sinew
New member
So, I was going through the exercise on xeromag for dealing with jealousy, and made it through just the first section before I ran into trouble.
The article asks that I write down triggers for my jealousy that come to mind. I am a habitually jealous person, I would be the first to admit, so I can think of a fair number... And reflecting on the list, I realize it covers, well, pretty much everything my poly husband might want to do with his other partner.
That sounded sort of like a problem, so I contemplated what my list *doesn't* cover, and basically it doesn't cover them hanging out as platonic friends with me or other un-involved friends of ours around. As long as it isn't something that I wanted to do with him but don't get to because he's doing it with her instead (i.e. watching a movie I like, going to the dog park, etc.)... or something that he prefers doing with her to doing with me (i.e. riding his motorcycle, going to spiritual functions, etc.)... Bottom line, fairly limiting for people who were in a serious romantic relationship before I discovered them cheating in January.
That in itself sounds like a pretty bleak outlook for getting through this exercise to me. I need to convince myself not to get triggered by pretty much everything, because at heart I am upset that they want to be lovers at all. I'm already feeling down about this... Is it even useful to do this exercise if that's how far I have to go?
And if this is more "advanced" practice, I guess I'm struggling to figure out how to lay a better groundwork.
S
The article asks that I write down triggers for my jealousy that come to mind. I am a habitually jealous person, I would be the first to admit, so I can think of a fair number... And reflecting on the list, I realize it covers, well, pretty much everything my poly husband might want to do with his other partner.
That sounded sort of like a problem, so I contemplated what my list *doesn't* cover, and basically it doesn't cover them hanging out as platonic friends with me or other un-involved friends of ours around. As long as it isn't something that I wanted to do with him but don't get to because he's doing it with her instead (i.e. watching a movie I like, going to the dog park, etc.)... or something that he prefers doing with her to doing with me (i.e. riding his motorcycle, going to spiritual functions, etc.)... Bottom line, fairly limiting for people who were in a serious romantic relationship before I discovered them cheating in January.
That in itself sounds like a pretty bleak outlook for getting through this exercise to me. I need to convince myself not to get triggered by pretty much everything, because at heart I am upset that they want to be lovers at all. I'm already feeling down about this... Is it even useful to do this exercise if that's how far I have to go?
And if this is more "advanced" practice, I guess I'm struggling to figure out how to lay a better groundwork.
S