Hey Jealousy

Jealous much? In this episode, D and Monet tackle the elephant in the room...how to deal (in their experience) with the jealousy that may come being in an open relationship. Is it normal? Does it mean you can't have an open relationship? Is it possible to handle jealousy and move forward in a constructive manner? Find out as D and Monet share their thoughts on this and also relate what has worked (or not) in their journey

Transcript

Daniel: 0:21

Hello and thank you for joining us. You are listening to the Let's Be Open podcast. Tonight's episode we talk about jealousy. It's a very big subject and I'm sure we'll talk about it again, but hopefully you enjoy the conversation. Here with me tonight is of course my lovely co host Monet. Monet, how are you tonight?

Monet: 0:45

Hey there, D. I'm doing great. How about yourself?

Daniel: 0:50

Not bad tonight was back to school night for both kids. Course, my wife, who already has a very busy schedule of full time mom and running her own business. She is the PTA president of the school. Oh, of course. Of course, yes. Of course, yes. Only her would sign up for that. And yeah. So she went to my daughter's school because that's where she's, pTA president, and I took my son to his school and then we came back home for dinner and yeah, so it was a very busy night, but very productive, I have to say yeah, so how about you? How was your day today? Day was

Monet: 1:33

chill. Yeah. Work was a little bit busier than usual'cause we had a holiday Monday, so that kind of threw, readjust our schedule, but not bad at all. I came home and actually on the way home ate, drove me to work. So we had to pick me up. So then we went out and picked up some dinner and came home and ate. And then he had to go out with our son for some practice, some sports practice. And I just sat here and Yeah, I did, worked on the rest of my notes for tonight's topic, because I'm very excited to talk about jealousy.

Daniel: 2:03

Big issue. What have you and Nate been up to as far as lifestyle events?

Monet: 2:10

Of course, we have our motorcycle writing group, again, MSM, I'm sorry, I'm getting that wrong, MRSC. If anyone out there, any of our listeners, if you're a writer, look us up. Please feel free to join our group. Yeah, and come out and check out our rides. So we do that once a month. This past weekend, we, our friend that heads up the motorcycle riding group, he wanted to build a gazebo in his backyard. So we went over there and helped him with that. And truth be told, it was, pardon me, truth be told, it was the guys that were doing all the manual labor. The ladies, have some water. It's lunchtime, we'll prep lunch, we'll prep dinner. So we kept the guys motivated, hopefully. Sounds like fun. Yeah, it was a good weekend and those are all lifestyle friends that we did a quote unquote vanilla activity,

Daniel: 3:00

and I really hope I get a chance to meet them one day. Because I heard you talk about it, A talk about it, and it sounds like it's a really fine group of good people and just, having good times.

Monet: 3:12

Really chill people, really great people. Cannot speak about the group highly enough. In fact, we have couples that actually come down from Bakersfield. Wow. To willingly take the drive. Yes. We had this last pool party we had. It was four couples from Bakersfield. So that speaks very highly of the group. Yeah. To come this far.

Daniel: 3:35

That's a two hour drive right there. Yep. And then not to mention you have to come up that 5 freeway yeah. It's just, yeah. That's a killer right there. They must really like you guys.

Monet: 3:46

Exactly. Yep. Agreed.

Daniel: 3:48

We haven't really done anything as far as going to on any dates or any parties but last Saturday my wife and I had a So we thought we'd make a little night of it. So we we booked a room at the Hilton in Long Beach they upgraded to a suite, which we weren't expecting. Yeah. And we're like, Oh, once we found out, we're like, Oh, we should've came earlier. But then it was a corner suite. And the icing on the cake was that they had a this suite had a balcony and the view was just amazing. You could see the downtown from it, the beach. And. But then of course my swinger husband will start turning in my head. And I'm like, wow, this is we can, this would be a good room to like host a few couples. And so I told. I told my wife and she agreed because the balcony was huge. You can easily fit 50 people back there. Now, obviously we wouldn't invite that many people, but but yeah, it was just, it had like in the. patio it had a pretty sweet setup of like couches and a table and then on the other side it had an another table with a few chairs and stuff. So we went to the fundraiser and saw our friends for caught up with them for about an hour and then we decided to cut it short and head back to enjoy the room.

Monet: 5:25

Nice. Good for you guys. That's fun.

Daniel: 5:28

So it was it's a fun track. If you ever I forgot the room number, but if you're ever in Long Beach, Hilton, ask for the corner suite. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Monet: 5:39

Yeah. I crossed my fingers for the upgrade. Yeah.

Daniel: 5:43

And then they have a very very good service. Our ice machine was out of ice. And yeah, and we did invite a couple friends back from the event we went to none of them non lifestyle friends. And we told them we were there where the machine was out of ice and within minutes, they had two big buckets of ice to the room. Yeah. And yeah, so yeah, so good service over there. Nothing but a good experience. So hopefully one day we can have a little like meet and greet or something. That'd be great.

Monet: 6:18

Yeah. Sounds good. Although

Daniel: 6:21

like hotel parties really aren't our thing. I know I think I think I mentioned it exactly. Yeah, it was a. uncomfortable experience. And so maybe we should have another one. Maybe turn a negative into a positive.

Monet: 6:37

I don't know. That's what I was going to say. If you host it or if we host it together or something, then we do our own rules and single guys cannot walk around naked. There you

Daniel: 6:50

go. Although I am happy to announce that we have signed up and it looks like we're going to go to our first house party, which is at the end of the month. Yeah I believe the group is called Swinger Hearts and I don't want to give like the location, but and I think the theme is

Monet: 7:08

Disney. They actually have parties in different locations. They move around. But yeah, the group is Swing Hearts on Cassidy. Yeah, and we'll actually be at that one. And I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, but the theme is... Dirty Disney, just like you said.

Daniel: 7:26

Yeah, so it should be fun. That's the thing with like stringer parties. It's the theme, if you dress up to the theme, it could be

Monet: 7:31

fine. Yeah. Yeah. And actually they've done this one before and a lot of people participate in this one. And then my husband was reminding me that Disney now has. A lot of other things besides the traditional Disney princesses, they own Marvel now, Star Wars. So you can always pull from there as well,

Daniel: 7:50

that's why I like, I love Halloween because it's I think secretly, I'm a, I like cosplay. I like dressed up. Yeah.

Monet: 8:01

Not a secret anymore.

Daniel: 8:03

That's actually how our I don't want to say our first experience, but this is the first time we actually pushed the boundaries. We went to a Halloween party with my wife and her friend and their friend's boyfriend at the time. Okay. And... I don't know what happened, but obviously we're hanging out with them. And then at some point we were on a couch and her friend and I were sitting next to each other having a conversation and my wife and her, the husband, not the husband, but the boyfriend at the time was having a conversation. And I could tell, both conversations were very intimate and the body language and everything and We came back home and we were talking about it. We're like, oh my god, that's almost happened and We just had fantastic sex that night Yeah, so that was like our yeah that was like our Dipping our toes into the lifestyle, as you would say. But but I've always been a fan of Halloween. I love to I love when women dressed up. I find it, it turns me on, yeah. What about you? Are you a costume person?

Monet: 9:27

I love getting dressed up for Halloween. I've always said, even way before I was in my lifestyle, listen, it's the only time of the year you can walk around looking as crazy as you want. And no one bats an eyelash. It's just, it's Halloween. Okay.

Daniel: 9:44

Yeah. People take risks at Halloween. So their personalities come out. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So I want to. Say thank you to everybody. I don't know if you know this but We've hit up Over a hundred downloads on this podcast. So on behalf of mo and I Thank you. It's nice to know somebody's listening Yeah hopefully, the goal is to grow this community and see where it takes us, but we're enjoying doing this. We're having fun. And so hopefully yeah you enjoy this for the, for our journey. See where this takes us. Yes. Thank

Monet: 10:27

you so much. We appreciate you.

Daniel: 10:29

Sorry I had to take a sip. I'm No worries. I was telling Monet before the podcast that someone introduced me to Orange Jamerson. I'm a big whiskey fan, I love whiskey, and they gave me orange jamerson as a gift and I didn't think I was gonna like it. So far, I have nothing but good things to say about it. It's a very refreshing thing. That's the word I probably see you. So my, I would drink it straight up, but if you like a cocktail, maybe mix it in with some type of soda. So like I, tonight I used squirt, but maybe like a sunkissed or something. Yeah, it should be very delicious.

Monet: 11:13

I'm not a fan of whiskey, but I might enjoy that orange one and like you're saying to mix it with squirt or some other clear citrus soda would be good. Usually

Daniel: 11:22

I like regular Jamerson with ginger ale. That's my go to comfortable drink. Number two on the list would be a nice mojito. My, my wife has The recipe for a fresh batch mojitos and I try to get her to make it every day, but she won't. But she'll make it once in a while. She'll make it once in a while. Fresh ingredients and oh, I love it. Yeah, I'll be

Monet: 11:51

waiting for my invite then. So we can drive in distance.

Daniel: 11:56

Yeah, just literally. Maybe we could, I can get her make us a batch and we can pregame before we head to the

Monet: 12:04

party. Oh, that's a good idea. I like it. Yeah, I like it. I like it. Start working on that. Okay.

Daniel: 12:12

So tonight's episode topic is jealousy and this is a very broad subject. Yeah. Yeah. When I was started researching and thinking about jealousy this one story comes to mind and. Back in the day, I, when I was working at a let's go nursing facility in Torrance. I worked with a group of women and obviously just any I would have lunch with my coworkers and it came up one day swinging the lifestyle. And of course they did not. know a single thing, fact about swinging or the lifestyle. And so they started making assumptions. So I came up first, I think the first it was sex club, sex parties. And the conversation just worked this course. And it was like, Oh yeah, no you have to be, once you're there, you're anyone can come and do anything to you. And I'm I'm sitting and I'm sitting and I'm just like, should I say something? Should I not exactly. And so I decided not to say anything. And then of course a lot of, then it led to what happens if you were to go and then they were, admitted, they're like, no it would be, I'm too competitive. That was one phrase. I'm too competitive. I wouldn't be able to go through with it. What if he likes her more than he likes me? What if she does something better? What if she has a better body than me? And right away, it came to... I started thinking about this and I'm like, you know what? I think jealousy... Has more to do with insecurity than anything else and I'm not sure where you stand on it because we haven't really talked about it, but if you know I think and we I think you said it in the first podcast like If you're gonna go down this road the lifestyle going to pinpoint your problems. So if you're not 100% confident in your relationship, it's going to come out. And if you're not, if you have insecurities yourself, as far as maybe like body image or the way you perform or whatever it is. That's also going to come out. What do you think what do you think where jealousy comes from? Because I can't, for me, I think it comes from insecurities.

Monet: 14:48

Yes I do agree with you there. What I did when I was doing my prep work for this episode is that I wanted to define jealousy first of all. So just a very broad definition could be fiercely protective of one's rights or possessions. So I thought that was an interesting definition. And then for my own personal definition, I said that it's simply an emotion similar to any other. And I guess if you want to say negative emotion, you can like maybe sadness or anger, but it's certainly not the big green monster that our society likes to tell us that it is. It's simply an emotion that we get to manage like any other emotion. And then to expand on what you shared about insecurity, for sure it, jealousy is rooted in insecurity, but I think we get to dig a little bit deeper and realize that the insecurity, what is that rooted in? And it's really rooted in fear. We're afraid, what are we afraid of losing something, missing out on something? FOMO of course, right? Of course. It's just rooted. Possibly being excluded or not being good enough, being inadequate or otherwise lacking some other area. So that's really what the fear, that's where that comes from. And like you said, we get to work on. On our own securities and our own confidence, if you will, our own self esteem. And we all basically experience jealousy in different ways. So we have to figure out what that looks like for us so that once we figure out what it looks like, how jealousy manifests, then we can confront it and overcome it. And the key to that is introspection. You have to look within yourself to identify.

Daniel: 16:52

Yeah, I was trying to think if my wife and I had a conversation of jealousy prior to playing and I can't really think of it. I don't think we had that conversation because of course when you're digesting all this You think about the good stuff and so like right away I'm like, oh good. I'm gonna get to You know play with another person. I'm gonna be able to see my girlfriend with another person is exactly what I want and So therefore you're like then this is what I want. This is I can't get jealous And then, fast forward, I think I talked about this in the first or maybe the second episode of our first play partners and her making different sounds and then me. Oh, yeah, and I, of course, the insecurities hit me first. Oh, is he better than, is he better than me? Of course, yes. Giving oral sex and, and so I was like am I not the best partner for her? So like literally these questions were going through my head and obviously, and again, we've said this, I think on every episode communication is the key. And so instead of, Having all these thoughts in my head, I right away, I thought let's just get it out in the open. Let's talk about it. And therefore, let's see where it goes. And again, had nothing to do with me. It was just more technique. And once I understood that, I was able to like, take that technique, perform it all, to, I was able to take that technique and use it for, to make my, now, wife happier. To improve

Monet: 18:47

yourself. Exactly. To improve your own skill. Exactly. And I think

Daniel: 18:52

that's a. Go ahead. You shared.

Monet: 18:55

Yeah. No, I was just going to say. Oh. That was Kimi that you shared. About it was an opportunity for you to learn. And improve as a lover for your wife. Yeah. And I think that's a thing

Daniel: 19:06

too. And I think that's a thing too. Yeah. Like when you're. I think that's a thing too. When you're talking about this, let's say like you and your spouse are talking about getting into lifestyle, and you start maybe bringing that into the bedroom as far as like dirty talk and your foreplay. At that point it's still a it's a fantasy yeah, but the second you bring another individual into Your bedroom and you start playing with them or maybe even just talking with them, you know texting with them That fantasy has gone away and now it's a reality and that's where I think people tend to have Problems with it's not the fantasy part. It's the reality

Monet: 19:59

I hear you What I was going to say about jealousy one of the things that I learned I think it was about two years now. I took some time off and I did a lot of introspection And I learned a lot about jealousy and one of the most important things I learned Is that a healthy way to look at jealousy is that really it's Similar to the check engine light on your car. And so what does that mean? When you see the check engine light go on your car, that indicates there's an issue. Tire pressures low. You need oil, the brakes, your seatbelts not on whatever it is. It's just a warning light. And so jealousy is the same thing. It's a signal that we have emotions or needs need to be addressed. And the way that it's manifesting itself is through jealousy, right? And so part of what we get to do is unlearn jealousy and also to disempower it. And so we have to, we get to look at our thinking patterns and there's going to be times when we'll make mistakes. We want to address our thinking patterns and grow and get better. new ways of thinking. But really there's no graceful way to unlearn jealousy. It's messy. The best analogy that I thought That I thought of. It's similar to roller skating. When we're learning how to roller skate. We're standing on wheels. And we're losing our balance. We're, our arms are flailing about. We're grabbing the nearest person or the nearest object to get our own stability. And that's like what working on jealousy is. Because we're being so vulnerable with our emotional needs. And sometimes we're expressing those particular, whether they're psychological needs or emotional needs or sexual needs, it's the first time we're saying them out loud. So we feel very vulnerable to have to say, Hey, I need you to acknowledge me. I need to be appreciated in this way. And so it can be, very scary and it can feel overwhelming at times. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Daniel: 22:20

absolutely. I was trying to think of a specific I just gave an example, but I think for my wife and I, we've had the luxury of every play partner we've had has respect to our relationship. So no, so we haven't had any of our play partners cross those boundaries or try to pull their attention more towards them. So far, so good. However, I was trying to to think and one example did come to mind. A few years back one of my play partners happens to be one of my wife's friends, and we played one time, and we both decided it was just a one time thing, but we remain friends. But she was going through a bit of a rough patch, and this is a about the time of COVID. So you can imagine for us with the baby COVID, not a lot of room to have date nights, right? To go out. But the fact that she was going through a rough patch I made an effort to have lunch with her and we got to spend the day together and My wife later on, she didn't hold this against me, but we had a conversation. She's I know I approved of this. I know I said yes, it was a little jealous that you went out on a date with somebody where we haven't had that maybe in the future, this is going to be a continuous thing. We can have a date first before You know you go out with somebody now again, that was just a one time thing So we haven't had a chance to cross that bridge. But again simple communication Avoided probably a big fight And I think that's a lot of People tend to cross that bridge, so they tend to hold back a little bit and, again, I know it's a tough conversation, but again, if you're going to go through this journey of the lifestyle, you're going to have some tough conversations. You're going to have to be vulnerable to your spouse and express your feelings.

Monet: 24:46

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And along that line, you have to acknowledge your own feelings, your own thoughts, your own needs. And before, you have to know in your own mind and in your own heart before you can, express them to your partner. And the other thing too is we're not trained how to talk about our psychological needs, our emotional needs, our sexual needs. So it's definitely a challenge. And what I wanted to say also, again, I cannot plug the ethical slut more, a lot of what I got about jealousy is from the ethical slut. So again, pick that book up, people read it interesting conversations you'll have and yeah, highly recommend. Anyway, what I was going to say is that what I read in the ethical slut, they said to establish within yourself. within your relationship a strong foundation of safety and that safety should not be dependent on sexual exclusivity. So my husband and I have an open relationship and even though we're not sexually exclusive. I know I'm safe in the relationship. I know he's committed to me. He knows I'm committed to him. Even though I have regular lover, lovers that I see, he's still my foundation, my rock, my number one. When the chips are down, who's going to be there? He'll be there. Period. Regardless of whether anyone is there or not, anyone else is there. As long as he's there, I'm going to be okay.

Daniel: 26:20

Yeah. To me, that's great. You should put your spouse first. Bottom line and yeah, again, that's what I took when I had the conversation with my wife was like she's right I'm not gonna fight her. I could have easily said nothing happened on the date, you know All we did was you know, we had a sandwich and we went for a walk and Nothing happened. And again, and she was calm. She's this is what I'm feeling. This is where I'm coming from Yes, and you know sometimes It's important to hear as well as talk.

Monet: 26:53

So yeah. And she approached you correctly. She didn't get caught up in her emotions. She did not allow the jealousy that she felt to dictate her emotions and her attitude towards you. Yeah, she took control of that jealousy. So that's also again, something I learned in the ethical slut is that it sounds as weird as it sounds. We get to own our jealousy. And say, okay, this is what I'm feeling. You get to acknowledge that and then say, however, I will not allow it to take control and take over. So you get to make that decision and refuse to act out of the jealousy. So you can commit to that, and it is okay to feel jealous feelings, but I don't have to allow jealousy to take control and, do something negative towards my partner. So experiencing jealousy is something that's survivable. It's not a pleasant experience, but we can feel those jealous feelings, acknowledge them, and move through them.

Daniel: 28:06

Yeah. That's just well said. That's awesome. Not to put you on the spot, but Has there been a time where you've gotten like jealous?

Monet: 28:20

Oh yeah, especially early on and then there was something a couple of years ago also Yeah Which facilitated so early on I think the more normal type of things I didn't want For a to tell me anything about his dates, right when he would go see someone and it took me a long time to even Quote unquote, let that happen. Let him go out on a date. And then yeah, because again, yeah. Spending time, Oh, he's spending time with another woman, what they're doing. And, I didn't want to know. I just, okay, fine, whatever. So let me learn to tolerate that. And then over time I began to learn to accept that because like you were saying, it's about making my partner happy. He does so much and gives so much to me to make him happy to make me happy. Sorry, and then I want to make I want, to him to have these experiences that he wants to have just because I may not be, this huge football fan, but he loves football. So if you can go with someone who really loves it, like him, then his enjoyment is, And then he's grateful to me for letting them have that experience. So in an odd way, as we all know, those of us who've been involved in the lifestyle for a while, the lifestyle actually draws us closer to our partner, which seems counterintuitive according to everything that we're told in our society. But because we allow each other this freedom. To be who we are and to have certain experiences, we are drawn closer to our partner. It's an amazing thing. Anyway, getting back to your question. So the more recent thing that happened a couple of years ago, which facilitated this 30 day journey that I took and learned about my own jealousy, learning about the check engine light. So we had met somebody who was very into She was into both of us but she really was very verbal with my husband about her attraction to him and this and that. And of course he got sucked all into that, who wouldn't, man or woman, right? We love hearing compliments and being built up and this and that, and So little, quote unquote, little things would happen. I would mention those things to him or question, but question in a, in an accusatory way, accusing him of something, whatever my deal was at that time. And so I was deflecting onto him you said you didn't say you, you should have said, and I was focusing on him and his behavior as opposed to seeing jealousy for what it was. Okay. Okay. I'm seeing this interaction. It's touching something inside of me. And I'm responsible for that. What is it touching? What's really going on? And that's what I need to discuss with my spouse. Oh, when I saw this happen, I felt fearful that I was going to be left out, that I wasn't going to be included that, you know what I'm saying? And so forth. That's the introspection of digging deeper. And that is where the work is. And that is the hard part. But, If that's what you want to do, you can accomplish that. You can grow and learn how to handle jealousy. So please do not get me wrong. I'm not saying I never feel jealous ever. I'm a woman, right? So I have quote unquote good days. I have bad days where I feel great about myself, days where I don't feel great about myself. So do I get jealous? Yes, but it's much more fleeting now. It's much more momentary now. It's much more why did I feel that way? What happened inside my heart or in my mind? Okay, I'm afraid I'm insecure about the whatever it is. I can identify that and say okay who gets to fix that I do if it's about my looks if I don't like the way my body looks Okay, guess what I can exercise I can tweak my diet Is it that important to me if it is then I'll do it and if it's not then I won't That's just the way it is. And so that is introspection and that is the hard work that we get to do. And so that's what I did. And in some ways, I think that was the main reason why she came into our life was to cause this interaction because she's no longer around. Unfortunate and I wish her well, but it is what it is. And I'm a better person for having gone through that. I think unfortunately my husband got hurt in that because of what I did, but thankfully we are still together and we worked it out and yeah, but again, not no easy tasks. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him. It certainly wasn't easy for me, but we, again, I think the lifestyle. Gave us the strength gave us the grit to do that work, because it is hard work

Daniel: 33:37

yeah, I mean it seems like you said it might not end in like the best way like for everybody but To me, it seems like you guys came out stronger in a way. So It's good that you guys, cross, you know that bridge and that journey together and you know It was a challenge, but you're better off for it. So Yes. Yes.

Monet: 34:00

It was positive. And I think I mentioned this before. Yeah, for sure it was definitely positive. Another way that it impacted, and I think I briefly touched on it in one of our earlier episodes she, so she was bisexual, the gal that we no longer see. She was bisexual and she really embraced her bisexuality. She was not at all hesitant with it and watching her and seeing her and being around her and around that energy. I guess in some ways allowed me to give myself permission to say, yeah I'm bisexual. I can embrace that. I can quote unquote wear that label. Okay. I'm just a people person. I like people period, some happen to be women, some happen to be men and it's all good, and then after she went on her way, then I recently met another woman and again, very for me, just being relaxed about my attraction to her. I don't have to hide it from my spouse. It's out in the open. We freely talk about it.

Daniel: 35:05

That's good. Yeah. And that sounds to me good, positive communication back and forth between you and your husband. And that's exactly what you want when you're coming into the lifestyle. That's why they say lifestyle. Again, it's not for everybody. I think that's the reason why going back to that, my coworkers, I was thinking, I was Trying to process everything what was going on at the time and I'm like I could tell them It's a good time to educate them. But in the same time I'm like you know what, you know They I heard him say it's not for them. So I'm not gonna push it and I'm just gonna go ahead and It's fun talk for them, and that's what this is. Yeah. I'm going to you have to

Monet: 35:52

know your audience. I wanted to share this to you and I were talking about what we had done this past weekend, right? A and I went to a friend of ours house to build a gazebo, help him build the gazebo. And one of the persons that came from Bakersfield to help build the gazebo, he was saying that whenever he gets together with his friends, vanilla friends, and they're doing each other's backyards their projects or whatever, fencing, whatever it is, he's they're cursing at each other, yelling, name calling, blah, blah, blah. And he says, I don't hardly know you guys that much and everybody's getting along and talking and laughing and we all look at each other and we laugh and we say it's because it boils down to communication. Those vanilla people don't know how to communicate and it's so weird how the communication translates across. Cross your life, not only in this arena, the lifestyle in it, but also at work in your family relationships in new friendships that you meet that are vanilla. It positively impacts. In a great way your communication. I

Daniel: 37:03

agree and I got compliment that the other day at work everyone tends to play these games right and they'll use email though, you know have clicks and you know some and I work in rehab and some people had a problem this one department had a problem with the rehab department and instead of Playing the game of talking to other people about it. I just went into that department head's office and was like, I understand you're upset with, a, B, and C I go, let's figure it out. And the look on her face was like, she was not. Expecting that right? And I'm like then I also told her to, I'm like, look, it's important to me that you and I are on the same page. I'm not here to make enemies. I go, we're on the same team. Let's figure this out. I think she appreciated that and ever since then it's been, pretty positive But I again, it's just like there's no Yeah, thank you But again, too, it's just you know if I could tell my wife That oh what I just done with this other girl or do something in front of my wife I could tell, I could talk to anybody and

Monet: 38:28

yes, about anything, everything compels in comparison, to have such intimate conversations with your spouse about another person.

Daniel: 38:37

Exactly. All right, so is there anything else you would like to like, bring up as far as I'm jealous.

Monet: 38:44

Yeah, in regards to jealousy what I wanted to say I think I said, mentioned it earlier about that. It's okay for us to have jealous feelings. And part of our challenge in dealing with jealousy is a lot of times we want to avoid feelings that we think are scary or painful. But the more we fight to avoid those feelings, the more powerful they become. And so we're getting the exact result we don't want. So that's why I say, and I encourage you guys, give yourself permission to identify and feel your true feelings. Remember, jealousy is just the check engine light. What is deeper? What's really going on? What am I really afraid of? And we get to own our jealousy, and not only to our own selves, to admit it to our own selves, but then with our partner, of course, and any other trusted intimates that we may have. How would you react to your... It's one of your children expressing jealousy over another child's toy or gift or talent, whatever it is. You're kind to them. You don't tell them, don't feel that way. You're kind to them, you're loving and you do your best to point out their good qualities or their talents or their skills that they've learned. Guess what? That's how we should treat ourselves when we. Feel jealous, be gentle with myself. Speak kind words, encourage myself. Okay. Maybe I may not have this, but I have that I'm uniquely me. There's no other one like me. I even had twin daughters and they are not alike at all. Even though physically they're identical, their build is very similar, but they're still unique individuals. Guess what? Every single one of us, it's the same. And so we get to start acknowledging and talking positively towards ourselves so we can help build our self confidence. And if you really struggle with self confidence, Hey, again, YouTube, there's videos you can watch to learn how to build your self confidence and your self esteem. Esteem. There's books you can read, there's audio books. See a therapist, do whatever it is you need to do so that you can heal yourself again, so that you can be your best self and your best partner and your best. Just your best across your life, right?

Daniel: 41:19

That's well said. Yeah, I think you, you hit it all right there. Okay, so I think that's that's it for me. You took the words right out of my mouth. Sorry. No, you're good. Yeah, you're good. Okay. First things first, if you would want if you have any questions about this topics, if you're like thinking about coming into the lifestyle or if you're in the lifestyle and you have a specific question, you can DM us at less mo and big D. At on Twitter you can find my wife's and I profile on Cassidy curious couple. And then I'm not sure I forgot, I always forget your screen name on Cassidy.

Monet: 42:02

Our screen name is lovers, the number two. The letter explore lovers to explore and it's LVRS the number two and then explore. Yeah. So look us up. Send us questions. Of

Daniel: 42:18

course. And then finally you can email your questions at less be open podcasts at Gmail. And if you want, we can message you back discreetly, or we can maybe talk about it on the next podcast before we get into the next topic. It's up to you, but again thank you for listening and anything else you want to say goodbye.

Monet: 42:46

Sure. Good night, everyone. See you next time.

Daniel: 42:49

Good night and enjoy your weekend. Alright. Peace out.