Jealousy Is Shame in Disguise (And That Changes Everything) EP 142
Jealousy isn’t a flaw. It’s not a failure.
And it’s almost never about your partner.
In this episode of Nope! We’re Not Monogamous, Ellecia unpacks a powerful realization sparked by reading Financial Feminist:
the way we experience jealousy is strikingly similar to the way we experience money shame.
Both are rooted in scarcity.
Both are tied to safety, worth, and fear of loss.
And both get way more painful when we shame ourselves for feeling them.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why jealousy is often rooted in shame, not insecurity or immaturity
How scarcity brain shows up in relationships, especially non-monogamous ones
Why non-monogamy doesn’t create jealousy, it reveals where safety was never taught
The difference between trying to “fix” jealousy and actually listening to it
How to stop abandoning yourself when jealousy hits
A gentle somatic practice to bring your nervous system back online in the moment
Ellecia also shares why she’s been diving deeper into financial education, and how living outside the box, in relationships, careers, and family structures, requires us to build security intentionally instead of relying on default scripts.
If you’ve ever thought, “Why am I like this?” when jealousy shows up, this episode offers a compassionate reframe that might change everything.
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Music: Composer/Author (CA): Oscar Lindstein
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Hey friends. Welcome back to Nope, we're not monogamous. I'm Ellecia Paine, your non-monogamy coach. And I wanna start today with a moment that fully stopped me in my tracks. I was reading the book, financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap, and there's a section where she breaks down money. Shame, not budgeting tips, not investing strategy, but shame.
The thing is finances are consistently one of the top sources of conflicts in relationships, right? Not because people are bad with money, but because money touches on really important things like safety and power and trust and choice. We fight about spending, we fight about saving debt priorities, and then underneath all of that, we're usually actually fighting about fear.
About whether we're safe, whether we are aligned, whether we can rely on each other. And I swear to God, I had to put the book down. Well, I, I had to hit pause because I listen to audiobooks while I'm driving. [00:01:00] Uh, but I had to stop because my brain went, oh, oh shit. Oh, this is jealousy. She's talking about jealousy.
Like, not metaphorically, not kind of, but like it, this same wound just wearing a different outfit, right? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. All right? Why jealousy is often so often rooted in shame. How scarcity shows up in our relationships and why understanding this can change everything about how you experience non-monogamy.
And if you've ever thought like, why am I like this? When your jealousy hits, then this episode's for you.
So let's, let's start with money. Shame for a second, right? Money shame isn't just, I don't have enough. It sounds like I should be further along by now. Everyone else has it figured out. If I were smarter, more disciplined, more grown, I'd [00:02:00] be safe. I can't relax until I'm secure. I should be doing better. And, and money shame like lives in comparison.
It lives in scarcity. It lives in this belief that your worth is tied to performance and outcomes and how much you have. And, and the key part to this is that money shame isn't about the numbers, actually. It's about safety and value and survival. So stay with me here. Okay, now let's swap money for love.
Jealousy sounds like. I'm not chosen enough. I'm not special enough. I'm about to lose something important. Someone else is doing this better than me. If I mattered more, this wouldn't hurt. I should be better at this. Right? And this is the moment that I want you to hear this really clearly. Jealousy is almost never about your partner, right?
It's about the story that your nervous system is telling you about your worth and about your safety. Are you safe? Are you secure? [00:03:00] So it's the same root cause, same, same root, there different color. So both money, shame and jealousy come from scarcity brain from ours. Scarce little brain that says there isn't enough, someone else. Getting more means that I'm gonna get less. I have to monitor, compare, or control to stay safe. And non-monogamy doesn't create this. Non-monogamy just re removes the illusion that love is scarce in a tidy, socially approved way, right?
So if jealousy shows up, it's not because you're bad at this, it's because you're finally seen. Where you learned that love, attention, specialness, security could be taken away. Right? And that's not a flaw, that's information for you to have. So just for a second, let's zoom out. Um, because this didn't land in a vacuum for me.
One of the reasons this landed so [00:04:00] hard is because I've been intentionally learning more about money and financial systems lately. Right When you choose to live outside the box, non-monogamy, unconventional careers, creative work, chosen family, community-based living, you don't get to rely on the same assumptions about safety that our parents did, right?
You can't just assume there will be like this particular income or this particular partner, this particular path, or you'll have this fallback plan. A lot of us are out here trying to build security from scratch, and when you're doing that, shame starts to show up really fast. And so that's, I think that's why reading about money Shame felt so familiar.
It's the same fear that I see in jealousy all the time. It's the same fear I see in my clients all the time. It's the same fear that I've felt so much, this fear of like, what if I've miscalculated? What if I'm [00:05:00] not actually safe? What if I'm doing this wrong and it costs me everything?
And it's really important to understand that shame and jealousy are deeply, deeply intertwined. Shame is that like quiet internal belief. Something is wrong with me and jealousy is what happens when that belief gets activated by comparison, right? When jealousy shows up, it's, it's often carrying this fear of abandonment or a fear of not being enough, or a fear of being replaced, or a fear of being found out that you aren't everything that your partners think thinks you are right. And that fear can turn into control, hyper vigilance, constantly comparing yourself to someone else. And a lot of this gets wired really early in our lives. It's like childhood rivalry, uh, emotional inconsistency, feeling like love was conditional or could be taken away. So when people say that [00:06:00] jealousy is toxic or immature, I wanna be really clear that what they're actually seeing is unhealed shame, trying to protect itself. And here's where things get a little bit extra painful. We tend to shame jealousy the same way we shame money struggles, right? We tell ourselves like, I shouldn't feel this way.
I'm more evolved than this, or I should be more evolved than this. Or other people handle this better. Everyone else has it figured out. Why can't I? And we don't tell anyone about it. And that shame makes everything feel so much worse and so much bigger. because now you're not just feeling jealous, you're feeling bad about feeling jealous. Is like putting a screaming kid in the closet and being surprised that they don't stop screaming. They don't calm down. So I wanna offer you a little reframe. Jealousy is not a problem to fix. You are not a problem to [00:07:00] fix. Okay? This is a signal asking for safety, and the goal isn't to eliminate jealousy. The goal is to understand what the shame underneath it needs. So instead of asking yourself, how do I stop feeling this?
Start asking yourself, what am I afraid would happen if I didn't feel this?
What does this part of me believe about my value? Where did I learn that love or security is scarce? That's where the real work is. That's where you gotta dig in. Not, how do I get better at pretending that I'm fine and not feeling jealous? So let's make this, let's make this practical for a moment, and the next time jealousy hits you, try this.
Okay? Put a hand on your chest, slow your breath down just a [00:08:00] little and say quietly or out loud, this makes sense. Nothing is wrong with me. This is a part of me asking for reassurance and not punishment. There's nothing wrong with you, okay? You don't have to fix it. You don't have to logic it away, but you do have to stop abandoning yourself in the moment, okay?
Safety first solutions later. You have to regulate first. You can solve it later. Okay.
I mean, literally it's the same thing if you're. I don't know. Your debit card gets declined. You can't freak out. You can't start yelling at the cashier, right? You, you calm yourself down first. Then you, you grab your phone and you pull up your bank account and see what happened. Or you pull out an, you know, you dig through the, for the change in the bottom of your purse or, or pull out another card or [00:09:00] something, right?
But you have to calm yourself first. You can't just freak out. So safety first, regulation first, then solutions. And I wanna say this clearly, especially if you're practicing non-monogamy, jealousy does not mean you're failing. You're not wrong or bad or dramatic. It doesn't mean you're not cut out for this. It doesn't mean that you secretly want to be monogamous, even if maybe you do okay, but it doesn't mean that.
It means you're unlearning scarcity in real time, and that's really brave work.
So one last thing before we, uh, wrap up. If this little episode resonated for you, subscribing or sharing, it really helps get those conversations into the ears of the people who need them, or you can share it with someone who needs it. If you want more space to explore jealousy and shame and non-monogamy with support, I also share bonus content in deeper conversations over, over on [00:10:00] Patreon at patreon.com/not monogamous.
It's also linked in the show notes. if this episode hits something tender for you, I want you to know that you're not broken. Okay. You were taught to measure your worth in systems that are built on comparison, and now you're learning to do it differently. You're learning something different, and that takes time and support and community and a whole lot of self-compassion.
If you want help doing this work, this is exactly what I support people with in my coaching programs. And if you're not ready for that yet, start here. Start by noticing the shame without judging it. Start by noticing what you're experiencing. You're allowed to learn. You're allowed to be human. You're allowed to change your mind always, anytime. Okay, you got this. Thanks for being here. Bye.