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8 与“绿眼怪物”做朋友 Befriending the Green-Eyed Monster

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a monster is a part of ourselves that we don’t want to find in the mirror. a part of ourselves that we try to cut out and split off and put inside other people so that they can carry it for us: our fear. our shame.

KAI CHENG THOM1

怪物是我们不想在镜子中看到的自己的一部分。是我们试图切除、分离并放入他人体内，以便他们能为我们背负的那部分自己：我们的恐惧。我们的羞耻。

Kai Cheng Thom1

8 Befriending the Green-Eyed Monster

Section titled “8 Befriending the Green-Eyed Monster”

第 8 章 与“绿眼怪物”做朋友

Section titled “第 8 章 与“绿眼怪物”做朋友”

Jealousy is often the first thing people bring up when learning about nonmonogamy, and many consider it the most important issue to address. Perhaps ironically, it’s the subject of the shortest chapter in this book.

当人们了解非单偶制时，嫉妒通常是他们首先提到的事情，许多人认为这是最需要解决的重要问题。也许具有讽刺意味的是，它是本书中最短的一章的主题。

In part that’s because there’s so much material available on it already, and we want to focus on what we can add to the conversation. In part it’s because we believe that in many cases there’s an over-focus on jealousy, to the detriment of dealing with the many other very important issues in nonmonogamy.

部分原因是关于这方面的资料已经非常多了，我们想专注于我们能为这场对话增加什么内容。部分原因是我们认为，在许多情况下，人们过度关注嫉妒，从而损害了对非单偶制中许多其他非常重要问题的处理。

You’ll hear a wide variety of opinions about jealousy among nonmonogamous folks. Some believe it’s possible to banish it forever by working on personal security. Some try to structure their relationships so they never have to feel it. Some feel it reflects attitudes of entitlement that need to be deconstructed. Overwhelmingly, people view it as something negative—the green-eyed monster, an unwelcome interloper to be controlled, vanquished or banished.

你会听到非单偶制人群关于嫉妒的各种各样的观点。有些人相信通过致力于个人安全感可以永远消除它。有些人试图构建他们的关系，以便他们永远不必感受到它。有些人觉得它反映了需要解构的权利感态度。绝大多数人将其视为负面的东西——绿眼怪物，一个需要被控制、征服或驱逐的不受欢迎的闯入者。

Each of these views has a piece of the picture; none is complete. Jealousy isn’t just one thing, and so there’s no one solution. We think of jealousy as more like twenty different emotions in a trench coat. In fact, it’s pretty common for nonmonogamous folks to label any unfamiliar, negative feeling attached to their partners’ other relationships as jealousy, which confuses the issue further. A big part of responding to jealousy is discerning the real mix of emotions that you’re feeling, and what they’re trying to tell you.

这些观点中的每一个都只触及了图景的一部分；没有一个是完整的。嫉妒不仅仅是一件事，因此没有唯一的解决方案。我们认为嫉妒更像是穿着风衣的二十种不同的情绪。事实上，非单偶制者将任何与伴侣的其他关系相关的陌生的、负面的感觉都贴上嫉妒的标签是很常见的，这进一步混淆了问题。应对嫉妒的一个重要部分是辨别你感受到的真正混合情绪，以及它们试图告诉你什么。

Further, for all the bad rap that jealousy gets among nonmonogamous folks, it’s important to remember that jealousy is just a part of you—maybe a part that’s scared, or angry, or hurt, or trying to protect you, or even prone to tantrums, but not an enemy (or a monster). Instead of fighting with or running from it, we would like to offer the possibility that you could instead try to welcome it, give it a hug, offer it a cup of hot cocoa and then, when you’ve both calmed down enough, listen to what it has to say. (At the risk of mixing our metaphors, you might find that once the trench coat is unbuttoned, what you really have is a pile of wet, hungry and cold kittens all requiring care. Just please don’t give kittens cocoa.)

此外，尽管嫉妒在非单偶制者中声名狼藉，但重要的是要记住，嫉妒只是你的一部分——也许是害怕、愤怒、受伤、试图保护你，甚至容易发脾气的那部分，但不是敌人（或怪物）。与其与之对抗或逃避，我们想提供一种可能性，你可以尝试欢迎它，给它一个拥抱，给它一杯热可可，然后，当你们都足够冷静时，听听它要说什么。（冒着混合隐喻的风险，你可能会发现一旦解开风衣，你真正拥有的是一堆湿漉漉、饥饿且寒冷的小猫，都需要照顾。只是请不要给小猫喝可可。）

Jealousy isn’t unique to nonmonogamy. In fact, many now-nonmonogamous people say their worst experiences of jealousy (their own or a partner’s) occurred in the context of monogamous relationships. For some, this is a major motivation for wanting to be nonmonogamous—a combination of the greater likelihood of connecting with partners who’ve worked on their jealousy or have progressive ideas about what it means and how to manage it, and the relative safety of spending time in less mononormative social contexts, where jealousy is not seen as a valid reason for all manner of harmful behaviours. Mononormativity teaches that jealousy is a sign of love, and only in the most extreme cases are monogamous folks expected to actually work through their jealousy rather than cater to it; the relationship escalator model is designed in many ways to protect you from experiencing jealousy at all. A major difference in the nonmonogamous experience of jealousy is both the social expectation—and the relational necessity—that you don’t let it dominate your life.

嫉妒并非非单偶制所独有。事实上，许多现在的非单偶制者说，他们最糟糕的嫉妒经历（他们自己的或伴侣的）发生在单偶制关系的背景下。对一些人来说，这是想要成为非单偶制者的主要动机——这结合了更有可能与那些已经处理过嫉妒问题或对嫉妒的含义及管理方法有进步想法的伴侣建立联系的可能性，以及在较少受单偶常态影响的社会环境中度过时间的相对安全性，在那里嫉妒不被视为各种有害行为的正当理由。单偶常态教导说嫉妒是爱的标志，只有在最极端的情况下，单偶制者才被期望真正解决他们的嫉妒而不是迎合它；关系自动扶梯模式在很多方面旨在保护你根本不经历嫉妒。非单偶制嫉妒体验的一个主要区别在于社会期望——以及关系必要性——即你不让它主宰你的生活。

Soothing jealousy

Section titled “Soothing jealousy”

安抚嫉妒

Section titled “安抚嫉妒”

Jealousy can make us feel threatened at a very deep, survival level, setting off panicked responses in some of the most ancient parts of our brains. Until those feelings have subsided, it can be hard to do the cognitive work that’s needed to deal with jealousy for the long term. Even if you’re someone who likes to process verbally during intense emotional experiences, beware of making any major decisions quickly.

嫉妒会让我们在非常深层的生存层面上感到受威胁，在大脑最古老的一些部分引发恐慌反应。在这些感觉消退之前，很难进行长期处理嫉妒所需的认知工作。即使你是一个喜欢在强烈情感体验期间进行口头处理的人，也要小心不要迅速做出任何重大决定。

Working through jealous feelings starts with accepting them. You can’t deal with jealousy by wishing it away. Our emotions are what they are, and telling yourself, “I shouldn’t feel this!” won’t work. The feelings might be overwhelming for a while—even if you’re experienced at nonmonogamy. Accept that there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling this way. You are completely normal.

处理嫉妒情绪始于接受它们。你不能通过希望嫉妒消失来处理它。我们的情绪就是它们原本的样子，告诉自己“我不应该有这种感觉！”是行不通的。这种感觉可能会持续一段时间——即使你在非单偶制方面很有经验。接受你有这种感觉并没有错。你完全正常。

While we’re here: It’s important for your support people to accept your feelings, too. It’s unfortunately all too common for nonmonogamous people to subtly or overtly shame each other for feeling jealous. You’re not less evolved or less spiritual, you’re not (necessarily) clinging to a scarcity or ownership paradigm, and you’re not “not really nonmonogamous.” You’re a person who’s having totally normal feelings.

顺便说一句：你的支持者接受你的感受也很重要。不幸的是，非单偶制者因为感到嫉妒而微妙地或公开地羞辱彼此的情况太常见了。你并没有进化得更少或更不具灵性，你并非（必然）执着于匮乏或所有权范式，你也不是“不是真正的非单偶制者”。你只是一个有着完全正常感觉的人。

The next step is to regulate and ask for support. Jealousy can present in a lot of ways: Sometimes it’s just a fluttery feeling of uncertainty or insecurity. Other times it can be dramatic, manifesting as nausea, headaches, dizziness, dissociation, nightmares or even full-blown anxiety attacks. Do whatever self-care you need to soothe yourself and ride out the feelings. Take a bath, ask someone for cuddles, pet your dog—whatever you do to take care of yourself, do it now. Check out the tips for emotional processing on pages 146–148. Try, for now, to separate the feeling you’re experiencing from whatever story you have about it. Don’t make any big decisions. Don’t break up with anyone! Know that this will pass. What you are feeling right now is not all you are.

下一步是调节并寻求支持。嫉妒可以以多种方式表现出来：有时它只是一种不确定或不安全的慌乱感。其他时候它可能是戏剧性的，表现为恶心、头痛、头晕、解离、噩梦甚至全面的焦虑发作。做任何你需要的自我护理来安抚自己并度过这种感觉。洗个澡，找人拥抱，抚摸你的狗——无论你做什么来照顾自己，现在就做。查看第 146-148 页关于情绪处理的提示。现在，试着将你正在经历的感觉与你关于它的任何故事分开。不要做任何重大决定。不要和任何人分手！要知道这会过去的。你现在的感受并不是你的全部。

If your jealousy is manifesting as anger, you might need to release that by screaming underwater or into a pillow, working out, or writing all those awful thoughts in a journal you never share or a letter you never send. Remember that no matter how awful you’re feeling, you’re accountable for your words and your actions. Things said can never be unsaid. Try not to lash out, and don’t try to actually process the feelings until you feel calm enough to do so with kindness. And if you’re supporting someone who’s experiencing jealousy, don’t push them to try to talk about it while they’re still in an activated state.

如果你的嫉妒表现为愤怒，你可能需要通过在水下或对着枕头尖叫、锻炼，或者在你不分享的日记或你不发送的信中写下所有那些糟糕的想法来释放它。请记住，无论你感觉多么糟糕，你都要对你的言行负责。说出去的话收不回。尽量不要猛烈抨击，在你感到足够平静并能带着善意去做之前，不要试图实际处理这些感受。如果你正在支持一个正在经历嫉妒的人，不要在他们仍然处于激动状态时强迫他们谈论它。

Listening to jealousy

Section titled “Listening to jealousy”

倾听嫉妒

Section titled “倾听嫉妒”

Once the emotional experience has passed and the triggering situation has ended—ideally after at least a night or two of sleep—it’s time to start figuring out what your jealousy is trying to tell you. This can take some time. Jessica Fern offers a useful framework2 for discerning the varieties of experiences that we call jealousy: Is it “me, we or society?”

一旦情感体验过去，触发情况结束——理想情况下是在至少睡了一两晚之后——是时候开始弄清楚你的嫉妒试图告诉你什么了。这可能需要一些时间。杰西卡·弗恩提供了一个有用的框架2 来辨别我们称之为嫉妒的各种体验：它是“我、我们还是社会？”

When jealousy is about “me,” that means it’s rooted in some kind of inner wound: unworthiness, fear, trauma, an insecure attachment style and so on. A lot of the nonmonogamy literature focuses on this kind of jealousy. Inner wounds are a common source of jealousy, to be sure. But a danger arises here because it can be so easy—both for you and others in your polycule—to assume by default that an inner wound is the source of all feelings coded as jealousy, and thus the solution is always to work on yourself. At best this perspective can keep you stuck, unable to address the source of the problem; at worst, it can lead to gaslighting, as every attempt to resolve a nonmonogamy-related issue in your relationships or polycule gets flipped back around as something you need to work on by yourself. Whether your jealousy is communicating a need for self-work is for you to decide for yourself, after careful reflection and discernment, and perhaps after conversations with a trusted therapist or friends.

当嫉妒是关于“我”时，这意味着它植根于某种内在创伤：无价值感、恐惧、创伤、不安全的依恋风格等等。许多非单偶制文献都关注这种嫉妒。可以肯定的是，内在创伤是嫉妒的常见来源。但这也会产生危险，因为这很容易——无论是对你还是对你多边关系网络中的其他人——默认假设内在创伤是所有被编码为嫉妒的感觉的来源，因此解决方案总是致力于自身。往好了说，这种观点会让你停滞不前，无法解决问题的根源；往坏了说，它可能导致煤气灯效应，因为每一次试图解决你们关系或多边关系网络中与非单偶制相关的问题的尝试都会被反转成你需要自己解决的事情。你的嫉妒是否在传达自我修养的需求，这需要你在仔细反思和辨别之后，或许在与值得信赖的治疗师或朋友交谈之后，由你自己决定。

Another “me” jealousy scenario is an experience that, according to Fern, is often labelled as jealousy but actually belongs in a different category altogether. This is “primal panic,”3 which many people experience when they go through a rupture in an attachment bond, or have an experience that creates an acute fear of a rupture. Primal panic can be a debilitating physical experience that can feel like you’re dying. Fern writes in Polysecure: Many of my clients report being highly anxious and off their emotional axis for hours, sometimes even days, before their partner goes on a date with someone else. Others seriously spiral out while the date is happening. Cognitively, they know that their partner is still alive, not abandoning them or doing anything wrong, but their body and emotions are in primal panic. In such cases, jealousy is not a sufficient or accurate description of what is happening for the partner in distress. When primal attachment panic gets mislabeled as jealousy, the partner experiencing it can be left thinking that there is something wrong with them, that this is their issue to figure out on their own and that they should be better at doing [nonmonogamy]. … This can also escalate into panic attacks, meltdowns or an emotional crisis that can pit partners against each other or become extremely difficult for everyone involved to manage.

另一种“我”的嫉妒场景是一种体验，据弗恩说，这种体验经常被贴上嫉妒的标签，但实际上完全属于另一个类别。这就是“原始恐慌”(primal panic)3，许多人在经历依恋纽带破裂，或有产生对破裂的剧烈恐惧的经历时会体验到。原始恐慌可能是一种令人衰弱的身体体验，感觉就像你要死了一样。弗恩在《多边安全》中写道： 我的许多客户报告说，在他们的伴侣与别人约会之前的几个小时，甚至几天里，他们都非常焦虑，情绪失控。其他人在约会进行时严重崩溃。在认知上，他们知道他们的伴侣还活着，没有抛弃他们或做错任何事，但他们的身体和情绪处于原始恐慌之中。在这种情况下，嫉妒并不足以或准确地描述处于痛苦中的伴侣正在发生的事情。当原始依恋恐慌被错误地标记为嫉妒时，经历它的伴侣可能会认为自己有问题，这是他们需要自己解决的问题，他们应该更擅长做[非单偶制]。……这也可能升级为惊恐发作、崩溃或情感危机，使伴侣相互对立，或者变得极其难以让所有相关人员管理。

If you experience primal panic, it can be difficult to understand why other people seem to have a comparatively easier time managing their jealousy. Primal panic is a fundamentally different experience from any of the other kinds of jealousy in that it is profoundly embodied and can be much more severe and overwhelming than the other things people tend to call jealousy. Its implications and the tools to manage it are therefore distinct. (More on tools in a minute.)

如果你经历了原始恐慌，可能很难理解为什么其他人似乎比较容易管理他们的嫉妒。原始恐慌与任何其他类型的嫉妒有着根本的不同，因为它是深刻的具体化体验，并且可能比人们倾向于称之为嫉妒的其他事情严重得多，也更具压倒性。因此，它的含义和管理工具是独特的。（稍后会详细介绍工具。）

When jealousy is about the “we,” it means that it’s pointing to a real problem in your relationship that’s being illuminated by another relationship or situation. Fern says this kind of jealousy “can arise from experiences such as partners breaking agreements, saying one thing but doing another, downplaying or concealing the extent of their connections with others, or withholding important information.”4 One common example is what Fern and her co-author David Cooley describe in Polywise as “justice jealousy,”5 which is what occurs when you see a partner offering something to another partner that you’d long been needing in your own relationship but had been told would never be available, or even that your partner was incapable of providing. It could refer to a specific activity or type of care you’ve been craving, like weekend getaways together, or more generally to investment in and care of the relationship. It could be something that arises in a context where you were content with the role you had in a partner’s life, but realize you aren’t once you see them investing in another partner in a different way (see pages 250–252 on grapes and cucumbers). It could happen if your relationship was already in trouble, and a new relationship brought the fault lines into sharp relief (see page 301). Or your partner could be investing so much time and energy into another relationship that their relationship with you is withering from neglect.

当嫉妒是关于“我们”时，这意味着它指向你关系中的一个真实问题，这个问题正被另一段关系或情况所照亮。弗恩说，这种嫉妒“可能源于伴侣破坏协议、言行不一、淡化或隐瞒他们与他人的联系程度或隐瞒重要信息等经历。”4 一个常见的例子是弗恩和她的合著者戴维·库利在《多边智慧》中所描述的“正义嫉妒”(justice jealousy)，5 即当你看到伴侣向另一个伴侣提供你自己关系中长期需要但被告知永远无法获得，甚至被告知你的伴侣无法提供的东西时发生的情况。它可以指你一直渴望的特定活动或类型的关怀，比如周末一起度假，或者更普遍地指对关系的投入和关怀。它可能是在这种背景下产生的：你原本对自己在伴侣生活中的角色感到满意，但一旦你看到他们以不同的方式投资于另一个伴侣，你就意识到你不满意了（参见第 250-252 页关于葡萄和黄瓜的内容）。这可能发生在如果你的关系已经陷入困境，而一段新关系使断层线变得清晰可见时（见第 301 页）。或者你的伴侣可能在另一段关系中投入了太多的时间和精力，以至于他们与你的关系因被忽视而枯萎。

The “society” variety of jealousy has to do with the stories you have about your relationships and what it means when your partners love others, what Fern refers to as “the societal narratives and discourses we’ve inherited about love, gender, possessiveness, status and perceived entitlements within romantic relationships—narratives rooted in influences like capitalism, colonialism and sexism.”6 We discussed these narratives a great deal in the first part of this book, and “society” jealousy offers an opportunity to unpack them at a personal level. What narratives go through your head when you’re feeling the things you call jealousy? Do you believe that a partner’s attention to someone else means they care less for you? Do you fear your social status would be lessened if others found out? Do you believe that feeling jealous is proof of love? Do you want them to be only yours? Do you, at some level, believe that people can really only love one person, so a partner loving someone else means they don’t really love you?

嫉妒的“社会”变体与你关于你的关系的故事以及当你的伴侣爱别人时意味着什么有关，弗恩称之为“我们继承的关于浪漫关系中的爱、性别、占有欲、地位和感知权利的社会叙事和话语——植根于资本主义、殖民主义和性别歧视等影响的叙事。”6 我们在本书的第一部分大量讨论了这些叙事，“社会”嫉妒提供了一个在个人层面上解构它们的机会。当你感受到你称之为嫉妒的东西时，你脑海中闪过什么叙事？你是否相信伴侣对别人的关注意味着他们不那么在乎你？你是否担心如果别人发现了你的社会地位会降低？你是否相信嫉妒是爱的证明？你是否希望他们只属于你？你是否在某种程度上相信人们真的只能爱一个人，所以伴侣爱别人意味着他们并不真的爱你？

When she was researching her book What Love Is, Carrie Jenkins noticed7 an important difference in how people thought about jealousy in nonmonogamous relationships versus how they thought about it in monogamous relationships, or even other kinds of relationships such as those between siblings. Only in nonmonogamy was jealousy brought up as a possible reason to not have certain kinds of relationships at all, whereas in more normative relationships, it was accepted as part of the landscape. She suggests that this privileging of jealousy only in the context of nonmonogamy is connected to “the history of ideas of women as possessions, control of women’s bodies … [risk to the] core connection, feeling under threat,” as well as threats to identity and self-conception that could produce, as she calls it, “existential terror.” This template of men’s jealousy used as a reason to control women’s actions within intimate relationships is transposed into mononormativity as a whole, at which point it transcends the idea of gender and gets applied across all gender pairings operating under a mononormative worldview—though note that its origins still map onto gender-based differences in rates of coercive control and intimate partner violence. This is one particularly unsavoury aspect of the mononormative fairy tale that many people need to unpack when they decide to start having nonmonogamous relationships, and it may require some emotional unlearning and relearning. While you can’t usually change your emotional state entirely, you do have influence over the narrative you ascribe to that state, and the power of these narratives in turn can have effects over time on your somatic experiences of jealousy.

当凯莉·詹金斯为她的书《爱是什么》做研究时，她注意到7 人们在非单偶制关系中对嫉妒的看法与在单偶制关系中，甚至在兄弟姐妹等其他类型的关系中对嫉妒的看法存在重要差异。只有在非单偶制中，嫉妒才被提出来作为根本不进行某些类型关系的可能理由，而在更规范的关系中，它被接受为图景的一部分。她认为，这种仅在非单偶制背景下对嫉妒的特权化与“将女性视为财产、控制女性身体……[对]核心连接的风险、感到受威胁的历史观念”有关，也与可能产生她所说的“存在主义恐怖”的身份和自我概念的威胁有关。这种利用男性的嫉妒作为控制女性在亲密关系中行为的理由的模板被移植到了整个单偶常态中，在这一点上，它超越了性别的概念，并应用于在单偶常态世界观下运作的所有性别配对——尽管要注意它的起源仍然映射到基于性别的强制控制和亲密伴侣暴力比率的差异上。这是单偶常态童话中一个特别令人讨厌的方面，许多人在决定开始非单偶制关系时需要解开它，这可能需要一些情感上的忘却和重新学习。虽然你通常无法完全改变你的情绪状态，但你确实对归因于该状态的叙事有影响力，而这些叙事的力量反过来会随着时间的推移对你的嫉妒的躯体体验产生影响。

Integrating jealousy

Section titled “Integrating jealousy”

整合嫉妒

Section titled “整合嫉妒”

It can be helpful to think of jealousy as a messenger. Once you’ve decoded what it’s trying to convey, you can start thinking about what to do with the information. While it’s common to use battle-related metaphors to describe getting rid of jealousy, we prefer to think of it as relieving it of duty and letting it go into well-deserved retirement. Thank it for its service and let it go back to hanging out with your other emotions, satisfied that it has served its purpose for you.

把嫉妒看作是一个信使会有所帮助。一旦你解码了它试图传达的信息，你就可以开始思考如何处理这些信息。 虽然使用与战斗相关的隐喻来描述摆脱嫉妒很常见，但我们更愿意将其视为解除它的职务并让它光荣退休。感谢它的服务，让它回去和你其他的感情待在一起，满足于它已经为你达到了目的。

If you’re experiencing “me” jealousy related to self-worth or insecurity, the information in chapter 4 and the associated resources are likely to be most helpful for you in resolving your jealousy over the long term. The “parts” exercises in Polywise8 might also be helpful to you. If you’re actually experiencing primal panic, you may need to spend more time working on emotional self-regulation. Fern says9 it also helps for partners to make a plan together. What kind of connection, reassurance and support do you need before and after a likely triggering event such as a partner’s date with someone else—and in the relationship generally—to feel safe? When you are alone, what do you need to feel safe in yourself? Some folks need to plan to be with others during a triggering situation, especially at first, and especially other people they can co-regulate with. Fern advises having a plan, perhaps even a written one, for what you’ll do if you’ll become dysregulated, and a plan for reconnecting with your partner later. In a long-distance relationship, reassurance can be provided through an exchange of objects, or what she calls “letters of importance”: messages you can read or listen to during times of distress that reassure you of your partner’s love and care. Over time, you can work on attachment healing and addressing whatever core traumas are causing the issue. Because primal panic is such a somatic experience, it may help to incorporate physical practices into your other therapeutic and reflective work in order to relieve stress; for example, you might try exercise or breathing practices, self-massage or other sensation-based work, or things like taking a hot shower or going for a brisk walk in fresh air.

如果你正在经历与自我价值或不安全感有关的“我”的嫉妒，第 4 章中的信息和相关资源可能对你长期解决嫉妒最有帮助。《多边智慧》8 中的“部分”练习也可能对你有帮助。如果你实际上正在经历原始恐慌，你可能需要花更多时间致力于情绪自我调节。弗恩说，9 伴侣一起制定计划也有帮助。在可能触发的事件（如伴侣与他人约会）之前和之后——以及在一般的关系中——你需要什么样的连接、安慰和支持才能感到安全？当你独自一人时，你需要什么才能在自己内心感到安全？有些人需要计划在触发情况下与他人在一起，特别是一开始，特别是那些他们可以共同调节的人。弗恩建议制定一个计划，甚至可能是书面计划，以此来应对如果你变得失调该怎么办，以及稍后与伴侣重新连接的计划。在异地恋中，可以通过交换物品或她所谓的“重要信件”来提供安慰：你可以在痛苦时阅读或收听的信息，让你确信伴侣的爱和关怀。随着时间的推移，你可以致力于依恋疗愈并解决导致该问题的任何核心创伤。因为原始恐慌是一种躯体体验，将身体练习纳入你的其他治疗和反思工作中可能有助于缓解压力；例如，你可以尝试锻炼或呼吸练习、自我按摩或其他基于感觉的工作，或者像洗个热水澡或在新鲜空气中快走之类的事情。

Fern says that for most people, the experience improves over time. But for some, it doesn’t, no matter how much effort they put in. In these cases, it’s possible that nonmonogamy just isn’t a good idea for your nervous system, even if it’s something you want. Only you can ultimately know how much work you want to do before deciding nonmonogamy is not for you.

弗恩说，对大多数人来说，体验会随着时间的推移而改善。但对一些人来说，无论他们付出多少努力，情况都不会好转。在这些情况下，非单偶制可能对你的神经系统来说不是一个好主意，即使这是你想要的。只有你最终才能知道你想做多少工作，然后决定非单偶制不适合你。

If jealousy is communicating a problem in the relationship, bring it to your partner. You don’t have to have the solution right away; it’s okay just to know there’s a problem. Tell them what you’re feeling and why, and ask them to collaborate with you on a solution. Try to focus on your own relationship with them, not their relationship with anyone else. If you’re making comparisons, use them as a source of information about your own needs. What do you need from the relationship that you’re not getting? The tools in chapters 5 and 7 can help you in this process.

如果嫉妒是在传达关系中的问题，把它带给你的伴侣。你不必马上就有解决方案；只要知道有问题就可以。告诉他们你的感受和原因，并请他们与你合作寻找解决方案。试着专注于你与他们的关系，而不是他们与其他任何人的关系。如果你在做比较，把它们作为关于你自己需求的信息来源。你需要从这段关系中得到什么而你没有得到？第 5 章和第 7 章中的工具可以在此过程中帮助你。

In some rare cases, unfortunately, you could be dealing with someone who simply enjoys triangulating partners in order to gain a sense of power, or who is “hedging” in order to get their needs met without investing much themselves (see pages 73–74). Such a person may also be more inclined to engage in the kind of gaslighting we mentioned on page 158. If you think there’s a problem in the relationship and a partner or metamour is saying you’re just insecure, take a step back and ask yourself: Are agreements being followed? Commitments being met? Assurances offered? Is our behaviour consistent? Are we nurturing secure attachment? Are my partners listening to me, taking my concerns seriously and trying to work with me to resolve the issue? Or are they just trying to get me to adjust my feelings to be okay with broken agreements, lack of transparency, unreliability or some other important relational issue? You don’t need to convince anyone else of anything—you know your own truth—but if you don’t feel like you and your partner are on the same team in addressing the issue, you likely have a “we” problem on your hands (and if you feel like you’re being left to solve it on your own, that’s further data about exactly what kind of “we” problem is present).

在极少数情况下，不幸的是，你可能正在与一个仅仅喜欢通过三角化伴侣来获得权力感的人打交道，或者为了满足自己的需求而进行“对冲”却不怎么投入自己的人（见第 73-74 页）。这样的人也可能更倾向于进行我们在第 158 页提到的那种煤气灯效应。如果你认为关系中有问题，而伴侣或表侣说你只是不安全，退后一步问自己：协议是否被遵守？承诺是否被履行？保证是否被提供？我们的行为是否一致？我们是否在培养安全依恋？我的伴侣是否在倾听我，认真对待我的担忧并试图与我一起解决问题？还是他们只是试图让我调整我的感受，以接受破坏的协议、缺乏透明度、不可靠或其他一些重要的关系问题？你不需要说服任何人任何事情——你知道你自己的真相——但如果你不觉得你和你的伴侣在解决这个问题上是同一个团队，你可能手头有一个“我们”的问题（如果你觉得你被留下来独自解决它，那就是关于存在什么类型的“我们”问题的进一步数据）。

At the same time, someone who is experiencing a “me” variety of jealousy might try to blame the relationship and get their partner to agree to all kinds of accommodations so they can avoid feeling insecure. Extreme jealousy is in fact a common element of coercive control, discussed on pages 63–64. If you fear this may be happening, check out chapter 3 and some of the checklists therein. You don’t need to try to convince your partner that their jealousy is their problem. You just need to get clear on what kind of treatment you expect from a loving partner, and what kinds of investments you are willing to make to help them feel secure with you.

同时，经历“我”类嫉妒的人可能会试图责怪这段关系，并让伴侣同意各种迁就，以便他们避免感到不安全。极度嫉妒实际上是强制控制的一个常见要素，我们在第 63-64 页对此进行了讨论。如果你担心这可能正在发生，请查看第 3 章及其中一些检查清单。你不需要试图说服你的伴侣他们的嫉妒是他们的问题。你只需要弄清楚你期望从一个充满爱的伴侣那里得到什么样的对待，以及你愿意做出什么样的投资来帮助他们对你感到安全。

If your jealousy is rooted in your stories—the “society” variety of jealousy—you can work on getting to the bottom of the stories you have and whether you agree with them anymore. You can try to tease apart which of your stories are rooted in fact, and which are rooted in culture, family, mononormative and amatonormative societal values, and so on. This can be a fun exercise to do with your partners, friends or members of your polycule, as long as you don’t feel like you’re being pressured to take a stance just because it’s in someone else’s best interest. If you like, you can try engaging in what Jenkins calls “re-storifying” your experience,10 which is just what it sounds like: developing a new story that can give you more control over the ways you’re getting triggered into jealousy and the intensity of the experience when it happens. You probably can’t just make up any story you want; you’ll need to find something that feels powerful enough to you to be able to meaningfully integrate it into your worldview. It could come from your own history, the experiences of others, from fiction or mythology, or from a culture you are connected to—anywhere you find meaningful narratives.

如果你的嫉妒植根于你的故事——嫉妒的“社会”变体——你可以致力于弄清你所拥有的故事的真相，以及你是否还同意它们。你可以试着梳理出你的哪些故事是植根于事实的，哪些是植根于文化、家庭、单偶常态和恋爱常态的社会价值观等等。这可以是一个有趣的练习，你可以和你的伴侣、朋友或多边关系网络的成员一起做，只要你不觉得你是仅仅因为这符合别人的最大利益而被施压采取某种立场。如果你愿意，你可以尝试参与詹金斯所说的对你的经历进行“重新故事化” (re-storifying)，10 就像它听起来那样：开发一个新的故事，让你能更好地控制你被触发嫉妒的方式以及发生时体验的强度。你可能不能随便编造任何你想要的故事；你需要找到一些对你来说感觉足够强大的东西，以便能够有意义地将其整合到你的世界观中。它可以来自你自己的历史、他人的经历、小说或神话，或者来自你所联系的文化——任何你发现有意义的叙事的地方。

If you don’t feel (much) jealousy

Section titled “If you don’t feel (much) jealousy”

如果你感觉不到（太多）嫉妒

Section titled “如果你感觉不到（太多）嫉妒”

Because jealousy is such a hot topic for discussion anytime nonmonogamy comes up, if you’re someone who doesn’t experience a lot of jealousy, you may be met with disbelief. People—monogamous and otherwise—may think you’re deluded, out of touch with your feelings, or simply lying about them. You may be accused of not really loving or caring about your partners, or being dissociated or avoidant. You may be seen as bragging about being more enlightened than others. These misunderstandings might come from friends or acquaintances, or from your partners themselves.

因为任何时候提到非单偶制，嫉妒都是一个热门话题，所以如果你是一个不怎么体验嫉妒的人，你可能会遇到怀疑。人们——单偶制的和其他人——可能会认为你在自欺欺人，与自己的感觉脱节，或者干脆就是在撒谎。你可能会被指责不是真的爱或关心你的伴侣，或者是解离或回避的。你可能会被视为在吹嘘自己比别人更开明。这些误解可能来自朋友或熟人，也可能来自你的伴侣本身。

Try to meet these reactions with compassion and kindness. If you happen to have an easy enough time with jealousy, or if it’s not a big issue for you, don’t act like a jerk about it when you’re talking to people who struggle with it. It’s rude and unhelpful, and it contributes to the perception that nonmonogamous people are condescending and believe themselves to be more enlightened than others. It’s never fun to be misunderstood, but that’s not an excuse for bad behaviour.

试着以同情和善意来回应这些反应。如果你恰好很容易处理嫉妒，或者这对你来说不是个大问题，当你在和那些为此挣扎的人交谈时，不要表现得像个混蛋。这是粗鲁和无益的，并且助长了非单偶制者居高临下、自认为比别人更开明的看法。被误解从来都不是件有趣的事，但这并不是不良行为的借口。

Some people don’t naturally feel a lot of jealousy, whether that’s because they somehow managed to miss a lot of the mononormative and amatonormative conditioning most people grow up with (or encountered other belief systems early on), or they have a general baseline sense of personal security, a secure attachment style, a particular set of personality traits (such as certain kinds of introversion), a great deal of trust in a given relationship, or even a set of spiritual beliefs that really work for them, such as Buddhist non-attachment. Other people have simply done a lot of emotional work to better manage their jealousy, and that work was successful! Regardless of your path, we want to emphasize that just as it’s normal to feel jealousy, it’s also fine if you don’t. It doesn’t make you a weirdo or a liar any more than it makes you a more spiritually enlightened being. It just means you either got lucky or did hard work in this area, or some of both.

有些人天生感觉不到太多嫉妒，不管是因为他们设法避开了大多数人成长过程中受到的许多单偶常态和恋爱常态的熏陶（或者是早期接触到了其他信仰体系），还是他们有普遍的个人安全感基准、安全依恋风格、特定的性格特征（如某些类型的内向）、对特定关系的极大信任，甚至是一套真正对他们有效的精神信仰，如佛教的不执着。另一些人只是做了大量的情感工作来更好地管理他们的嫉妒，而且这种工作是成功的！无论你的路径如何，我们想强调的是，就像感到嫉妒是正常的一样，如果你不嫉妒也没关系。这不会让你成为怪人或骗子，就像它不会让你成为一个更具灵性觉悟的存在一样。这只是意味着你要么很幸运，要么在这方面付出了努力，或者两者兼而有之。

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF 问自己的问题

These questions can help prepare you before you experience jealousy, as well as in understanding your experience afterward.

这些问题可以帮助你在经历嫉妒之前做好准备，以及在事后理解你的经历。

  • How can I take care of myself when I feel overwhelmed by my emotions?

  • What reassuring things can I ask my partner to do for me when I’m experiencing intense jealous feelings?

  • If the specific partner I’m jealous about is unavailable to me when I start feeling jealous, to whom can I turn for reassurance, empathy, companionship or positive touch?

  • Am I uncertain about the value my partner sees in me? Am I not sure why they want to be with me? If this is how I’m feeling, what can I do to find confidence in myself, or what can I ask my partner to do to help me see what they value and desire in me?

  • Are my needs being met in my relationship? Is there something I need to ask my partner to work on with me?

  • Is my partner showing up in another relationship in a way I wish they would show up with me? Are they open to doing that for me? Why or why not? Am I okay with that?

  • Am I worried that if someone “better” comes along, my partner will realize I’m not good enough and want to replace me? Do I think that if my partner falls in love with another person, my partner will leave me for that person? Do I think my partner doesn’t really love me? If this is how I’m feeling, what can I do to change that way of thinking, and what role could my partner have in helping change that way of thinking?

  • Do I believe that if I am not jealous, I don’t really love my partner? Does my partner believe this?

  • What other stories do I have about what it means when my partner experiences intimacy with others? How do these stories affect my emotional experience of jealousy?

  • What sources can I draw on to formulate stories that can help me change my narratives around jealousy and my partners’ other relationships?

  • 当我感到被情绪淹没时，我该如何照顾自己？

  • 当我感到强烈的嫉妒时，我可以要求我的伴侣为我做些什么令人安心的事情？

  • 如果我在开始感到嫉妒时无法联系到我嫉妒的那个特定伴侣，我可以向谁寻求安慰、同情、陪伴或积极的接触？

  • 我是否不确定伴侣在我身上看到的价值？我是否不确定他们为什么要和我在一起？如果是这种感觉，我可以做些什么来找到自信，或者我可以要求我的伴侣做些什么来帮助我看到他们重视和渴望我身上的什么？

  • 我在关系中的需求得到满足了吗？有什么是我需要要求伴侣和我一起努力的吗？

  • 我的伴侣是否以一种我希望他们对我表现出的方式出现在另一段关系中？他们愿意为我那样做吗？为什么或为什么不？我对此没问题吗？

  • 我是否担心如果出现“更好”的人，我的伴侣会意识到我不够好并想取代我？我是否认为如果我的伴侣爱上了别人，我的伴侣就会为了那个人离开我？我是否认为我的伴侣并不真的爱我？如果是这种感觉，我可以做些什么来改变这种思维方式，我的伴侣在帮助改变这种思维方式方面可以扮演什么角色？

  • 我是否相信如果不嫉妒，我就不是真的爱我的伴侣？我的伴侣相信这一点吗？

  • 关于我的伴侣与他人体验亲密关系意味着什么，我还有其他什么故事？这些故事如何影响我对嫉妒的情感体验？

  • 我可以利用哪些来源来构思故事，以帮助我改变关于嫉妒和我伴侣其他关系的叙述？

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. Kai Cheng Thom, Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls (Toronto, ON: Penguin Canada, 2023), 102. ↩ ↩2

  2. Jessica Fern, unpublished interview by Eve Rickert, August 11, 2023. ↩ ↩2

  3. Fern, Polysecure, 145. ↩ ↩2

  4. Jessica Fern, email to Eve Rickert, May 22, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  5. Fern and Cooley, Polywise, 106–114. ↩ ↩2

  6. Jessica Fern, email to Eve Rickert, May 22, 2024. ↩ ↩2

  7. Carrie Jenkins, unpublished interview by Eve Rickert, July 6, 2023. ↩ ↩2

  8. Fern and Cooley, Polywise, 76–92. ↩ ↩2

  9. Fern, unpublished interview by Rickert, August 11, 2023. ↩ ↩2

  10. Jenkins, unpublished interview by Rickert, July 6, 2023. ↩ ↩2