Welcome to the 76^th edition of Into the A+ Advice Box, in which we answer all the queer and lesbian advice questions from A+ members who submitted their queries into our A+ ask box! Here, we answer your questions in a space just for A+ members, safe from the general public. (No guarantees regarding your ex, however.) Here, the Autostraddle team’s doling out advice on everything from sex and relationships, to friend and family dynamics, career questions, style, and more! We’re doing this column TWICE a month, now.

Every SECOND A+ Advice box of the month is themed, like this one! Next month’s theme is FORGIVENESS/ACCOUNTABILITY.  What do you need help being accountable for? Who do you need help forgiving? Are there patterns of resentment, grudges, avoidance, making excuses that you want to get out from under? We are going to practice holding ourselves accountable and forgiving others, together in this advice box. Get those questions in by Monday, February 6th! Go! Do it! This will publish on the 17th!

The general Into the A+ Advice Boxes, where we take questions on practically any topic, publish on the first Friday of each month, and you can send questions on any topic, at any time.

So, now, let’s dig in!!

Q1:

I’ve always been prone to envy, i.e..misery when someone has something I want. Only its focus changes — certain clothes and pets when I was a kid, now sex, romance, access to oceans, and healthy relationships with food. When I hear about real or fictional people having such things, I often get burning bitterness, dull despair, or a weeping breakdown. This makes it harder for me to socialize, read books, learn about queer communities and being queer (I’m bi), or generally be a likeable, peaceful-minded person.

When I’ve asked people how to deal with my envy, they’ve called me absurd, emotionally stunted, or unhealthy. (Envying fictional people is deemed especially wrong, which puzzles me — characters provoke emotions!) At best, it I get “I don’t feel that way, so I don’t know what to say.” Even my wonderful therapist just asks what purpose it serves — it helps me identify desired things to strive for, but I’d be better off without it. Constant vulnerability to impactfully intense envy seems to be a brain-bug that most people just don’t have. How can I reduce it?

A:

Heather: Okay! Since you brought up fictional characters, I’m going to run with this analogy I’ve been noodling on since I first read all the questions in this week’s A+ Advice Box!

Imagine, for a second, that the Mouse Who Has That Cookie spent all his time thinking about how he wished he had Harold’s Purple Crayon, and the Cat in the Hat constantly fretted over the Mouse’s Cookie, and Red Pajama Llama just wanted the Cat’s Hat, and Corduroy Bear spent his whole life trying to get the Llama’s Red Pajamas instead of finding his own button, and Curious George got so obsessed with getting something as cool as Corduroy Bear’s button that he never even went to the zoo! That’s what envy’s like. Not just wanting what other people have, but becoming so consumed by it that you end up casting yourself as a supporting character in their story, instead of inhabiting the full and wondrous world of your own story, where you’re the main character. Your life is meant to be your very own book, full of vibrant adventure, and silly mishaps, peppered with surprising connections, poignant lessons, a helping hand just when you need it most. If the Cookie Mouse spent all his time scrolling Curious George’s Instagram and seething with resentment everytime that silly monkey got up to some hijinks, Cookie Mouse would miss all the joys of being The Mouse With The Cookie! Which is a VERY COOL thing to be!

One of the hardest — but most freeing — things you can realize is that the only person who will ever make you a main character is you. No one will ever think about you as much as you think about you, no one will ever want what’s best for you the way you will, and no one will ever know what’s best for you either. Humans spend so much time worrying about what everyone else is thinking about them, how everyone else is comparing them to their peers, how everyone is judging them for what they have and have not accomplished, what they do and do not own, where they go and what they say and Who Wore It Better, when the truth is that other people aren’t really thinking about us that much at all. They’re thinking about themselves, the same way we’re thinking about ourselves. They’re writing their own stories, inhabiting their own bright and beautiful worlds. When we spend all our time coveting the stuff that makes other people’s worlds so warm and vivid, we’re allowing the color to be drained out of our own worlds, leaving sad, cold, empty pages. And, friend, only you can fill in those pages!

I tend to think gratitude is the opposite of envy, and one good way to start coloring in the pages of your own story is to focus on what you’re thankful for inside it. You can start small. Like with an actual cookie! You can do a gratitude journal, or just jot down a few things every day you’re grateful for, or even do it on social media or a group text if you want some accountability. The next thing you could do is start cultivating a culture of celebration around the people you love. Cheer them on when something awesome happens to them, even if you’re still struggling with envy and your whole heart isn’t in it at first. Tell them how proud and excited you are of them, share their successes out loud with other people. I bet you’ll find that the joy you draw into their stories will find its way back into yours, as they celebrate you too.

I also think your therapist is right that envy is kind of just a symptom of a different thing, and maybe it’d be good to drill down on it and find out what’s really underneath there. It’s not like you don’t want the Llama to have his Red Pajamas, right? So what is it? Do you just want some Red Pajamas? Well, get some! Or is it deeper? Do you want the praise and adoration the Llama gets every time he wears his Red Pajamas? Do his Red Pajamas make you realize you’re never actually cozy or relaxed? Did you have no pajamas growing up, and seeing the Llama in his Red Pajamas reminds you of that childhood trauma? Do the Red Pajamas represent something more than snuggly sleepwear? If you can poke, poke, poke your way down to the root of your envy and address what’s really going on there, that will be huge for you.

Try a little gratitude for what’s in your own book, celebrate what others have in theirs, figure out what would truly thrill you if it were included in your story, and paint it on the page. Be like Harold! Hold onto your wits and your Purple Crayon; draw a balloon and grab onto it!

Darcy: All of Heather’s advice is SO good (of course)! I just wanted to pop in and note that I used to struggle with a lot of what you’re describing, and that I don’t anymore! I’m not trying to gloat, but I did want to let you know that it’s possible to get to the other side!

Thoughts are funny things. They pop up unbidden and ride around with us and we toss moral labels on them and use them to define ourselves but really, our thoughts aren’t *us,* and they don’t have a moral value. They’re just there, bubbling up like a spring. You get to decide what you do with those thoughts — whether you hold them close, or let them pass by without nurturing them further. Heather dives into that so succinctly up above, when she talks about intentionally moving your focus away from your envious thoughts, and towards self-fulfillment and gratitude. You can note and acknowledge your envy; then, let it float away, and fill that space instead by nurturing your own life. What do you want? What do you need? Those are questions you can use to redirect your thoughts after feelings of envy pop up. Our brains get habituated to what is familiar, so trodding this new path will feel unfamiliar at first, but soon it will start to feel more natural! And someday, those neglected feelings of envy and jealousy may melt away a LOT. They did for me! <3

Q2:

I feel like it’s hard to even articulate a *specific* envy/jealousy question, because envy and jealousy are such consistent themes in my life, but here’s a go. I’m in a very competitive field (academia) and am about to flame out – I’m reaching the end of my current gig and I don’t have a job lined up (and am not a competitive candidate). I’ll be lucky if I can adjunct for another year (and figure out health insurance??). The problem is (besides just like, feeling like a constant failure), all of my friends are also academics, because I made all my friends during grad school/my current job. Having failed out of academia while my friends continue in it is kind of unbearable. My jealousy of people who have been able to deal with the stress and pressure in a way I wasn’t able to, or who have been able to win the job lottery, is intense. I’ve muted most of them on social media bc I just can’t take seeing them post about their conferences, publications, little academic lives, etc., and the closer I get to my current job ending, I want to pull back even more. But being an academic is kind of like being in a cult – I have a hard time connecting with non-academics now. So how do I keep my friendships but control my jealousy? This is also ofc a question about grief, but there’s also a rich jealousy component — of my friends who have succeeded, of the me who didn’t screw up my chance at the career I love.

A:

Casey: Hi friend, I am writing to you from the beyond — ie, the world outside academia. I am a former academic who dropped out of my PhD program about halfway through. One of the big factors for me was the stress and pressure, as you say, as well as the reality of the terrible job market, which you are also dealing with. So I want to first affirm that both of those issues are nothing small, and that dealing with them IS A LOT. Also, you are not alone. You may be in contact with people who have “dealt with” the pressure and stress better (probably deeply negatively affecting other areas of their life, tbh) and who won the job lottery, but there are way more people like you and me: who didn’t succeed in academia’s very limited understanding of success and who of no fault of their own could not find a secure job in academia because universities are pumping out way more people with graduate degrees than there are positions suited for those qualifications.

I think certain fields are worse than others, but academia in general is so steeped in vocational awe and the idea that your career should be your whole life. And to some extent, all industries can be like that. But academia is particularly bad. And when you’re entrenched in it, it’s so so hard to see outside of it. But as someone who also felt like academia was swallowing my life and who didn’t see what I would do outside of it, I can reassure you there is a wide world that just might be more interesting and more fulfilling for you, career-wise and not. At least that ended up being the reality for me. I know it’s scary to move outside your comfort zone. I know it’s sad to leave a field you love. But I am honestly way happier being friends with people who don’t think a good time is competing for who is more stressed out or for who published in a more prestigious journal. I’m way happier writing for Autostraddle and working at a public library where I feel like my work is actually having a positive effect on the world and the communities I care about. I know you can find a career that you will also love that will love you back! You don’t say what field particularly you are in, but whatever it is you have so many skills and areas of expertise that will be applicable to other fields.

I believe in you and believe that you can make the transition too! I think you might have to pull back more from your academic friendships as you mentioned, muting people on social media is a great start. Go explore hobbies or queer spaces that aren’t connected with your academic sphere. Try out some apps for dating and/or making new friends! Check out meetup groups in your area. Surely everyone you met in grad school isn’t a full professor now — is there anyone who’s moved outside of academia that you could (re)connect with? I promise, there are lots of us — former academics, that is — who are friends with each other and still like to have intellectual conversations and nerdy fun. I think space from your academic bubble is what you need to move away from jealousy. Good luck my friend and see you on the other side!

Nico: Hey there, I am also here, as kind of a bystander but as someone who is friends with a lot of academics to chime in on one piece of Casey’s advice that rang really clearly for me — I think that it’s okay to distance yourself from your academic friends for a while. In my experience, it seems like my friends who are in academia who seem to be having the best time / worry the least about the drama and competition of academia, are people who have wide-ranging friend groups that include plenty of non-academics. Hilariously, the people I’m thinking of have also met a lot of friends through OK Cupid and just messaging people and being like “I don’t want to date, but I think we’d be good friends.” So, this is a good time to focus on growing and nurturing any non academic friendships or acquaintanceships you have.

Now, as for advice for being in a dead end job (not quite the same, but I am doing my best to relate), emotionally, the way I’ve dealt best with toxic work environments or stressful going nowhere work situations is by investing heavily in my life outside of work and building up different aspects of my life that give me meaning. This has often, for me, centered around creating art and writing, but it can also be about going on adventures, exploring, getting a new hobby of any kind, reading all the things you want to read for pleasure, learning a new language or skill — you get it. It might also be helpful to get a second job in a completely different industry (if you haven’t already) to help bridge the gap — this can be anything from a service industry gig to dogsitting, tutoring kids, what-have-you. Once you have income coming in from multiple sources, then I think it helps psychologically to realize that you are not reliant on academia for your life, that you are a person who can sustain yourself in a multitude of ways, and that you have got this, whatever happens. THEN, from there, you asked how do you divest from this jealousy but maintain your friendships, and I hope that by cultivating these other aspects of yourself and hopefully finding fulfillment outside of the things that they have that you envy, then you can engage thoughtfully in those friendships with there hopefully being, if not zero, at least less envy, at least a manageable amount. If your friends are really your friends, they’ll love you for you regardless of your academic affiliation, so, I am just wishing you tons of luck and sending love in this tough and transitional time!

Q3:

This is for the jealousy advice box– Hi everyone. My whole life has a been a series of relationships where the other person wanted to be monog and I wanted to be open, and that often caused friction but I consider myself ambiamorous so it was fine bc I loved them. Now I’m 1.5yrs deep into a veryyyy intense relationship but this person is one I imagine sticking with for life. We are currently long distance for the past 6months so opened up the relationship; the issue is, the original agreement was always open around sex, or maybe FWB, but my partner (kind of abruptly) started more like dating this person they met in their city (i.e. spending a ton of time with, texting often even when we are together, having regular sex, etc). I’m struggling a lot because it feels like different than our original agreement even if “technically” it’s not, plus I have a really hard time understanding how to exist when I am still their primary but I’m far away, and this new girl is in the same place as them…. I’ve brought it up a lot but my partner always insists that I’m making it a bigger deal than it is. And maybe I am, but in that case, how do I chill out? I am sad because I’ve always wanted this type of nonmonog relationship structure and now I have it and I’m just anxious, depressed, alone, and stressed (about this but also work is very very stressful). Yes I am in therapy haha. But there’s not really a guidebook to being queer, non-monog, long distance….. Basically I’m looking for some tips on feeling more confident and chill in the situation, and going out to pursue my own things without feeling guilty!

A:

Drew: My first question for you is, are you feeling relationship anxiety or do you just miss your partner? Is it jealousy in the classic jealous lover sense or are you just jealous that this other person gets to spend time with someone you miss? My advice would be to put this other person aside and check in with yourself about whether or not you’re getting all you want and need from your partner. Do you wish you were talking more? Do you wish how you talked involved more video calls or more texts throughout the day or some other specific form of communication? In the end, this other person they’re dating, isn’t really the issue. Especially because ultimately a nonmonogamous relationships is what you want.

Try to reframe your jealousy away from this one person and instead focus on what you want from your partner. And, ultimately, while long distance there will probably be things you want from them that you can’t get. That’s where your own dating and exploring comes in! Everyone has different romantic and sexual needs and ways of moving through the world. So maybe for you nonmonogamy is more about casual hookups but for your partner a consistent other person is preferred. I think you need to trust your partner when they say this other connection isn’t serious or superceding your own. Maybe that won’t prove to be true! But I really believe you have to make the decision to trust — for your relationship and for your own confidence. Acting on jealousy just pushes people away.

Analyssa: I do want to say, though, that I think if you are feeling uncomfortable with the terms of your relationship, and your partner is dismissive of that, that is a bigger issue! I was in a really similar situation this summer: my partner and I were very serious, very in love and opened our relationship while we were long distance. I thought we were agreed that it would be for one-time hookups, and he hooked up with a girl repeatedly over the time we were apart. It was surprising and it hurt! A lot! But when we finally talked about it, the one thing that helped me feel like we could move forward with the trust and confidence that Drew mentions above, is that he listened to the fact that I was upset (and was sorry for having made me feel that way, even if he hadn’t meant to), instead of insisting it wasn’t a big deal. I’m not sure what level of conversation you and your partner are having, but there is a difference, to me at least, between “that relationship is not as serious as ours” and “it’s not a big deal, the thing I’m doing that you are telling me is upsetting you.” So while I agree with Drew that there are ways to be more independent and confident, I think it’s also important to ask if you are hurt because you feel the boundaries have changed, and changed without your input? Being in an open relationship doesn’t mean that you suddenly have to be okay with anything, and things that are “technically” allowed can make you feel bad and then be discussed (or maybe even changed to not be allowed). There can be boundaries, and they can change based on new information! It is okay to not want your partner spending time with another person outside of hooking up. It is definitely okay to ask your partner not to text someone else while you are together. If this is not the type of relationship you want, it’s okay to voice that, and you should be heard when you do. The person you’re meant to be with for a long time will try to work with you to figure out what it is you both want, instead of a dynamic that makes one person feel good and the other feel unmoored.

Q4:

This is for the envy ask box: I am sure green with it! I am in my late twenties and when I take stock of where I’m at, I’m not at all happy professionally– my job affirms my values but is dead-end, lower-paying, and relatively stressful. I am insanely jealous of people who took risks instead of making safer, more practical choices. I am working on catching up in these regards– I’m working with a career counselor that helps alumni from my school and actively pursuing the creative work I previously deemed I would never be good enough to do. I also try to limit my time scrolling and have unfriended/unfollowed people who trigger these feelings that I have no real relationship with. Still, I often find myself spiralling with no end in sight. Any more tips on how to combat these feelings?

A:

Niko: Oh hi. Well I feel this one deep in my bones. In the bones of my bones even. There is no easy or right way to combat these feelings, that is perhaps the worst part of them. They’re travelers, burs that stick to our socks when we don’t notice them on a long walk that will announce themselves at all times by needling you unless you take the time to sit with them and pull them away and put them somewhere else, somewhere at a safe distance.

Those feelings of jealousy are difficult, because they don’t in fact go away. They morph and change and react as we do. I understand all too well that need to limit your time spent scrolling, to put away people who cause all those negative feelings in you. I hope you know these are all good and fine things to do!

I think the important thing you are already doing a great job with is asking yourself what you need and then taking the steps to get yourself there. If that is limiting screen time, unfollowing people, talking to a career counselor then congratulations on already doing a great job! It is hard to be in the spot you are in, because the world at large and the looming specter of Big Capitalism will try and tell you that being in a job that affirms your values and provides some level of stability is where you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to do.

The most important thing to remember in these situations is that ultimately you are the key to the map of the road ahead of you. I can’t tell you what to do, nor can anyone really, because that will only ever be an idea that comes from within. But I can offer some advice.

I’ve been where you are, I wrote about it here last week. Making big changes is really, really difficult and doubly so when you already have a career that is by all accounts: fine. Fine is good, but fine is not for everyone and it is okay and fantastic and beautiful to desire something more than fine, or at least far afield from it. So congrats to you for recognizing that you want to do and be something different than what is happening now.

What helps me, and a thing I continue to do constantly as a 40 year old still struggling to make life happen, is to write these things out. Write out your ideas for what you would like to do. If your heart desires working in a more creative field, then that is a point on a map you can write down and then work your way back to where you are. Ask yourself what are the steps to getting there, and what are the markers on the way that will feel like achievements. Create small milestones for yourself, little moments where you can feel success and pleasure and understanding because you have done the thing, and there are more things ahead but for right now take pride in joy in what you have done. Do this often, celebrate yourself and your strides as often as you can and never let anyone, not even yourself, diminish all the work you are doing to make change happen. It is a hard task that truth be told never ends, and it is daunting to think about it and I hope you tell yourself every day how beautiful it is to desire change and to work towards it.

You don’t have anything to be jealous about with the risks others are taking because you in fact are also a risk taker. Asking this question is a risk! Be proud of yourself for doing it, because it is NOT easy to ask for help. This is a step you have taken to somewhere new and it is one not a lot of people would do and yet here you are, being vulnerable and open and I am in fact jealous of you for doing it. I would never have been so strong as to ask for help like this, and I envy you.

There is so much ahead of you, and it is hard to know when the change you desire will happen but it will, because you are determined to see it happen and I hope you take a moment every day to appreciate how hard the struggle is, and how good you are at working through it. Even if that means limiting your time online, unfollowing people. Whatever helps your head and heart. What matters is that you feel ready to keep going, to keep asking for help and to keep setting new goals and finding ways to achieve them.

Keep asking questions, find others that work in the creative field you want to be in and ask them for the same help you are asking here now and someone will be there to support you I am sure of it. We all had to ask this same question and very rarely is anyone as bold as you in asking it out loud, you’ve done the hard part, now keep going and listen to what your heart tells you is right every step of the way.

Nico: I am going to address a couple of things you mentioned, piecemeal.

1. Dead-end, low-paying job: It’s not at all a reflection on you that you’re here. The fact of the matter is that wages are way too low in a lot of places, and when it comes to certain lower paying fields (looking at you, nonprofit sector, also, education), I feel like they do tend to get away with it because they manage to affirm peoples’ values instead of their – idk- physical needs for survival! I want you to know that your wage is not a valuation of YOU. It is a product of so many shifting, grinding gears all around us in what Niko aptly termed Big Capitalism that exists to squeeze the most out of each of us while giving each of us the least. We all have to fight it, but it’s okay that it’s a huge fucking monster that is really hard to fight…because it is.

2. You mentioned feeling jealous of others who took more risks. I can’t speak for other people or for you, but when I know that, for me, I’ve basically always had one or more jobs since I was a teen. I’ve not been able to be unemployed (when it has unfortunately happened) for very long because there isn’t a cushion of support, so I’ve been in positions where I’ve simply had to take the only job that I could get, however low-paying or demeaning or difficult until I could find something else. Sometimes being able to take risks means that you feel like if you jump, someone will be there to catch you. I don’t know if that’s the case for these friends, but sometimes it is, often it is. It’s okay that you’ve wanted to prioritize your safety and security for most of your twenties, but now, you’ve gotten a bit older and you’re ready to take some risks and I think that’s pretty cool. I wonder if that’s part of what the envy is telling you? If you get down to the root of it. Is it a way of saying to yourself that you’re ready, now?

3. ALSO you are really not too late. My partner and I talk about this a lot, actually, because there is so much pressure in creative fields to be a Very Big Deal when you’re young, but that just doesn’t happen for all or even most people. Often, there are just years and years of toiling in obscurity as a creative. There are benefits to finding your footing later in life though. For one, you’ve built up life experience and emotional self-reliance over the years and are better able to handle the stones and criticisms that will inevitably be thrown at you. You also know who you are without external validation. These are good things and things to look forward to having on your side as you continue to pursue your creative path.

Niko had some amazing tips. I also recommend reading Heather’s response way up top to the first question, and really trying to look at what these feelings are saying to you, what are you feeling and why? Then, treat those longings like goals, break them down into teeny tiny pieces and yeah, stop scrolling and get to work! You’ve got this <3

A.Tony: I agree a lot a lot with what Niko and Nico have said.

First, I want to let you know with my full chest: you’re in late twenties and you are not too late. You are not too late. Not too late to grow into whoever you want to be, to do what matters most to your heart, to inhabit the life that you build and in which you want to live.

To build off of what Niko said about writing it out, I want to urge you to dream as if capitalism doesn’t exist. As if community centered care is what our society is about and not whatever Bezos and those other wealth hoarding people deem important. A professor I admire asked us what our dreams were (we were in a business class) and our answers all centered being comfortable by capitalistic standards, in having the bare minimum which is: enough money for food and healthcare and clothing and basic human needs. It is not a bad thing to want these things because the system continually fails us and it’s natural to want systems to actually care about your well-being, but after answering he told us, “Have you noticed, we do not know how to dream?”

With Nico reminding us that we are not our jobs and taking Niko’s advice about writing, I’m just going to ask starter questions that build off of what Niko suggested. Can you practice a different kind of dreaming? Can you journal (or however you process through art) why you believe that you’re your job? Can you speak to those answers and see if there’s even more to uncover underneath? Can you imagine a world (not the whole world, just your pocket of it–best not to overwhelm) where you are not defined by your job? How is it different? What small steps can you take to walk towards that world instead of this one? That’s the fantastical side of me talking, I do have a couple of other things.

One of the best things I’ve heard is to call your source of main income your side hustle. Remembering that it funds you and the work you care about most (which is your main joint) instead of it being one of the great definitions of who you are, has helped me a lot. It, potentially, moves your focus and the weight you place in your day to day job into a place that matters more: you and what makes your heart do its best heart thing. And didn’t all the creators we look up to think like this? You hear of poets scribbling on the train on the way to work, waking up an hour earlier to get creative work in, turning towards their heart even when adhering to what capitalism demands of them. When we hear about your work, we’re going to hear about how you got it done, despite, how you

On the gratitude side, heavily agree with Niko in writing your achievements along the way to the life you want to live. I highly suggest starting that right now. Even if you don’t know where you’re going, please write at the top of the list “I asked for help” because that needs to be celebrated. In group, every week we had to write ten things we were proud of ourselves for doing every week. For a good two months, it plain sucked. We were told that going to therapy and going to workout can account for at least two and we were like, “But we had to do that it doesn’t even matter.” and our therapists were like, “Okay, if you hadn’t done it, where would you be right now? What have you done this week that if you hadn’t done it, you’d be in a worse place?” What I want to emphasize is that no matter how small it seems, it is step that deserves to be recorded/remembered/celebrated because it is small steps that get you where you want to go and this first step you’re taking is already letting us know to watch out cause you’re stepping into a world lightyears better than where you are.

Q5:

How do I respond when people who I’m close to tell me they’re jealous of me? On one hand, I want people to feel like they can be honest with me and not have to hide their feelings. But on the other hand, in a couple of recent situations it’s felt not so great, to the point where I don’t want to share my happiness or positive events with them because of the reaction I’ll get. (These are minor things I’m talking about here…along the lines of my friend being jealous that I went on a nice bike ride when they weren’t able to because their bike is in the shop.) I want to be understanding and sympathetic, but I also want my friends to be happy for me and celebrate with me just as I would be for them. Do I just need to adjust my mindset to be more empathetic to what people might be going through? Is there a constructive way to respond when I say, “I had a great day today because of X” and my friend’s only response is “I’m jealous that you got to do X”? In my head I’ll think, “well, next week you get to do Y thing that I don’t get to do, but I’m still happy for you and asking you about it”. This may seem really minor but I could use some outside perspective here.

A:

Heather: I’m so sorry you’re having to navigate this situation. I’ve had to step away from professional and personal relationships with people I really liked and cared about because of dynamics like this, and it always feels awful. Looking back on it, I wish I had nipped these things in the bud at the very beginning, as soon as I sensed them, instead of trying to be so accommodating and making excuses for the jealous/envious people in my orbit. Because jealousy and envy are some of the most flammable things in the world; they get out of hand so fast — especially when you give them oxygen. One second you’re entertaining a complaint that you spend more time with one friend than you do with another friend, and next thing you know your pal’s having a public meltdown in a bar because you’re holding your wife’s hand and not paying enough attention to them. One second you’re watching a friend huff in a corner because they think you’re getting credit for something they deserve credit for, and next thing you know they’re accusing you of sabotaging their career.

The first thing I think it’s important to know is that jealousy is almost never about you. It’s almost always about the other person’s feelings of insecurity, fear, anger, etc. Their impulse will be to look externally, at you, and express their jealousy, externally, at you. But the issue is almost always internal, and has nothing to do with you. And so the second important thing to know is: it’s not your job to fix it. In fact, it’s not your job to adjust your behavior in any way. You’re not doing anything wrong by sharing your joys with your friends! If they are making what you have about what they don’t have, that’s on them! It’s not like you’re talking about wedding plans with your friend who just got their heart broken, or bragging about your fancy new faux fur-lined ski coat to someone who’s freezing to death; you’re talking about going for a bike ride today with someone who’s going for a bike ride next week!

I think it would be a good idea for you to address this issue with your friend(s) directly. Maybe not in the moment because there’s clearly some heightened feelings on their end that are going to make it a tough conversation. But at an emotionally chill time, maybe you could simply ask them what’s going on. “I really love sharing the good things in my life with you, and I love when you share the good things in your life with me! Is it the same for you? I’m asking because the last couple of times I’ve told you something good that’s happened to me, I’ve felt like you made it about how nothing good was happening for you, instead of being happy for me. It makes me feel sad, and like you don’t want to be part of the joys of my life.” And then it’s on them to do something about that. Jealousy isn’t something that usually gets snuffed out instantly, so it might take some time, some trial and error, but at least you’ve told them how you feel and given them the chance to try to change their behavior. And if they don’t, you’ve given yourself the freedom to pursue friendships with people who will be thrilled to get into a positive feedback loop of mutual love and celebration with you.

Having empathy for a person who is behaving in a way that hurts you is a really admirable thing! Trying to understand where other people are coming from, and why, is a really mature and compassionate way to live your life! But! Understanding why someone is doing something that hurts you doesn’t mean it’s okay for them to keep doing it. It’s on us, as grown-up humans in this world, to unpack our toxic behaviors and then do something about them. Understanding isn’t an excuse; it’s a tool to help us be better.

Valerie Anne: I totally agree with everything Heather said. I also want to add that sometimes when I say “omg I’m so jealous” I mean “I’m so happy for you.” I don’t know why I say that, I never mean it in a way that means “I wish it was me instead of you,” and for some reason (my TikTok FYP thinks it’s because of my undiagnosed ADHD) my go-to instinct in conversations is to say something relative to myself to prove I’m listening and connecting. So if you said you went on a bike ride and it was really nice, I might say, “I’m jealous, I don’t even know how to ride a bike.” When really I mean “wow that’s a really cool experience you had, thanks for telling me, here’s my own connection to that.” But reading this I can see how maybe people could misinterpret it that way, especially via text. Obviously you have more insight in the conversation, and especially if it’s in person you can probably pick up if the vibes are negative, but when you do have this conversation that Heather is suggesting (which I do think is a good idea), maybe come to it with that as an option, that it was just an unconscious language choice and wasn’t meant to be negative. Hopefully knowing that you interpret that as negative will help them change their language (and adding in “here’s my connection to what you just said” is something I’m working on personally, too) so that they can make it more clear that they’re happy for you. (And if they’re not happy for you, and are genuinely jealous and feel badly when you tell them good news…that’s definitely something they need to look within themselves about, but Heather beautifully covered that option so I’ll leave that alone!.)

Q6:

I get a very weird semi-envious, semi-insecure feeling when my gf talks about her high school experiences (we’re both ~30). I had a bad high school experience, I had essentially no social life and I was confused and terrified by sexuality. I came out to myself fully around 22, but never really dated. I had my first kiss just before we started dating last year (she’s my first gf). She dated girls in high school and college but had been single for several years before we got together.

I have always felt insecure about my lack of experience and previously had felt it as proof I was unlovable, etc. Now with her I feel very loved! But when she talks about high school experiences like fooling around or going on dates or going to parties and getting drunk (I never was invited to a HS party and don’t drink) I feel so weird about it, and I’m not even really sure what the feelings are. There’s kind of a complete lack of being able to relate since my HS self was terrified of all that, but then also kind of insecurity and shame? I don’t think I’m jealous of her exes. Maybe I’m jealous that she had normal and happy experiences in HS, even if I don’t think I would have wanted them for myself.

I’ve mentioned to her that my HS experiences were bad but haven’t talked about feeling weird when she mentions this stuff. I don’t want to make her feel like she can’t talk about it, and I don’t want to make handling my issues her responsibility. It’s not like this stuff comes up often, but I wish I didn’t feel so bad when it did. So I guess I’m looking for help on how to identify feelings and deal with them?

A:

Ro: I’ve been there! I had a really rough time in high school and in my early twenties, and I used to date someone who’d been wildly popular during those years. Our experiences didn’t align at all, and sometimes hearing about her past brought up some tough feelings about my own.

For me, the easiest way to identify what exactly I’m feeling is to write about it and/or talk about it with a therapist or a trusted friend, so if you haven’t spent much time writing or talking out these thoughts yet (maybe with someone other than your girlfriend at first), give that a try and see how it goes. And if you’ve never tried therapy before, I strongly recommend it as a means of processing past trauma. When you’re talking about tough stuff, working with a professional makes the whole experience much more sustainable.

Once you know what’s happening in your head and heart, it’s okay (and probably beneficial) to share those feelings with your girlfriend. Sharing your feelings doesn’t mean you’re making your “issues her responsibility” — talking about Big Feelings is part of being in a relationship. Maybe together you can figure out how to make conversations about your girlfriend’s past feel more manageable for you. And if you need a break from hearing about your girlfriend’s past, it’s okay to ask for that, too!

If it turns out that you are jealous of your girlfriend’s high school experience or if you’re just generally feeling bummed out for your younger self, here are some things I’ve done that have been healing for me:

1. I think and write and talk about how fucking cool I was as a teenager, despite what my peers (and many adults) thought at the time. Teen Ro had weird, excellent taste in music and movies. They wrote zines when zines were going out of style. They wore terrible, yet bold outfits. They liked what they liked, even when it wasn’t popular. And they survived!

2. I think about how stoked my depressed younger self would be if they met my older self. They’d probably say, “Holy shit, we write about sex now?! We finally got a short haircut? We have a girlfriend??? She’s so hottt!” From what you described, it sounds like your younger self would be excited to meet your older self, too.

Q7:

Maybe it’s my S.A.D/winter blues, but I had an extra tough holiday this year. Part of it was because I am jealous of couples who have good relationships with their families & respective parental in-laws. I felt so alone even though I was physically with my long-term partner (we’ve lived together 5yrs, dated 6+ total). I know, comparison is the thief of joy & all that but seeing xmas posts of multi-generational families having fun together makes me yearn for something similar. My parents are immigrants & even though we are brown, they have not done the work to unlearn internalized colonialism. Basically, they have outdated, binary views of gender & are “low-key” homophobic & racist. Also, my dad is catholic with a ‘love the sinner hate the sin’ mindset. My relationship with them will never be what I wish it could be, and I have been unpacking that in therapy since coming out to them as bi & nonbinary a few years ago. My mom sees me and my Black, non-binary partner (S, they/them) as lesbians (we’re both bi which I have told her repeatedly) & has gone out of her way to mention LGBT activities on cruises my parents go on & send gifts to both of us (which is her love language) so I know she’s trying to show support even if she’s not “getting it right.” My dad has pulled back and engages less–I miss him. After an (admittedly horrible) trip to their house in TX last year S has no interest in visiting them, vacationing with them or really interacting with them at all. I’m not ready to cut my parents out of my life and I know the hard convos I need to have with them are not S’ responsibility but I wish I felt more support from S.

A:

Nico: I am so sorry you had an extra tough holiday and I am sending you a ton of love. As someone who also has not had easy relationships with their family, I feel this and am sending you both love. There are a couple of things here. 1) You feel jealous of folks who are managing to have loving, fulfilling relationships with their families. Welp, that’s completely valid and it’s telling you about something you wish you had. I’m sure, though, that you are also able to be happy for those folks, even though your situation is what it is. For me (and I wrote about this a little here), de-emphasizing the holidays or creating my own traditions has been a way of healing from this. Back when my partner and I threw Thanksgiving brunch parties, we were able to revel in our friendships and our relationship and our love of cooking in the morning and whatever might have been going on with family. My advice for the holidays specifically is to proactively cultivate joy in ways that do not rely on your bio family, so that you can do your best to separate spending time with them from unrealistic expectations. You can’t go to the hardware store for milk, as the saying goes. (Or something like that.)

As for support from your partner, I do think that there is a balance to be struck between S being able to take care of themselves and distance themselves from people who cause them stress and also being a supportive partner to you, and I think you all need to talk about it! In fact, right around now, when there might not be any impending holiday gatherings with family might be a good, lower pressure time to have those conversations because they aren’t tied to any upcoming events. I hope you won’t feel pressured to come up with solutions, but to just clear the air and maybe express that while obviously you don’t expect S to spend time with your parents if they don’t want to, that you’d appreciate being able to go to S to talk about them and your feelings. Sending you tons of love and wishing you luck!

Q8:

In my last relationship, I experienced a lot of jealousy, and some of it ended up being very justified. It caused me a lot of pain, shattered my trust in a few people in my life, and made me somewhat wary of being able to trust again, especially with close queer friendships. After taking a lot of time and space to heal from that split, I am now just beginning a new relationship (which I am very excited about!). Do you have any advice for not letting the jealous inclinations developed in my last relationship affect my new one? I think my personality is pre-disposed to be a little jealous anyway, and another layer is that I’m a bi/cis woman now dating a straight/cis man, so I can see some conditioned heteronormative things coming up that I usually can avoid in WLW+ relationships. Thanks!

A:

Nico: Well, jealousy and heteronormative conditioning come for us all, and it’s what we do with it that makes the difference, right? So, I am curious about the situation where your jealousy ended up being “justified” because, honestly, that sounds like intuition. I’ve been in a relationship where I was consumed by jealousy and all these feelings I thought of as Very Uncool but, actually, the person was not being honest with me and was, despite the fact that we were nonmonog, going behind my back to see someone else and not being upfront about it. My jealousy was stemming from something deeper, which was that I knew — from whatever inperceptible signs — that something was wrong and the other person wasn’t being honest with me. And yeah, once you realize your intuition is that powerful, it can be so hard to go back to trusting and to giving people the benefit of the doubt. It can also be difficult to pick apart when your intuition is ACTUALLY telling you something and when it is in fact just plain old jealousy because they can feel very similar in your body and mind, depending on the situation.

So, I don’t want you to feel guilty for having a gut that works, for your antenna picking up on a situation. We’re supposed to work like that to keep ourselves safe! As far as being “prone to jealousy” I think there is some great advice, especially to question 1 in this advice box, about dealing with General Jealousy. In both cases, where it’s intuition or where it’s jealousy, I encourage you to take the time to pick apart these feelings, try to see where they’re coming from, and if they are not serving you, try your best not to engage with them. Negative emotions tend to stick with us (again, because we are hardwired to learn to avoid bad situations) and there is nothing wrong with realizing that and trying to tell those feelings, “not right now” because you have better things to do with your one wild and precious life!

As far as the creep of heteronormative jealousy goes, there is so much more there than could fit in one advice box right? It feels like jealousy is actually a huge part of heteronormative culture and is often based in the fact that there is a societally-fueled power imbalance between the cis man partner and the woman partner. There is an expectation of, like, separate social spheres for each partner, too, which can be isolating. I think though, that your exciting new relationship (congrats!) can be what you make of it. You can bring your whole bisexual self and all your queer knowledge about sharing power and responsibility and equity in a relationship to your new relationship and, together with your partner, shape it into something that you both feel good about. Obviously, this will also take communication. When it’s appropriate, too, if you feel jealousy arising, it might not hurt to (non-vindictively) talk to your partner about your past experiences and how they’re still affecting you. It’s a fallacy that we need to be perfectly healed (an impossibility, actually) before starting a new relationship. A lot of that healing actually needs to take place within the context of a new relationship. If your relationship is healthy and you continue to focus on examining your jealousies and letting them go where appropriate (and he does the same), then hopefully, some day, you’ll look around and realize it’s been a good long while since you’ve felt those feelings. We actually got into the nature of only being able to heal certain things from relationship situations while in the context of relationships in the last A+ box (Q13, cw: SA), and special thanks to Phoebe (Pheebs) in the comments of that post for sharing an example, too!

Wishing you tons of luck and also just here to say it is Totally Normal to recognize that the baggage from your last relationship that you thought you lost has in fact been delivered to the doorstep of your new relationship. I believe you can unpack it, though! You’ve got this!

Q9:

Envy question! I have felt low for a long time about how little I feel I have accomplished and how unimpressive my job is. Both my partners and their partners are accomplished and impressive (PhDs, saving the world, buying houses). My friends are accomplished and impressive (buying houses, being doctors, lawyers, CEOs).

And me? I was busy being in a major depressive episode from 2010 to 2021. It’s been awful. A new treatment has me hopefully emerging from it, which is huge. …But then what do I do? That’s been my reason for accomplishing very little and staying in the same admin job for almost 8 years. I want to contribute to the world. I want to be impressive. I want my partners to brag about me. Going back to school (for a bachelor’s) seems impossibly expensive even if community college, and what would I even major in to have the best chance of contributing to the world in line with my values? Best to get overwhelmed and keep being mediocre, right? Help!

A:

Ro: Friend, you are not your job, you are not your degree, and you are not “mediocre.” You are a badass.

One of many unfair and fucked up things about this world is that we’re all born into different circumstances, and some of us have to fighter harder than others to be okay and stable and alive — plus we have a lot (ahem, capitalism) working against us.

Surviving a major depressive episode is a huge accomplishment. Seeking treatment is a huge accomplishment. Continuing to take care of yourself under crushing circumstances is a huge, daily accomplishment. Those aren’t the kinds of accomplishments you can put on a resume, but they’re still real — and I’d argue they’re way more important than a job title or a degree.

It seems like you’re overwhelmed with questions about how you can contribute to the world, and I have some exciting news: There are lots of ways to contribute to the world, they are all important, and you don’t have to make major contributions to the world through your job. Sure, it’s noble and great to be a doctor who saves people’s lives, but it’s also great to be a nanny with a flexible schedule that leaves room for volunteering at the LGBTQ+ center. It’s great to have a boring yet cushy tech job with excellent benefits that allows you to donate to causes you care about. It’s great to be an accountant who checks up on their neighbors and brings their friends soup when they’re sick. You are so much more than whatever you do to make money. It doesn’t have to be grand. It just has to provide an income that makes sense for your life and be at least tolerable.

So how do you figure out if a career change or school or something else is the next step? You’re already thinking about your values — that’s great! Start thinking about how you’d like to feel day-to-day and how you’d like to spend your time outside of work. Answering those questions might guide you towards your next steps, and your loved ones and your therapist can probably help you narrow down some options that would be sustainable for you.

And here are some ways to combat the envy you’re feeling:

1. Celebrate your small, daily wins. Write them down. Put stickers on a calendar. Give yourself literal pats on the back (I had a therapist tell me to do this once — I thought it was ridiculous until I tried it. It’s goofy and kinda nice).
2. Make a daily gratitude list.
3. Brag! Share your small daily wins and your mental health wins with your loved ones and give them a chance to celebrate you.
4. Do something small for someone else. Compliment a stranger’s outfit. Hold the door for someone. Send a long distance friend a postcard. Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. All of those little things will bring some good energy into the world, and they’ll probably build up your self-esteem, too.

Q10:

For the envy/jealousy-themed week: what’s your advice for someone who feels like the only person on earth who didn’t have a hoe phase?? I’m in a happy monogamous relationship and have truly no interest in sleeping with anyone besides my partner. I also had some trauma in my teens that made me feel not ready to have sex for basically all of my 20’s, but sometimes I feel like I missed out on something? So much of lesbian discourse is about getting out there and sleeping with hotties, which is great! But, sometimes it feels a little lonely to not know anyone or hear stories about anyone else like me, who is married to the first and only woman I’ve slept with. It makes me feel like I’m not as much of a lesbian? It also makes me feel kind of jealous! I’m not interested in sleeping with anyone besides my partner, and I don’t regret my past choices, but at the same time I wish I could beam a bunch of spicy lesbian experiences into my past so that I could say that I’d done xyz, experienced xyz, etc. Does that make sense? I guess I’m just wondering if there’s anyone else out there like me, and how to forgive my past self for not having like the perfect number of sex partners before meeting my spouse? Thank you!

A:

Ro: There is no such thing as the “perfect” number of sex partners. Everyone has different needs and different life circumstances, and while lots of people in the queer community like to talk a big talk about their many sexual partners, there are plenty of people like you who have only had sex with a few partners or just one partner. Some people don’t have sex at all until they’re in their 30s, 40s, or older, even if they want to, because they haven’t found the right sexual partner, they’re still figuring out their sexual orientation or sexual interests, or they’re just not 100% ready to get down with another person. All of this is okay!

You write that you didn’t feel ready for sex in your 20s, so you didn’t make yourself get out there and get laid. That shows a lot of self-awareness and self-respect! I don’t think you need to “forgive” your past self. Your past self prioritized your healing and comfort, and that’s something to be proud of. You also write that you’re happy in your monogamous relationship, so your current self has a lot to be proud of, too! Establishing a relationship structure that feels right for you with a person who feels right for you requires introspection, clear communication, and bravery. Way to go!

I also want to add that having fewer sexual partners doesn’t necessarily mean you have “less” experience than your peers — it’s totally possible to try out a wide variety of sex acts, positions, toys, and kinky stuff in the context of one monogamous relationship. If you think your FOMO feelings are coming from a desire for variety and adventure, talk to your partner about some new things you’d like to try together.

Q11:

For the jealousy box! My girlfriends and I are long distance, and they met about a year before I met them. I get jealous sometimes. They live together, spend all their lives together, and I feel stuck in digital space sometimes, and jealous of what they’re able to have. We have all discussed this not being our permanent reality, but it is going to be our reality for the next year and a half at least. I do NOT want to break up, neither do they. Part of my jealousy is definitely fear of being broken up with because they have each other more, and feeling like a secondary partner even though both of them try their best not to make me feel that way. We’ve talked about some ways to make us all feel closer, and help me manage jealousy (not just mine) but I’m interested in outside perspectives. I just wish I was where they are more!!!!!!

A:

Nico: I think in this moment your jealousy is leading toward something that is really reasonable to want — more time and physical presence with your girlfriends! It sounds like you’re doing great though and like they are also on board to help you all get through this. Honestly, this all sounds pretty darn healthy and I’m happy for you all. Keep those lines of communication open! Don’t let things fester! And in the meantime, I think you gotta distract yourself. It is time to really go hard on making yourself get out there where you are, spending time with friends, and making sure that you have a rich and fulfilling life where you are right now so that you just have a little less bandwidth to dwell. I’m rooting for you all and hope that you all get to be together soon!

(P.S. If anyone in the comments wants to chime in with long distance relationship tips, that would be awesome.)

Q12:

My wife is still friends with a few of her exes, and that’s mostly been fine by me. Except for one ex. She texts and calls my wife a lot to talk about difficulties that she’s having with her husband and life in general. This ex doesn’t seem to have any other friends and it feels like she leans on my wife too much for emotional support, which really gets under my skin.

I’ve told my wife how I feel multiple times, and her response is that this ex is a good friend. She even recently said this ex is her “best friend,” which is what she usually calls me, and I told her that hurt me. My wife feels like she is being a good and supportive friend. She’s adamant that she has no lingering feelings for this ex and promises to always respect me and put me first. I do trust my wife, however, I still think it’s inappropriate for the ex to depend on her MARRIED ex girlfriend as such a big support. I wish the ex would get other friends and/or a therapist.

For the sake of my marriage I’m trying to be transparent about how the situation makes me feel while still remaining kind and open-minded. I came out later in life and I’ve come to learn that it seems pretty common in WLW circles to remain friends with exes. And while I believe I’m justified in being wary of this specific ex crossing some boundaries, if I’m being honest I also have a hard time with my wife being close to anyone she used to be physically and emotionally intimate with. Help?!

A:

Anya: Oh man, this feels like a real doozy. I think there are a lot of different ways a response to this could go, because in this case, it feels like the context is extremely important. For better or for worse, I don’t think it’s categorically, inherently wrong OR right for a significant other to maintain a close relationship with an ex. The truth is, sometimes that’s a healthy friendship, that everyone can get on board with, and sometimes it isn’t — it all depends, on like, so many things. So I don’t think I can tell you whether or not it’s okay for your wife to be friends with her ex (or this one ex in particular).

What I can say is that personally, I think that relationships, despite all their nuances and complexities, often boil down to one thing: you’re either communicating, or you’re not. As a pair (or polycule, etc.), you’re either effectively expressing your views, which are being not only heard but also understood, listened to, and heeded, and vice versa, or you’re not. Communicating does not necessarily mean agreeing — it does mean genuinely, deeply, understanding, and arriving at a solution that works for both of you. That solution will probably require vulnerability, honesty, compromise, and commitment from both sides.

My feeling, humbly, is that right now you and your wife are not communicating. It seems like you feel one way about the friendship between your wife and her ex, and she feels another way. It sounds like you have voiced your concerns before, but I would encourage you to move past or through voicing your concerns to something, unfortunately, way scarier — a conversation in which you and her both put everything on the table. A conversation in which you say the things that are hard to say, because they make you feel vulnerable, and because you truly do not know how she will respond. A conversation in which she does the same.

Hopefully through having that conversation, you can arrive at the same page — even if that page is different than either of you had imagined or anticipated. I think that’s important, actually — to genuinely not cleave to what you think the outcome of this conversation will be. Hopefully, you two will arrive at that outcome together, as partners, rather than continuing to maintain two diff/ering stories of what’s going on here. The stakes of this conversation are admittedly high, because it may bring some things to light that have never been truly broached before. It’s up to you whether you’d prefer to have this conversation nonetheless or to continue with the relationship with the dynamics you described in your letter.

Something that was helpful to me in the past when navigating these kinds of extremely difficult, vulnerable conversations is writing my feelings down beforehand. When you’re in the middle of the conversation, it can be easy to get really heated or, alternatively, to shut down completely (or something in between! It’s all happening). So writing things down before can be a helpful way, for some people, to feel less emotionally overwhelmed in the moment, since feeling emotionally overwhelmed can make it harder to articulate what you’re trying to say, and harder to really listen to what the other person is trying to tell you. You don’t have to share what you wrote down with your wife, that can be an exercise just for you, if you like — or you can share it, if that’s helpful. Just another tool at your disposal!

Good luck!

Sa’iyda: *deep breath* Okay, there are a lot of moving parts to this, so I’m going to try and address them as best as I can. Anya’s above point is 100 percent right though, you absolutely need to communicate with your wife about how you’re feeling, and you need to be prepared for many possible outcomes. Here are some things that stand out to me that I think you need to think about before you talk to your wife.

There are two things you said that stand out to me, and I think they’re the crux of your problem. First one is: “She even recently said this ex is her “best friend,” which is what she usually calls me, and I told her that hurt me.” That is a lot to unpack, and I think you need to sit and think about why it hurts you that your wife is calling this person her best friend instead of you. I’ll be very honest, I think it’s messy when couples call each other their best friend. Often because it makes me think that they don’t have anyone outside of their relationship that they can talk to about the messier components of a relationship, kind of like this. If your wife has found a best friend who is not you, it’s actually a good thing! She needs to have someone that she can talk to outside of your relationship.

It sounds like her ex who is now her friend is doing that as well. If she’s talking to your wife about her life and her relationship challenges, that’s often what you do with a best friend. If they’re in mutual agreement about the nature of their friendship, then it feels like they’re just doing best friend type shit. I talk to my best friend basically every day. She knows the ins and outs of my relationship with my partner fairly well, because I choose to share those things with her, especially when I think she can offer me insight as someone who knows me incredibly well. (Your assertion that the ex “get other friends and/or a therapist” is also telling because how do you know she doesn’t have those things already? You’re making an assumption with very little information. I have a therapist and still talk to my best friend about some of the same things!)

I think you’ve said the crux of your problem right here: “I also have a hard time with my wife being close to anyone she used to be physically and emotionally intimate with.” If I’m being fully honest with you friend, this is definitely more of a you problem than it is your wife’s problem. She has given you no indication that there is anything going in between her and this ex beyond a very close friendship.

You claim you’re trying to remain open minded about their friendship, but you also want to draw boundaries on it because you feel it’s inappropriate. Can you unpack why you feel justified in believing this ex is crossing boundaries? Has your wife said anything to you about any sort of discomfort with their friendship? It feels like maybe you don’t actually believe your wife when she says that they’re just friends, which if it’s true is something you need to work through independently of your wife. Talk to her, but again, don’t place any specific expectations on the outcome.

Nico: I think the above advice is all helpful. It can be perfectly normal to be friends with an ex, and we don’t get to tell our partners who they can or cannot be friends with, even if we’re married to them (which, obviously, it’s not like you did that. You wrote in because you wanted help with these feelings). But, in contrast to my colleagues above, I do want to validate something you said, which is that it feels like this ex does not have other friends and is really relying on your wife’s support. Whether in a relationship OR a friendship, it is not super healthy to rely on a single person for all of one’s emotional needs, and I think it’s okay to be concerned about this as someone who wants what is best for your wife. Overly relying on one person for all of your support isn’t fair, and maybe, this could be something you bring up with your wife to see if she agrees or has noticed this is an issue. Nevertheless, the solution comes back to one thing — you won’t know what is actually going on until you and your wife have a super frank discussion! I love Sa’iyda’s advice to not place any expectations on the outcomes of this discussion, and think that is definitely something to keep in mind. This conversation is going to be a discovery, likely for you both. In terms of having a discussion where heightened feelings may come into play, Anya’s recommendation to write it out ahead of time is a great place to start. I also recommend setting aside specific time to have this conversation and not jumping into it when you are reminded of it (like when your wife is texting the friend). You should both be settled, comfy, and ready to get through this as a team, not as conflicting parties. Remember, the goal is for you both to find happiness as a couple, and you two are partners in that endeavor. I find that’s the best way to approach larger conflicts like this, to remember that you both want the same thing ultimately, for your relationship to be solid and healthy and joyful. I am wishing you all the best of luck as you navigate this!

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