where I think someone should have a
serious discussion with oneself whether one isn't much too
self-indulgent!

> why should all the onus be on me? what if we have had
> an agreement to behave a certain way, and then, in the
> throes of NRE (new relationship energy) my partner for-
> gets all that? why does that imply to you that i cannot
> deal with an open relationship? maybe it should imply
> that reality sometimes tosses monkey wrenches into even
> the finest agreements, something i've seen happen a fair
> amount. there are lots of ways of doing poly, it need
> not be a free-for-all.

I don't say it should be your work alone. But I've read much too much
about self-indulgence and in a manner I regard as mainly
self-centered, and not enough about taking oneself a bit back and
expressing one's respect and love for the other through helping
him/her!

Of course everyone has the right to take care of him/herself, but I've
read nothing but, regarding this thread.

> that's why i asked the original poster to tell us what
> her husband meant by being polyamorous. because stated
> as is, it only means "loves more than one person roman-
> tically/sexually". it says nothing about how one acts
> on those feelings, how one conducts one's relationships
> with those persons one loves. there is no one way to
> do polyamory.

Yep, I read your post, thought it was right, but I also read the
original post and took it per face value. What else can you do except
ask (which you did and I to some extent too) or react with your own
opinion?

> right. but your original wording didn't specify that,
> it was a generalization

I wasn't generalizing, I answered one precise post. I would have
answered differently, had the facts reported been different, e.g. if
Louise had written that her husband has had affairs and now explains
those as being poly and that his style of doing this causes her to be
jealous. She however didn't pose the facts that way.

> (or you wouldn't have heard the
> outpouring you're getting now :-).

It might be interesting to know the viewpoint of some who have been at
the receiving edge of rampant or chronic jealousy of someone who
instead of trying to work getting jealousy out of his/her system,
likes to place it at his/her feet to examine and succour, never mind
whether peacefully or of the green-eyed variety.

I'm not talking - mind me - about well-founded occasional jealousy,
I'm talking about what was described as in chronic or regular
jealousy.

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 14:01:18 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
wrote:

>I sometimes feel possessive of a partner when really *good* things are

>happening. If I've been noticing how wonderful the person is, and we're
>walking hand in hand on the street and being cute, I may well think
>something like: "Mine, mine, mine! Oh, how lucky I am!" Does this come
>from "insecurity"?! If anything, it comes from a feeling of *security*!

I would never accrue a feeling of security to the mistaken - but
absolutely mistaken - idea that anyone owns (or should or could) own
anyone else or that anyone ever could be "mine"! And that goes as far
as holding the same view regarding one's children and other family.

No one is property, even benevolently understood, of someone else, not
even in imagination. You mentally/emotionally *shackle* that other
person, it may be one-sided or two-sided, but what you do is: you
apply fetters.

And this is the most negative emotion/idea you've so far talked about,
by far outreaching any of anger, envy or jealousy.

Sorry to come on so strong, but here I dig my toes in.

>What I most often get jealous of is one of my partners' tendencies to get
>so wrapped up in computer games that the whole evening has then gone by
>and he doesn't have any time left to spend with me. If anything, it's my
>self-confidence that causes this feeling, not insecurity, since I strongly
>believe that I'm worth spending time with. Instead, the jealousy (and
>yes, it's definitely real jealousy; I've felt it and it's quite icky) has
>more to do with feeling like I want to be with my partner and something is
>preventing me from doing that.

Someone who sets one's own wishes above those of his/her SOs is not
per say self-confident in my understanding, but centered on one's
self.

Yves and I are artists, Yves is a sculptor and painter, I paint, draw
comics and write. I also spend a lot of time at the computer, Yves
with his soccer club. We both do a lot of "time apart" from "us", as
of need, none of us can be very creative when being with the others
and that's our work.

Michel, who does our household and doesn't work to earn money for us,
has no time-consuming habits except gardening and the horses and he's
extremely gregarious and cuddly. I have changed my ways for him
insofar that we have set up the computer so that he can sit close or
behind me and cuddle all he wants (in fact he's right now watching me
respond, holding me in an embrace and reading along with me). When I
_seriously_ write, as in when I work on screenplays or articles, he
usually - if he wants to - sleeps against/near me, knowing that if he
were awake he'd disturb me.

But he has changed his ways in that when I shut the door of the studio
to work or even to relax on my own, he seeks his pastimes elsewhere
and doesn't bother me. And Yves knows only too well, being much like
me, not to do that at all. Though he at times may do a "Michel" as
well, when I write or I tag along when he's out.

Does any of us happen to want closeness when another doesn't? Yes.
Does anyone force it? No. Are there hard feelings or is there
jealousy? No. We don't own each other. We advance as far as is
comfortable for each of us and respect the demarcation line when it
becomes more. Anything else is forcing the other.

Sakar

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:51 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:
>
>>Nope.
>>

>>If your jealousy is caused by your partner getting involved with someone
>>else and neglecting you, is that insecurity?
>
>You could argue that this is fear of (imminent) loss.

When I am jealous over neglect, it's not fear of anything, it's the
experience of actual loss -- I want my partner to be with me right now and
zie is with someone else. I want my partner to enjoy X-activity with me and
we haven't done it in a while and zie is doing it with someone else. This
is sometimes insecurity based -- I am sometimes afraid in crowds and if my
partner wanders off in a crowd I will experience more jealousy than if zie
does it in another context. But it still happens in situations where
insecurity or fear of loss is not relevant.

>And in some
>cases you also could argue that you are - in such a case - insecure
>enough to think that you *need* to build your self-confidence on the
>amount of time and care your partner accrues you.

That has nothing to do with it for me. My self confidence is not dependent
on my current configuration of relationships. I don't *need* any
*particular* relationship. However, I *like* my relationships the way they
are. Some of my relationships need a certain amount and kinds of attention,
and excessive involvement with other interests damages them. When this
seems like it might be happening, jealousy is an early warning system.

>If I had an open relationship, which allows for outside interests,
>then there is no other reason *but* insecurity to feel jealous in such
>a situation. If you aren't secure enough to trust the other to have
>his fun and then come back - what's the purpose?

Come back how often? Come back alone? These things matter in some
relationships. If I saw my primary partner once a month instead of every
day, I don't think we'd have anything like the relationship we have now. If
there were other people living with us, likewise. So if other interests
cause us to move apart, jealousy can be a warning that we want to consider
spending more time together (assuming we like our relationship the way it
is). Of course some people would experience some other emotion as the
warning, or some people would have thoughts as the warning instead. But
sometimes for no ulterior reason the warning feeling is jealousy.

Trust needs to be earned and sometimes that takes a while and requires
actual experience. I spent a lot of time not entirely trusting my partner
to have zir fun and then come back (or at least come back in a state of
mind I could deal with). Over time I've come to trust zir more because I
see it works. If I had listened to my insecurity I would have left zir
believing that it could never work, rather than working to develop trust.

>But we were discussing within the context of someone who professed
>that she is not jealous of a specific situation, but instead has a
>"jealousy-problem" in general. And this - I hope you will hand to me -
>is in almost all cases based on personal insecurity *or* on a near
>pathological possessiveness (which again in many cases can be traced
>to some feeling of insecurity).

I ain't gonna hand that to you, sorry. I would need much more information
on what the person means by "jealousy problem." You're jumping to
conclusions by assuming it's about personal insecurity, and you're
certainly going too far in claiming it's "near pathological."

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

This man is not guilty of manslaughter. He is only guilty of being Arnold
J. Rimmer. That is his crime; it is also his punishment. -- Red Dwarf,
"Justice," Rob Grant & Doug Naylor

[Libris Solar]

On 29 Jun 1998, JennieD-O'C wrote:

> Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
> >>I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
> >>work on this problem.
> >

> >Jealousy is insecurity.

>
> How simplistic. No one here has tried to tell *you* what you are really
> feeling.
>

> If I fall for someone who's not interested in me, and I feel jealous when
> I see that person around his or her partner, is that insecurity?
>

> What if one of my existing partners dumps me because he or she wants to
> spend all of his or her time with another partner, and I get jealous of
> that? Is that insecurity?
>

> Jealousy is very complex, and has different elements for different people.
> If you want to simplify your *own* emotions by pinning a different label
> on them, that's fine, but doing it for other people isn't very nice.

I'm not certain the sentiment was shared with cruelty in mind but that
it is a strongly held opinion does seem likely.

Jealousy is an extrapolation of a myriad of inputs to the brain.
Emotional and associative databases in the brain provide information
upon which we base our perceptions. Sometimes those perceptions are
autonomic and sometimes they are contrived by careful analysis and
construction, or so I imagine. When they are autonomic our emotions can be
highly stimulated. When they are contrived the same reaction is possible
but not always automatic and sometimes the emotional response is then
controllable. It all depends on what you are most susceptible to.

Opinion.

> >I'd wager that your husband has finally found
> >enough trust in you to come out. By reacting jealously I feel you
> >break that trust.
>

> Do you really think squelching one's feelings is a better option?
>
> Me, I'd rather have relationships with people who are honest with
> themselves about what they feel, and try to manage those emotions by
> reacting to them in ways that don't hurt themselves or others. Not with
> people who tell themselves that they're wrong, or "breaking trust", for
> feeling certain emotions in the first place.

> ---
> Jennie D-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> http://home.intranet.org/~jenniedo/

By reacting with jealousy, the individual is being the creature and person
that they are. How to proceed from there, however, is of the utmost
importance.

Opinion.

libris

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1998 12:23:36 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

>> good for ya. i've had to learn to respect other people's
>> feelings of jealousy, because i don't really feel it in
>> the same ways myself. (this group's been good for my edu-
>> cation in that area.)
>
>Does respect mean that any sort of expression of a negative feeling
>which will touch others negatively is okay? If we were not talking
>about jealousy, but of hatred instead or of violent anger, would there
>be an equal respect?

If you don't respect a person's feelings, you're not going to get very far
in a relationship with that person.

"Violent anger" implies action and not just feeling, so it's not
commensurate with "jealousy," which is simply a feeling.

>> ah, now i see where the misunderstanding lies. you think
>> that feelings of jealousy must automatically result in a
>> jealous temper tantrum, or some similarly nasty behaviour
>> towards one's partner?
>
>No I don't, though I include that kind of behaviour. But regardless of
>whether someone has a fit/tantrum or just often feels jealous by
>him/herself, it always will affect his/her SO(s), unless (s)he is a
>very good actor. Mistrust can be sensed and is a slight, it hurts.

Sure, most of your behavior/feelings will affect your SO. But people have
negative feelings and trust is rarely perfect and if you are not prepared
to deal with even mild manifestations of same, you shouldn't be in a
relationship.

>> yeah, here it is again. i agree. i dislike tantrums of
>> any kind, i prefer to talk about my feelings in as calm
>> and rational manner as i can muster. but i do also very
>> firmly believe that talking about feelings is part of a
>> good partnership for me. i don't want to have to walk

>I understand that when you decide to talk you obviously have cause to
>bring up the topic. But bother your SOs because you feel jealous of
>their pastimes, their friends, their choice of lover, their manners of
>sex, their ...and and and? Bother your SOs because you imagine this or
>that? Bother your SOs because you go off half cocked or feel that they
>don't get a situation "right" as you think it should be? Sorry, that's
>a bit too much bothering others for my taste, that's above the pain
>threshold. That's the point where I think someone should have a
>serious discussion with oneself whether one isn't much too
>self-indulgent!

That point would be different for every relationship. It's up to your SO to
say whether zie is "bothered" by your discussing your feelings, at whatever
level. I enjoy listening to someone's feelings, even negative feelings, as
long as I know zie isn't trying to blame me for everything and believe zie
is taking some responsibility for changing things (internal and external)
zie wants to change. It sounds like you have very little patience for other
people's expressions of negative feelings; if so, that is good to know
about yourself and to tell your SOs, but it's not the only way to be.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

Diversity, generally understood and embraced, is not casual liberal
tolerance of anything and everything not yourself. It is not polite
accommodation. Instead, diversity is, in action, the sometimes painful
awareness that other people, other races, other voices, other habits of
mind, have as much integrity of being, as much claim on the world as you
do. --William Chase

[Mark Ziemann]

Hi All,
I wanted to send a quick message to thank you all for your input and
comments, for it has all been most helpfull.
We had reached somewhat of a crisis or an impasse in that we were not really
talking about this; Louise would become extremely upset at the mere mention
of anything that even *might* have anything to do with poly, and
consequently I was very reluctant to bring anything up for discussion and I
was feeling very alone and hurting with the thought that this was how my
future might look.
It took a huge measure of bravery and trust for Louise to even think about
posting a request for help, and I feel that we both have been rewarded by
the kindness you have all shown. That is not to say that she is any happier
with the idea of my being poly, or any more willing to accept or embrace my
feelings and beliefs, but at least we are talking again - thank goodness!
I have been printing out each message in what has become an interesting
thread, and giving them to Louise unedited (she is not particularly
computer-friendly, and doesn't check the NG herself) for her to read and
digest, I expect that she will shortly be composing a reply of her own,
perhaps with further detail and more questions. Until then please be assured
that we are continuing to follow this thread with great interest, and with
gratitude for it has been a catalyst to growth for us.
Cheers all,
Mark (and Louise who is beside me as I send this)

--
Mark Ziemann: voice 250 367 6684 fax 250 367 7099
Canada: P.O. Box 467, Montrose, B.C. V0G 1P0
U.S.A.: P.O. Box 707, Northport, WA 99157
Email: mzie...@wkpowerlink.com
Mark Ziemann wrote in message <35971...@news.vphos.net>...

>My husband of 15 yrs, told me about 9 months ago, that he was polyamorous.
>Needless to say I had never heard of such a thing as I feel strictly
>monogamous. We have had mamy discussions about it but I am not able to

>accept this situation. I am also a very jealous person & I know I have to
>work on this problem.
>

>We love each other very much & neither one of us wants to end our
>relationship. But it is making it very difficult for both of us. I know
he
>is unhappy & trying to come to terms with being poly as he has finally been
>able to put a name to his feelings.
>

>I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
>any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without
him.
>We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.
>
>Louise
>

>--
>Mark Ziemann: voice 250 367 6684 fax 250 367 7099
>Canada: P.O. Box 467, Montrose, B.C. V0G 1P0
>U.S.A.: P.O. Box 707, Northport, WA 99157
>Email: mzie...@wkpowerlink.com
>
>

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>On 1 Jul 1998 03:02:02 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>wrote:

>>I believe Stef once said that for her, jealousy most often has to do not
>>simply with insecurity, but with a situation being contrary to how things
>>"should be", according to either her own morals or ethics, or some
>>preconceived notion of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable'. I've found this
>>to be true for me sometimes.

>Is this jealousy? Again I have problems with grammar and words here
>maybe. Because I cannot see a connection between feeling jealous and a
>situation which "should be different according to own morals, ethics

>or sense of acceptability". I'd rather say something like this is some
>sort of vague "angst" or a more general discomfort. What are you - in
>those instances - jealous or envious of? That the other manages to
>live with such a situation better than you can? Or are you angry at

>him/her for placing you in a situation you cannot come to terms with?

If I feel I am being mistreated by a friend or partner in favor of another
person or thing, I sometimes become jealous. Feeling I am being mistreated
is based on my beliefs about how I *should* be treated by a friend or
partner. That's what I mean when I say I get jealous over situations being
"not as they should be." I don't get jealous if a casual acquaintance
spends all zir time in a corner with a new sweetie at a party. I do if my
primary partner does, because I expect my primary partner not to ignore
me at parties.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

Ignore Authority.

[Jim Roberts]

Alright! Keep telling her that men love women's bodies for very good reasons.
Nothing to get hung about.

Mark Ziemann wrote:
[...]

> perhaps with further detail and more questions. Until then please be assured
> that we are continuing to follow this thread with great interest, and with
> gratitude for it has been a catalyst to growth for us.
> Cheers all,
> Mark (and Louise who is beside me as I send this)

jimbat

[Sakar]

On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 15:52:41 -0700, "Mark Ziemann"
<mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:

>talking about this; Louise would become extremely upset at the mere mention
>of anything that even *might* have anything to do with poly, and
>consequently I was very reluctant to bring anything up for discussion and I
>was feeling very alone and hurting with the thought that this was how my
>future might look.

LOL. As I was suspecting! Way to go Mark, I *was* in your situation!

> but at least we are talking again - thank goodness!

GREAT! Absolutely great!!!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for both of you.

Greetings

Sakar

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1998 14:01:18 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>wrote:
>

>>I sometimes feel possessive of a partner when really *good* things are
>>happening. If I've been noticing how wonderful the person is, and we're
>>walking hand in hand on the street and being cute, I may well think
>>something like: "Mine, mine, mine! Oh, how lucky I am!" Does this come
>>from "insecurity"?! If anything, it comes from a feeling of *security*!
>
>I would never accrue a feeling of security to the mistaken - but
>absolutely mistaken - idea that anyone owns (or should or could) own
>anyone else or that anyone ever could be "mine"! And that goes as far
>as holding the same view regarding one's children and other family.
>
>No one is property, even benevolently understood, of someone else, not
>even in imagination. You mentally/emotionally *shackle* that other
>person, it may be one-sided or two-sided, but what you do is: you
>apply fetters.

We've been through this a number of times on alt.poly -- in the English
language "mine" doesn't always mean possession or property. "This is a
friend of mine" does not mean that you have shackled the person. "This is a
lover of mine," likewise. "I'm so lucky zie's mine" == "I'm so lucky zie is
associated with me, likes to spend time with me, has indicated zie wishes
to stay in a relationship with me." None of these are dangerous sentiments
or shackles.

Really, you're being much too dramatic about the whole thing.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

We will have no deus ex machina in our poly drama.

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

>Jealousy out of being replaced? No. That's not the correct correlation
>of feeling and goal. Jealousy needs to have a precise (imagined or
>real) target. One is not jealous of "because one's been replaced", one
>is jealous of the replacing person. You can feel angry or hurt because
>of the replacement.

It is possible to be jealous in a situation that doesn't include a specific
person or thing. You can be jealous of a partner's abilities, for example,
if they are related to your partner's neglecting you. And no, I don't mean
envious of a partner's abilities -- that would feel like "I wish I had
those abilities too," whereas jealousy feels like "I don't want my partner
to have those abilities, because I don't."

>Sorry, disagree here. If my partner told me - WITHOUT any poly
>relationships going or commencing or about to commence - that he feels

>poly, there is no reason to feel jealous! That's like telling me he
>prefers red wallpaper to white.

If I believe (as most people do) that true love is monogamous, and my
partner says zie's poly, then I conclude zie doesn't love me and that zie
is attracted to others, or else how would zie know zie's poly? That's quite
sufficient to cause jealousy.

>As far as the original poster wrote there was no other

>interest involved. He just told her. Any jealousy would be unfounded
>and again that points towards the possibility of breaking his trust.

To change from a monogamous to a polyamorous philosophy of relationships
requires a big shift in thinking that can take tremendous effort. I think
you have little understanding of that effort if you say that negative
feelings (including jealousy) that might arise in that situation are
unfounded and if you keep focusing on "breaking trust."

>I understand what you mean, but this wasn't the basis on which I gave
>that advice to not react with chronic jealousy to a coming out of her
>husband WHO GAVE HER NO CAUSE. You are talking about jealousy which
>already has a cause.

Telling someone you believe in polyamory, when you have represented
yourself as monogamous for years, may well lead to zir showing jealousy,
quite understandably in my opinion. "Causes" for jealousy are not always
actual relationships with real people, any more than causes for jealousy
always involving fucking other people, even though a lot of people dismiss
others' jealousy by saying "I'm not fucking the person so you have no
reason to be jealous."

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

"Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with
jealousy, greed, hate...."
"It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment --
the other side of the coin." -- "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

[Stef Maruch]

piranha <pir...@gooroos.com> wrote:

> and, since stef is on vacation, let me recommend quite
> a good book: harville hendrix, _ keeping the love you
> find_. it isn't a poly book, but it has a lot of good
> stuff on conflict resolution.

GETTING THE LOVE YOU WANT (same author) is better. GTLYW is a
couples' workbook for developing a conscious and goal oriented relationship
and for understanding each other's triggers. Keeping the Love You Find is
a book for single people, about figuring out what attracts you to people
and how to choose a good partner.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

You can starve a bulldog to death but you're NEVER going to change him
into a greyhound. -- Dog breeder M. Merys (via Gwen E. Sprague)

[piranha]

In article <359aab1a...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1998 12:23:36 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

[my handle]

>> thanks. me too. :-)
>
>Where does it come from?

an old insider joke with a friend of mine. sorry, it
would lose much in the translation, it was based on a
caricature. (the term itself refers to a small, fero-
cious fish which can be found in rivers in south ame-
rica.)

>> good for ya. i've had to learn to respect other people's
>> feelings of jealousy, because i don't really feel it in
>> the same ways myself. (this group's been good for my edu-
>> cation in that area.)
>
>Does respect mean that any sort of expression of a negative feeling
>which will touch others negatively is okay? If we were not talking
>about jealousy, but of hatred instead or of violent anger, would there
>be an equal respect?

respect for the _feeling_, most assuredly not respect
for whatever expression somebody wants to give it. i
respect hatred and strong anger as well, but expressing
it violently is a whole different ballgame. negative
feelings can be entirely justified. how one acts on
them matters greatly to me, probably more than the fee-
ling itself.

>It depends on the amount of broken. If someone, outright, has lost
>his/her love for you and on top is in love with someone else, then
>broken is broken. I was speaking about this. No amount of fixing can
>make someone love you again.

that's possibly true, tho i prefer to speak for myself
rather than project how things work for me onto others.
but breaking my trust doesn't automatically mean that
breaks my love. i have, in fact, not lost my love for
anyone i ever have loved. (i am slow to love, and it
tends to stick, even if a relationship between us does
not work for some reason.)

if somebody did no longer love me, whether or not there
was another person would be immaterial, yes, it would
break us apart. i might well be jealous if zie loved
another then, and i still loved zir. i'd also be sad,
and i'd mourn the loss of zir love. for a while.

>> ah, now i see where the misunderstanding lies. you think
>> that feelings of jealousy must automatically result in a
>> jealous temper tantrum, or some similarly nasty behaviour
>> towards one's partner?
>
>No I don't, though I include that kind of behaviour.

ok, so you call it all jealousy, the feelings _and_ the
behaviour. you'll find that most people here separate
the two.

>But regardless of
>whether someone has a fit/tantrum or just often feels jealous by
>him/herself, it always will affect his/her SO(s), unless (s)he is a
>very good actor. Mistrust can be sensed and is a slight, it hurts.

jealousy isn't automatically mistrust either -- as per
my example, it means that i do no longer have something.
i don't mistrust my partner. i do think my partner is
doing something "not right". yes, i imagine that will
hurt when zie finds out. c'est la vie; sometimes things
hurt. i don't set out to hurt my partners, but sometimes
pain is the least of our problems.

as an aside, i would be vastly more hurt if a partner
of mine acted contrary to zir feelings, than if zie just
spilled them. my partner and i agree that feelings on
their own are no problem per se, and that we communicate
about them. it would be a breach of trust if i hid any
serious feelings from zir.

>I understand that when you decide to talk you obviously have cause to
>bring up the topic. But bother your SOs because you feel jealous of
>their pastimes, their friends, their choice of lover, their manners of
>sex, their ...and and and? Bother your SOs because you imagine this or
>that?

well, i don't feel jealous of pasttimes or friends or
anything like that, but if my partner did, i would want
to hear about it. because if i don't, then i don't know
there is a problem, and that problem may fester. i do
not like anything festering between us. on the other
hand it's never a bother when my partner decides to share
feelings with me (probably because we give each other a
lot of space, and are comfortable talking even about re-
latively difficult issues).

i mean, i will know that something is wrong anyway; i al-
ways do, unless i am unusually preoccupied. i'll sense
it in the way zie behaves. and i'll ask "something wrong?
anything you wanna talk about?", and i expect a truthful
answer. i would hate being lied to. it's perfectly ok
tho to say "i'm just grumping over something, i'm not sure
i want to really talk". it's also ok to say "i feel hurt
and jealous because you spent all week on this computer
program and you forgot we wanted to watch the fireworks
together". i want my partner to feel _good_ about telling
me stuff like that, i mean, as good as one can feel. i
want that trust, the trust that telling me something un-
pleasant won't automatically damage our relationship.

>Bother your SOs because you go off half cocked or feel that they
>don't get a situation "right" as you think it should be? Sorry, that's
>a bit too much bothering others for my taste, that's above the pain
>threshold. That's the point where I think someone should have a
>serious discussion with oneself whether one isn't much too
>self-indulgent!

possibly. i don't have partners like that. and i would
very likely not choose somebody who behaves like that. but
that's an extreme situation; most people who're my friends
don't have such overwhelming feelings of jealousy over any
little bit. if they do feel jealousy, i consider it in ge-
neral a better idea to talk about it than to just stuff it.

maybe if one feels this chronically jealous, one ought to
talk about it with a professional, in fact. beating one-
self up as self-indulgent might not be the best course of
action (there might be some pathology behind the jealousy,
not necessarily self-indulgence).

>I don't say it should be your work alone. But I've read much too much
>about self-indulgence and in a manner I regard as mainly
>self-centered, and not enough about taking oneself a bit back and
>expressing one's respect and love for the other through helping
>him/her!
>
>Of course everyone has the right to take care of him/herself, but I've
>read nothing but, regarding this thread.

hm. well, i've read this group for years, and i don't
find the people here in general self-indulgent.

>It might be interesting to know the viewpoint of some who have been at
>the receiving edge of rampant or chronic jealousy of someone who
>instead of trying to work getting jealousy out of his/her system,
>likes to place it at his/her feet to examine and succour, never mind
>whether peacefully or of the green-eyed variety.

hey, you can just continue to talk with me. my first part-
ner was somebody like that. zie was relatively peaceful
about it (no screaming hissy fits), but it was pervasive,
and zie wanted me to drop all my friends (i was not poly,
nor flirtatious; zie really was basically insecure, we were
growing apart, and there was considerable fear of losing me
in the long run). so zie tested me and tested me and tes-
ted me.

that relationship didn't last. it wasn't the jealousy per
se however, it was our inability to dig deep enough to see
what was underneath, and to communicate about it. we were
very young, and had no good role models and a lot of bag-
gage. today this wouldn't happen to me anymore.

...

(i just read about your stallion -- i'm sorry for your loss,
and hope all goes well with the foaling.)

[Jim Roberts]

Stef Maruch wrote:

[...this is getting old, I say...]

Everyone has had their (grammar is OK, trust me) experience of jealousy and
possessiveness, but that *doesn't* mean that their experience is definitive, as
some in this group seem to think. My, the empty, wrong-headed lectures I've
read! Jealousy is cunning and strange and comes in many guises, and has many
causes. So let's stop telling others that their experience has been invalid.
This is not a rational argument about anything objective.

jimbat

[piranha]

In article <359aab91...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1998 14:01:18 GMT, jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>wrote:
>
>>I sometimes feel possessive of a partner when really *good* things are
>>happening. If I've been noticing how wonderful the person is, and we're
>>walking hand in hand on the street and being cute, I may well think
>>something like: "Mine, mine, mine! Oh, how lucky I am!" Does this come
>>from "insecurity"?! If anything, it comes from a feeling of *security*!
>
>I would never accrue a feeling of security to the mistaken - but
>absolutely mistaken - idea that anyone owns (or should or could) own
>anyone else or that anyone ever could be "mine"! And that goes as far
>as holding the same view regarding one's children and other family.

agreed. however, the term "mine" in english is not just used
for possessive purposes. it also denotes association, much
like "i belong". for example, "i belong to the soaring asso-
ciation of canada" doesn't mean those folks own me, but that
i associate myself with them. "a friend of mine" doesn't mean
i labour under the assumption i own a slave, but it's again
association.

i don't like the term "possessiveness" applied to what jennie
describes above, because the term "possessiveness" gives me
the hives, and all too many people still do believe their
spouses (and more so, their children) belong to them as some
form of chattel, and i want to distance myself from them, so
i choose my words more carefully. i prefer to use "pride of
association" instead, and i don't really even think "mine"
(tho that's perfectly fine english); i think "zie's with me,
wow, how neat".

[piranha]

In article <359ab...@news.vphos.net>,

Mark Ziemann <mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:
>We had reached somewhat of a crisis or an impasse in that we were not really

>talking about this; Louise would become extremely upset at the mere mention
>of anything that even *might* have anything to do with poly, and
>consequently I was very reluctant to bring anything up for discussion and I
>was feeling very alone and hurting with the thought that this was how my
>future might look.

it's really good that you continued to talk to her anyway.
it'd be easier to clam up, but it would in the long run harm
your relationship, i think. so, you're doing good, even if
the going is tough at times. i think very, very fondly of
my (now dead) partner who introduced the topic into our re-
lationship because zie kept talking to me when i was scared
shitless, and we managed to come thru the whole thing with
a lot more understanding for each other and ourselves.

>It took a huge measure of bravery and trust for Louise to even think about
>posting a request for help,

yup. you're lucky to have somebody there who's trying to
understand and deal with things.

>[...] That is not to say that she is any happier

>with the idea of my being poly, or any more willing to accept or embrace my

>feelings and beliefs, but at least we are talking again - thank goodness!

that's a really important step. hang in there, you two --
you are ahead of the curve already by talking like this.

>I have been printing out each message in what has become an interesting
>thread, and giving them to Louise unedited (she is not particularly
>computer-friendly, and doesn't check the NG herself) for her to read and
>digest, I expect that she will shortly be composing a reply of her own,

>perhaps with further detail and more questions.

i'm glad she isn't scared off by us going into lots of de-
tail about jealousy -- it's a complex issue. i hope she'll
feel comfortable enough to continue to come here with ques-
tions and comments of her own.

[brigid]

Aahz Maruch wrote:

<some thought provoking stuff>

i'm probably not the only one here who thinks this, but sometimes i feel
so anyway. my first instinct when anybody presents a problem in their
relationship is to advise them to take a moment and take care of
themselves. that is decide what *they* need and work from there. maybe
i wanna' say that because i'm in a state of trying to meet my own needs
on a relationship level.

but really, is everybody just forgetting to mention this, or are they
implying it so subtly i can't see it? i mean, how can you make valid
decisions about how to approach a relationship without knowing what you
need out of the relationship? i just have this real aversion to jumping
into *anything* blind, especially something so important as a life
relationship.

brigid

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <359aab1a...@news.ka.inka.de>,
Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>

>I don't say it should be your work alone. But I've read much too much
>about self-indulgence and in a manner I regard as mainly self-centered,
>and not enough about taking oneself a bit back and expressing one's
>respect and love for the other through helping him/her!

It's a balancing act. To a certain extent, because alt.poly functions
partly as a support group, we offer sympathy toward whomever is asking
for help here. Plus there's a certain bias amongst many of the regulars
for pushing whoever wants to change existing agreements to move at the
pace of the person uncomfortable with change -- as long as it isn't a
malicious chaining to the existing agreements.

But if you hang out here long enough, you'll see plenty of examples of
people being told to put up or shut up. Or even people being gently
advised that sometimes there's a deadlock with no way out. But the
emphasis still lies on careful communication and negotiation.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)

Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het

Usenet is not a democracy. It is a weird cross between an anarchy
and a dictatorship.

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <35983152...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
>As cute as this may sound, but I have had a relationship with a
>man who had been a virgin at age 22 (I was 23 then). I had known that
>our time together was limited, because I knew that the moment would
>come when he'd want to know "how it is with others".

First of all, if he'd been poly then, your time wouldn't have to be
limited.

More to the point, not everyone has the same feelings about their
virginity. I was a technical virgin until I was 25. I've still had
intercourse with only one person. And while I sometimes wonder what it
would be like, it's really not important to me -- other forms of sex
matter much more.

[Matthew Daly]

I'll never forget the time that aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) said:

>In article <35983152...@news.ka.inka.de>,
>Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>>
>>As cute as this may sound, but I have had a relationship with a
>>man who had been a virgin at age 22 (I was 23 then). I had known that
>>our time together was limited, because I knew that the moment would
>>come when he'd want to know "how it is with others".
>

>[... N]ot everyone has the same feelings about their

>virginity. I was a technical virgin until I was 25. I've still had
>intercourse with only one person. And while I sometimes wonder what it
>would be like, it's really not important to me -- other forms of sex
>matter much more.

I waited even longer, and afterward only entertained passing thoughts
about becomming a "player" to see what it was like. Then I got over it.

Think about it, a guy who waited that long isn't a monk, just someone who
has other interests. And, to be perfectly frank, sex is nice, but it
ain't heroin. :-)

-Matthew, wondering if Lorre is around to see that men suffer from the
virgin/whore false dichotomy too....
Matthew Daly mwd...@pobox.com http://www.frontiernet.net/~mwdaly/

[Lyre]

jenn...@intranet.org wrote:

>I have a general tendency to get jealous, but the *biggest* influence on
>whether or not I get jealous, and on how strongly I get jealous, is
>whether or not the situation is (by my estimation) "as it should be".

[snip]

>Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the
>time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
>inappropriate. She wasn't that bright, and she had many superficial signs
>of being more interested in appearance than in someone's mind (including
>her own). I was so jealous I couldn't see straight. I didn't eat for
>days at a time, I cried myself to sleep every night, I could think of
>nothing else. When they spent time together, I couldn't handle it at all.
>They didn't end up getting involved (thank God!), but the super-strong
>reaction on my part led me to think a lot about what was behind it. And
>the biggest factor was her imagined "inappropriateness". If I don't like
>the person, or can't respect the person, it drastically increases the
>jealousy.

Wow, you have no idea how helpful this was to read. This really
helped me to put a finger on a lot of what I'm feeling. It has
occurred to me that the person my partner has fallen for seems
"inappropriate" for him and that there are times when I just
don't think much of certain things about her, and it has occurred
to me that I go through bouts of jealousy about her. But it was
only after reading this post that it occurred to me to put the
two together and realize that a lot of my jealousy revolves around
feeling like I just can't see what he sees in her. In perhaps one
or two superficial things, yes, but not in an overwhelming,
I've-fallen-for-her way. Which leads me to wonder if I would have
had the same reactions if he had fallen for someone I liked in an
unqualified way. Why is that?

Going to have to go think about this...

-Lyre

[Lyre]

"Mark Ziemann" <mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:

>Hi All,
>I wanted to send a quick message to thank you all for your input and
>comments, for it has all been most helpfull.

>We had reached somewhat of a crisis or an impasse in that we were not really
>talking about this; Louise would become extremely upset at the mere mention
>of anything that even *might* have anything to do with poly, and
>consequently I was very reluctant to bring anything up for discussion and I
>was feeling very alone and hurting with the thought that this was how my
>future might look.

>It took a huge measure of bravery and trust for Louise to even think about

>posting a request for help, and I feel that we both have been rewarded by

>the kindness you have all shown. That is not to say that she is any happier

>with the idea of my being poly, or any more willing to accept or embrace my
>feelings and beliefs, but at least we are talking again - thank goodness!

Cool! Nice to hear!

-Lyre

[Sakar]

On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 23:43:48 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:

>We've been through this a number of times on alt.poly -- in the English
>language "mine" doesn't always mean possession or property. "This is a
>friend of mine" does not mean that you have shackled the person. "This is a
>lover of mine," likewise. "I'm so lucky zie's mine" == "I'm so lucky zie is
>associated with me, likes to spend time with me, has indicated zie wishes
>to stay in a relationship with me." None of these are dangerous sentiments
>or shackles.
>
>Really, you're being much too dramatic about the whole thing.

I doubt that there is any which way that you could mistake Jennie's
clearly possessive meaning for anything as harmless. She didn't say
"this is a friend of mine", she said - "I am often very possessive"
and "Mine, mine, mine".

Now, come on! This paired with her saying "I am often jealous" is
hardly the same as saying "me and my SOs".

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 21:03:53 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

> i don't like the term "possessiveness" applied to what jennie
> describes above, because the term "possessiveness" gives me
> the hives, and all too many people still do believe their
> spouses (and more so, their children) belong to them as some
> form of chattel, and i want to distance myself from them, so
> i choose my words more carefully. i prefer to use "pride of
> association" instead, and i don't really even think "mine"
> (tho that's perfectly fine english); i think "zie's with me,
> wow, how neat".

Absolutely on the "hives" part. And possessiveness doesn't start with
all-out mental or physical slavery, BTW, it starts with small things
and grows.

Sakar

[Sakar]

On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 22:44:12 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:

>If you don't respect a person's feelings, you're not going to get very far
>in a relationship with that person.

That is correct. But allowing the other to wallow in the self-styled
importance of his negative emotions isn't respect either. It's like
handing over the vibrator for masturbation.

>Sure, most of your behavior/feelings will affect your SO. But people have
>negative feelings and trust is rarely perfect and if you are not prepared
>to deal with even mild manifestations of same, you shouldn't be in a
>relationship.

OH! But we are NOT talking about "even mild manifestations". We are
talking about people who seem to think it is quite okay to have *many*
manifestations, again and again and of imaginary or possessive or
judgemental origins/causes, and who think it is okay to keep thrusting
this at their partner(s), instead of working on themselves to quell
the source of those mild or not so mild manifestations.

I guess, maybe, that we here have a fundamental difference of
viewpoint (which makes the culture comment maybe more correct than I
thought). I talk from the standpoint of responsibility. Sorry, if I
say it that baldly, but to me the idea that an adult person behaves
with the self-importance and self-centeredness of a 4-year-old and
gets lauded for and away with that, leaves me mouth agape.

Foremostly you are responsible for yourself and how you affect or
infringe on others. There is room for negative emotions, there are
ways and methods to deal with them, but to simply refuse to see that
if you do not work on the core to counteract and eventually stop them,
*is* self-indulging. Then no amount of counselling and (!) attention
you garner via this method from your partners can ever make up for the
stress you put your partners through.

>That point would be different for every relationship. It's up to your SO to
>say whether zie is "bothered" by your discussing your feelings, at whatever
>level. I enjoy listening to someone's feelings, even negative feelings, as
>long as I know zie isn't trying to blame me for everything and believe zie
>is taking some responsibility for changing things (internal and external)

I sense no wish for change in Jennie's arguments. In fact what I sense
there is a distinct satisfaction at having a means to draw attention
to herself when her partners' attentions are elsewhere engaged or in
her opinion faultily engaged. Whether or not her partners are bothered
by this I can't tell, but I take exception to such a behaviour serving
as a possible role model or excuse for others.

And mind me, I do not mean to say that discussions about emotions,
negative or otherwise, elicited in yourself, by your partners, with
your partners should not take place. On the contrary.

But issues revisited a couple or more than only a couple of times,
especially if the underlying cause is a negative emotion and also if
the obvious goal is the manipulation of your partners, without any
distinct change to the better, are not anymore useful discussions,
they - as I said above - grow into a tool with but one handle.

>zie wants to change. It sounds like you have very little patience for other
>people's expressions of negative feelings; if so, that is good to know
>about yourself and to tell your SOs, but it's not the only way to be.

I have - contrary to what you may think - a nearly inexhaustible
patience for this, as long as I do not expressly and egocentrically
get taken advantage of. One of my SOs suffers from depressions and
mood swings and I certainly don't make short shrift of the expressions
of negative feelings he comes to me with then.

Sakar

[Sakar]

On 1 Jul 1998 19:08:36 -0400, pir...@gooroos.com (piranha) wrote:

> respect for the _feeling_, most assuredly not respect
> for whatever expression somebody wants to give it. i
> respect hatred and strong anger as well, but expressing
> it violently is a whole different ballgame. negative
> feelings can be entirely justified. how one acts on
> them matters greatly to me, probably more than the fee-
> ling itself.

Right.

> jealousy isn't automatically mistrust either -- as per
> my example, it means that i do no longer have something.

I didn't say that this is so either or automatically so. But jealousy
which is caused by no actual behaviour or imagined behaviour of the
partner is to a large degree mistrust.

> that relationship didn't last. it wasn't the jealousy per
> se however, it was our inability to dig deep enough to see
> what was underneath, and to communicate about it. we were
> very young, and had no good role models and a lot of bag-
> gage. today this wouldn't happen to me anymore.

LOL and sorry at the same time, but basically that's what I told
Louise to try to do - find and pinpoint the reason under her jealousy
and to speak about that and not jealousy itself.

> (i just read about your stallion -- i'm sorry for your loss,
> and hope all goes well with the foaling.)

Thank you!

Sakar

[Sakar]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 01:43:14 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>First of all, if he'd been poly then, your time wouldn't have to be
>limited.

No question of him ever being poly, nor of me at the time.

>More to the point, not everyone has the same feelings about their

>virginity. I was a technical virgin until I was 25. I've still had
>intercourse with only one person. And while I sometimes wonder what it
>would be like, it's really not important to me -- other forms of sex
>matter much more.

LOL, he wasn't only technically a virgin. And an absolute rarity given
that.

As to sex, and how one views experience, I guess that's entirely
personal. But I knew him well enough to foresee what would happen.

Sakar

[Jim Roberts]

brigid wrote:

Right, Brigid, this little thing sometimes gets lost in the pomposity, which
I've been trying to point out this last week. Maybe I sometimes lose it too,
though I try to reserve me firehoses for those who are just blowing wind out
their shorts.

The common problem in this group is the inability to *listen*, and to wait
and ask for more info before making grand pronouncements. Look at what
happened to the jealousy thread. It ran amok right away.

jimbat

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <359b47d1...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 23:43:48 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:
>>
>>We've been through this a number of times on alt.poly -- in
>>the English language "mine" doesn't always mean possession or
>>property. "This is a friend of mine" does not mean that you have
>>shackled the person. "This is a lover of mine," likewise. "I'm so
>>lucky zie's mine" == "I'm so lucky zie is associated with me, likes to
>>spend time with me, has indicated zie wishes to stay in a relationship
>>with me." None of these are dangerous sentiments or shackles.
>

>I doubt that there is any which way that you could mistake Jennie's
>clearly possessive meaning for anything as harmless. She didn't say
>"this is a friend of mine", she said - "I am often very possessive" and
>"Mine, mine, mine".
>
>Now, come on! This paired with her saying "I am often jealous" is
>hardly the same as saying "me and my SOs".

First of all, Jennie did *not* say that she's often jealous. Again, for
someone who does a lot of nitpicking, you're not reading carefully.

Now, this part's going to squick Jennie a tiny bit: there's really
nothing wrong with possession, as long as it is *consensual*. This is
pretty common in the BDSM community, in fact; as far as I know, though,
Jennie's relationship don't have a dom/sub component. ;-)

I'm fond of saying that relationships are a complex dance of dependence,
independence, and interdependence, and the rhythm and steps are
different for each relationship. Some may *choose* to focus more on the
dependence or interdependence -- it's not your business to tell them
what to do as long as it's working for. It's not even your business to
tell them that the pattern is broken if the people are complaining about
one specific problem, rather than feeling that the relationship as a
whole isn't working.

Unfortunately, Jennie's taking off for vacation today, so I don't know
if she'll have time to respond to your post herself. I'm cc'ing her
e-mail in case she has any substantive disagreement with me.

[bearpaw]

mwd...@pobox.com (Matthew Daly) writes:
>
>I waited even longer, and afterward only entertained passing thoughts
>about becomming a "player" to see what it was like. Then I got over it.
>
>Think about it, a guy who waited that long isn't a monk, just someone
>who has other interests. And, to be perfectly frank, sex is nice,
>but it ain't heroin. :-)

Thanks be.

I waited until 20 before I had any kind of sex, and several years
longer than that before I had same-sex sex. If I could somehow do
it all over again, I'd start sooner. I realy loosened up once I
started having a sex life other than masturbation.

>-Matthew, wondering if Lorre is around to see that men suffer from the
>virgin/whore false dichotomy too....

Prince/rogue. Stable-but-boring vs exciting-but-dangerous.

Bearpaw

--
bea...@world.std.com ~~ http://world.std.com/~bearpaw/
Question Dichotomies. (Or don't.)

[piranha]

In article <359B08...@acs.tamu.edu>, brigid <mdb...@acs.tamu.edu> wrote:
>
>i'm probably not the only one here who thinks this, but sometimes i feel
>so anyway. my first instinct when anybody presents a problem in their
>relationship is to advise them to take a moment and take care of
>themselves. that is decide what *they* need and work from there. maybe
>i wanna' say that because i'm in a state of trying to meet my own needs
>on a relationship level.

well, it depends (i'm talking in general, not about this
specific thread). if somebody comes with a problem who
seems supremely self-satisfied, then the advice will pro-
bably tend towards trying to take the partner more into
consideration. if somebody comes with a problem that is
seen very commonly here, like jealousy, the advice tends
to be more focussed on managing it, because that's not a
commonly known thing, as aahz said -- people either think
it's dandy and a "profound sign of love", or they think
it's horrible, they're a bad person for having it, and
they should repress it. if somebody shows up who seems
very self-sacrificing, you'll see more of the focus of
the discussion be on "you need to think of your own needs
as well, and maybe most of all".

>but really, is everybody just forgetting to mention this, or are they
>implying it so subtly i can't see it? i mean, how can you make valid
>decisions about how to approach a relationship without knowing what you
>need out of the relationship? i just have this real aversion to jumping
>into *anything* blind, especially something so important as a life
>relationship.

we know really little of the relationship at this point,
which is why people have asked questions (and the the
discussion went off into conversation between different
posters, since the original poster hasn't returned). we
can, none of us, see inside her head, so we can only go
on what we perceive from what little data we have, and
different people will perceive different things. that's
why it's a good idea to give your own thoughts -- they
might be just what the person needed to hear. i've got
email from original posters about something said after
the original post got sidetracked that really hit home.

(you're absolutely right that one can't make valid deci-
sions about relationships without knowing what one needs.)

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <359B08...@acs.tamu.edu>, brigid <mdb...@acs.tamu.edu> wrote:
>
>i'm probably not the only one here who thinks this, but sometimes i
>feel so anyway. my first instinct when anybody presents a problem in
>their relationship is to advise them to take a moment and take care of
>themselves. that is decide what *they* need and work from there. maybe
>i wanna' say that because i'm in a state of trying to meet my own needs
>on a relationship level.

As piranha said, we generally try to tailor the advice to what we
perceive the situation is. Generally, when jealousy is the issue, the
problem is differing needs/expectations in the relationship, rather than
not knowing what the needs are.

Of course, along with that is often a difficulty in *communicating*
those needs, but that's another matter.

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <35971...@news.vphos.net>,
Mark Ziemann <mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:
>
>I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar
>situations & any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to
>live without him. We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we
>can talk to.

Welcome to alt.poly!

Lots of people have given you good advice already, so I shan't
contribute until you give us some feedback. I may be able to direct you
to some local poly people, though: it appears that you're in B.C., and
there's a few folks in Vancouver. Seattle's more of a commute, but
there's lots of poly people there.

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <359b4824...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 22:44:12 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:
>>
>>If you don't respect a person's feelings, you're not going to get very far
>>in a relationship with that person.
>
>That is correct. But allowing the other to wallow in the self-styled
>importance of his negative emotions isn't respect either. It's like
>handing over the vibrator for masturbation.

And what's wrong with that? Sometimes the best thing you can do is
respect a person's right to have whatever feelings are coming up and
just stand there and be a witness. It can be critically important to be
a validator, even in the absence of action, because otherwise that
person doesn't know you *really* know what's going on.

>>Sure, most of your behavior/feelings will affect your SO. But people have
>>negative feelings and trust is rarely perfect and if you are not prepared
>>to deal with even mild manifestations of same, you shouldn't be in a
>>relationship.
>
>OH! But we are NOT talking about "even mild manifestations". We are
>talking about people who seem to think it is quite okay to have *many*
>manifestations, again and again and of imaginary or possessive or
>judgemental origins/causes, and who think it is okay to keep thrusting
>this at their partner(s), instead of working on themselves to quell
>the source of those mild or not so mild manifestations.

<raised eyebrow> *You* may be talking about the three-sigma jealous
person, but that's not what I'm talking about and I don't think that's
what the others are talking about, either. You have yet to demonstrate
that Louise has a real problem with jealousy -- for all you know, it's
like a woman saying that she's fat; maybe she is and maybe she isn't,
but in the USA at least, it's all too common to complain of being fat no
matter what the body shape is.

>I guess, maybe, that we here have a fundamental difference of
>viewpoint (which makes the culture comment maybe more correct than I
>thought). I talk from the standpoint of responsibility. Sorry, if I
>say it that baldly, but to me the idea that an adult person behaves
>with the self-importance and self-centeredness of a 4-year-old and
>gets lauded for and away with that, leaves me mouth agape.

There's a continuum. We're whacking you with a clue-by-four because
we're perceiving you as staking ground only on one end of the spectrum.
When there's the potential for massive change in a relationship,
particularly if it's generated primarily by only one of the partners,
it's perfectly normal and natural for there to be some, "What about
*me*?" reaction.

[piranha]

In article <lyre25-0107...@1cust186.tnt1.bellingham.wa.da.uu.net>,
Lyre <lyr...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>jenn...@intranet.org wrote:
>>Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the
>>time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
>>inappropriate.
>

>Wow, you have no idea how helpful this was to read. This really
>helped me to put a finger on a lot of what I'm feeling. It has
>occurred to me that the person my partner has fallen for seems
>"inappropriate" for him and that there are times when I just
>don't think much of certain things about her, and it has occurred
>to me that I go through bouts of jealousy about her.

how objective are you about her? not speaking about you
here, but i've seen people find fault in others because
they were jealous of the attention they got, so this can
clearly go either way.

>But it was
>only after reading this post that it occurred to me to put the
>two together and realize that a lot of my jealousy revolves around
>feeling like I just can't see what he sees in her. In perhaps one
>or two superficial things, yes, but not in an overwhelming,
>I've-fallen-for-her way.

do you know her well? have you asked him what he sees in
her?

>Which leads me to wonder if I would have
>had the same reactions if he had fallen for someone I liked in an
>unqualified way.

you might not. i know it affects my feelings if i dislike
somebody my partner likes (this hasn't happened yet in this
relationship, but in a previous one). it's a part of poly
where i don't know how i'd deal with if it happened -- when
i fantasize about "perfect poly" (perfect only because of
the alliteration :-), i see us all getting along fine (no,
we don't all need to have sex). i want us all to live to-
gether, really, because i'd like to have that sort of cho-
sen family.

but if my partner wanted to be with somebody i couldn't
like, or vice versa, *ugh*, that would be very difficult.
i doubt i'd be jealous, but i'd just cringe at the idea of
that person in the same house with me, and i'd be worried
i'd end up with a kind of poly i don't really want.

my partner has some traits in which zie differs enough
from me to make this slight worry persist -- zie doesn't
mind being used; i despise the idea and will foil people
who try to use me. zie's less judgmental about other peo-
ple's behaviour towards third parties (ie. as long as they
treats my partner well, it's ok), while i keep away from
people who treat me nice, but third parties like crap;
those sorts of things. on the other hand, i have a much
wider variety of friends, including some who have ideas
that my partner doesn't respect intellectually. so it's
possible that some day we find ourselves with a new part-
ner who seems really "inappropriate". in fact my first
poly partner would have possibly been somebody my part-
ner didn't respect intellectually, while i wish zie'd
still be alive so we could all happily live together,
*smile*.

i have as yet no idea how to tackle that, other than to
try and stretch my tolerance envelope. i'm not sure i
could do that; it'd be as big a struggle as the original
struggle to understand poly.

but i think i would make a huge effort to really get to
know the other person.

[Sakar]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 14:24:37 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>First of all, Jennie did *not* say that she's often jealous. Again, for
>someone who does a lot of nitpicking, you're not reading carefully.

Here's only an excerpt of her various posts:
--------------------------------------------
From: jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)

<<<As someone who gets jealous often (though not all the time), and of
all sorts of things, I can tell you that it only occasionally has to
do with insecurity.>>>

<<<What I most often get jealous of is one of my partners' tendencies
to get so wrapped up in computer games that the whole evening has then
gone by and he doesn't have any time left to spend with me. >>>

<<<I have a general tendency to get jealous, but the *biggest*
influence on whether or not I get jealous, and on how strongly I get
jealous, is whether or not the situation is (by my estimation) "as it
should be".>>>

---------------------------------------------

I can rustle up a few more such quotes, but I guess you can re-read
yourself. I've a very good memory. Sorry to have to point this out.

>Now, this part's going to squick Jennie a tiny bit: there's really
>nothing wrong with possession, as long as it is *consensual*. This is
>pretty common in the BDSM community, in fact; as far as I know, though,
>Jennie's relationship don't have a dom/sub component. ;-)

If it is consensual and especially if it is BDSM, okay. But then again
we were NOT talking about domination, we were talking about jealousy
and possessiveness in relation to it.

Sakar

[Sakar]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:36:51 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>And what's wrong with that? Sometimes the best thing you can do is
>respect a person's right to have whatever feelings are coming up and
>just stand there and be a witness. It can be critically important to be
>a validator, even in the absence of action, because otherwise that
>person doesn't know you *really* know what's going on.

What I take exception to and warned against is not "sometimes", it is
consistently.

><raised eyebrow> *You* may be talking about the three-sigma jealous
>person, but that's not what I'm talking about and I don't think that's
>what the others are talking about, either. You have yet to demonstrate
>that Louise has a real problem with jealousy -- for all you know, it's
>like a woman saying that she's fat; maybe she is and maybe she isn't,
>but in the USA at least, it's all too common to complain of being fat no
>matter what the body shape is.

And in this instance I wasn't even talking about Louise either.

>There's a continuum. We're whacking you with a clue-by-four because
>we're perceiving you as staking ground only on one end of the spectrum.
>When there's the potential for massive change in a relationship,
>particularly if it's generated primarily by only one of the partners,
>it's perfectly normal and natural for there to be some, "What about
>*me*?" reaction.

Yes, I strongly felt the need for a Devil's advocate here.

I haven't seen - as I have pointed out a few times - as many posts
taking up the viewpoint of Louise's husband. There wasn't "some"
what-about-me? reaction, there was almost only such reaction. I just
went over the posts again and it's something like 10:1.

As to Louise, from the latest post I have the distinct impression that
she is far ahead of several here on the jealousy issue. As to Mark, he
clearly pointed out that he felt miserable and unto proof of the
contrary I still stand by my opinion, that the general reaction here
has been far too suspicious of him, far too lenient regarding chronic
jealousy and its consequences and also far to centered around one's
"own" feelings as opposed to those of the partner.

That's what's been bugging me most. I might have reacted and would
react much more positively if there had been people taking the point
of the husband and advising *him* how to help Louise, as I on the
reverse tried to advise her to help her husband.

What however has happened was a siding with Louise in what was -
without any data - perceived to be a slight of her, equally without
data it was taken for granted that her jealousy was/is founded in fact
and various people here have - without data - been suspicious of him.

The way these reactions were voiced and that they were thus presented,
has me, as I said before, mouth agape. I will come on really strongly
now, pardon me, but what I read is "I-I-I-I-I", far and wide.

The glass can be half-empty or half-full, meaning a balance between
seeing something from one's own self and putting the partner's self
before one's own is needed. I saw no such balance in these past posts,
with very few exceptions.

A little bit, only a tiny bit, more selflessness, generosity and
altruism can go very far. And the willingness to listen to the other,
instead of to talk of oneself, the willingness to not see everything
out of one's own mind-set and eye-set, the willingness to take down
one's own importance in favour of the other, goes also very far, maybe
farther.

All of this I have been also missing sadly.

Sakar

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 22:44:12 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:
>
>>If you don't respect a person's feelings, you're not going to get very far
>>in a relationship with that person.
>
>That is correct. But allowing the other to wallow in the self-styled
>importance of his negative emotions isn't respect either. It's like
>handing over the vibrator for masturbation.

Respect is honoring someone's expresson of zir emotions without labeling it
wallowing. If you label it wallowing, then you do not respect the person's
way of dealing with things and as I said, you're not going to get very far
in a relationship with that person -- unless parent-child role playing is
the game of the relationship.

>>Sure, most of your behavior/feelings will affect your SO. But people have
>>negative feelings and trust is rarely perfect and if you are not prepared
>>to deal with even mild manifestations of same, you shouldn't be in a
>>relationship.

>OH! But we are NOT talking about "even mild manifestations". We are
>talking about people who seem to think it is quite okay to have *many*
>manifestations, again and again and of imaginary or possessive or
>judgemental origins/causes, and who think it is okay to keep thrusting
>this at their partner(s), instead of working on themselves to quell
>the source of those mild or not so mild manifestations.

You're talking about such people, apparently. I never was. I'm not
interested in discussing some theoretical extreme that you dreamed up in
your head or even that you experienced in your life (I've experienced
obsessively jealous people too). I'm interested in discussing real people
who want to transition to poly.

>I guess, maybe, that we here have a fundamental difference of
>viewpoint (which makes the culture comment maybe more correct than I
>thought). I talk from the standpoint of responsibility. Sorry, if I
>say it that baldly, but to me the idea that an adult person behaves
>with the self-importance and self-centeredness of a 4-year-old and
>gets lauded for and away with that, leaves me mouth agape.

The difference of viewpoint comes from your making up an extreme example
and jumping to the conclusion that everyone else is talking about that
example.

If someone whom you usually respect is having a very difficult time
emotionally, do you *always* simply assume zie is acting like a four year
old out of an exaggerated sense of self importance? Your description of how
you worked things out with your partner whom you described as lacking self
esteem does not suggest that. So I am at a loss to understand why you are
focusing on this imaginary self indulgent person.

>Foremostly you are responsible for yourself and how you affect or
>infringe on others. There is room for negative emotions, there are
>ways and methods to deal with them, but to simply refuse to see that
>if you do not work on the core to counteract and eventually stop them,
>*is* self-indulging.

It's important to explore emotions that are contributing to problems.
I don't agree that all negative emotions must be stopped permanently, nor
do I agree that it is necessary to "work" on all negative emotions. Most of
them go away on their own, or simply from being talked about, or over time
without any "work".

>>That point would be different for every relationship. It's up to your SO to
>>say whether zie is "bothered" by your discussing your feelings, at whatever
>>level. I enjoy listening to someone's feelings, even negative feelings, as
>>long as I know zie isn't trying to blame me for everything and believe zie
>>is taking some responsibility for changing things (internal and external)

>I sense no wish for change in Jennie's arguments. In fact what I sense
>there is a distinct satisfaction at having a means to draw attention
>to herself when her partners' attentions are elsewhere engaged or in
>her opinion faultily engaged. Whether or not her partners are bothered
>by this I can't tell, but I take exception to such a behaviour serving
>as a possible role model or excuse for others.

Why? Jennie's obviously got a poly situation that works very well. It's not
what you would want obviously, but you're only one person. If it works for
her, it probably works for some other people, although not for everybody.
Anyone who does poly successfully can serve as a role model for others.
Of course others should keep in mind that they might have some different
needs and preferences; it's foolish to just swallow whole the first example
you see.

Also, you need to learn that you can't read as much from a couple of posts
as you can project into them. You don't know Jennie and it's inappropriate
for you to be psychoanalyzing her and pronouncing judgement based on a few
posts.
--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------
If the way you have chosen seems arduous, and the work you have chosen
is difficult, it is because you like it tough, and not that you are
virtuous. Your way is not better, nor is it any worse, than the way of
those who take it easy and take it as it comes. It's what you want to
do; hard or easy, it's what you like to do. -- via Michael Freedman

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <359bc92f...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:36:51 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:
>>
>>There's a continuum. We're whacking you with a clue-by-four because
>>we're perceiving you as staking ground only on one end of the spectrum.
>>When there's the potential for massive change in a relationship,
>>particularly if it's generated primarily by only one of the partners,
>>it's perfectly normal and natural for there to be some, "What about
>>*me*?" reaction.
>
>Yes, I strongly felt the need for a Devil's advocate here.

Let me repeat what you said initially: "Jealousy is insecurity." Until
you explicitly recant that position, you're likely to continue getting
whacked. This isn't about being a Devil's Advocate, it's about making
sweeping generalizations that marginalize other people's feelings.

>I haven't seen - as I have pointed out a few times - as many posts
>taking up the viewpoint of Louise's husband. There wasn't "some"
>what-about-me? reaction, there was almost only such reaction. I just
>went over the posts again and it's something like 10:1.

Why should we be concentrating on Louise's husband? Louise was the one
asking for help. When Mark asks for help, we'll give advice appropriate
to his description of the situation.

>As to Louise, from the latest post I have the distinct impression that
>she is far ahead of several here on the jealousy issue. As to Mark, he
>clearly pointed out that he felt miserable and unto proof of the
>contrary I still stand by my opinion, that the general reaction here
>has been far too suspicious of him, far too lenient regarding chronic
>jealousy and its consequences and also far to centered around one's
>"own" feelings as opposed to those of the partner.

Show me an example of being "too suspicious" other than Libris
mentioning that having an outside relationship without a poly agreement
is cheating (and I don't even regard that as too suspicious). Show also
an example of being "too lenient" -- I don't recall anyone saying,
"Yeah! yeah! go ahead and be jealous."

>What however has happened was a siding with Louise in what was -
>without any data - perceived to be a slight of her, equally without
>data it was taken for granted that her jealousy was/is founded in fact
>and various people here have - without data - been suspicious of him.

See, this is once again where you're pissing people off. You seem to
think there's no valid reason for feeling jealous if one's partner says,
"Hey, I'm poly, can we talk?" For someone who is fundamentally
monogamous, that can easily be perceived as saying, "Hey, I want to
abandon you." (This is particularly true given the prevalent models of
cheating and serial monogamy.) It takes a lot of work and careful,
considerate communication from the poly person to break through that
paradigm.

Quite frankly, the poly person should *not* expect much support from zir
monogamous partner in the initial stages -- that's what the poly
community is for. That's not to say the mono person should be throwing
tantrums or fail to listen respectfully to the newly poly person, but
adding the *expectation* of support into the mix is a bit much.

[Stef Maruch]

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Jul 1998 23:43:48 GMT, st...@netcom.com (Stef Maruch) wrote:
>
>>We've been through this a number of times on alt.poly -- in the English
>>language "mine" doesn't always mean possession or property. "This is a
>>friend of mine" does not mean that you have shackled the person. "This is a
>>lover of mine," likewise. "I'm so lucky zie's mine" == "I'm so lucky zie is
>>associated with me, likes to spend time with me, has indicated zie wishes
>>to stay in a relationship with me." None of these are dangerous sentiments
>>or shackles.
>>

>>Really, you're being much too dramatic about the whole thing.
>

>I doubt that there is any which way that you could mistake Jennie's
>clearly possessive meaning for anything as harmless. She didn't say
>"this is a friend of mine", she said - "I am often very possessive"
>and "Mine, mine, mine".
>
>Now, come on! This paired with her saying "I am often jealous" is
>hardly the same as saying "me and my SOs".

OK. I have much more off-newsgroup knowledge of Jennie and much more
knowledge of her long history on alt.polyamory than you do, and I know that
when she says those things she does not mean them the way you interpret it.
But I can see that someone without that knowledge could jump to the
conclusions you do based on her current set of posts.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

I know that smell -- it's the smell of someone else being cast into
the Pit of Foolish Overgeneralizations. -- Orc

[gavi...@the-lair.com]

In article <aahzEvG...@netcom.com>,

aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:
> It's a balancing act. To a certain extent, because alt.poly functions
> partly as a support group, we offer sympathy toward whomever is asking
> for help here. Plus there's a certain bias amongst many of the regulars
> for pushing whoever wants to change existing agreements to move at the
> pace of the person uncomfortable with change -- as long as it isn't a
> malicious chaining to the existing agreements.
>
> But if you hang out here long enough, you'll see plenty of examples of
> people being told to put up or shut up. Or even people being gently
> advised that sometimes there's a deadlock with no way out. But the
> emphasis still lies on careful communication and negotiation.

Thank you Aahz! This caused a "Eureka!" moment for me.

My wife and I have had ongoing discussions/arguments about the hows and whens
of moving our relationship towards poly. And I confess to feeling concerned
that the "time" she asked for, to adjust to the idea, could be an infinite
delay to avoid dealing with the issue. Realizing something as simple as your
statement that the progress occurs at the "slower" person's pace had simply
never occurred to me. I expected that this, like most of my life, occurred at
the pace _I_ chose (being a pushy alpha-type takes a lot of energy, but it has
it's benefits ;)> ). The epiphany that this is at _her_ pace gives me a better
view that A) my way/my pace, or B) postponed forever, which were the only
options I was seeing.

Thanks,

Gavin

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum

[PSwa...@ems.jsc.nasa.gov]

In article <359b4883...@news.ka.inka.de>,
sa...@sakar.inka.de wrote:

>
> LOL, he wasn't only technically a virgin. And an absolute rarity given
> that.

What's the difference between a technical and non-technical virgin?

[Empress of Blandings]

lyr...@earthlink.net (Lyre), in article <lyre25-0107...@1cust186.tnt1.bellingham.wa.da.uu.net>, dixit:

>jenn...@intranet.org wrote:
>>I have a general tendency to get jealous, but the *biggest* influence on
>>whether or not I get jealous, and on how strongly I get jealous, is
>>whether or not the situation is (by my estimation) "as it should be".

[...]

>>Example 2: The time I felt the most jealous of another person was the
>>time one of my partners was attracted to someone who I felt was really
>>inappropriate.

>Wow, you have no idea how helpful this was to read. This really
>helped me to put a finger on a lot of what I'm feeling. It has
>occurred to me that the person my partner has fallen for seems
>"inappropriate" for him and that there are times when I just
>don't think much of certain things about her, and it has occurred

>to me that I go through bouts of jealousy about her. But it was

>only after reading this post that it occurred to me to put the
>two together and realize that a lot of my jealousy revolves around
>feeling like I just can't see what he sees in her.

And in yet a third Wow of the day, I've just realized on your reading
your response to Jennie, here, that I, too, respond the same way. The
most jealous I've ever been---screaming green I was---I couldn't see
how he could possibly appreciate the both of us. If he valued me for
the things I valued about myself, then he couldn't possibly want to be
with her. Therefore, he valued me for other reasons (and so I broke
up with him).
--
____
Piglet \bi/ Momentum! A paying market for metrical poetry.
pig...@piglet.org \/ http://www.piglet.org/momentum

[Empress of Blandings]

sa...@sakar.inka.de, in article <359b4824...@news.ka.inka.de>, dixit:
>.... I talk from the standpoint of responsibility. Sorry, if I

>say it that baldly, but to me the idea that an adult person behaves
>with the self-importance and self-centeredness of a 4-year-old and
>gets lauded for and away with that, leaves me mouth agape.

Behaves. Again, you're talking about behavior, not about feelings.

>Foremostly you are responsible for yourself and how you affect or
>infringe on others. There is room for negative emotions, there are
>ways and methods to deal with them, but to simply refuse to see that
>if you do not work on the core to counteract and eventually stop them,
>*is* self-indulging.

My responsibility to my partner is to never have negative feelings?
*gack* What an inappropriate constraint to put on oneself.

>I sense no wish for change in Jennie's arguments. In fact what I sense
>there is a distinct satisfaction at having a means to draw attention
>to herself when her partners' attentions are elsewhere engaged or in
>her opinion faultily engaged. Whether or not her partners are bothered
>by this I can't tell, but I take exception to such a behaviour serving
>as a possible role model or excuse for others.

Again, I think you're reading more into what Jennie is saying than her
words support. For example....

>But issues revisited a couple or more than only a couple of times,
>especially if the underlying cause is a negative emotion and also if
>the obvious goal is the manipulation of your partners, without any
>distinct change to the better, are not anymore useful discussions,
>they - as I said above - grow into a tool with but one handle.

The obvious goal? Obvious to whom?

[Stef Maruch]

<gavi...@the-lair.com> wrote:

>My wife and I have had ongoing discussions/arguments about the hows
>and whens of moving our relationship towards poly. And I confess to
>feeling concerned that the "time" she asked for, to adjust to the idea,
>could be an infinite delay to avoid dealing with the issue. Realizing
>something as simple as your statement that the progress occurs at the
>"slower" person's pace had simply never occurred to me. I expected that
>this, like most of my life, occurred at the pace _I_ chose (being a
>pushy alpha-type takes a lot of energy, but it has it's benefits ;)> ).
>The epiphany that this is at _her_ pace gives me a better view that A)
>my way/my pace, or B) postponed forever, which were the only options I
>was seeing.

Good. Of course, sometimes it *is* a delaying tactic. But if you're asking
her to trust you as you move into a poly situation, it is only fair to
trust her that she is dealing with it as best she can.

--
Stef ** rational/scientific/philosophical/mystical/magical/kitty **
** st...@cat-and-dragon.com <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~stef **
--------------------------------------------------------

The lamb will lie down with the lion, but the lamb won't
get much sleep. -- Woody Allen

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <6ngsec$rbg$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,

<PSwa...@ems.jsc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>What's the difference between a technical and non-technical virgin?

If you've had a fair amount of sex other than intercourse, you're a
technical virgin. I use that phrase because I think it's ridiculous to
emphasize only intercourse as the definition of virginity while still
recognizing that for a lot of people, it *is* the only definition that
matters. I know there's at least one regular who defines sex as
"intercourse", at least for MOTOS (member of the opposite sex)
relationships.

[Sakar]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 18:15:46 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>Let me repeat what you said initially: "Jealousy is insecurity." Until
>you explicitly recant that position, you're likely to continue getting
>whacked. This isn't about being a Devil's Advocate, it's about making
>sweeping generalizations that marginalize other people's feelings.

Your definition - as I have read - of insecurity is highly different
from that of either the Collins Dictionary, or me and I think that you
give the word a slanted, opinionated meaning.

Here is what the Collins Thesaurus lists for -

Insecurity: 1. anxiety, fear, uncertainty, unsureness, worry
2. danger, defencelessness, hazard, peril, risk
uncertainty, vulnerability, weakness
3. dubiety, frailness, instability, precariousness,
shakiness, uncertainty, unreliability, unsteadi-
ness, weakness

insecure: 1. afraid, anxious, uncertain, unconfident, unsure
2. dangerous, defenceless, exposed, hazardous, ill-
protected, open to attack, perilous, unguarded,
unprotected, unsafe, unshielded, vulnerable
3. built upon sand, flimsy, frail, insubstantial,
loose, on thin ice, precarious, rickety, rocky,
shaky, unreliable, unsound, unstable, unsteady,
weak, wobbly

Both words - as per the Oxford Collins - encompass nearly everything
so far used as a background/reason of jealousy. Thus, I hold by what I
said.

If you choose to give these words a very narrow meaning, do so, just
don't expect me to narrow down so much, nor read a narrowed meaning
into my words, please. You should realize that I do not talk in terms
of "hip" words, or meanings which only a special or subgroup gives a
word.

>Why should we be concentrating on Louise's husband? Louise was the one
>asking for help. When Mark asks for help, we'll give advice appropriate
>to his description of the situation.

Because it would be a thoughtful thing to include him in the
discussion of a situation which encompasses two (at least) partners.
No one said anything about "concentrate", but given the signature and
the open way Louise wrote, it was to me at least clear that there were
two involved. Both should get consideration. And to help one means to
help the other too.

>Show me an example of being "too suspicious" other than Libris
>mentioning that having an outside relationship without a poly agreement
>is cheating (and I don't even regard that as too suspicious). Show also
>an example of being "too lenient" -- I don't recall anyone saying,
>"Yeah! yeah! go ahead and be jealous."

Do you want a list again? This is plainly wearying. Just read and
don't skip, more than just Libris suggested that.

>See, this is once again where you're pissing people off. You seem to
>think there's no valid reason for feeling jealous if one's partner says,

Where have I said that? I said that Louise did NOT write about her
husband cheating on her. Two different things. Entirely!

>"Hey, I'm poly, can we talk?" For someone who is fundamentally
>monogamous, that can easily be perceived as saying, "Hey, I want to
>abandon you." (This is particularly true given the prevalent models of
>cheating and serial monogamy.) It takes a lot of work and careful,
>considerate communication from the poly person to break through that
>paradigm.

All the more a reason to take the husband also in consideration.

>Quite frankly, the poly person should *not* expect much support from zir
>monogamous partner in the initial stages -- that's what the poly
>community is for. That's not to say the mono person should be throwing
>tantrums or fail to listen respectfully to the newly poly person, but
>adding the *expectation* of support into the mix is a bit much.

I wasn't AT ALL talking about support from the partner with my last
post, I was talking support of people here!

As to support by the monogamous partner, Aahz, the least bit of
support to be expected of a loving partner (and Louise gave every
notion that she is and wants to be and stay with Mark), after the
other has made a confession (not of cheating, but of a change of state
of mind), which has weighed heavily and has been difficult for
him/her, is to approach it with as few suspicions as one can manage,
with as much willingness to talk and learn as one can manage and with
at least as much trust in the other, as (s)he has placed in one self.
And if chronic jealousy interferes with that much (which is a minimum
in just about any discussion between partners), then it behooves well
- in both partners' interest - to push that aside to open the
discussion.

Sakar

[brigid]

piranha wrote:
> (you're absolutely right that one can't make valid deci-
> sions about relationships without knowing what one needs.)
>
> -piranha

(well of course i kept the good stuff! have to keep up my self esteem,
you know:)

thanks aahz, pirhana. this explains a lot. and i agree that tone would
have an effect on the way people react. my reaction to this lady and
the other new guy has been "you need to shelter yourselves first before
you can offer shelter to others". anyway, thanks.

brigid

[Empress of Blandings]

sa...@sakar.inka.de, in article <359c1195...@news.ka.inka.de>, dixit:

>Your definition - as I have read - of insecurity is highly different
>from that of either the Collins Dictionary, or me and I think that you
>give the word a slanted, opinionated meaning.

>Here is what the Collins Thesaurus lists for -
>Insecurity: 1. anxiety, fear, uncertainty, unsureness, worry
> 2. danger, defencelessness, hazard, peril, risk
> uncertainty, vulnerability, weakness
> 3. dubiety, frailness, instability, precariousness,
> shakiness, uncertainty, unreliability, unsteadi-
> ness, weakness

>insecure: 1. afraid, anxious, uncertain, unconfident, unsure
> 2. dangerous, defenceless, exposed, hazardous, ill-
> protected, open to attack, perilous, unguarded,
> unprotected, unsafe, unshielded, vulnerable
> 3. built upon sand, flimsy, frail, insubstantial,
> loose, on thin ice, precarious, rickety, rocky,
> shaky, unreliable, unsound, unstable, unsteady,
> weak, wobbly

Thesaurus, not dictionary. Different purposes. A dictionary helps
one define words (both denotations & connotations); a thesaurus helps
one find similar or related words.

Have you looked up jealousy?

>Both words - as per the Oxford Collins - encompass nearly everything
>so far used as a background/reason of jealousy. Thus, I hold by what I
>said.

Which is still not the same thing as jealousy==insecurity. If it did,
we wouldn't need both words.

>Do you want a list again? This is plainly wearying. Just read and
>don't skip, more than just Libris suggested that.

And that is just plain rude. Yes, if you're going to assert counts of
people doing x, y or z, you should be prepared to cite cases which
illustrate your point. Interpretation counts for quite a bit in this
written medium.

>And if chronic jealousy interferes with that much (which is a minimum
>in just about any discussion between partners), then it behooves well
>- in both partners' interest - to push that aside to open the
>discussion.

All well and good, but how did you get from 'mono partner feels
jealous when poly partner opens discussion about hir polyness' to
'mono partner is chronically jealous'? You seem to be asserting that
her feelings of jealousy in this situation mean that she is
chronically jealous. Whereas I think jealousy is the most 'natural'
reaction; i.e., it's the one I would most expect to encounter in that
situation.

[piranha]

In article <359c1195...@news.ka.inka.de>,

Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>Here is what the Collins Thesaurus lists for -

whoa. first off, a thesaurus is not a dictionary, a the-
saurus is meant to help you find synonyms, related words,
and antonyms. it does not _define_ a word, it helps you
find alternatives. which means that this is not anywhere
as good as a dictionary for your purpose here.

secondly, resorting to dictionaries can help when one is
trying to make sure one uses a word correctly, but they
are not some final authority; connotations are often not
covered because dictionaries are descriptive and limp
years if not decades behind actual language use.

so, here's what a dictionary has to say (webster's unab-
ridged encyclopedic, 1989):

insecure: 1. exposed to danger; unsafe. 2. not firm or
safe: insecure foundations. 3. subject to fear, doubt:
an insecure person.

insecurity adds "lack of assurance".

that doesn't show the connotations. i can tell you from
living in the US that people tend to take this a lot more
strongly than i did when i first moved there; many people
see it as a serious attack on their state of mind to be
called "insecure". me, i don't see it as a big deal, i
_am_ insecure (filled with doubt) at times. but i know
better than to toss that word into a room full of 'merkins
and not expect some ticked off responses.

it's also alas become a catch-all, and a psycho-babble
term that people toss at each other in anger. ergo, it's
not the best term to use without some qualifiers as to
how one actually means it.

>Both words - as per the Oxford Collins - encompass nearly everything
>so far used as a background/reason of jealousy. Thus, I hold by what I
>said.

yeah, if you look in a thesaurus terms tend to encompass
nearly everything that could conceivably be lumped under
a category, *snicker*, since that's its purpose. i think
you might wish to re-evaluate your stand after consulting
an actual dictionary.

>If you choose to give these words a very narrow meaning, do so, just
>don't expect me to narrow down so much, nor read a narrowed meaning
>into my words, please. You should realize that I do not talk in terms
>of "hip" words, or meanings which only a special or subgroup gives a
>word.

connotations matter. that's why we keep talking, no? at
least that's why i try to define my terms with the help
of examples, because language is by nature not very pre-
cise when it comes to describing emotions.

[Tolovana]

Mark A Kille wrote in message <6nhcuq$f39$1...@usenet01.srv.cis.pitt.edu>...

>In American society today, "insecurity" almost invariably is used
>as a pejorative unless it is modified by another term--e.g., financial
>insecurity. A statement such as "I'm feeling insecure" is an
>automatic apology: "sorry, can't help it, silly me".

As in "She's behaving like a jealous shrew, but it's really *her* insecurity
that's showing." or "You're just jealous because you're insecure! It's your
self-image problem that's the real problem, not his flirting with your
friends." (Frankly, I rarely *ever* hear of men being accused of being
insecure - unless they're gay.)

Which invariably leads to (at least in my experience for me) "Well, if you
were thinner, you wouldn't have such a bad self-image (insecurity) problem.
Maybe you should join a health club." " Well, if you got braces on your
teeth, were thinner, wore make-up, and dressed more like a woman, you
wouldn't feel so bad about the way you look, and then wouldn't have such a
poor self image that you had these insecurity problems."

*(gag)*

>Calling someone else insecure is roughly equivalent to calling them
>immature. Maybe that's particular to my generation though <shrug>.

I'm not sure what generation you're in, but I turn 40 in December, and it
certainly runs through all the generations I deal with - which includes the
16 and 18 year old, which are my daughter and her boyfriend, and my mom, who
is 70 this year. (She calls my dad, who is 90, immature!)

Tolovana

[gavi...@the-lair.com]

In article <359bc926...@news.ka.inka.de>,

sa...@sakar.inka.de wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 14:24:37 GMT, aa...@netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:
>
> >First of all, Jennie did *not* say that she's often jealous. Again, for
> >someone who does a lot of nitpicking, you're not reading carefully.
>
> Here's only an excerpt of her various posts:
> --------------------------------------------
> From: jenn...@kira.intranet.org (JennieD-O'C)
>
> <<<As someone who gets jealous often (though not all the time), and of
> all sorts of things, I can tell you that it only occasionally has to
> do with insecurity.>>>
>
> <<<What I most often get jealous of is one of my partners' tendencies
> to get so wrapped up in computer games that the whole evening has then
> gone by and he doesn't have any time left to spend with me. >>>
>

> <<<I have a general tendency to get jealous, but the *biggest*
> influence on whether or not I get jealous, and on how strongly I get
> jealous, is whether or not the situation is (by my estimation) "as it
> should be".>>>

> ---------------------------------------------
>
> I can rustle up a few more such quotes, but I guess you can re-read
> yourself. I've a very good memory. Sorry to have to point this out.
>
> >Now, this part's going to squick Jennie a tiny bit: there's really
> >nothing wrong with possession, as long as it is *consensual*. This is
> >pretty common in the BDSM community, in fact; as far as I know, though,
> >Jennie's relationship don't have a dom/sub component. ;-)
>
> If it is consensual and especially if it is BDSM, okay. But then again
> we were NOT talking about domination, we were talking about jealousy
> and possessiveness in relation to it.
>
> Sakar
>

15-love.

[gavi...@the-lair.com]

> sa...@sakar.inka.de wrote:
> What's the difference between a technical and non-technical virgin?

The pocket protector full of pens?

Gavin

[Mark A Kille]

In article <359aab1a...@news.ka.inka.de>,
Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:

Lots snipped throughout...

>
>Does respect mean that any sort of expression of a negative feeling
>which will touch others negatively is okay? If we were not talking
>about jealousy, but of hatred instead or of violent anger, would there
>be an equal respect?

Speaking personally--yes.

There is, of course, the question of who you're expressing the feeling
to. I think it's bad form to confront the cause of one's jealousy
(the intruder, so to speak) about it, just as it's rude in most cases
to go on to someone about how much you hate them.

And there is, of course, the question of how you express the feeling.
Foaming at the mouth is disturbing, no matter what the root emotion.

But on the whole, I don't see hatred or anger or jealousy as things
we should try to suppress or rationalize away, because then they
just come back ten times stronger, in my experience. Emotion
management has it over emotion prescription any day of the week in
my book.

>No I don't, though I include that kind of behaviour. But regardless of
>whether someone has a fit/tantrum or just often feels jealous by
>him/herself, it always will affect his/her SO(s), unless (s)he is a
>very good actor. Mistrust can be sensed and is a slight, it hurts.

And?

Myself, I don't see trust as a mystical goal which must be achieved
in any relationship
at all times, no matter what. Nobody is perfect, everyone
that I've ever known including myself is capable of betrayals large
and small, and to expect people to ignore that in the name of
being noble or something makes no sense to me.

I'm not saying people should be distrustful--I'm probably one of
the more ridiculously trusting people in the world, since I start
there and have to have it proven misplaced (instead of making
people earn it somehow)--but I'm saying that to experience periods of
distrust is understandable, and not a sign of lack of love,
or of some kind of moral deficiency. It's
just a sign of having a realistic view of the world.

Mistrust hurts, yes. It has to be dealt with, yes. But... conflicts
in general hurt and must be dealt with, but I would be surprised if
you believe that we must avoid ever ever getting into fights with
those we love because then the conflict will be sensed and be painful.
And I would be surprised if you felt the person who started the
argument was always completely to blame, because they introduced
this negative emotion into the relationship.

This is, of course, assuming that jealousy = mistrust. Which it
really really doesn't, at least not as I experience the two of
them.

>
>I don't say it should be your work alone. But I've read much too much
>about self-indulgence and in a manner I regard as mainly
>self-centered, and not enough about taking oneself a bit back and
>expressing one's respect and love for the other through helping
>him/her!

I'm not sure where you're getting that from...if partners are
supposed to express respect and love for each other by helping
each other, shouldn't one's partner help one if one is feeling
jealous? Ignoring the effects of their actions on you is
clearly self-centered self-indulgence...

I exaggerate. But I'm not sure why the partner with the "undesirable"
feelings is supposed to stuff them down and be supportive, while
the partner without this stigma is free to do more or less what
they want.

If the relationship is expected to continue on equal footing, that is.

>
>Of course everyone has the right to take care of him/herself, but I've
>read nothing but, regarding this thread.

I haven't followed the thread religiously, but couldn't your perception
here be shaped by the fact that a lot of people are responding
specifically to your points about jealousy being inherently bad
and destructive? Give us a discussion where someone says "my partner
is so controlling, if I even talk to another person they can't
stand it and we have to have Long Talks" and you'll hear a lot
more talk about not crossing the line between self-care and
other-controlling.

>It might be interesting to know the viewpoint of some who have been at
>the receiving edge of rampant or chronic jealousy of someone who
>instead of trying to work getting jealousy out of his/her system,
>likes to place it at his/her feet to examine and succour, never mind
>whether peacefully or of the green-eyed variety.

I've been there. I didn't like it, but I don't think the person in
question should have worked to get the jealousy out of her system.
It was part of her emotional makeup, and she is now very happily
married (last I heard) to someone equally--if not more--jealous.

The point being that the wrongness of the situation was that a
jealous person was involved with someone who inflamed her
jealousy--not that she was jealous in and of itself.

--Mark Kille

--
"For relaxation the King breeds dairy cattle, raises improved strains of
rice, plays badminton, and runs a home workshop in which he has assembled
both a sailboat and a working helicopter."
--Thailand Today, c.1968

[Mark A Kille]

In article <359c1195...@news.ka.inka.de>,
Sakar <sa...@sakar.inka.de> wrote:
>
>Both words - as per the Oxford Collins - encompass nearly everything
>so far used as a background/reason of jealousy. Thus, I hold by what I
>said.

A piece of friendly advice: resorting to dictionary definitions is not
liable to convince very many people in this newsgroup.

>If you choose to give these words a very narrow meaning, do so, just
>don't expect me to narrow down so much, nor read a narrowed meaning
>into my words, please. You should realize that I do not talk in terms
>of "hip" words, or meanings which only a special or subgroup gives a
>word.

In American society today, "insecurity" almost invariably is used

as a pejorative unless it is modified by another term--e.g., financial
insecurity. A statement such as "I'm feeling insecure" is an
automatic apology: "sorry, can't help it, silly me".

Calling someone else insecure is roughly equivalent to calling them

immature. Maybe that's particular to my generation though <shrug>.

I can't speak for other English-speaking cultures.

[Ryk]

On Sun, 28 Jun 1998 21:16:31 -0700, "Louise"
<mzie...@wkpowerlink.com> wrote:

>I would like to know if anybody out there has been in similar situations &
>any advice you might have for me, for us. I don't want to live without him.

>We live in a small area & we don't have anybody we can talk to.

I've been on the opposite side of a very similar situation. My advice
would be to keep the entire conversation very hypothetical until you
can come to some agreement. Pushing ahead with anything is likely to
lead to heartbreak for someone.

Tell him that I said he should back off if he doesn't want to get
hurt....

Ryk