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Eroticize Your Jealousy
(The Open Nesters Episode 8)
After A Divorce for Each… Life Got a Lot Better
In this Episode 8 we meet Thea and Curt. And we explore, among many other subjects, how they have been able to eroticize jealousy.
Co-parenting for Thea. The relationship with her co-parent got a lot better once they separated. The same for Curt. And now his kids are nearly fully grown. Complications. Growth. Exploration. Loving more than one partner. Open Nesting has been rich and wonderful for these to adventurers.
Amidst COVID these two open-minded adults found each other. And they found that polyamory could work for them both. Thea and Curt met in early March – just prior to COVID. And then quarantine. Phone calls. Video chats. “It was challenging, I didn’t know if we had physical chemistry,” noted Curt. “We had never kissed. Never touched skin. Not until summer. But I knew that I wanted Thea. This was the first time that I tried to pursue an additional partner. It sounded fun, but I didn’t know that I would be able to do it.”
And now Curt’s partners know of each other and know each other. “It’s been now without complications, but there has been more love in the household,” said Curt.
Multiple Partners / Logistics / Lots of Love
Thea’s kids are aware of her love and relationship circumstances. Explaining her relationships with her son. That led to them both seeking a new vocabulary to describe monogamy and non-monogamy and polyamory.
Curt has come out to his kids as polyamory in theory, but has never given them any real-life examples. And the pandemic has put much of that discussion on pause. He expects there will be some hesitancy down the line.
Thea and Curt share a fascinating thought that they are better as an Open Nesting couple than they would be as a traditional couple.
Resources for You
We want to provide you with support and many many resources for your own Open Nesting Journey. Our resource page has so much to offer as does our private discussion group on Facebook:
The Open Nesters Private Facebook Group
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- ask to join and we’ll let you in
Your Resource This Week, A Book: The Ethical Slut
At last a comprehensive, no-holds-barred guide for anyone who dreams of having all the sex and love and friendship they want. Here are the skills you need for successful – and ethical – sluthood, from scheduling dates to handling jealousy, finding partners to resolving conflict, raising children to caring for your health. If you’ve ever envisioned a universe beyond traditional lifetime monogamy, this is the book for you.
Thea read and enjoyed The Ethical Slut. An avid reader, she also recommends: Esther Perel: Mating in Captivity. Also Dan Savage: The Savage Lovecast. And Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá.
“Curt” here. Thanks so much for interviewing “Thea” and I – and for developing this podcast to help open us discussions about these issues. Since you titled this segment “Eroticize Your Jealousy” – let me say a little more about how I go about doing it:
1) I ask my lover(s) to tell me when they are going to be with another lover. I want details. I want to know the time, the setting. what they will be wearing, etc…
2) I make a point of stopping what I’m doing at that time – the time they told me – to try to feel my lover experiencing sexual heat with another person. I try to be mindful and sit with that thought. I imagine them and I imagine their lover enjoying them. I incorporate the details. If it makes me feel uncomfortable I try to focus on what is hurting. It’s usually a sense of missing out, or a fear of loss, but I try to listen to that voice. I also allow myself to think about their being together salaciously – like erotic fantasy. I like to imagine that their heat is for MY pleasure and benefit too. I often indulge in a text exchange with my lover right before her tryst in which I’ll say something like “thank you for sharing this with me and I’ll be thinking about you.” I’m hoping that some part of her will feel me – at a distance enjoying her eroticism with another. I want her, on some level, to feel watched or at least seen. I want her to feel both my consent and the passion of my salacious and emotional interest. (And I’m using the term “interest” as a deliberate understatement).
3) Later, when I reconnect with my lover I ask for details and I listen. I’m hungry for information – how did she feel? What did they do? I want to know everything. Techniques… positions… sensations. I want to know what turned her on (and him).
Jealousy can be a complicated emotion. But I’m trying to train my jealousy to understand – to feel – that my lover’s sexuality is an erotic feast that is enhanced being free and being shared. I want to feel – too – that her freedom is of a piece with my own freedom to explore sexually. I want to feel the passion of the other lover for my lover inform my own passion and desire. This person is desired by others, and yet she (sometimes) chooses me. I bask in those complications and let the conflicted emotions play over me. In their aftermath what is left, usually, comes down to desire. More desire. In this way I’ve turned jealousy into a kind of extended foreplay.
Curt, your interview, comments, and openness are so very much appreciated. This is an episode that I need to listen to over and over again. PJ
Thank you so much, PJ. That means a lot to me.