As Western culture has shifted perspectives on open relationships, perhaps it can also learn how to understand and manage jealousy better.

In the twenty years since we published the first edition of our book The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love, the word “polyamory” has evolved from a scrap of niche jargon to a headline on the cover of Newsweek; one in five Americans reports having participated in an open relationship; consensual non-monogamy has been positively portrayed in many television shows and movies.

Twenty years ago, it was common to hear polyamorous folks accusing each other of jealousy as if it were a deadly sin ­– whereas today, a “jelly moment,” or attack of jealousy, may be understood as inevitable and even as a potential source of personal growth.

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"Surmounting jealousy is made more difficult by a culture that treats it as an overwhelming emotion, possibly the worst emotion a human can have." 

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Surmounting jealousy is, however, made more difficult by a culture that treats it as an overwhelming emotion, possibly the worst emotion a human can have. (It is within our lifetimes that some states classified “cheating,” and thus jealousy, as justification for killing a spouse.) If you believe your jealousy is unsurvivable, learning to survive it can be impossible. However, our experience as polyamorists is that jealousy is like any other challenging emotion such as grief, anger, sadness or fear: it is not pleasant or fun, but it is manageable, and the tools for managing it can be learned.