Hot Tramp's Jealousy Megapost

[tacky_tramp]

I find that I end up repeating myself a lot in online discussions about jealousy, so I'm going to collect my main points here for easy linking.

Stuff I believe about jealousy:

• Jealousy is normal. Just about everyone will experience jealousy at some point -- yes, even ethically nonmonogamous people. People who feel jealous are not inherently bad

Comments

[ashbet]

These are fab!

May I suggest putting line breaks between the bullet points, for an easier-to-read format? (Sorry, my eye sees "wall of text" on a screen and I sometimes have trouble keeping the lines straight.)

Thank you for sharing these!

-- A :)

[tacky_tramp]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[ashbet]

You are awesome! ^_^

*mwah!*

-- A :D

P.S. I do like dicedork's comment about jealousy being the "check engine" light of the soul -- for me, it's a sign that some of my needs aren't being met, or that I'm feeling insecure and need to (a) work on propping myself up, and/or (b) communicate with my partner about the issue and see if there's something we can do about it together

[tacky_tramp]

Wonderful news!

[dicedork]

One of the best explanations I've heard that I really latched onto is that jealousy is NOT it's own emotion per se. It is the "you're making me feel..." catch all in a monogamous world that generally has no problems with the responsibility for one person's feelings being blamed on another's behavior. But in poly contexts, it can point to so many different things that are wrong and each of those so many different fixes, that it's better to think of jealousy as the "check engine" light of the soul.

Given my contextual situation, you can imagine I've thought about a lot of this. It's nice to see some of my cerebral juice given form.

[tacky_tramp]

Yeah, inki's piece about jealousy and power was really interesting. Jealousy is a discursive I-win button. Which is not to discount people's actual feelings of insecurity and fear of abandonment and so on, but it's interesting to look at a fairly rigorous study of how jealousy functions in society.

[teawiththecheat]

Thanks for making this post public. Just added you on LJ...thought I'd done that ages ago.

[stardragonca]

Feelings aren't for being fair. Feelings are to feel! Reason is for being fair.

[harimad]

I find it helpful to distinguish between jealous and envy. These are my rough definitions: Envy is when you wish you had what the other person has. Jealousy is when you wish the other person not to have it.

[tacky_tramp]

I think it's very easy to slide from envy to jealousy, though, particularly if you're operating under the scarcity model of love -- if my partner gives x to her, then he can't give x to me, and I want x!