Overcoming Jealousy in Open Relationships

Let me start by saying that it’s not my contention that I never get jealous when one of my more serious women has sex with some other guy. I’m a confident, outcome independent Alpha Male 2.0 with a strong Mission, so I don’t get very jealous, nor do I get jealous often like normal men. I have much more important things in my life to concern myself with than worrying about if the woman in my life is out having sex (usually bad sex) with some beta male who drools all over her like a starving puppy. These men are not my competition anyway. After all, jealousy can have some disastrous consequences.

Regardless, I can feel a little twinge of jealousy sometimes. It’s not common but it can happen. I’m human and a little bit of this OBW is unavoidable.

During those rare times when I feel this twinge, I come to a complete stop and remind myself of three facts:

First, I remember that my jealousy is completely obsolete in the modern world, a holdover from my outdated caveman DNA from 100,000 years ago when child-bearing women were scarce commodities and sexual jealousy did actually serve a survival-and-replication-based purpose. As we’ve discussed, monogamy was further reinforced in society when we became an agrarian people, and needed children to work on our farms. We men needed to make sure that their children were really their children and not their neighbor’s children. This monogamy-enforcement was worsened by religion in later years.

The problem is none of these things are factors any more. Nowadays we have DNA paternity testing that specifically identifies if children are yours or not. We also have literally hundreds of millions of single, young, attractive women all over the planet who will happily have sex with you without you having to marry them or promise them anything.

Under these conditions, sexual jealousy no longer serves a rational, functional purpose. It just pisses you off for no reason. In psychological terms, jealousy is a huge mental burden, so avoiding it is all the better for your life.

Whenever you’re getting sexually jealous, it’s just Grog again. He saved your life back when you were living in a cave or on an ancient farm, and that’s great. Now, in the 21st century, he’s just an obsolete idiot, serving no purpose whatsoever, other than pissing you off for absolutely zero reason and causing you to act like a child.

Second, I remember that plenty of jealousy exists in monogamous relationships too. It’s not like being monogamous eliminates jealousy. Are you kidding me? Just watch someone take a good long look at their monogamous partner’s phone or Facebook page and you’ll see that jealousy is alive and well in monogamous relationships. “Going monogamous” just to avoid jealousy is one of the dumbest things people do.

That brings up another point. If you’re a jealous person, you’re going to be jealous no matter what relationship type you choose. Monogamous, open, semi-open, swinger, polyamorous, it doesn’t matter, if you have a jealous personality, you’re going to be jealous. The problem isn’t the relationship model you choose, and it’s not the partner you pick; no, it’s your jealousy issues.

I know from experience that the women I’ve dated who are really jealous in open relationships were just as jealous when they had monogamous boyfriends prior to me (or after me!). I see this happen with men too. A guy is really jealous of his girlfriend; they break up; he gets a new girlfriend, and he’s just as jealous again.

Not good.

Third and most importantly, I remember all the huge negatives of monogamy that I never have to worry about. This includes:

• Drama
• Rules
• Boredom
• Financial expense
• Financial risk
• Cheating (both getting cheated on, and getting caught when you cheat).
• Lack of freedom
• Eventual lack of sex
• Bad breakups or divorces
• Restrictions on things like travel, moving, or hanging out with friends

I ask myself this: Would I take the one negative of occasional jealousy (some of which I would feel in a monogamous relationship anyway!) instead of the ten (or more) negatives of monogamy?

Of course I would. I would happily trade in ten negatives for one negative. That’s smart. Especially if my goal in life is consistent, long- term happiness, as opposed to intense but temporary happiness followed by unhappiness, which is what monogamy gives people.

This is the thought that usually does it for me. I feel the little pang of jealousy, remind myself it’s an emotion with no reason, and it’s a very tiny price to pay for the massive amounts of freedom, joy, and happiness I have in my life by not being monogamous. Sleeping with all the women you want with the permission of the women you’re already having sex with, without having to hide it, is a really, really good deal.

Having a healthy self-esteem, a full life, exciting goals, and a strong Mission also helps, as we’ve already discussed in prior chapters.

Anti-Jealousy Visualization Technique

If none of that is doing it for you, you can utilize a visualization technique first taught by Harry Browne back in the 1970s23, when nonmonogamous relationships started to become more recognized in society.

It’s very simple. All you do is calmly visualize the woman in your life having sex with another man. To make this really work, visualize a man who is much better looking than you are. If you are already very good looking, then visualize a man who is older than you or has much more money than you. In other words, visualize the woman in your life having fantastic sex with the most sexually threatening man you can think of.

Just by doing this, you may realize that your jealousy wasn’t nearly as bad as you first thought. You may visualize this and get a twinge of jealousy, but then think, “Eh, no big deal. This isn’t as bad as I thought.”

On the other hand, upon visualizing this for the first time, you may suddenly feel very hurt, violated, or angry. Grog the Caveman will start screaming his head off in your mind, and you may even get visibly upset.

This is fine. The angrier you get visualizing this, the more you need to visualize it. Keep going, keep visualizing. Work through the hurt, fear, and anger you feel. If you’re like most men, after a few minutes your anger and hurt will diminish. After a while, it will bother you so little that you may actually be distracted and want to go do something else.

Repeat this technique a few times over the next few days or weeks. Every time you do it, you will probably feel less jealous. Keep reminding yourself of the three anti-jealousy facts above as well.

Jealousy is a solvable problem. Never use it as an excuse to not do what will make you truly happy in the long-term.