510 - Don't Let Envy Ruin Your Relationship
The green-eyed monster
We’ve talked a lot about jealousy in the past and even touched on the difference between jealousy and envy, but we’re finally addressing envy itself and how it can show up in non-traditional relationships. Have you ever found yourself feeling inadequate compared to your metamours? Or had times when a partner’s success triggered envy for you?
A quick note on envy versus jealousy in non-monogamous relationships:
It can be helpful to think about envy as a two-person dynamic, or wanting what someone else has. For example, wishing you had the same level of intimacy your partner has with a metamour. Jealousy can be described more as a three-person dynamic, or fearing you’ll lose something you already have, like being fearful you might lose a partner to a metamour.
These emotions seem very similar, but research shows that they have different psychological roots and implications.
Envy:
Associated with feelings of inferiority, longing, or resentment.
Often highlights personal insecurities and dissatisfaction.
Is more self-focused.
Jealousy:
Stems from a perceived threat to a valued relationship.
Is characterized by fear of loss, distrust, and anger. Typically involves insecurity, fear, anxiety, and suspicion.
Is more relationship-focused.
Both envy and jealousy can be triggered by social comparison, but in different ways!
Common triggers for envy in relationships might look like:
A partner's qualities or achievements, such as career success, personal growth, or new skill acquisition.
Metamour's relationship with shared partner, like shared experiences, inside jokes, or a perceived “better” connection.
Time allocation and attention from partners.
Physical attributes or sexual prowess of metamours.
Better access to resources (money, time, etc.).
Why do we feel envy?
Envy does have an evolutionary basis: it serves as a motivator for social learning and adaptation, helps us determine valuable social resources and qualities, and drives people to improve their relative social standing.
From an evolutionary perspective, envy can be both benign or malicious as well. Benign envy helps motivate self improvement, and is an adaptive response that can lead to personal growth and social advancement. Malicious envy on the other hand aims to bring others down to one’s own level, which can also be seen as a defensive strategy to protect social status.
Envy also may:
Help individuals gauge their relative position in social hierarchies.
Aid in determining which traits or resources are valued in any given social context.
Play a role in mate selection and retention, such as a way to help identify and acquire desirable mates.
Play a role in maintaining pair bonds by motivating partners to “keep up” with each other or foster healthy competition.
Have potential downsides from an evolutionary perspective, such as leading to harmful behaviors and social isolation if felt excessively, or may result in energy wasted on unproductive comparisons or unattainable goals.
In non-monogamy, there are some unique challenges of envy, including:
Multiple potential sources of comparison.
Dealing with envy when you’re a hinge partner.
Balancing compersion with envious feelings.
Practical tools for managing envy
Some basics to keep in mind:
Consult with a therapist if necessary!
Try gratitude journaling.
Ask yourself, “How much of this feeling is feeling like ‘it’s not fair’ or otherwise feeling as though someone has something you want, and how much is a fear that you will lose something you already have?”
Clarify which parts are envy and which parts are jealousy when talking to a partner about it.
In a polyamorous context, cultivating self-compassion and self-worth can make a big difference. Try things like daily affirmations focused on your good qualities and try to recognize that your worth is not determined by comparison to others.
Now, the tools!
The Envy Map Exercise
Create a visual map of your envious feelings.
Draw yourself in the center, then add partners and metamours.
Use different colored lines to represent various emotions, such as red for envy, blue for admiration, etc.
Add labels to describe specific envious thoughts.
Use this map to identify patterns and triggers in your relationships.
2. Envy Emergency Kit
Create a physical or digital kit with items that ground you when envy strikes.
Include things like:
A list of your unique qualities and strengths.
Photos or mementos that remind you of your own relationship highlights.
A recorded message from your partner affirming their love for you.
A loved one to reach out to who can help pump you up.
Use this kit when you feel overwhelmed by envious thoughts!
3. Reframe the Story
When envy arises, write down the current narrative you’re telling yourself.
When you feel envious, imagine you’re in your metamour or partner’s shoes.
Identify cognitive distortions in this narrative, such as all-or-nothing thinking, mind reading, etc.
Rewrite the story from a more balanced, realistic perspective.
Practice telling yourself the new version.
Remember, envy is a normal emotion that can be channeled positively! Try to view it as an opportunity for personal growth and deeper connections.
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're talking about the green-eyed monster, envy, not jealousy this time. If you've ever felt inadequate or resentful in your relationships, but then advice about jealousy just doesn't quite seem it's helpful, it's not quite hitting the nail on the head, you might be dealing with envy instead. Today, we're going to be talking about the differences between envy and jealousy in relationships, why you might be feeling envious of your partner or envious of your metamors, and how it doesn't always have to be jealousy being the thing making you feel ill at ease or feel uncomfortable.
We'll give some practical tips to help transform that envy into personal growth, stronger connections and understand what's underneath it, where it's coming from. 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 our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book, or get it wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out the first few episodes of this podcast for some of our most widely referenced episodes and communication tools.
All right, so getting into this, I'm excited about this episode because, in the 10 years of doing this podcast, we have never actually had an episode dedicated to envy specifically.
Dedeker: Really? Have we not?
Emily: That's shocking.
Jase: Yes, because jealousy is always the thing that comes up. Sometimes we'll talk about the difference between jealousy and envy, but we've never specifically dealt with envy. I actually don't find a lot of resources about it out there either.
Dedeker: I saw someone on the non-monogamy subreddit referenced our show specifically regarding envy, and the episode that they recommended was our FOMO episode way back in 146, I believe.
Jase: Yes, that makes sense.
Dedeker: Yes, which kind of aligned similarly. That is surprising that we haven't done one dedicated to envy.
Emily: I do think, Jase, you have often tried to differentiate between the two, and that's something that I feel is a little bit more of our specific party line. That jealousy is a specific thing versus envy, and that it's good to understand what both are, but that jealousy sometimes more aligns with wanting to take something away from someone. We're going to get into that in a second here.
Jase: Yes, I think the whole relationship to the distinction between jealousy and envy is actually something we've gone back and forth on, or at least I have, over the years of doing this show, where sometimes it's a useful thing to differentiate. Then also, I've seen times where I feel people can get too nitpicky about which is which. I've been frustrated at that sometimes. Then also, when I look at just definitions of how we use these words, envy always means envy. When you look up the definition for jealousy, it covers things that are both envy and jealousy.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: I'm always a little hesitant to say, it's like, "Ah, well, jealousy is only this and envy is only this." However, for the purposes of this episode, we are going to distinguish the two or at least talk about what the unique differences are, if we're going to separate them into these two categories because they are different feelings and come from different places, and have different ways of dealing with them.
Dedeker: Okay. There's this Simpsons clip where Lisa is chastising Homer for being jealous about something and that he corrects her. Like, "No, no, no, I'm not jealous. Jealous is when someone has something you don't think that they should have it, and envious is when you want something that maybe that somebody else has for yourself." She pulled out a dictionary, she's like, "Oh my God, you're right."
Jase:
Dedeker: Now, I do think it can be helpful to differentiate because putting a different label on your feelings, I think, opens you up to different pathways for finding ways to feel better, to get more of a sense of well-being, a sense of different solutions. It's not always going to be clear. Often I think, especially in non-monogamy, envy and jealousy can be really wrapped up in each other. We're going to differentiate, but I don't want anyone to feel this pressure, like if I'm feeling ill at ease about something, it has to be one or the other.
Jase: It could definitely be both, for sure.
Emily: When we're talking about non-monogamy, I think probably all of us have experienced jealousy and envy. One of the times that I recall this pretty strongly, my partner, my last major relationship, he was dating somebody at the time who really liked poetry and he really likes poetry, and was an English major, and really well-read in poetry. He started dating someone, and they would read poetry together and send poetry back and forth to one another. I remember feeling super envious of that. I think envious of the connection that they had to this thing that I didn't really understand that well.
I think that's fascinating because, again, I wasn't like, "I need them to stop or something," but it was just this emotion that was challenging because I realized I felt inadequate in that specific space, and therefore, it was causing an emotional reaction in me because of my own feelings of inadequacy.
Jase: Well, yes, I think with that, let's get into a little bit of the differences between them for the purposes of this episode. As we've talked about, there's a lot of overlap here, and specifically the definition of jealousy seems to be quite broad in terms of the dictionary definition sense of it, but for how we're differentiating this, maybe let's go through that and look at that story you were talking about, and how it could be even a little of each or what parts might be what.
Emily: Sure. Well, if you look at envy, especially in the context of polyamorous relationships, you're looking at like a two-person dynamic. If I guess I was looking at me versus my metamor, then I wanted maybe what she had in terms of I wanted the understanding of poetry so that I could also connect with my partner on that level. Or, for example, wishing you had the same level of intimacy your partner has with a metamor, whatever that may mean. That's amorphous, but that's another example.
Jase: Or it could be wishing that you had someone to date who connected with you on something that was an interest of yours like your partner has.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: The envy could be targeted at either place, right?
Emily: It could have been him to me feeling envious of that connection or wanting that connection with the two of us as well.
Jase: Right. I'd say that the definition we're talking about for envy then is that I want something that somebody else has, and I feel bad, or I feel inadequate, or I feel it's not fair that they have this thing and that I don't have it. That's how we're defining envy in terms of how it differentiates from jealousy.
Emily: Yes, and specifically, jealousy within the context of non-monogamy can be this three-person dynamic. Often, it boils down to this fear of losing something that you have to someone else, potentially. Like fear of losing a partner to a metamor, for example. Or even, I think in my current relationship right now that I'm just starting to open up and see another person, the thing that I've heard a lot from my partner about their worry is fear of losing time, or the ability to have as much time as they want with me because they know that I'm going to be spending time with somebody else. That, I think, comes up as jealousy. I think it can also be envy, like envious of the time that I'm spending, perhaps, but ultimately, this fear of losing the time or losing the person to somebody else.
Jase: Yes. I do think that's a great thing to point out that it's not necessarily losing, like completely losing the person, but I feel like I'm losing something intangible or tangible I'm worried about losing, and I want to protect it. That's jealousy. Em, to go to your example of the poetry thing, I could see for someone that could be the feeling that comes up more is, "My partner's connecting with somebody else on this topic, so I'm afraid they're going to want to spend more time with them and less time with me because they connect on this thing that I can't connect on."
Emily: Totally.
Jase: I think that story is such a perfect example of, for you, what came up was more envy and this feeling of inadequacy, but for another person in the same situation, it might be more jealousy that was activated by that. There can be a little combination of each, but understanding which it is can help in terms of seeing, like, where's this coming from? What's going on here?
Emily: Oh, absolutely. I think that is the fascinating thing, is that it all just boils back down to you and the internal stuff that's going on, and your internal triggers. Maybe not all the time, maybe not in every single scenario, but I think that's a great first place to start, is, "Why am I having this emotional reaction, and what is the thing in my past, perhaps, or the thing that I don't feel good about myself, that is causing me to have this reaction?"
Jase: Yes. In the research on envy and jealousy, essentially, they come from these different psychological roots and have different implications, like we're getting at, but to break it down to the core of it is that envy is associated with these feelings of inferiority, or feelings of longing, or feelings of resentment. The one I add here is this feeling of, "It's not fair," like a feeling of maybe injustice in a certain sense could be a way to put it. That jealousy, instead, involves more of fear, or insecurity, anxiety, suspicion, worry, those sorts of things. It's more, I'd say, more fear-based, rather than feeling inferiority, I guess is, or resentment.
Emily: Why do we think that jealousy is so vilified in the non-monogamous community? I will say, also, that I've had partners who are monogamous, or who have been monogamous, mostly, that say that they find that jealousy is a really unattractive quality in a partner, period, but that also say, "Oh, but I do think of myself as kind of a jealous person." What the heck's going on there?
Dedeker: Do we think that jealousy is still vilified in the non-monogamous community?
Emily: I think it was.
Dedeker: I do think that in the last 5 or 10 years, yes, that the conversation around it has shifted quite a bit. I do still think it's the main emotion that people focus on about needing to manage or needing to solve for as opposed to envy, or any other feeling that comes up. I don't know if it's really vilified, necessarily, anymore. I mean, I'm sure some people do vilify.
Jase: I think it still is but less maybe than it was.
Emily: Maybe less so than when we started.
Dedeker: Yes, yes. Something that's interesting as we've been talking about this is that it's clear that what overlaps between both of these feelings is a social comparison, or comparing ourselves to another person, to another person's resources, to another person's life circumstances, but with slightly different approaches and different results. I think it's easy to theorize that envy may arise from an upward comparison, as in, we compare ourselves to somebody else, and we perceive that they are richer, smarter, more beautiful, more accomplished, more talented than we are, and therefore, we feel inferior.
We can theorize that jealousy comes from this comparison to ourself to threats to the existing relationship or people that we perceive to be threats to the existing relationship which could still be an upward social comparison but has a slightly different result.
Jase: I do think it's important to point out that even though in the examples that Emily gave earlier, she was referencing non-monogamy specifically, but none of this is specific to non-monogamy. That both jealousy and envy show up, I would say, equally much in monogamous relationships. This is really not specific to non-monogamy. I think that within the non-monogamy world, it's where this bias toward focusing on jealousy at the expense of envy comes from, but that both of these feelings come up just in general, in all sorts of situations. Not even exclusive to romantic relationships.
Emily: Let's get into talking about some common triggers for envy in relationships in general, and I think this also can apply to non-romantic relationships. I've absolutely been envious of my friends. Sometimes I'm envious of the two of you. Sometimes I wonder, like, "What if?" in a lot of these scenarios, just because we're constantly looking at each other and people who are important to us in our lives, and comparing ourselves to them. It's completely understandable.
A thing that could be triggering is looking at a partner's qualities or achievements, things like career success, or personal growth, or new skills. Even just having maybe a lot of interests outside of the relationship that are giving them excitement or giving them fulfillment that don't necessarily have to do with you specifically. I think that can cause envy, and it can maybe also cause that fear as well. "Am I going to have my time taken away from them because they're spending so much time on something else?"
Dedeker: I think something that overlaps with that is if you perceive that your partner, or a metamor, or a friend, has better access to certain resources compared to yourself. The very easy example is money. If you perceive that your partner has more disposable income than you or a metamor has more disposable income or a friend has more disposable income, of course, it's very easy to feel envy about that, and all the things that disposable income opens up to you.
There's also resources like time, for instance. I've worked with people who maybe their metamor is not employed, or is not as employed as they themselves are, and they perceive that their metamor has access to all this time. It's a lot easier for them to drop things, like, go get lunch with their shared partner, or something like that, and that could definitely bring up envy for people.
Jase: Another one where I see envy come up quite a bit is in the amount of attention or the amount of time that a partner gets. Again, this could apply in other situations, but if we're looking at non-monogamy specifically, this usually comes up in either, "My partner is getting more dates than me, and I wish I were getting them," or, "They have better dates or better partners. They have this ongoing serious relationship and all I have are casual dates, and I really wish I had the more serious one."
Or just feeling like, "Oh, they get to have all these fun dates, and I have trouble getting anyone to want to go out with me." Those sorts of things come up I would say pretty often, especially earlier on when people are opening up a relationship. Over time, you'll have ups and downs for each of you, and your circumstances will change, and you have more context for the variety of ways that it will go over your life.
When you're starting out whoever initially seems to be having more success, it's very easy for the other partner to feel like, "That's not fair. I'm frustrated. I'm envious of this. I'm resentful of it." That's where we start to get into that territory of, "Is this just longing because I want it, or is this getting into the territory of, 'I want to make sure this person doesn't have it if I don't because that's not fair'?" That's where that sense of injustice I think can lead us to bad behavior.
We're going to get more into this as we go, but something to keep an eye out with this is is there's this fine line between having this feeling and then having a feeling that justifies me acting in bad ways, or even just wishing bad things upon people I care about, or at least, that I otherwise say that I care about.
Emily: This one is more non-monogamy specific, but when you get into a relationship with a new person, the kind of excitement, the physicality, and the sex, and stuff like that can be a thing that might be really intimidating to an existing partner. An existing partner might feel envious of the physical attributes or the sexual prowess of their metamor, or just even realize, "Hey, every time you've seen them, you've presumably slept with them this week, and we don't every time we see each other have sex anymore," kind of thing. Just that comparison again that comes up, especially, I think, in the throws of a new relationship when those things are going to be really happening often.
Jase: Yes. No, that's a great point about the frequency of sex. That's definitely one that can come up. I've had that come up as well, not about new relationships even, but just about-- I think if a partner feels like they're unsatisfied with the amount of sex that they're having, or feeling insecure about you being attracted to them, or something like that, it can then make any sort of understanding that, "Oh, you were intimate with someone else," or, "You're attracted to someone else," feel much more upsetting.
Emily: A comparison again, yes.
Jase: Right. From that envious point of view, versus for someone else, where it might be more jealousy, of, "Oh, I'm worried that means you want to be with them instead of me," which I think would come about less from this feeling of, "Oh, I want more sex in our relationship and I'm not getting it," versus, "I'm feeling insecure about whether you even like being with me or not," and those don't always go together. In fact, I think often those are separate concerns that you might be feeling one or the other, and it really changes how the same situation might feel more like envy or more like jealousy.
Now, why do we do this? Why doing this? Why do we feel this way? Why does envy come up? In putting this episode together, I was searching for the reasons for this. We've talked about this a lot with jealousy, that sometimes feelings of jealousy can be telling you something. They might be telling you something about your own insecurity, or they might be telling you, yes, something's not right in this relationship that does need to get addressed. There is something behind it. What about envy? It's different. Where's this coming from? What might be the purpose of this?
In looking into it, it seems like the way it's discussed in most of the literature is as a motivator for social adaptation, for social learning. It helps you identify what's valuable to you by seeing, "Oh, this person has something or has a skill or has a quality that makes me feel some envy, helps me realize, 'Ah, I must value that.'" Versus, there could be other people who have something that someone else might feel envious of, and for you, it's like, "Whatever, like they've got a bunch of cars, cool, I don't really care that much." Whatever it is for you, or maybe for you, that's like, "Oh my God, I want all those cars." I don't know.
It helps you to establish what are the things that you want, what are the traits that you want, what are things that interest you. Then going along with that is it could be a motivator for driving self-improvement or for wanting to improve your social standing or something like that. It seems to be that's the way it's discussed in terms of why we've evolved to have this emotion is because we're social creatures, and it's using that social dynamic as a way to help us be motivated and also to understand where we want to go within our community, what are the things we want, versus, what are the things we don't care about as much.
Dedeker: Also, if we're looking at this from an evolutionary perspective, we can lay it out in the sense of adapting to have benign envy versus more malicious envy. Like Jase was saying about envy acting as this motivator for some sort of self-improvement or emulating the success of others, this idea of noticing specifically, "Oh, this person has something that I wish that I had." It could just be a quality. It could be a style of life, and that it can motivate you to, I don't know, argue for a better deal in life or to fight for some personal growth or fight for some social advancement.
On the other side, there's malicious envy that can be a motivator to want to bring somebody down to one's level to topple them from where they are. Perhaps this could have been like a defensive strategy in order to protect your own social status.
Jase: If you want to see an example of this, just think of any time you play a competitive board game with your friends, when one person is clearly winning, the way that everybody else reacts to that is often from this place of, "Okay, everybody, we all need to work together to bring this person down." That's more of that malicious envy style.
Emily: Envy can also be used as a tool for social comparison. We've talked a lot about comparison already on this episode, but it can help individuals gauge their relative position in social hierarchies so you can see, "Okay, what are the things that I feel like I've really got on lock, and that I'm good at and that other people maybe don't have in spades like I do," versus, "What is something that somebody else really has that I feel like I want and I feel like I'm just not getting it or I'm not there yet, et cetera." It also can aid in identifying which traits or resources are valued in a given social context.
Jase: That makes a lot of sense from the evolutionary point of view, that this is how we figure out what matters in our society of like, "What things do I feel envious of?" because I see those things being rewarded, perhaps.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: I see those traits being rewarded. Yes.
Emily: Yes, whether or not that's social status in terms of how much money you make or how intelligent you are, what school you went to, or the way that you look, et cetera, et cetera. There are so many things that tell us what you should or should not be envious of or what you should strive to be.
Jase: Something that just occurred to me, though, is that those examples that we're giving are often very sort of big-picture societal norms. I think this also applies within smaller communities. If you take, for example, within the polyamorous community and looking at what are the traits that people look up to and admire and what traits do we see in people that gives them more "success" and helping us evaluate that, I could see that actually being helpful. Where if you notice, I'm feeling really envious of the people in this community who don't seem to have a lot of this fear of losing their partners, that they have a confidence about it and don't experience as much jealousy.
I'm envious of their ability to not feel as much fear-based jealousy. Maybe that's something that is important that I do want to work toward, or it might be noticing, "Oh, there's a certain confidence or lack of desperateness, I guess, to put it more negatively, that's seen as attractive. I want to have more of that. I want to develop more of that way of being." I don't want us to get stuck on only these normal societal things like money or power or whatever. It can also be within smaller communities, within your family communities, within your friend groups, it's always there in the background helping us determine what's desirable.
Emily: Envy also could be a role in mate selection and retention. For example, it may have evolved to help identify and acquire desirable mates. Again, you're looking at things that society or evolution deems as being really desirable in a person, and that can cause you to be like, "Okay, I want them, or I'm envious of this thing that somebody has and I want that," for example. Also, it can play a role in maintaining pair bonds by motivating partners to keep up with each other.
That's a really interesting one because I think that ideally in relationships in general, you are continuing to work on yourself and continuing to work on who you are as a person and want to maybe continue to do things that will make you more interesting and attractive to your partner, but that keep-up thing is slightly different than that. That's almost like, "I got to keep up with how cool they are, how much they're doing so that they'll also see me as awesome in various ways." What do you two think about that one?
Jase: Yes. Have you heard that thing before of like, you tend to be the average of your seven closest friends in terms of--
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: I've heard that.
Emily: It's fascinating.
Dedeker: Do you think it holds any weight at all?
Emily: Wait, you're the average of your seven closest friends, but all of my friends are so incredible. How is that even–
Dedeker: You're incredible, too.
Jase: You are so incredible. Right. That idea. I've heard that before and I think there's some validity to it because our friends do influence how we think and what we're looking for. This lens of looking at that as envy is interesting. If we're imagining it not as this painful, suffering, awful, malicious envy, but just that the little stuff that's behind envy, that maybe the people close to us, the people that we value, we might put priority on the things that they seem to value, that might be part of what steers us to be the average.
I don't mean average in terms of like one metric, "Oh, my friends are this range of attractiveness and I'm exactly the average of that," or confidence or whatever, but more in terms of what their different interests are, their levels of success in different fields, their different values, more all of those things, multidimensionally speaking, the average. That makes sense if they are influencing your social world of what you value, what gets envied in that community, what do you envy, what do you wish you had more of. I could see some argument for that being why.
Dedeker: Yes, I suppose that when you enter a relationship, sometimes you're entering into this little micro-culture where you're creating a little micro-culture together. I think especially at the beginning of a relationship, you can be very influenced potentially under the throes of NRE by what this new person you're dating values. I know that's definitely happened to me before where, "Oh, I don't have any interest in designer shoes or whatever," but I'm suddenly starting to date someone who really, really values that, and that maybe starts to influence some of my values as well or not. I don't know. I feel like as I've gotten older, I've gotten a little more calcified and jaded in my personality.
Emily: That becomes interesting too. Then it's like, "Can this person complement my current value set? Can I still care about them even if I don't necessarily care about all of the things that they value?"
Dedeker: I feel like this is starting to get into the territory that we covered in our Why Do You Want What You Want episode way back in 117.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Wow, so long ago.
Dedeker: I know. I can't believe it's still even in my brain that there's sometimes weird things that influence what we actually want and what we actually envy as well.
Emily: Indeed.
Jase: Absolutely. Just to kind of put a button on this evolutionary look at why we might feel jealousy is just to remember that there's also potential negatives to it. This excessive envy can lead to harmful behaviors, which can in turn cause us to be more socially isolated rather than getting the goals that we supposedly wanted. If we go around trying to tear everyone down, we might find our friends starting to slip away or our access to community starting to go away. With a lot of things when we look at it from an evolutionary point of view, it's like it came about for a certain purpose and clearly has enough utility that it stuck around.
Yet there's often some negative parts that come with it too, especially if it's not managed. That wasting a bunch of energy on focusing on the unfairness of things or wanting to take things from other people or going after unattainable goals or unrealistic goals can be less helpful. I think in a world where we have so much visibility of what everybody in the world is doing versus just the people within our immediate local community, it can be much worse. It's something we really need to be mindful of now in a way that we probably didn't when everyone we knew was someone in our same village.
Emily: I did want to touch on real quick how societal messaging, and a lot of the things that we just talked about, and mono normativity in general can fuel envy. Something that as I've been opening up my relationships that I've seen a lot of is just this idea of a scarcity mindset. That, again, if you have something or if somebody has something, that means that I won't have it or that I can't get it, and I want somebody else to not have that thing, or I am yearning for it in some way. That often can result in I have to be the best, or there is only one best partner, for example, and if I'm not that, then that means that I am less than.
Of course, the classic you need to try to find somebody who is everything to you all in one person. They're my coach, they're my lover, they're my sexual partner, they're my hype man. All of these things at once.
Jase: That's right.
Emily: That's just a really, really difficult thing to come by and can also continue to fuel envy in so many different ways, I think in ways that can potentially be destructive to a relationship.
Dedeker: I think to pile on top of that, the thing that we haven't talked about yet that's unique to non-monogamous relationships is that you might be presented with multiple potential sources of comparison. Not just yourself with one partner, but you could be comparing yourself to multiple partners. If those multiple partners are also dating other people, you potentially have multiple metamors or other points of connection to compare yourself to. In some situations, maybe that's fine. Maybe there's no one in this particular network that tends to set off your own particular envy triggers, or maybe everybody does at once and you feel like you're just chopped liver.
You feel like you are the least smart, the least attractive, the least wanted, the least desired in this entire network. That can be extremely overwhelming and also highly, highly unique to non-monogamous relationships. Then of course, always the complication where compersion or even feelings of goodwill towards a partner's other relationships can still be present even when you have envious feelings. I think that it's important to say that because I think this is the pathway to recognizing when what you're feeling is maybe not necessarily jealousy.
I've definitely had situations where I've realized, "Okay, I'm having these really uncomfortable feelings come up, but I don't want my partner to not have this relationship or to not have this good experience or to not have this good thing that they're having. I don't feel like they don't deserve it. I don't want to take it away from them or things like that, but I still feel these feelings. Therefore, it must be some sort of envy that's also mixed with this compersion or goodwill for the other person. I know for myself it's helpful to find a way to clarify that from jealousy.
Jase: Yes, definitely. With all of this, I want to take another moment to look at the social media angle. Honestly, I actually had a really hard time putting this episode together without making it even more focused on social media because specifically when it comes to envy, that's what the whole system's built on for the most part. Especially platforms that are primarily visual like Instagram is very much the thing that keeps you there is envy. It's rough. Basically, here's the short version because I don't want to make it all about this, but the short version is that social media, there's been countless studies basically showing that it has negative effects on our mental health and our well-being.
A lot of that has to do with the comparison that it triggers. We've talked about that a little bit in the past in episodes on comparison, but one thing that's interesting here is that in some of the research, basically, people found that there's no age group that is immune to it and that often envy that's not necessarily coming directly from social media gets made worse by it. An example of this that tends to happen with younger women is feeling insecure about how they look, and so they turn to social media to find makeup tips, clothing tips, something like that, end up feeling envious of the influencers they follow and end up feeling worse about themselves and the cycle repeats.
The researchers also found this same thing applies to all age groups, an example being older people who go on social media to learn business tips or strategies or success tips end up feeling envious of the influencers they follow or feeling bad about themselves for not being able to apply these things well enough, feeling envious, feeling bad about themselves and again, get caught up in this cycle.
Dedeker: Oh, yes, it sucks.
Jase: It really sucks.
Emily: It does suck.
Jase: Yes, it does. There's three things that I found in the research that I think are interesting, relevant, and actionable. One is that, well, I guess the first two, it's that there's two main things that can make a person more vulnerable to envy inspired by social media. The first of them is low self-esteem, which is the one we focused more on our previous episode on comparison. The other one is this thing called deprivation intolerance, which is basically how much tolerance you have for not getting the things you want.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Emily: Wow. How do you measure that?
Jase: I'm sure there's various psychological measures for it, but you could also think of it as impatience for getting the things you want or just how comfortable you are wanting a thing and not yet getting it. What's interesting is some advice that I found, this is on The Guardian, actually. There was this article talking with some cognitive behavioral therapists about envy and social media specifically, but one piece of advice was to think about what you would teach a child.
Dedeker: About envy specifically or--
Jase: About deprivation intolerance.
Dedeker: I think I would teach a child to not go on social media ever.
Jase: Yes, right. This idea of when a child wants the toy that someone else has or they want something someone else has and they get upset about it, you talk to them of like, "Hey, you're fine without it. You have this other thing that's nice." How many times have you seen someone try to explain to a child, "You have this truck here. You don't need to have the toy helicopter that that kid is playing with," in a preschool setting or something of just that kind of reminding them, "You're going to survive. You're fine. You're okay." Just reminding ourselves that social media is trying to undo all that social conditioning that we learned to help us get by.
Then the third one is that there's a difference in the studies in terms of the negative effects of active social media use versus passive. What they mean by that is that active social media use is, "I'm coming on here for a purpose. I want to connect with this person I haven't seen in a while or I want to see what my friend or my family or someone is doing. I've come here with a purpose," versus passive, which is what most of us do all the time, which is just the scrolling.
It's just seeing, maybe commenting, that doesn't count as active if you're just commenting on stuff, but it's more like, "I'm not here for any reason. I'm just passively consuming whatever is fed to me," versus, "I came here to seek out something specific." The research there has shown that the negative effect is a bajillion times, that's not an official number, but a bajillion times worse if you're consuming it passively. That's another thing to keep in mind too.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: Something about being a little more intentional if you're going to consume social media.
Jase: Yes, absolutely.
Emily: Makes sense.
Dedeker: Yes, makes sense.
Emily: We want to get into some ways that you can help yourself through envy, through these emotions that come up because they're probably going to come up, let's be honest. It's fine to have emotions, but it's not fine to lash out at our partners or people that are close to us because those emotions are happening. That's what we want to avoid, and here are some practical ways in which to do that. Of course, a few basics to keep in mind when evaluating envy or jealousy or trying to work through it. It's the usual stuff that we talk about all the time on this show. You can do things like a gratitude journal, try to remember what you are grateful for, the awesome things that are happening in your life.
Also, consulting with a therapist is an excellent way to work through these emotions, and you can do a simple question. Just start with this simple question of, "How much of this feeling is feeling like it's not fair? I'm unhappy and it's not fair that this thing is happening," or otherwise feeling like someone has something that you want. How much is a fear that you will lose something that you already have, like a partner, for example, to another person? When you are talking with your partner about these emotions that you're having, try to clarify which parts are envy and which are jealousy, and what specifically that means to you.
I think that can be really helpful because you can say, "Hey, I'm being triggered by this thing that it seems like my metamor has that you're really connecting with and that's challenging for me, and because of that, I worry that you're going to want to be with them or spend more time with them over me," for example.
Jase: That would be an example of jealousy, and being able to communicate that to a partner is helpful because then they can see, "Oh, okay, the concern is about losing that thing with me, losing connection with me," versus if it were the same situation, but it's, "What's upsetting to me is feeling like I'm no good, I'm inadequate, because I don't have these qualities this person does." Then that lets your partner know to build you up for who you are rather than focusing on comparing you to them. I could see a situation where if you didn't clarify what was the part that was hard, they might not know and they might assume it's the opposite. Like you said, Emily, you gave more of the jealousy example of, "I'm afraid of losing you." They might say, "No, but you're great. You have these other qualities that's not them." While that might help, it's not exactly--
Emily: It's not really addressing the thing at hand that I'm fearful of.
Jase: Right. Getting that clarity can really be helpful to help your partner help you. Likewise, if you're on the receiving end, asking questions to better help understand how can I help you? What is it that you want support with?
Emily: To also add to the list of the usual stuff here is just definitely communication there, over communication in terms of what it is that you need or what it is that you're wanting or asking for, or fearful of and differentiating between the two. That was a lovely example of somebody potentially giving something to you that you didn't necessarily need or that wouldn't necessarily help in that way, but they're not going to be mind readers. They're not going to know specifically what it is that you do need.
Dedeker: I found once upon a time, I don't know if you remember this, Jase, but it was years ago, I think you had just hooked up with a new person or something like that. I knew that it was envy rather than jealousy that I was experiencing that I got to say to you. First of all, I clarified that this was just a T1, a triforce number one, that I just needed to be heard. I didn't need you to fix it or necessarily to soothe me or anything like that, but I got to clarify it was a T1 and I got to just express that I was feeling really envious and that was it. That was really helpful because I do think that if I had just pontificated or spewed at you about all the difficult feelings coming up, you probably would've felt maybe more urgency to be like, "I have to fix this."
Jase: Absolutely.
Dedeker: "I have to soothe you right away," versus what I knew, "Yes, this is just my own stuff coming up," but it feels important for me that my partner knows that that's what's going on with me.
Emily: How impressive to be able to do that though, to be like, "Hey, I am going to communicate this to you, but it's my shit. I'm going to deal with that.
Dedeker: It didn't feel very impressive in the moment, but it was the best that I had.
Emily: I'm still impressed by you, Dedeker.
Dedeker: Well, good. I'm glad.
Jase: To finish out this episode, we have three little tools that you could try if you want something more specific to do. The first one is an envy map, which if you're familiar with mind mapping, it's basically that. What that is, is doing this visually. Whether that's on paper or, I don't know, on your iPad or something like that. When you're trying to evaluate the feelings that are going on is to do it visually in space. Rather than on lined paper, more like imagine blank paper where you can write different people's names, different feelings, put yourself at the center of it, and then draw colored lines, get colors going on.
Maybe green for envious feelings or blue for admiration, or red for fear or jealousy, whatever colors work for you. It could also be shapes like jaggy shapes for certain feelings and others. The whole point of it is just to get it out there so that you can have a sense of the landscape. I know for me, I'm a very much a spatial visual person, and so having something that I can put in front of me in a way that I can see it around helps me get some perspective on it more so than even just writing in an orderly fashion like a bulleted list or something like that. That could be a way for you to identify certain patterns or help you understand what's going on in your inner world.
Dedeker: I really like the idea of having an emergency kit. I love having an emergency kit for any emotional freak-out situation. What I mean by that is that you create either a physical kit, or what I tend to do is I just tend to write out a list of tools or activities that I know will ground me and bring me back to earth when difficult feelings arise. This is a practice I recommend for everybody, for any kind of uncomfortable feeling or big overwhelming triggery feeling that comes up. You can make one specific to envy if that's something that you find yourself grappling with.
It can include things like reminding yourself of a list of your unique qualities and strengths, maybe photos or mementos that remind you of your relationship, maybe messages from your partner that affirm their love for you and how cool they think you are, or maybe it's just like, "I have my really close friend and I know they're the one I'm going to reach out to help pump me up," a person I know I can be vulnerable with to say, "Hey, I am feeling extremely envious right now, can you just tell me cool things about myself and my life or whatever?"
It could be your therapist or like, okay, I know this activity, locking myself in my room and doing a headstand and breathing really deeply for five minutes is going to be something that's going to help me get through this. Basically, you're front-loading the decision-making so that when you're in the middle of the envy spiral or envy attack, you're not having to come up with something to do, you already have your little emergency kit pulled together.
Jase: A cute idea for this that I've seen is having a jar that you can write down nice things, the things you appreciate about your partner, and then give it to them to pull one out of if they're ever feeling bad or want to know that you care about them. I've seen that as a cute gift that you can give your partner for their emergency kit of any kind or their insecurity emergency kit or envy emergency kit. You can feel free to try that one if you want to help provide that for your partner.
Emily: Finally, the third exercise is the reframe the story exercise. When envy arises, try to write down the current story that you're telling yourself. That means essentially just, "What am I feeling here? Why am I feeling it specifically? Is it happening because I think my partner is going to leave me for another partner, for example, or I am feeling really inadequate right now because I am worried that this person is way smarter than I am, and that makes me feel really bad about myself, for example?"
When you're feeling this and when you're writing this down, try to imagine that you're in your metamour or your partner's shoes, especially if this is specific to a non-monogamous situation, but even if it's not, try to see things from their perspective. Just get yourself out of the situation after you've written your story down and compare the two. Identify maybe some cognitive distortions in the narrative like all-or-nothing thinking or mind reading. "I know what my partner thinks," or, "Wait a minute, my partner has never said these things or suggested that I don't matter to them." What's the reality here versus this narrative that I'm personally piling onto the thing?
Then go back and rewrite the story from a more balanced and realistic perspective. Finally, practice telling yourself that version. It's like you're reverse engineering this story that you initially had and you're choosing to tell yourself this other thing to put that out into the world and not necessarily fake it till you make it, but tell yourself this thing until you start to believe it.
Jase: Yes. A lot of that's the basis of CBT, of cognitive behavioral therapy is examining our beliefs that we have that are leading us to feel the ways that we're feeling and behave the way we're behaving. This idea of evaluating that and finding like, well, what are the parts that are true or not, and really looking at that is super helpful. To close this out, I think the key thing here is just realizing that envy is a thing that happens in our lives, in our relationships, and that it doesn't necessarily have to always be bad, just like we talk about with jealousy. It's not always like, "Oh, I just need to get rid of this feeling entirely. I need to never feel this."
It might be serving a purpose, but being aware of it can help us to manage that and do that in a way that's productive and helpful for ourselves as well as for the people in our life and people that we're in relationships with. We would just want to encourage you all to look at envy as this opportunity for personal growth and improving your connections and finding your place within the micro community that you've built with your closest friends, and that hopefully it can be a thing that that really leads to positive change in your life, especially as you become aware of it and can understand that it's a force that's acting in your life.