"Abbey Felt No Jealousy"
A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a reporter from a national Australian publication - SBS. She was writing an article about non-monogamy, specifically on throuples, and asked me to share my thoughts and experiences with these types of relationship structures.
The topic itself was a reminder of how far behind Australia is when it comes to non-monogamous discourse. Throuples and ‘unicorns’ can be the first port of call when people are first learning about non-monogamy. Perhaps a married couple who invite a woman to join them is more palatable to the monogamous masses?
The concept of one man who is with two women doesn’t confront the ingrained systems of belief in the same way that a couple who date separately do…
Liam and I rarely date the same person, but the reality is that when we do, it is a woman due to Liam being straight.
When I read the published article last week, I found myself staring at and into the words, “Abbey felt no jealousy”. Whilst reading this, the real journey of that specific relationship (and all it brought up for me) flashed before my eyes.
Reading these words was such a reminder of how binary a monogamous perspective can be. I shared with the journalist about compersion, along with how much I liked the woman who Liam and I welcomed into our intimate space.
I shared about how there were many positives for us all and that we all loved spending time together. I also shared about how of course there were difficulties, as one would expect.
In saying all of this and expressing the over-arching positive emotions, it appeared that the journalist was led to believe that I had no feelings of discomfort or jealousy. In this moment the journalist drew the conclusion that my omission of discussing jealousy meant that it was simply not present. To be clear, I do not fault the journalist for this. Rather this jump in painting the picture can be attributed to the difficulty to apply nuance to non-monogamy when being reported or discussed.
Compersion is often described as “the opposite of jealousy”, with a byproduct of this phrase implying that you cannot experience both feelings simultaneously. For me, I have always pictured compersion and jealousy as two volume knobs, side by side, that can independently be turned up or down at the same time.
Reading aspects of a story written about my relationships from the perspective of another is such a bizarre experience. Of course there is much missing, but I am comfortable with this. A journalist can not be privy to all my internal workings and the stories that bind my relationships together.
When I discuss the relationship that was referred to in this article, a deeper and more nuanced picture emerges. Yes there was compersion, pleasure and longing. There were also complicated feelings of comparison, fear and envy.
I am still unpacking all of the things that came up for me from that time.
She is eleven years younger than me, and it is true that I was confronted by her youth and the different life stages that we were experiencing. The freedom and spontaneity that she had access to made me sit in the reality that I am in a different chapter of life.
It was also a reminder that when Liam and I first met and fell in love, my life looked very similar to my metamour and her stage of life. Carefree and full of possibility. I wouldn’t trade my current life for that past chapter, but I still hold a nostalgic tenderness for it.
She reminded me of a past version of myself. The version of who I was when Liam fell in love with me. Would he fall in love with her too? And if he did, would that love somehow overshadow the precious memories that we hold from our own origin story?
Whilst I was intimate with her too, our relationship felt different to the passion that my husband shared with her. Our relationship could have deepened, but I chose instead to keep her at a subtle emotional distance. I knew that she looked to me as a woman who had it ‘all figured out’ and there was part of me that liked this. I kept my insecurities (mostly) to myself and Liam, not wanting to burden her with what was coming up for me.
I didn’t share with the journalist that I felt torn at times between my growing romantic feelings for her which exacerbated feelings of envy that I had for my husband’s growing connection with her. I didn’t share with the journalist that our tryst and desire to be closer to her was exposing my anxious tendencies whenever she took longer than two days to reply to a text message from me.
As someone who rarely gets anxious with partners, I could feel an unease within myself and a desire to be closer to her whilst also feeling threatened by what that closeness could look like for my marriage. If I were to become closer to her, would she be absorbed into our world? Would our son form an attachment to her? Would I lose my place in my own home?
There is truth that there was compersion, picnics, intimacy, joy and delight in our times together.
There is also truth that there was a multitude of other complex feelings that were being weighed up alongside the positives, as many people who explore non-monogamy would understand.
