ehowton | The Green-Eyed Monster

My wife already lives her life as if her BFF is, "second wife" (as she calls her). This comes up in everyday conversation, usually to the effect of, "I wish I could pass you on to second wife right about now," or, "Stop bugging me and go bug second wife." It's rather endearing.

Over dinner last night she brought up the subject of jealousy, reminding me that it would occasionally be unavoidable in such a configuration, but as I thought about it, I had a new hot take. You see, most non-poly people assume being poly is about having sex with multiple partners when that couldn't be further from the truth - its more a philosophical lifestyle where boundaries and expectations and meeting needs in a healthy way are discussed ad nauseam. Poly is about having exceedingly intimate relationships with more than a single person, and I use the word intimate to denote its full prismatic meaning; the kind of transparency which is almost painful as we reveal our deeply buried vulnerabilities in order to properly reciprocate in a healthy way; a never-ending stream of love languages. People who truly embrace the poly lifestyle may not be award-winning orators, but they don't have to be. They must however, posses an almost obsessive desire to communicate to the nth-degree while simultaneously embracing a willingness to construct, deconstruct, and entertain a myriad of ideas surrounding healthy relationships with joy at its base. It probably sounds exhausting to the galvanized binary-thinking crowd, but to those of us who live for nuance and play with logic and ideas as a malleable, formable concept, it's downright invigorating. Or maybe that's just me.

And here's the hot take: Jealousy is not only natural and expected from time to time as a tool to aid our own internal emotional maturity via healthy coping mechanisms, its actually good for poly folks as it alone has the potential to introduce conversation! It can be the perfect tool for initiating new dialogue! And us poly folks love new dialogue - new challenges to successfully overcome. Why, you may ask? Because solving challenges with love and joy and commitment lends itself to a fulfilling life normies can't even imagine.

How does that work? Simple. Choose the TED Talk/self-help/life-coach of your preference - any one of them - and they all say the exact same thing: The happiest, most successful people on the earth all experience true, satisfying contentment and fulfillment by contributing to something greater than themselves. In polyamory, the dynamic is that contribution and by its very nature, the configuration is the thing which is greater than ourselves.

Love freely ❤