471 - The Science of Possessiveness

Why does possessiveness matter?

For those of us in consensual non-monogamous relationships, unlearning possessiveness is often at the core of the non-monogamous ethos, along with accepting that our partners are fully autonomous individuals who do not belong to us. Even monogamous folks need to navigate the idea of ownership over another person and how much they each agree to.

Possessiveness is often perceived as the “desire to control or dominate a partner, based under the assumption that you ‘possess’ their time, their attention, their body, their love, etc.” It is highly subjective and can be influenced by macro- or microculture around you.

The subjective scale of possessiveness may look like:

Classically abusive or controlling behavior like isolating a partner from friends and family, monitoring their communication or digital life, dictating what they wear (intense end of the spectrum).

Things like excessive texting and calling, fast-tracking a relationship to “pin down” the person, creating obstacles to the other person making independent plans (middle of the spectrum).
Extremely subjective towards the less intense end of the spectrum, like:
- For some people, wanting a partner to send a goodnight text even when they are off on a sleepover with someone else could be seen as romantic and reassuring, and for other people that could seem possessive and controlling.
- Wanting your partner to post pictures on their social media of the two of you together could be seen as sweet and bonding, or other people could interpret that as being a marker of possessiveness and dictating how the other person presents themselves and their relationships to the world.
- Wanting your live-in partner to check in with you as part of their planning for spending time with another partner could be seen as courtesy, or it could be seen as possessiveness over the other person’s time.

What does science say?

According to the research, possessiveness is described as a “mate-retention” behavior, which fall into two different categories:

Benefit-inducing behaviors: Doing things to add value to the relationship and make our partner not want to lose the “benefit” of being with us. These are the good things: gifts, affection, acts of service, caring for a partner when sick, etc.

Cost-inducing behaviors: Doing things to make the partner feel like it will be “costly” if they leave us via more manipulative and harmful approaches. This is the less-than-stellar behavior like trying to induce jealousy in the other person, emotionally withdrawing, punishing, trash-talking perceived “competitors” like possible other partners or metamours.

Possessive behavior falls under the category of a cost-inducing behavior.

How to combat possessiveness?

Some ways we suggest examining and working on unhealthy possessiveness are:

Find the Fear. With this information, you have a great basis for either personal work or for a conversation with your partner about your fears, insecurities, or challenges. We suggest:
- If you’re feeling the urge to engage in possessive behavior, get curious about what’s underneath.
- It can be helpful to ask yourself, “What will this get me?”

OR, you can ask yourself, “If I let go of this behavior, what am I afraid will happen?
- Example: If I stopped trying to control my partner’s time, I’m afraid that they’ll be busy with other people every night of the week, and I’ll never get quality time with them.

Examine the Foundation for Cracks. This is great work to do with a third party present, in order to open up this conversation with compassion and without accusation:

Trust is foundational to healthy relationships. Over time, that foundation can develop cracks, both small and large. And that can inspire feelings of clinging and possessiveness.
Are there incidents from the past that make it difficult to trust my partner? What needs to be healed?

Playful Possession

You might consider sprinkling in some of those public displays of possession.
Collaborate with your partner about what sort of PDPs feel good to experiment with.
It should feel playful and connective rather than obligatory.
If you or your partner are feeling resistance to this, get curious about the why underneath.

I’m afraid that if I post a picture of us together on social media, my other partner will see and feel upset.
I’m afraid that if I introduce you as my girlfriend to my friends, they are going to assume that I’ve moved on too quickly from my ex.

Possess YourSELF

If you’re on the receiving end of a partner’s possessive behavior, it’s important to have open conversation and to collaborate on healthy solutions that would help both of you feel better.
HOWEVER, you also need to have a firm sense of your own boundaries and limitations, such as:

Reserving at least one night a week that is your personal time or alone time.
Maybe deciding not to share calendars with a partner.
Being clear about what you are comfortable with posting regarding pictures on social media together and what you’re not comfortable with posting.

Know When to Leave - It’s Okay to Break Up! This applies to both people who are feeling urges to be possessive, as well as people who are feeling the brunt of a partner’s possessive behavior.
- If even after discussion, you’re still feeling possessive, it may be a sign that the relationship just does not feel secure enough for you at this time.
- If even after discussion, you’re still feeling like your partner is extremely possessive, it may be a sign that something deeper is going on.

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are diving into the tricky topic of possessiveness in relationships. Even if you're practicing some form of non-monogamy, feelings of possessiveness can still arise and create challenges. Today we'll explore the psychology and the science behind why we sometimes feel the need to possess our partners, as well as when a sprinkle of possessiveness may actually be helpful, whether you're monogamous or non-monogamous.

If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. Alternatively, check out the first nine episodes of this podcast where we cover some of our most widely used and shared communication tools.

Dedeker: All right. I want to start out with story time for the two of you.

Emily: My favorite time.

Dedeker: Actually, maybe more of challenge time. A coaching challenge that I ran up against with a client that I had many, many years ago. I'm curious to hear how the two of you would advise and counsel this person because I don't think I could help them very much.

Emily: Okay.

Jase: Okay.

Dedeker: I'm going to tell a very anonymous version of the story. This client that I had, I'm going to give him the pseudonym of Wyatt. He was single. He had an interest in consensual non-monogamy. He didn't have much experience with it, but he was learning about it. He wanted to try dating in this particular way. He got into, what I would call and what he would also call, a casual relationship with this woman, and I will call her Gina.

Now, their relationship was categorized by, I suppose what I would call a lot of maybe friendship activities, maybe also date activities, going to the movies or just watching Netflix at home, or going bar hopping, or going on walks, or hikes together. Then there also was a sexual component to their relationship. Usually, they would have drunk sex specifically, which that's a whole other thing.

Now, both of them expressed to each other that they wanted to keep the relationship casual and non-exclusive, and yet both of them would get upset, they would get emotional, they would be passive-aggressive to each other, sometimes hostile when the information came through that the other person had gone on a date or had hooked up with somebody else. Yet they had always come back around to, "We want to keep it casual, non-exclusive."

With my client, I was really trying to work with him through his feelings about this relationship and stuff like that. I don't want to talk too much about my approach to this. I want to hear from the two of you how you would handle this, what your advice would be for Wyatt in this situation.

Jase: What a challenge indeed.

Dedeker: Yes, indeed. Challenge time.

Emily: I think I would ask, first of all, what is it exactly that Wyatt is looking for in his non-monogamous relationships? Is it something like he wants one partner to be a primary person and he wants other partners to be there potentially for fun, or for sex, or for secondary, or for other reasons? Does he want a non-hierarchical approach, or does he want something different than all of that?

To me, the way that he's acting makes it almost seem as though he is looking for that hierarchy or maybe just in theory the idea of non-monogamy is enticing and exciting to him, but because he's finding himself being so possessive over this one person, I am wondering if there's more there as well, or if it's just the idea of, "I see this person that means something to me and they're getting to go out with other people, that is triggering me in some way." I would want to get to the bottom of that reason. Then also explore what it is that he ultimately wants out of this experience of dating and maybe dating in non-monogamy.

Dedeker: That's a good one. That's a good one. I wish I'd done more of that. I think I tried to do some of that. I don't know.

Emily: I'm sure you did a great job.

Dedeker: This is like a cold case for me. This is so many years ago.

Emily: Got it.

Dedeker: I think there's a lot of moving parts, but what do you think, Jase?

Jase: I was just going to comment that I think that's a hard question for someone to answer though, if they are new to the whole concept.

Emily: Sure.

Jase: That I think that's something that after you've had some experience with non-monogamy, you get a little bit better at answering that question of, "What am I really looking for here? How do I want this to look?" When you're starting out, that's a hard question to answer. I think a very valuable question to answer, and hopefully working with a coach or a therapist could help you get there. That is a challenging question to ask.

Something that comes up in my brain to ask is trying to get a little bit deeper into what are the underlying things underneath that possessiveness, specifically these behaviors of being passive-aggressive or being upset or even being hostile about it. I don't know what kind of hostile we're talking about here. I'm assuming just being a little bit nasty in comments.

Dedeker: Just being shitty to each other. I wouldn't say any aggressive behavior or things like that.

Jase: Sure.

Dedeker: Pretty firmly in the camp of passive-aggressive.

Jase: What comes to mind is, on the one hand, we have jealousy, which if we're talking about the jealousy, envy distinction by jealousy, it's that there's some kind of perceived threat. Like, "I'm going to lose this thing that I have because of something else, because of somebody else." That's one avenue to explore here is, is this coming from a fear of losing this person? However, in this case, because it's this more casual relationship, I could also see it being more on the envy side of things, where it's-

Emily: Interesting.

Jase: -I wish I was having more of those experiences.

Emily: Sure.

Jase: The fact that you are makes me feel bad about myself or feel envious of you. Like we do with other people we feel envious about, we sometimes want to talk shit about them or come up with some reason why they're worse than us in some way. Whether they got a promotion and we didn't, or whether they make more money than we do, or whatever, we can try to justify it. If you're doing that about the person that you're talking to and that you're in this relationship with and that you're friends with, that can result in you being shitty to them on that side too.

I would want to get into that. Then I might suggest as a thing to try would actually be a micro script-type approach. What I'm thinking of specifically is the one from Phoebe Phillips. Phe, thank you for your honesty, micro script. When a partner tells you something that's hard to hear and that your first reaction is a little bit emotional, but you don't want them to think they have to keep that from you. You want them to know they can approach you, to fall back on this micro script of you say, "Thank you for your honesty," or something like that. That's a cue to say, "I'm receiving this and I need time to process my feelings," but also it means you did a good thing by telling me this and I don't want to punish you for that. I think those would be my starting places for this very effective therapy that I would be giving.

Dedeker: No, I like that. I like both of your perspectives on that. Of course, this was a very simplified version of the whole situation. There was-

Jase: Of course.

Dedeker: -like I said, a lot of moving parts. I always think about this client though, when I think about possessiveness because I think that when we see a monogamous couple, let's say, who are maybe just starting to open their relationship after being mostly in a closed relationship, and they've done all the traditional coupley things, the traditional relationship escalator things, spending all their time together and living together, and all that sort of stuff, then they open up and then there's these feelings of possessiveness, I see that and I can sense, yes, that makes sense with the way that we've been trained by our culture.

We really have been trained to feel like we do possess our partners in a certain regard. Then when it feels like something threatens that, or that's starting to change, our spidey senses and our hackles can come up, and that makes sense. I always think about this situation because it was this interesting, but it's not a very traditional monogamous, closely entangled relationship.

It's a little bit more of this friends-with-benefits casual relationship, and yet there's these feelings of possessiveness. I think it was that combination that had both of them very confused about what they wanted, what they didn't want, how to resolve this. I see that sometimes too, that there can be a confusing nature to possessiveness, especially among non-monogamous folks, where that's baked into the ethos that we need to unlearn this possessiveness, and yet it's still there. Honestly, I always think of that Miike Snow song, Genghis Khan.

Emily: It's a good song.

Dedeker: If you're not familiar, dear listener, I'm not going to sing it because I don't think I can maintain that falsetto voice for that long.

Emily: Maybe Jase could do it.

Jase:

Dedeker: Jase could probably do it, but I want to read the first verse in the lyrics. It says, "I know there's no form and no labels to put on to this thing we keep and dip into when we need. I don't have the right to ask where you go at night, but the waves hit my head to think someone's in your bed. I get a little bit Genghis Khan. Don't want you to get it on with nobody else but me. With nobody else but me." By the way, if anyone hasn't seen the music video, also go look up the music video.

Jase: It's wonderful.

Emily: It's wonderful.

Jase: The music video is so good. It's so good.

Dedeker: To bring it back to, I really wanted to explore a little bit of this confusing, mysterious, subtle nature of possessiveness where we're not always entirely sure where it comes from, and I think it can catch people off guard sometimes.

Emily: It's just so, so integral, I think, to the way that all of our books and media talk about love, and the way that probably many of us saw our parents reacting to the love that they had in their life, or even maybe some of our friends around us, or people that we cared about. This idea that you are a part of me and I am entitled to you in some way, shape, or form, just simply because I'm your romantic partner.

Definitely as you just said, in non-monogamous relationships, it's really, really important to sort of start the process of unlearning that and knowing that our partners are autonomous individuals. We don't belong to them and they don't belong to us, and hopefully, that can open up this pathway to more functional non-monogamy.

Even if you're not in a non-monogamous relationship, it can be really important to try to let go of that possessiveness as well because even if people are sexually and romantically exclusive, they really also need to try to navigate how much ownership they have over each other, and I think that that's probably very individual to the relationship and it may be different for one person or another.

I think that that's something that probably two people need to come to an agreement on when they decide to enter into a relationship together, but ideally respecting each other as autonomous individuals. Even if you are monogamous, is going to be super important.

Dedeker: This is work for everybody to do and it's not helped by the fact that we do have many hundreds of years of history where formalized romantic relationships in the form of marriage sometimes were quite literally about ownership of another human being, and someone being your property. That's woven in there too, and needs to be unwoven for everybody in order to have healthy, equitable-feeling relationships.

Jase: When we're talking about possessiveness, let's dig into what we even mean by possessiveness. What do we mean by this behavior? To start off, we're talking generally about this desire to control, or you could say dominate a partner. I do want to clarify that this is different from a domination or a ownership in a kink, BDSM kind of way. However, even in that type of relationship, all of this still applies because there's one thing to have a possessiveness or ownership in the role play, and there's another thing to have that in your underlying behavior that's in real life that seeps into that.

Even if that's part of your dynamic, there's still value to think about these things and get to the bottom of what's going on for us. All of this is based on this assumption, like Emily said, that you possess their time or their attention or their body or their love or their thoughts or whatever it is that you have some kind of ownership or entitlement to that because of the type of relationship you have.

That said, possessiveness can be highly subjective and influenced by the culture. That's both the macro culture of just whether that's the culture of the country, or even just all of western culture that you live in and the thousands of years of history leading up to that, or your microculture of your cultural group, or even your group. If you're non-monogamous and what's the general concept of possessiveness in that microculture that you're part of in that community?

The point of this is just that what we see as possessive in one circumstance may be completely normal, totally fine, and in another context, in a different microculture or a different culture could seem like, "Ooh, that's crossing a line into possessiveness," or, "Whoa, that is unacceptable behavior." We're not going to try to pin down this behavior is always bad, this is always good, but instead to point out that this is something to be aware of and something to consider and that it needs to line up with your values and the way you do want to have relationships with other people.

Dedeker: This episode was a little hard to research at first because if you just type in possessive behavior or signs of possessive behavior, you get a very wide range of what people consider to be possessive behavior. The behavior itself lies on the subjective scale. There's the more intense end of the spectrum that may include things like classically abusive or controlling behavior. Things like isolating a partner from friends and family or monitoring their communication, or their digital life, or dictating what they get to wear. Again, this is not in a sexy power exchange kind of way, in a shitty, controlling kind of way.

Then in the middle of the spectrum, we might include things like really excessive texting and calling a partner, or fast-tracking a relationship so that you can pin down the person and make sure that you get them before they catch the eye of somebody else, or--

Jase: If you like it, then you should have put a ring on it.

Dedeker: Exactly. Exactly. Or maybe creating obstacles that get in the way of the other person making independent plans, so I guess-

Emily: Interesting.

Dedeker: -getting into this may be manipulative, possessive behavior.

Emily: Again, that's specific behaviors that I think the three of us definitely would look at and say, "Okay, that's crossing a certain line." Then there are other behaviors where you may have to ask yourself, "Well, to one person that may be really possessive, but to another, that may just be a sweet thing to do in their relationship, and that's something that they just are asking for, or would like, or is a preference."

It is that question of what counts as a behavior on one set of the spectrum or another. For instance, wanting a partner to send a goodnight text even when they're off on a sleepover in a non-monogamous relationship with somebody else, that could be maybe romantic and reassuring to one person, but then to another person that might be seen as super possessive and controlling if you are asking for that behavior.

Also, maybe wanting your partner to post pictures on their social media of the two of you together, that could be seen as like, "Yes, we're being sweet together, we're bonding together." Some people might see that as a possessive, showy-- I am showing off to the world how much your mine and how important you are, and therefore that may be seen by some people is really possessive and dictating how the other person presents themselves.

Jase: I think the flip side of that shows up too, of not wanting a partner to post pictures of them with a different partner.

Dedeker: Sure. Oh, yes.

Jase: That's something where maybe there are logistical reasons for that or safety reasons for that in terms of your outness with your job, those sorts of concerns, but that also can in other circumstances feel like, "Oh no, that's actually really controlling and trying to claim ownership to this part of a person's public life."

Emily: Definitely. Also, wanting your live-in partner to check in with you is part of their planning maybe for spending time with another person that could be seen as just a courtesy or it could be seen as possessive over the other person's time because you have to check in with one person in order to make plans with another.

Jase: Does it feel like permission or is it just a conversation?

Emily: It does toe that line, and again, it's so individual to the couple and to the specific individual. Basically, what we're trying to say is that yes, possessiveness can be weaponized, it can be seen as an accusation saying, "Oh, if you want me to do this thing then that means you're possessive and I'm not okay with that," but then some other people could see all of the things that we just listed as totally healthy and totally normal for a relationship.

Dedeker: These are all literal real-life examples that I've seen play out with clients where again, something that is a really nice attachment bonding activity for one relationship really triggers somebody else in a totally different relationship, and people can have some very, very strong feelings about possessiveness and what counts as possessiveness or not.

Emily: Absolutely.

Jase: It's funny actually, I was just encountering this recently as I was doing research for a different episode, and on that there's this scale from measuring love, measuring are you in love with somebody? One of the factors is, do you feel possessiveness toward them?

Emily: Oh, fascinating.

Jase: That's part of the metric. That's a very, very widely used in thousands of studies.

Emily: Wow.

Jase: It's one of many factors, but that's part of it. That's a piece of the puzzle there. It is an interesting question of is that just influenced by culturally how we think about that, or is there something intrinsic there that's worth honoring a little bit? That's what we're going to get into as we get more into the science of possessiveness here. First, we want to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show. The best thing you can do is to join our Patreon community. We have an amazing community online in our Facebook group, as well as our Discord server that has discussion about all of these things and is so inspiring to us and really amazing how people come together to support each other.

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We're back. Let's talk about some science.

Emily: Yikes.

Jase: As Dedeker was mentioning earlier, it is a little bit hard to do some research on this because there's such a spectrum of what counts in this. What she was able to find is that possessive behaviors are considered to be one of the many behaviors that fall into this category of mate retention. Basically, how do we keep the person we're with?

Dedeker: How to keep that Pokemon. How do we keep on keeping on?

Emily: In a bowl.

Dedeker: In a bowl?

Jase: That is interesting.

Emily: In a ball.

Dedeker: In a ball.

Emily: In a ball.

Dedeker: That's a very different Pokemon universe where they're all in bowls, little fruit bowls.

Emily: In a ball.

Jase: I was thinking little fish bowls, that they're all water-type Pokemon.

Dedeker: Oh little fish bowl? Like little Pokemon terrariums.

Emily: Oh, that's cute.

Dedeker: That's funny.

Emily: I feel like I've seen those.

Dedeker: All right.

Jase: It's interesting that in Pokemon, you don't have to worry about keeping them happy enough that they don't leave you.

Emily: Like a Tamagotchi?

Jase: Yes. Once you catch them-

Dedeker: Oh, yes.

Jase: -you just keep them forever until they die, I guess. Anyway.

Emily: Sad.

Dedeker: We could argue some of the finer points of some storylines in the Pokemon animated show-

Emily: Let's talk about it.

Dedeker: -animated show, but I won't go there. Not today.

Jase: Sure.

Dedeker: Not on this episode. Maybe on a different episode.

Jase: Sure. To go back to this category of behaviors that fall under mate retention, so this is how do we keep a relationship and hang on to a partner that we like. Of these behaviors, they tend to fall into two categories. Those are benefit-inducing behaviors and cost-inducing behaviors. The first one, benefit-inducing behaviors. This is doing things to add value to the relationship and make our partner not want to lose those benefits of being with us.

This is like in Grand Theft Auto, when you date the woman who's a nurse and you no longer have to lose your money when you die and come back at the hospital. She's giving you--

Dedeker: That's her benefit-inducing behavior?

Jase: That's the perk that you get for dating her in the game.

Emily: Wow. Which one? Which Grand Theft Auto?

Jase: I think it was 5. I don't remember.

Emily: Okay.

Jase: Anyway-

Emily: Nice.

Jase: -there's been similar mechanics in many games, where you have a relationship and you get some particular perk for being with that person.

Dedeker: Cool.

Jase: The real-life version of that could be good stuff. It's gifts, affection, acts of service, caring for a partner when they're sick, having good sex, whatever it is. The benefits that you offer that person by being in a relationship with you so that they don't want to stop being in a relationship with you because they would no longer get to go to the hospital for free when they die.

Dedeker: I just want to clarify that at least from the research that I read, I don't get the sense that these benefit-inducing behaviors are necessarily conscious and manipulative. It's not like someone's like, "Oh, okay, but if I give her all these gifts, then she won't leave me." Sure, someone could think that way. A lot of this I think is just the natural way that people like to show up in relationships and show their partners that they're delighted in them and invest in the relationship are all these benefit-inducing behaviors.

Jase: Absolutely. Then on the other side, we have cost-inducing behaviors. These are things that you do to make your partner feel like it will be costly if they leave us.

Emily: This is more manipulative.

Jase: I think a lot of times these are not so consciously thought out like this. Again, this is research just looking at why we behave the way we behave. Researchers have come up with these categories. These aren't what people go in trying to do. However, yes, I do think these tend to fall more into stuff that we would see as a little bit more manipulative or at least less healthy, maybe more harmful approaches.

This could be things like even trying to induce jealousy in the other person, or emotionally withdrawing if they're doing something that you don't like or you feel like the relationship is at risk, the whole pursuit, withdrawal thing. It could be punishing or trash-talking perceived competitors. I think about this one a lot in song lyrics. That a very common lyric, a lyrical concept in love songs is this idea of nobody can love you like I do. No one's going to love you as much as I do.

Dedeker: Interesting.

Jase: No one else can be whatever as much as I do. This idea of like, "Yes, you could leave me, but you will be less happy because I definitely do this better than anyone else." Again, we don't often say it like that in real life, but I think that kind of behavior or subtext is there.

Emily: Have either of you had partners who've done these things? Because I have--

Dedeker: Oh, I have done these things.

Emily: Oh, okay.

Dedeker: I don’t even have to throw partners under the bus.

Emily: Got it.

Dedeker: I've done these things.

Jase: I think I've been on both sides of all these.

Dedeker: Yes, both sides for sure.

Emily: I'm sure I have too.

Dedeker: This last example about trash-talking perceived competitors. This can show up in a really sneaky way. I think I see this show up in maybe your partner is talking about their other partner and you find just ways to throw little digs at them, or just little questions of, "Oh, interesting that they would choose to do that. Huh?" Again, maybe it doesn't happen in conscious thought, but it can be these little things of maybe trying to move your partner's attention in the direction of what's less desirable about this other person.

Emily: Yikes.

Dedeker: That can be just a sneaky, subtle little way of trying to make sure that this person doesn't slip through our fingers. Ultimately possessive behavior falls under that category of cost-inducing behaviors. Let's dive into the science. I have a 2022 study by, and I'm so sorry, this is an Iranian study, and so I'm going to butcher these names. This was done by Babaeizad, Fallahchai, and Abbasnejad. This was titled, Mate Value and Relationship Satisfaction: The Moderating Roles of Mate Retention Behaviors. This was published in Public Library of Science One. This sample that they were looking at was largely Iranian couples. It was a mix of students and community members, not just undergrads. Good for them.

Jase: Good, good.

Dedeker: The results were things that you might expect, which is that they found that benefit-inducing behaviors are more likely to indicate that someone has an interest in long-term commitment with a partner. That most people in relationships use benefit-inducing behaviors more often than cost-inducing behaviors.

Jase: Okay, that's good.

Dedeker: Yes, which is good. That benefit-inducing behaviors are associated with higher relationship satisfaction and cost-inducing behaviors are associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Now this was an interesting one, is that they found that a person who perceives that their partner has a higher "value" and that they themselves have a lower value as far as looking at the marketplace of mate-seeking--

Emily: Wow.

Dedeker: As in maybe if I think I have a low value, I don't think I'm very attractive. I don't think I'm very successful, maybe I've been really desperate to find a partner. It's been a real struggle for me. I feel really lucky to get this person. I perceive that my partner is really hot, really successful, has a lot of options, really popular, everyone's attracted to them. Basically in that setup, the person who feels like they have lower value is more likely to engage in cost-inducing behaviors.

Which to me just says the insecurities are often what drives these more manipulative behaviors. That instead of leaning in with love and generosity, it's these darker sides of ourselves that really reach out to try to create the sense of perceived cost if this person were to leave us.

Jase: It makes sense if the way you're feeling is that you are low value and don't bring a lot to the table when you think, "Okay, can I make myself more desirable by giving more to this relationship?" Well, no, because I'm so low-value. I don't have anything to offer."

Dedeker: Interesting.

Jase: The best I can do is try to defend myself by saying everyone else is worse, or trying to be a little controlling, or manipulative.

Dedeker: Yes, being possessive. Being like, "No, no, no. You belong to me and I need to make sure that you know that you belong to me." Needing to cling really tight.

Jase: I've seen this behavior in, gosh, myself in partners in metamours, when that value calculation changes.

Dedeker: Oh, interesting.

Jase: Like when someone loses a job,

Dedeker: Oh. Yes, you're so right.

Emily: Geez.

Jase: That suddenly their own estimation of their own self-worth, or maybe they're dating multiple people and they have multiple breakups that then--

Dedeker: Like when they're feeling crummy about themselves.

Jase: They're feeling like some event has happened that has made them start valuing themself less.

Emily: Interesting.

Jase: That I see these behaviors show up.

Emily: Wow.

Jase: These shittier behaviors show up.

Dedeker: Oh, that makes sense. That actually puts some interesting perspective on some past experiences that I've had.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: Here's another challenge time for the two of you. Do you think that possessiveness could ever be a good thing? Do you think possessiveness is ever warranted in a relationship?

Emily: I think some people absolutely want you to feel possession for them, and that, like Jase said, from the studies that he was looking at, possessiveness is perhaps a marker of being in love with "someone". I do think that some people perceive possession to be that. It's in the same vein of people saying, "Oh, if you're not jealous of me, or if you don't feel jealousy when it comes to me, then you're not in love with me, or then you don't really care about me that much." It's similar. I don't necessarily think it's a good thing, but I do think that some people would like it in their relationships.

Jase: If I modify the question a little bit, I feel very different about it. The question of is possessiveness ever a good thing? I'm like, "Emily, it's hard for me to come up with a situation where I would agree with that," but if I think about is it possible for someone to be too non-possessive?

Dedeker: Interesting.

Jase: When I think about that-

Dedeker: Too chill.

Jase: Yes, where it's like, "Whatever, do whatever you want." This kind of just I don't care kind of attitude.

Dedeker: Yes.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: You're right.

Jase: Yes, that seems like that can be a problem.

Dedeker: That's caused some distress for me in some past relationships. I've seen a lot of clients experiencing distress over that sort of too detached.

Jase: Right. Is that a defense mechanism of, "I'm going to pretend to be really non-possessive, whatever, I don't care what happens, no big deal?" I think what people think that casual dating relationship, like you talked about with your former client, what people think that should be like. Is this like, "Yes, yes, this is cool, but whatever man, do whatever you want," is that really how you feel, or is that just this, "I need to be cool and protect myself from getting hurt?"

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Yes. Yes.

Dedeker: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Jase: It makes me think, "Maybe there is a certain amount of possessiveness that's good," but that's a hard thing to say out loud and feel good about it.

Dedeker: Let me bake your noodle a little bit with this next study. This is a Croatian study, so I'm going to once again butcher some names. This is a study performed by Salkicevic, Stanic, and Grabovac. This was a 2014 study titled Good Mates Retain Us Right: Investigating the Relationship Between Mate Retention Strategies, Mate Value, and Relationship Satisfaction. This was published in Evolutionary Psychology.

Again, this was largely a study done on Croatian couples. It found basically the same thing as this Iranian study that I talked about earlier. That benefit-inducing behaviors were correlated with higher relationship satisfaction and that cost-inducing behaviors were correlated with lower relationship satisfaction. Here's what's interesting. They found, specifically, that public signals of possession seem to contribute to higher relationship satisfaction.

Now, some examples of public signals of possession include things like introducing a partner to other people as your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your wife. Talking to other people about how in love you are with this person. Bragging to others about your partner. Hugging, kissing, handholding in front of other people. Putting up pictures of your partner in public places. Whether that's at home, at work, on social media, your phone background, or asking a partner to wear your jacket or giving them symbolic jewelry to wear.

It's so funny that some of these, if I just looked at this list, I would just say, "Oh, that looks like a list of maybe romantic things to do." I wouldn't say, "Oh, those are possessive things to do," but then if we're really splitting hairs, I guess technically, yes, you are signaling this person is in a relationship with me. This may be unclear what that means as far as how much I possess of them or not. It is a little bit of that, yes, I am signaling to people around me that, "Hey, yes, she's with me."

Emily: Yes.

Jase: That's a great point. This goes back to some of the things that Emily was listing earlier like posting pictures on social media. I think that's the younger millennial and Gen Z version of having pictures up in your cubicle at work.

Emily: There you go.

Jase: That thing of, "I'm putting this in a public place where other people see it and know that this person is mine. This person's attached to me somehow."

Emily: They're mine.

Jase: Yes, fascinating.

Emily: Do we personally see these things as possessive behaviors? The ones that you just listed?

Jase: It really varies on the context.

Dedeker: It really does.

Emily: Yes. The two of you wanted jewelry even though you're not married, but you were like, "Yes, we're going to have jewelry." That seemed like it was more for you, but I do think--

Dedeker: I like it when Jase puts his ring on. He doesn't wear it all the time, I don't wear my rings all the time, but I do like it.

Emily: Yes. I guess so.

Jase: Again, my mind keeps going to the opposite to give myself a basis for comparison. I know that something that can come up, well, in relationships in general is the opposite, feeling like my partner is hiding me from other people-

Dedeker: Totally.

Jase: -or they're ashamed of me, or they don't want me holding them back from other options or something.

Emily: Interesting.

Jase: That's the whole like, "Oh, I'm non-monogamous. My partner's going on dates with other people but not telling them that they have an existing partner until several dates in," or that kind of behavior that feels shady and dishonest as well. I guess in a certain light, you could look at that and say that's possessiveness.

Emily: Yes. I guess so.

Jase: I wouldn't say that that's bad, to be recognized or not be hidden from other people.

Dedeker: Some of these behaviors I've really seen them go both ways, specifically in a non-monogamous context. I think about hugging, kissing, handholding, public displays of affection, which for some people, let's say they're in the room with multiple partners, they have two partners there at the birthday party. For some people that's totally fine, and it's very comfortable. For other people, if they're noticing their partner is really laying on the affection with one partner and not with them, then that can-

Emily: That's going to be really hard.

Dedeker: -raise some question marks of, "Well, that's weird." If one partner's really hanging on them as a means of, "I feel insecure because I have my metamour here, and so I really need to make sure that everyone knows that we're in a relationship or that you belong to me to a certain regard," that can be weird too. It's tricky.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Yes. Absolutely. It really varies. Even just something like saying, "My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my partner," I think for most of us, that's just the way our language works, and so that's a normal way to express that. There are some situations I've had where the way a person says it, or the number of times they keep emphasizing, "My girlfriend, or my man, or whatever," that it starts to cross this line into feeling like, "Okay, what are you really saying here?" You feel like you're really leaning so hard on that part of it.

Emily: It feels a little performative. Also sometimes with the social media posts, sometimes that feels performative, at least from the outside.

Dedeker: Totally.

Emily: I guess I'm wondering what is it that you're trying to prove here. Are you trying to prove that the relationship is going better than maybe you internally feel like it is? Are you just so excited and hopped up on all the new relationship energy drugs that you're like, "Wow, I've got to show this person off every single second I possibly can and I want various ways to show the world that they are mine. That I'm lucky enough to be with them," for instance?

In terms of a non-monogamous relationship, do you think any of those behaviors could be beneficial? Because, again, when it comes to non-monogamy, it seems like anything that is labeled as possessive is ripe for, "No, don't do it."

Dedeker: Right.

Jase: Right.

Dedeker: I'll talk about the social media example specifically-

Emily: Oh, good.

Dedeker: -because I do think it's very easy. I love throwing social media under the bus. I will do it until I am blue in the face.

Emily: Okay. Go for it.

Dedeker: It's very easy to demonize it. Again, like Jase said, it's a little bit of this modern proxy for having pictures up maybe in your home, or in your office cubicle, or things like that. I can understand where if someone is feeling hidden, or is feeling like they're not really integrated into their partner's life, that wanting their partner to post about them on social media or post pictures of them together can be a way of trying to get that need filled.

For some people, they can agree on that, and that's great. Everyone feels good about that, and for other people that feels weird. For some people, they're seeking the post on social media and it's trying to be a proxy for a much bigger lack in the relationship. That can happen too. I do think that we have this really deep human need to be seen as individuals, to be seen by a partner.

I do think there's something about a relationship that makes us feel good and a bond that we are proud of. We also want that to be seen by other people and maybe not necessarily exclusively. I think some people, some of the undoing possessiveness that a lot of people have to do when first entering non-monogamy has to do with the wanting to be seen exclusively as the person, right? No, I think I can validate that want to be seen.

Jase: I think the fact that you landed on the word pride is a good one because I do think, especially when it comes to non-monogamy, or even without that, that feeling that my partner is not wearing the jewelry from me, or not posting pictures from me, or not something because they're embarrassed of me, or they're not proud of our relationship, or they want to hide me because it feels like I'm bad for some reason. Even if maybe they have a logical reason for that, it can still feel like, "Oh, I'm bad somehow. You're not proud of me and our relationship."

Yes, I can definitely see that going too far on that other side is a problem too. We want to move on to what can we do about this but we're going to take one more break here to talk about some sponsors of this show. They are the way that we keep this show going and out here for free every week. You know what? If you don't like hearing ads on your podcasts, you can become one of our patrons at patreon.com/multi amory. We have a tier where you get early access to episodes as well as ad-free versions of them. If you'd rather not have these ad breaks, hey, there's an option for you too, and, of course, you get to be part of the amazing Discord community and Facebook community as well.

Emily: We're back. Now we want to get into the actionable takeaways. What can we actually do here about feelings of possessiveness? We talked about this at the beginning but it's very important to dig deep into the why and find the fear, find the reason behind why you want to be possessive or have and do these possessive behaviors that are maybe coming up in your relationship. It's interesting you kept saying when we were discussing the research, this word retention. I think that that is a big thing when we think about a partner, especially a partner, that maybe we deem is more impressive than us in some way, more rich, or more beautiful, or more whatever than we are in some particular way. We want to retain them, we want to keep them in the relationship with us.

A lot of that just comes from this place of like, "Please stay with me. Please don't leave me." If you're feeling the urge to engage in possessive behavior, just get curious about what's underneath there. You can maybe ask yourself, "What will this behavior actually get me?" For example, if I get my partner to post a picture of us on social media, what is that going to get me? Is it going to get me anything tangible? Is it just going to get me a feeling for a moment of, "Yay they did the thing," but then is the fear still going to be there? What is actually really, really underneath that specific behavior and that specific want and ask of a partner to put a picture of the two of you on social media?

Another example is if I get my partner to come back home tonight, instead of staying the night with their other partner, what is that going to get me? Is that going to get me a feeling of closeness or is that going to give me a little bit of anger and maybe slight resentment from my partner if I ask them to come home and stay with me as opposed to spending the night with their other sweetie? Or you can ask yourself the opposite of that. "If I let go of this behavior, what am I afraid will happen?"

Again, if you decided, "I'm not going to ask them to put up this picture of us," or, "I'm not going to ask them to wear that ring that I got for them, what will happen then?" Also, another example is if I stop trying to control my partner's time, maybe I'm afraid that they'll be busy with other people every night of the week and I'll never get quality time with them. That's very valuable information. I think that that really can get into the longing, the need. What is it that we truly want from our partners? What is it that we truly feel like maybe we're missing?

That information is a really great basis for either personal work or for a conversation with your partner about your fears, your insecurity, your challenges, maybe a discussion with a therapist, something along those lines.

Jase: With all of that, it's important to remember that asking those questions is not to say, you definitely shouldn't want this thing. Because as we talked about, there's a gray area. It really depends on what's underneath it. What's the motivation? How are both people feeling about this? With all of those, it's a real question. It's not a facetious kind of, "Well, what would happen if you didn't do that?" It's like, "No, really though, what are you afraid of would happen?" That answer might actually give you some important clues about maybe something even that's wrong in the relationship.

Which brings us to our next takeaway here, which is to examine the foundation for cracks, or termites, or whatever metaphor you want to use here. What we mean by that is that trust. Trust is a foundation for healthy relationships. Over time, things can happen and that foundation can develop cracks, some small, some large, and that can inspire these feelings of, "Well, I need to cling. I need to be possessive because if I don't, these cracks are going to fall apart. There is actually a legit lack of trust or a lack of feeling of safety and security in this relationship that is making me feel this way."

Taking a look at that, are there incidents from the past that do make it difficult to trust my partner? What needs to be healed there? I would even put that in the present tense of, are there current behaviors that make me feel like I can't trust my partner to stay with me or to want to be with me? That's also something to honestly answer for yourself and consider is this something that can be fixed? Like Emily was mentioning, going to a third party, like a counselor or a therapist or a coach, can help open up that conversation, especially if this isn't something that the two of you are used to talking about.

Of course, you can go back and look at an oldie but goodie of ours, which is episode 155, How To Build Trust In A Relationship, and then also episode 375, Building A Foundation Of Trust. There's more techniques if you identify that this is where some of the problems seem to stem from.

Dedeker: Now I also want to throw in the suggestion of playful possessiveness, maybe some consensual possessiveness. I'm really inspired by this study about sprinkling in these public displays of possession or PDPs as I am going to call them.

Jase: Great.

Dedeker: This should be a collaboration with your partner about what sort of PDPs feel good to experiment with. Ideally, this should feel playful and connective rather than obligatory, rather than a demand. Now, if you or your partner are feeling resistance to this, this is another opportunity to get curious about the why underneath. For example, if you realize, "Yes, I'm afraid that if I post a picture of us together on social media, my other partner is going to see it and feel upset, and then I'm going to be managing emotions over on that side."

Or, "Yes, I'm afraid that if I introduce you as my girlfriend to my friends, they're going to assume that I've moved on too quickly from my ex and I'm just not sure if I'm ready to have that conversation yet." It's just really good to dig into the why underneath this. Part of the reason why I also love the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, which you can learn more about if you go listen to our episode 339 Smorgasbord of Relationships, that that is part of it is sitting down with a partner and figuring out do we want to present as a couple on social media?

Like, what are the labels that we want to use for each other in front of other people? Do we want to introduce each other to friends and family? That these are the building blocks of relationships and they don't have to be in every single relationship.

Emily: The next thing that you can do is possess yourself. Now--

Dedeker: Possess yourself.

Emily: Yes, beautiful. Sing yourself a little song, maybe turn on the music video. If you find that you're on the receiving end of a partner's possessive behavior, it is really important to also have an open conversation with them and to collaborate on healthy solutions that would help maybe both of you feel better. In order to do that, you have to have a firm sense of your own boundaries and limitations. For example, reserving at least one night a week that is your personal time or your alone time where you get to do exactly whatever it is that you want.

Maybe you can decide not to share a calendar with a partner, for example, or you can be really clear on what you're comfortable with in terms of posting on social media. Like you're comfortable posting a picture a week or certain types of pictures but not others. Things like that. Just really get specific and clear on what it is that you want in terms of those boundaries and in terms of those needs with your partner. They can be flexible maybe but also figure out what it is that you want and bring that to the table.

Dedeker: I think the having a night a week being personal time is a hard lesson that I've had to learn. I remember many, many years ago when I was in my very, very early non-monogamy experimentation phase that I got into a relationship with someone who really wasn't sure about non-monogamy and wasn't necessarily on board. We'd only been dating maybe a couple of months when it became very clear that he was expecting that any free time I had, I would spend with him. That it was going to be just default. That's what we do in relationships, and that is a very, very common way of doing relationships. It's very, very common, especially if you live with someone. It's very, very common to fall into that.

Emily: Absolutely.

Dedeker: I just like hadn't even thought about that at that time in my life where I was like-- and I remember it being really upsetting to me. I, unfortunately, didn't really have the words to be able to compassionately say, "Hey, actually, I appreciate you want to spend time with me, and also I need this particular amount of time to myself," or, "and also I'm not quite ready to be giving you all of my time by default."

Jase: I think that's such a good example, and I think it shows up in any type of relationship, not just non-monogamy at all. I think often there's that assumption of if you like this person, yes, all your extra time should go to them. I think this one's also worth noting because sometimes we can even put that possessiveness on ourselves on that other person's behalf of just assuming, "Oh, they should always get this, or I should always need to check in with them before I make other plans," or things like that.

I know that I tend to be guilty of overconcern for what my partner's going to think, or making sure that they feel included. Sometimes even without them doing anything, if we have a propensity for that, we can kind of set ourselves up in a situation where some of the more negative sides of possessiveness are happening, but we're kind of doing it to ourselves. Being able to have a conversation about social media posting and about alone time, stuff like that can be really helpful because it helps protect you from yourself in a way.

Emily: If you're curious about how to even set boundaries and you're not quite sure how to do that yet, you can go to our episode 423, Boundaries are all about YourSELF, and also we have a whole chapter and our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships that is dedicated to personal boundaries. Go check out those two resources.

Jase: Our final tip here, and I think this has been floating under the surface this whole time with a lot of these questions and things to examine and get really honest with yourself and your partner about what's happening here is knowing when to leave that it's okay to break up and that maybe when you do start asking these questions, you realize, yes, something's not right here. This applies both if you are feeling the urge to be possessive, or if you are feeling like you're getting a lot of possessive behavior from your partner.

First thing to do is to inspect that for yourself and hopefully have some honest, heartfelt conversations with your partner. Maybe get a third party involved, like a therapist or a counselor, and after that discussion, if you still feel this urge to be possessive or maybe your partner brings up that you're still doing some of these things, it may be a sign that the relationship just doesn't feel secure enough for you at this time.

It could be a sign that there is some behavior going on with your partner that's not making you feel safe and that they're either unwilling or unable to change. It could be a sign that your desires are justified, but your partner is accusing you of this because they want to be more detached, that you just have different standards for what you want in terms of entwinement and possessiveness behaviors, or maybe this type of relationship is just not the right fit for the two of you.

On the other hand, maybe after those discussions, you still feel like your partner is the one who's extremely possessive. Maybe there is something deeper going on here. Maybe there's some trauma for them that hasn't been addressed or possibly some trauma for you that might make you extra sensitive to that possessive behavior. Likewise, it could just be a mismatch in what kind of possessiveness you think is normal or acceptable, and in either of those cases, it could be something that therapy and ongoing conversations can help, or it may just be something that isn't going to work out in this relationship.

The thing we always love to remind people of is that breakups, one, are not a failure, and two, they don't mean that either of you is a bad person or that either of you had to have done something to deserve that breakup. It could just mean that this relationship with these two people at this time in the space-time continuum, is just not the right time for that, and that that's okay, and it's a really hard thing to do, but it also doesn't mean that either of you are bad people.

PodcastMultiamoryApril 16, 2024possessiveness, possessive feelings, science, psychology