I'm glad to hear of your continuing success.

Thanks, but I've been at this for a couple months -- congratulate me next year =)

The former has been outspokenly poly and in many relationships for more than seven years, and her self image was tangled up with being poly to the extent that she refused to admit that she was acting out of jealousy.

As I say, I'm pretty new, so I feel really hesitant to say this, but it really seems like she was just doing it wrong.

I mean, I dance. Dancing is part of my self image. I go out and dance swing every Thursday evening and every Saturday afternoon. I'm not that good yet, but I'm getting better every week.

And sometimes it hurts. Sometimes my feet get sore. Sometimes I get really out of breath. Sometimes I get really warm and sweaty and uncomfortable. Sometimes I can tell my heart just can't keep up with the amount of oxygen my body's demanding. One time I fell straight over on my face and banged my knee, and it was painful to walk for the next couple days.

None of these things mean I'm not a dancer -- they're just things I deal with because I like dancing.

I'm new at this, so I suppose this is particularly to be expected, but still. I feel jealousy sometimes. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I ask my partner for help/support/care and she helps me deal with it. Sometimes I seek a friend. Sometimes I deal with it on my own. And sometimes I just have to sit there and feel it and get on with what I'm doing. That doesn't mean I don't want to be poly, and it certainly doesn't mean that I'm lying when I call myself poly -- it means I like being poly so much that I'm willing to handle these things from time to time.