Love triangles

I woke up this morning from a dream about a subject that hasn't been on my mind for over 10 years...

I used to be in the Army cadets. My dream suggested that I take more initiative, rather than wait for instructions, to trust my instincts and to be more active.

Something else then came to mind...
Being a romantic at a young age, surely enough, I fell in love with one of the senior cadets, lets call him Ric. I had a best friend, who I spent a lot of time with, let's call her Fanny. She knew I had feelings for Ric, seeing that I daydreamed of him often and shared my stories with her.

One day, there was a cadet ball, and to my delight, I somehow got a date with Ric. Well, he was really awkward when we danced, and by the time the night was over, it was clear that he had feelings for my best friend Fanny.

Within a couple of months, they had hooked up and I began a steep decent which brought me to the end of my cadet career. My jealousy ended my friendship with Fanny and I learned the meaning of the word betrayal. I felt things like I had never experienced before. That was the first down spiral of its kind, little did I know, there were to be more like that to follow (the death of my father triggering and introducing all sorts of other darkness into my young adulthood.).

Over the years, similar situations have occurred to me or to people who were in the circles I frequented, where one person feels strongly for someone else and either the person in question does not reciprocate the same intensity of feelings or they felt feelings for someone else, like another close friend, creating a love triangle.

There are also plenty of affairs that occur in monogamous relationships, which has lead me to Polyamory and to my discovery of solo poly, which means that you are your own primary partner and thereby prioritize your relationship with yourself over relationships with others.

I am open to unlearning jealousy, replacing it with openness and acceptance or to learn how to sit with the uncomfortable state until I remember my humanity and what those dark feelings serve to teach me.

What do you do when you are faced with unrequited love?

In situations where jealousy comes up, how do you remain confident so that you need not compare yourself to the person you may be jealous of?