Hello!
Why not use an Accordion layout? jQuery has a nice one here: http://jqueryui.com/accordion/
Honestly, I don't bother with the "out of the box" tabbed panel. In one of my applications, I'm using a jQuery table of contents (http://xomino.com/2012/08/26/jquery-in-xpages-14-toc-create-a-menu-to-scroll-to-a-form-section/), which works quite well, too.
Good luck!
Steve in NYC