13 Sep How to Deal with jealousy when swinging

Entering the lifestyle can bring up many feelings that should be addressed if you don’t want a terrible experience. One of the more common and frightening feelings associated with starting a lifestyle journey is jealousy when swinging. Jealousy has an interesting place in society; it’s encouraged in some situations, vilified in others. Society often encourages jealousy in relationships.

Think about all those rom-com movies where the guy has no idea how much he cares until he sees the object of his desire being swept off her feet by a new suitor. Society practically demands some level of jealousy in committed relationships: heaven forbid that you are “too” secure because if you’re not jealous “enough,” you could be judged for being an inattentive or unfeeling partner. We personally find this idea pretty crazy.  Why on earth should such an unpleasant emotion be the hallmark sign that you sufficiently love your partner? Wouldn’t it make more sense to demonstrate love by focusing on positivity and support?

Life is too short to spend feeling jealous; we feel that our time is better spent loving and supporting each other as we travel together on an honest and open path. Jealousy might be natural, but we should strive to overcome it the same way we would overcome resentment, frustration, and other natural negative emotions. Unfortunately, this is a common feeling that many new swingers face and have to learn how to handle.

Still, striving to overcome jealousy during swinging doesn’t mean that it will magically disappear overnight. You’re going to experience it at some point in your relationship – everyone does. That is not a bad thing, and it’s important to recognize these feelings instead of trying to ignore or repress them. Jealousy is subjective and can be different for each person and each situation. For example, some people feel jealous when someone else uses a special nickname for their partner, while others have no problem.

Maybe you don’t feel jealous of your swinging partner holding someone else’s hand or even touching them sexually, but the thought of them kissing someone else drives you crazy. There is no right or wrong when it comes to feelings. What is important is that we identify, understand, communicate, and evolve to address our feelings better, jealousy included.

At various times in our lives, we might feel insecure or confused, which can flame jealousy. The first step to positively handling unpleasant feelings like jealousy is to acknowledge them. We remind ourselves that we are all humans by acknowledging our feelings, and this is real life, not a scripted sitcom. Not everything is going to be perfect. We may feel lonely, insecure, or jealous, and that is 100% natural. We are doing nothing wrong by having perfectly natural human emotions. There’s no point in beating ourselves up for having these feelings.

Most swingers and other people in the lifestyle have experienced these unpleasant feelings. However, participating in this sexy lifestyle does not mean that you flip a switch and become some shiny little sex machine devoid of unpleasant human emotions. The good news is that there are ways to handle and address these unpleasant emotions to move forward towards a more positive future.

Once you realize you are having unpleasant feelings like jealousy or insecurity when swinging, you should take a moment to reflect on why it is happening. We want to understand the underlying contributors to our unpleasant feelings. That is easier said than done since these unpleasant feelings can be quite powerful and be confused with other strong feelings.

You may need to take several days to relax to reflect more clearly on what has triggered your emotions. Is there something specific that has caused you to feel jealous? Is it a new feeling, or have you been feeling jealous for a while? Can you think of anything you or your partner can do to help soothe the jealous feelings and boost your confidence?

Taking a step back from the situation is a great tool for gaining perspective. Once you have had a chance to reflect on what triggered your feelings of jealousy when swinging, you can use this valuable information to learn more about yourself and what you value in your relationship. For example, did you get jealous seeing how excitedly your partner got ready for a date with someone else?

Perhaps you miss experiencing that level of excitement yourself and need to plan a special adventurous night out (with your partner or someone else) to do something brand new or something you love but haven’t been able to do in a long time. Did hearing your partner talk about how great another person’s eyes looked the other night feel like a blow right to the gut?  Perhaps you haven’t felt very noticed lately and need your partner to really see you (and your eyes!) too.

One helpful step swingers use to deal with jealousy and maximize your happiness when swinging is to cut out the negative and judgmental people in your life. Negative people who teach us to be jealous to prove our love should be ignored and avoided. If they aren’t complaining about one thing, they will be complaining about another thing. We want to surround ourselves with positive people who encourage us to make the best decisions for ourselves and our partners based on love and support instead of fear or jealousy.