Jealousy is a feeling almost everyone knows. It’s the tightness in your chest when you see someone else get attention you wish was yours. It’s the sinking in your stomach when someone flirts with your partner. While jealousy can show up in many parts of life it is most often talked about in romantic relationships. In our society, jealousy is not just common; it’s expected. Many people think it’s a sign of love. Movies, music, and social media often show jealousy as romantic or even necessary. If someone isn’t jealous, people might think they don’t care enough. This idea has shaped the way many of us view love and relationships, but is it actually healthy? Is jealousy a useful emotion, or is it a result of cultural beliefs that could be challenged? As more people talk openly about different ways to love, especially non-monogamous relationships, our understanding of jealousy is beginning to shift. To understand why this matters, we first need to explore how jealousy has been taught to us and what it might mean to unlearn some of those lessons.
How Monogamy Has Normalised Jealousy
For a very long time, monogamy, the idea that you have one romantic or sexual partner at a time, has been the main model for relationships in Western culture. In this structure, a person is expected to find one partner, stay faithful, and share all emotional and sexual intimacy with them alone. While this system works for many people, it also comes with strong social rules. One of those is the belief that your partner “belongs” to you in some way.
This idea of ownership in relationships can turn love into a kind of competition. If someone else becomes close to your partner either physically or emotionally, it’s seen as a threat. This is where jealousy comes in. Instead of being recognised as a feeling that arises from fear or insecurity, jealousy is often treated as proof of love. In fact, some people even try to make their partners jealous on purpose, thinking it will make them more devoted.
But when jealousy becomes part of the rules of love, it can cause harm. It can lead to control, mistrust, and even abuse. If we believe that being jealous is natural and unavoidable, we might never learn how to question where that feeling really comes from. Is it about the other person’s actions, or is it about our own fear of being replaced or forgotten?
Not all cultures view jealousy the same way. In some communities, especially those where relationships are based more on cooperation than competition, jealousy is seen as a personal issue, not a romantic badge of honour. That’s one reason why alternative relationship models, like non-monogamy, can offer new ways to think about jealousy, not as something to ignore or celebrate, but something to understand and work through.
What Is Non-Monogamy, and Why Is It Growing?
Non-monogamy is a broad term that includes many types of relationships where people are not sexually or romantically exclusive. This can include open relationships, polyamory, swinging, relationship anarchy, and more. Some people explore non-monogamy because they feel one partner can’t meet all their emotional or physical needs. Others simply don’t believe in the idea that love should be limited to one person at a time.
In the past, non-monogamy was mostly hidden, often judged as immoral or selfish. But today, that’s starting to change. Social media, podcasts, and books have made it easier for people to learn about and practise non-monogamy openly. While it’s still not fully in the mainstream, it’s definitely more visible, and that visibility is making people ask hard questions about jealousy, love, and trust.
Non-monogamous relationships don’t automatically eliminate jealousy, but they do force people to talk about it differently. If your partner has other partners, you can’t simply rely on jealousy to make decisions. You have to talk, set boundaries, and figure out what makes you feel secure. That’s where something called compersion comes in: a term used in non-monogamous communities as a foil to jealousy, yet it’s not its exact “opposite”. Compersion is the feeling of joy or happiness when your partner experiences love or pleasure with someone else. That idea might sound wild at first, especially if you’ve been raised to believe that love must come with exclusivity, but compersion shows that our emotional responses aren’t fixed. They can be shaped by what we’re taught, and they can also be reshaped by what we choose to believe.
Jealousy is a Message, Not a Warning
In non-monogamous spaces, jealousy is often seen not as a sign of love, but as a signal. It points to something that needs attention, like a fear of being left out, a need for more quality time, or a lack of trust in the relationship. Instead of using jealousy to blame or control a partner, many people in these relationships use it as a starting point for conversation. This doesn’t mean jealousy goes away completely. In fact, most non-monogamous people still experience it from time to time. But they tend to treat it more like an emotion that has something to teach them, rather than something that must be acted on immediately, controlled, or solved.
Let’s say you feel jealous when your partner goes on a date with someone else. Instead of accusing them or asking them to cancel, you might ask yourself: What am I really afraid of? Do I feel less special? Am I worried they’ll like the other person more? Do I need more reassurance? These questions can open the door to deeper communication, and surprising self-discovery.
This approach can also benefit monogamous relationships. If we start seeing jealousy as a signpost instead of a red flag, we may be less reactive and more reflective. We may start asking better questions and listening more carefully, to our partners, but also to ourselves.
What the Future of Relationships Might Look Like
It’s unlikely that non-monogamy will replace monogamy, and really, there’s no need for that to be a goal or an ideal. There’s room for all kinds of love in this world. Many people still prefer the emotional simplicity or social safety that comes with having one partner, but growing interest in relationship diversity is making space for more honest conversations about jealousy, and that could change relationship culture for everyone.
We might see more couples, even monogamous ones, becoming curious about how they relate to jealousy. They might explore how to set boundaries that feel good for both people, instead of just following the “rules” they’ve been taught. More therapists are now trained to help people navigate jealousy in all kinds of relationships, which helps reduce shame and create healthier dynamics. The biggest shift could be: instead of seeing jealousy as proof that you love someone, we might begin to see how love can thrive without jealousy. We might learn that true connection doesn’t have to come with fear, and that love is not a limited resource to guard or protect.
Final Thoughts
As more people begin to question long-standing norms around gender, work, family, and identity, it’s only natural that we also take a closer look at how we approach love and the emotions that come with it. Jealousy, long treated as a default or even desirable part of romantic relationships, is one of those emotions that deserves deeper attention. Its presence in our relationship culture isn’t just personal; it’s social, systemic, and often reinforced by the stories we’re told about what love should look like. The growing visibility of non-monogamous relationships doesn’t suggest that everyone needs to abandon monogamy. Rather, it opens up space for more honest conversations about the emotional frameworks we’ve inherited. It asks us to pause and consider: are the rules we follow in relationships actually serving us, or are we just repeating them out of habit or fear?
Jealousy isn’t inherently bad or shameful, it’s human. However, when we start to treat it not as a measure of love, but as a messenger of unmet needs or unspoken fears, we begin to move toward relationships that are more intentional, more compassionate, and more expansive. Whether we practise monogamy, non-monogamy, or something in between, we all benefit from approaching jealousy with curiosity rather than celebration. Love, in all its forms, deserves more than just survival, it deserves space to grow, question, and evolve.
