In This Body: Jealousy, Name It
“Being in a non-monogamous relationship does more”
Our monthly column "In This Body" is comprised of true stories about sex, gender, the body, and love, written by Fiona George, for NAILED.
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You’re not supposed to name an animal that is going to be killed for food. This is because when you see a creature as a living being, see their humanity, it is harder to do them harm or wish them harm. It works the same way with people, with jealously.
When I know my boyfriends other partners personally, see their humanity, it’s harder to wish that they would catch an STI and not be able to have sex with him for a while, or hope that bad monogamous relationship they’re in doesn’t end so that I don’t have to deal with my emotions. With that emotion.
Every time I feel at peace about it for too long—I start to think that jealousy is something I’ve finally grown out of—it’ll come out from the dark corners.
So he got lunch with another partner on his break at work? He’s never done that with me before. Sure, it could be because we work the same days at the same times at businesses a city apart from each other, but probably it’s because he’s ashamed of me and doesn’t want me to meet his cool coworkers.
How fucked up it sounds, that thought process, when it’s written and sitting in front of your face.
When the relationship I have now was barely an idea, was just forming its beginning, I went on a writing and yoga retreat taught by two women who can change lives if you let them.
One of them talked about jealousy—professional jealousy—but the emotion is the same no matter what triggers it. It is always a destructive force. She told us, when she feels jealous of someone, she says a prayer for them—a secular prayer—because they are human and probably wading through at least as much shit as we are. She urged us to see their humanity.
The other woman, she had us pair off and sit cross-legged in front of each other for what felt like a very long time—but I know was no more than five minutes—and look into each other’s eyes. She asked us to not look away.
Five minutes in a fixed point of vision, it can make the person in front of you so real and solid and there, but it can also make all their face except for their eyes go funny like you’re tripping on acid.
All of me was aware of the woman sitting in front of me, and all of me was aware of myself. Like we were one. All I could see was her humanity.
If I could sit, cross-legged, in front of each of my boyfriend’s partners and look into their eyes for five minutes, I might really grow out that kind of jealously—that romantic and sexual myth of monogamy meaning more.
He started seeing a new partner, I wanted to request her on Facebook. She was someone I had met before—running in similar social circles, places where our friends would meet in a Venn diagram. I’d never bothered to add her before, for no real reason. I wanted to step a little closer to her in the internet world, see what she posted—things that make her laugh, when she has a bad day, her name and face in my feed—see her humanity.
It would make it easier, like it always did, to not want to hurt her in order to spare me my hurt. There was a way, that neither of us had to hurt.
It used to tear me up so much I tore myself up, my skin. It used to be my reason to cut myself, when I was single. Over the people I wanted to love who loved other people, over how much prettier my sister was, over the attention other writers got from people I admired.
So many of those people were so close to me, I couldn’t wish them or do them harm so I harmed myself.
Being in a relationship doesn’t solve it, not really. Before, it solved it—the hurting myself—only for the duration of the relationship. A warm body next to me at the end of the day dulled the hurt just enough.
Being in a non-monogamous relationship does more than hold the jealousy back with a stick, it forces you to bring it closer. To sit in front of it, legs crossed, and stare into it’s eyes, let it’s face morph as if you’re tripping till you’ve seen all it’s forms. To give it a name and see it’s humanity.
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To read the previous In This Body: "Easy to Love," go here.
Header images courtesy of Pierre Schmidt. To view his artist feature on NAILED, go here.