Defeating Succorbenoth- The Demon Of Jealousy

We all know the feeling, that pit of your stomach clenching nausea, the fear and the metallic acid taste at the back of your throat. Whatever symptoms the demon brings with it, you know what I am talking about: Jealousy. This emotion is so pervasive a human experience that we have even given it a demonic name to personify everything we fear/loathe/hate about the emotion. We run from it. We hide from it. We build rituals to escape its clutches. If we are really honest with ourselves, we acknowledge it and face it down. We can never really escape from the torment but we can minimize the experience until it becomes just a small part of our overall human experience.

We all know what jealousy feels like, but most people cannot explain what jealousy is or why it happens. We just know what might cause it. As an open polyamorist, I am constantly barraged by questions about how I deal with jealousy as though it's just a foregone conclusion that it's going to be prevalent in my life. I have been vague, I have talked about how I work through the problem rather than letting it fester, but I have never opened up and really talked about how this demon worked in my life. So for the first time I will try to explain what drives jealousy by explaining how it nearly wrecked my heart.

I was raised to believe that if you truly loved someone that you would simply, and magically, never want to be touched by anyone else. I was also raised that to truly give open love and acceptance to another human being was to open yourself up to the worst pain a person can ever feel. I have always been capable of giving unconditional love; it is my fallback condition. I am primed to accept you for who you are, and love you without demanding that you change. I was taught, through many years of being physically and verbally abused by my parents, that if you love someone it's ok, even forgivable, if you will, to abuse the very essence of who they are. This is the real damage alcoholism and co-dependency wrecks on children caught in the wake. It nearly destroyed the essence of who I am but I am made of stronger stuff. I knew the pangs of jealousy but I refused to allow myself to be mired down when I was a child. I reasoned that I could steal away the thunder if I changed my parity jealousy to true celebration of the fortune of others.

Jealousy of parity is the idea that what you have is better than what I have, so I wish you ill fortune. I will then be able to obtain what you seem to have. It is theft of spirit. This is a very watered down definition of the term but you get the idea. Since I had never had something stolen from me, I had never experienced spousal jealousy. This term can mean actual jealousy of the spouse or be used more generally to mean jealousy of loss. The best term I have ever heard is the biblical "Covetousness." This term is a very strict "sin" in which you truly wish for the misfortune of another person in order to obtain that which is theirs. I have rarely felt this kind of killing emotion and I am glad of it because it tastes bitter in the mouth.

When I learned that my fairy tale romance wasn't what I thought it was, I lost my mind. I lost my reality and I learned what jealousy was, REALLY was. I burned with hatred toward these women for experiencing something with MY man that I had missed out on. I dwelt on the torrid nights of passion until I could no longer enjoy such nights of my own. I threw my fidelity in his face as often as I could so that he would understand that he was basically flawed as a human being. I railed, I screamed, I cried and worst of all I told him that I hated him. Even as I was screaming it at him in my heart I was crying, "Why am I not good enough to be your everything?" I knew I hated myself and not him. I tried my hardest to make him feel my pain but he couldn't because I was busily running from my pain. We stewed in this mess for many years until a wise mentor of mine said, "But he does love you! He has taken everything you have done and seen you at your absolute worst. What other woman has he done that for?" That day I learned that there is no room in love for jealousy.

Jealousy comes from many sources: fear of loss, fear of being marginalized, fear of being wounded. The key factor here is fear. Most people see love as a sum total loss commodity: If I love you and him then one of you HAS to be loved less. There is also the opposite: If you love me and her then you must love one of us less than the other one. The truth is the complete opposite, but we are not rational when we are faced with being open to hurt and pain. Then it follows that this fear will deepen into: If you love him/her more then you will leave me with nothing and I will be destroyed because I am less than this other person. I will be flawed if you love someone else. All of these examples truly have no basis in love but I learned that later.

Although I am Pagan I turned to the Bible for inspiration because it was where I first heard love described in great detail and in a truly inspired manner. I am, of course, speaking about 1 Corinthians. Now, gentle reader, I was raised Catholic and I have great love for the Church so you will have to forgive me for seeking out the passage in the form I am most comfortable with. I am speaking, of course, of the Catholic Bible as studied by the United Stated Conference of Catholic Bishops. The message is one that comes through loud and clear in any translation, however.

My mentor asked me where I had learned what love was. I told him that my understanding of love was from 1 Corinthians and he said that I had read the words but missed the meaning. He urged me to go back and read the passage and apply it to my relationship with Sigel. During this time I also met Arch and suddenly had a friend that I could talk to. With the help of my mentor and my new friend, I began the long road that leads past jealousy into real love.