Opening up: Some thoughts on ethical non monogamy
The majority of couples I support in my practice come to me with questions around open relationships and polyamory.
Fun fact: many years ago, when I first started my training to become a coach and counsellor, I had the wish to become a specialised poly coach. As my training progressed, I specialised in family and relationship counselling and then added my specialism in sex coaching and couples counselling. Somehow, now, after a year of frequent adult sex ed workshops and three workshops on open relationships, my practice is full of exactly that topic – polyamory and open relationships.
So I thought it is about time that I write something about the topic.
I want to start with a disclaimer: Polyamory or ethical non-monogamy is not superior to monogamy. Many qualities of relationships that are assigned to ENM have nothing per se to do with the relationship structure, but can just as well be part of monogamy too. Opening your relationship just forces people to have certain conversations that might not otherwise come up. This includes conversations about norms and values: what do we actually declare as normal in a relationship? Conversations about freedom, closeness and separateness: how much closeness do we actually want in our relationships? Or conversations about power: How is power distributed in our relationship – financial power, sexual power, intellectual power, social power, and many more? This is just to give you an idea of a few things that people often need to actively negotiate when being in an open relationship, that are wonderful conversation topics in any monogamous relationship as well.
Once, someone joined our open relationship workshop and afterwards thanked us for having helped them figure out that monogamy is indeed the way for them. So I am not here to preach for openness. I am here to encourage you to question the norm and choose whatever relationship and life feels good for you.
About the many ways to be open
There are seemingly endless ways to do ethical non-monogamy. From polyamory, open relationships, solo poly, kitchen-table poly, swinging, relationship anarchy to open relationships. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re curious about the great complexity of ENM formats, you can check out this graphic. It attempts to create an overview of the expansive field of ENM.
So even within ENM, you have a lot to choose from. I have yet to meet two couples who handle their open relationship the same way. Here again, it is about finding what works for you.
One common misconception, for example, is that each partner needs to participate in the openness to the same degree. It is very common for the desire for openness to be asynchronous in an existing relationship. Let’s say Lisa and Ben have been dating for some years, and Lisa would like to open the relationship to explore her sexuality more freely and in ways she wasn’t able to when she was younger. Ben, however, has had his wild days and feels content with seeing only Lisa sexually and emotionally. Then Lisa and Ben might come up with an arrangement where Lisa can explore herself and Ben stays monogamous with Lisa. This is a common scenario. Of course, it comes with layers of complexity, and not everyone is as relaxed about this as Ben is. However, our needs in relationships vary and, ideally, our relationship can hold that variety and complexity.
An important note here is that any agreement made in any relationship, whether monogamous or not, is up for renegotiation at any moment. Just because we agreed at some point in time that A is the norm, it doesn’t mean that A shall stay the norm. We are evolving beings, and relationships survive because they evolve with us. When relationships cannot evolve to meet our changing nature, they often start to feel constrictive.
How to open?
Many people ask how to go about opening their relationship. And there are different viewpoints on the topic. Some decide to slowly ease into ENM. They read up on the topic, make clear agreements and set tight boundaries that can slowly be adjusted as they move forward. Others recommend moving forward without such strict boundaries and seeing what happens. Boundaries can create safety, but they also come with lots of conversation, discussion and loopholes.
I am not advocating for one or the other. I think both have their right to be. I think it helps to think about whether you feel like your relationship can handle whatever happens in the process of opening. Is your base solid enough to deal with potential hurt that might come up?
If you chose to go with the boundaries then there are many questions to consider. Some of those include: Is it okay to meet one person several time? What is allowed emotionally and physically? Are we allowed to date people we know or should they be stranger? Does our partner have veto rights on who we date? Are we okay with emotional connection or is this purely physical? These are just the tip of the iceberg. I have a 5 page document with questions that I encourage you to ask yourselves in the process of opening. Feel free to reach out if you are curious.
What about jealousy?
I suppose I cannot write this without talking about jealousy. In my workshops, everyone asks about it. And I always say that I find that jealousy has a bad reputation. It is a very vulnerable and informative emotion.
How would it be to meet jealousy with curiosity? What is being expressed by this jealousy? Are insecurities arising in me? Am I maybe feeling like I am missing connection or attention from my partner? Is my jealousy coming from the present moment, or are old topics coming up? What does my jealousy need?
And don’t get me wrong. It is not the goal to necessarily get rid of jealousy. Many people who have been practising ENM for many, many years still feel jealous, but they have built a relationship with their jealousy that allows them to meet it without shame or blame.
Meet your longing
What I would recommend to anyone who is thinking about exploring ethical non-monogamy is to first explore what they are hoping for in this exploration. What are they longing for? What are they hoping to find and experience through this exploration? If there is an asynchronous wish for openness in the relationship, it can be helpful to first explore if there are other ways to meet some of the needs that we are hoping to address with ethical non-monogamy.
Sometimes, what we are longing for might not necessarily require opening the relationship. Maybe we are longing for more sexual exploration, more freedom, more novelty, more connection, or a different way of relating to ourselves and our sexuality. And sometimes there might be other ways to explore and meet these needs that can be worth considering before making the decision to open the relationship.
This does not mean that opening the relationship is the wrong answer. It is simply an invitation to get curious about what is underneath the wish for openness. What is it that I am actually longing for? And what are the different ways I could potentially meet that longing?
If you are curious about this topic and would like to exchange thoughts and questions with other like-minded people, then come join me for the next Intimacy Café on ENM in November. You can find out more and sign up here.
