jealousy

Today I vegged in front of the television at my folks’, flipping back and forth between old episodes of Degrassi and the films To Die For, Little Children, and Brokeback Mountain. For those unfamiliar, all of these moving pictures encompass topics of jealousy, cheating, repressed sexuality, or a combination of those.

Forgetting for a moment that I like the aforementioned films and the Canadian television show about awkward adolescence – that once, long ago, seemed to somewhat accurately portray high school life – I felt absurdly proud to be polyamorous and happy.

None of these productions ends well: Sarah and Brad ultimately cannot be together because Sarah feels obligated to her family despite her loveless marriage and Brad can’t admit to himself what he truly wants, so he withers; annoyingly, Brad’s wife spends half of Little Children moping or glaring at him with tear-stricken eyes. Ennis, of course, never lets go of his socially constructed shame in order to fully accept Jack as the person he loves most in the world even in the liminal, welcoming space of Brokeback Mountain. In To Die For, the ruthless Suzanne Stone seduces a dim-witted high school kid to kill her husband, whose family subsequently has her killed (in a feminist critique, I would say that the family simply could not deal with a strong-willed woman in charge of her sexuality and intent on success. They needed to eliminate her in order to reestablish the repressive heteronormative male-dominated monogamous social order . . . either way, not a good situation). On Degrassi, underage sex, cheating, lying, bloodshed and general high school malaise assure me no one will ever be happy unless we all go drown in an icy lake somewhere so we never have to deal with our bad communication issues. I digress.

A character on Degrassi named Paige told a friend consolingly, “Jealousy is a nasty thing,” but both seemed to accept the state as a reality rather than an exception. In this particular episode, Spinner – Paige’s ex – does not adequately recognize that his obsessive Christian girlfriend not only is crazy jealous (to the point of violence) of Spinner’s past girlfriends but also of any woman Spinner comes into contact with; she also can’t deal with the fact that Spinner is a sexual being, though admittedly he does lie to her about being a virgin. Spinner, of course, out of nowhere starts kissing Paige, who just broke up with her girlfriend, then tries to go back to Darcy and make like everything’s okay. People really do this!! (It actually does shock me.)

Occasionally I feel jealousy toward Diana. In fact, I’m suffering through some now. It is always a hard admission to make to myself. The jealousy surrounds the sort of time she gets to spend with him and, conversely, the time that I do not have with him.

But I don’t want to be jealous. I actively try to move forward away from that verdant beast. I’m still feeling lonely and out of sorts, but I am confident I can work through it with Sam, Tobias and Diana’s help.

You can address jealousy constructively. You can talk about it. It may take a while to even recognize that what you’re feeling is jealousy and it may hurt to discuss it, but jealousy can be sorted through and eliminated if you’re willing to work at it.

Jealousy is not worth the pain it causes. Even if you’re not poly, you shouldn’t have to wonder about your partner. Ask them if you think something’s going on. Talk about your feelings and your worries. Don’t suffer in silence, even if you feel paranoid. You’ll just resent the other person and yourself.

Jealousy kills a person’s spirit. It’s certainly wreaking havoc on me right now. I understand hesitating to talk about jealousy or longing or what you really need, because you’re scared, but it’s bullshit not to address it. Do it sooner than later.