What I learned in a non-monogamous relationship

Here I tell you some things I learned after 3 years in a non-monogamous relationship.

Disclaimer: This is just a very brief—albeit extensive—experience from someone who doesn't know much about the subject other than his own experience. And beware: I'll only speak from my unique and limited perspective, based on the limited information I've accumulated over time.

Disclaimer 2: Many things will sound cliché and you will think that you have heard it before (because you have surely heard it before) but I will explain to you from my experience why.

Disclaimer 3: When I say “shouldn’t” or “should” it is clearly my OPINION, it is not an absolute truth or a professional perspective on the subject.

First things first, although I won't go into too much detail: a non-monogamous relationship or dissident relationship is anything that falls outside the hegemonic relationship between two people and doesn't in any way include other people in their sexual and emotional bond. Anything less than that is either cheating or one of the thousand possible types of non-monogamous relationships.

Here's an image showing a mind map of the infinite number of types of non-monogamy.

So, if you've heard the words polygamy, swingers, open relationships, relationship anarchy, etc., they all mean different things. Therefore, in a very descriptive, simple, and breezy way, I'll describe in a list the perspective from which I'll share my learnings.

1. He is a boy and I am a girl.
2. We met one day at a dinner party, and about two months after chatting on WhatsApp (without ever having a date, a kiss, or even sex), I went to his house to lock myself away during the pandemic for five or so months. This makes it a slightly strange relationship compared to a normal one that goes through its stages in "normal" times (what is normal?).
3. He - we'll call him V - had been in non-monogamous relationships (with unknown types) before we met.
4. I had never been in a consensual non-monogamous relationship.
5. V, from moment 1, noticed that he related in this way.
6. From the first moment, I realized that I didn't know how to relate in this way.
7. I'll focus exclusively on my experience. This is just part of the story, and it's very brief: it only focuses on the lessons I learned during this relationship.

That being so, I begin with the following:

IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE, IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE, IT'S NOT FOR ANY MOMENT IN LIFE

First cliché. It's obvious that nothing is for everyone. But what I mean by that statement is: even if you want it, even if you try, it's possible that the type of non-monogamous relationship you're trying to pursue isn't for you, or maybe it isn't for you yet , or, for example, it might be for you, but not with the person(s) you thought it would be.

For two reasons: (1) it is essential to have the necessary interpersonal tools and (2) to have conviction.

I'll explain it to you with the topic at hand and only ONE of all the skills that must be well developed: knowing how to identify your own needs and express them.

For example, I have a lot of difficulty identifying and expressing my needs. I was born into a hyper-productive environment where a girl with needs was a girl who was in the way. That's why my defense mechanism to avoid feeling rejected by my parents (especially my mother) was to not need anything (pretending to, because we all need things all the time).

That allowed me to be very independent in many ways, but it also led me to develop avoidance patterns when I needed someone emotionally—because it's something I can't get on my own. So, in this relationship, it happened several times: Do I need to feel cared for? "Well, bye, dear V, because you can't give me what I need," without even giving me the opportunity to express my needs and make specific requests: Can you give me a gift? Can you say something nice? Can you tell me you love me? Can you curl up with me? Can you come see me? Going back and forth like that in a relationship that doesn't have a label is sooo easy and, at the same time, very painful for everyone.

Now, that ability to identify needs and express them is necessary in any type of relationship , but especially in those in which evasion is sometimes the very end , such as in misguided or non-consensual non-monogamies.

The same thing happens with things like the wound of abandonment, which we all have. I've seen cases of people who prefer open relationships because, technically, they can't "cheat" and leave you for someone else. And that, precisely, isn't the consciousness with which these types of dissident relationships should be approached.

They should be assumed, in my opinion, from a full conviction that it is a mechanism that brings us closer to love and its expansion.

Now, regarding conviction, there's something important: when you're managing a relationship that's anarchic, counter-hegemonic, or simply different from tradition, you're breaking patterns in behavior, culture, and memory that require a lot of energy and intention, and if that doesn't deeply convince you, it will be very difficult to confront.

Since my first romantic relationship, I've been exposed to many questions about fidelity, exclusivity, people's repression of their desire for others while in a relationship, the commitment to eternal companionship, etc., and this has made me question the idea of marriage and the traditional family for many years. I remember that since I was little, I imagined that if I had a husband, he would live in his own house and I would live in mine, and that idea still holds true to this day. It's always seemed terrible to me when a couple promise eternal love to each other at the altar and promise that they will always do X or Y - although I respect those who are convinced by it. In fact, if I don't want to have children right now, it's because it implies a promise from me for at least 20 years, and I haven't been able to see that positively at this point in my life.

But, although these ideas have been on my mind since my adolescence, I didn't have the conviction that V had about his way of relating, and that's also very difficult for the people involved to sustain. I always had the doubt, and I still do today, that if it bothers me to know that he's with a girl, it's because it's part of the deconstruction or because maybe, deep down, I don't want to share him with that girl (as if someone truly belonged to someone else). And if, deep down, it's worth it (and I want it) to be exposed to that discomfort indefinitely.

Analyzing that “discomfort” - which is actually a fear - I concluded, for example, that what bothered me was not that he was fucking another girl - which in fact could have interested me -, what bothered me was the idea of him having a relationship with another person like the one he had with me (with a lot of care, time, attention, participation and affection).

This, far from being bad, could indicate that I want an open relationship, but perhaps not in the format of polygamy (which includes emotional ties with other people), and I wouldn't be able to know that if I hadn't had the relationship I had with him.

There's a solution to this that non-monogamous, polyamorous people often adopt, with silence pacts . And I tried it. But I think it eventually brought me to such a level of peace that I began to doubt whether I was actually deceiving myself. It was like trying to turn a deaf ear to the fact that he was seeing other girls.

(That can also be a weird “I shouldn’t feel good about this” kind of self-sabotage.)

I know of a very old woman who has a poly/monogamous relationship with her husband, with a silence agreement, and only asks him to let her know if he's not coming home and for how many days. This is a very common form of non-monogamy.

Every type of dissident relationship has its challenges, and if you don't have the tools for self-management and conviction, it's more than difficult.

IT IS IRREVOCABLY POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH AGREEMENTS

Second cliché: To establish agreements, you have to establish which links a relationship has and which ones don't, and that's not easy to decipher.

In the pursuit of personal growth and becoming a better person and a better bond for myself, V, and those I meet in the future, I've read, watched videos, gone to therapy, and done a lot of other things to identify what I want and don't want in the midst of my emotional and sexual explorations. (I'm still not entirely sure.)

Among all the things, I found a tool called the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord, designed by Lyrica Lawrance and Heather Orr in 2016, to help relationships build and nurture each other's needs and boundaries. Here it is in English because I couldn't find it in Spanish:

I think this tool could be extremely useful when it comes to building "personalized" relationships that address the specific needs of the people involved.

I remember once asking V if he wanted to be my boyfriend. He said something like, "Hahaha, the kind of boyfriend who holds hands? The kind who goes to Sunday brunches? No, my friend, I'm not one of those."

(Let's skip over his not caring about how I might have felt to get to my point)

For him, holding hands and having Sunday lunch was what being a couple meant (which we did all the time, but yeah, we're not going to argue with his experience). For me, being a couple meant, for example, taking photos together on social media and, when someone asked me why I was leaving my city for 15 days, I would say: I'm going to visit my boyfriend. Maybe it was because of a need for social recognition or whatever, but that was what I wanted and recognized as a relationship at that moment. Because, just like he didn't want to include him in my family scenes, or live with him, or have children, or get married, or force ourselves not to desire anyone else.

V and I never agreed on which of those types of non-monogamies we were in. We never sat down to discuss anything beyond the fact that he was going to be sexually involved with other girls, and so was I (which I did, with four people, one of them a girl). But that discussion HAS to happen in depth, and if that person (or you) avoids it and doesn't want to put the emotional and mental energy into it—and to update it from time to time—that's not a consensual non-monogamous relationship; it's just an avoidance of other things (which was, generally, my case).

IF IT IS WITH A LOT OF LOVE, YES, IF NOT, NO.

And not because you need it to endure things. When you endure things, you are, precisely, perpetuating what dissident relationships seek to avoid: sacrifice, broken promises, emotional capitalism, false, habitual love.

You need a lot of love for yourself and for others to know how to identify when you really want to be and share your life with that person(s) and when you are simply avoiding your loneliness while not wanting to be in a relationship.

For example, I became emotionally attached to a guy while I was with V because I subconsciously needed validation that I had other relationships too. And all I did was hurt that guy, because he didn't really arouse me that much.

To conclude what I learned from this relationship, I will close with a list of things, very general, off-the-cuff ideas, about my experience and conclusions:

1. You can only realize whether you can and want—or don't want—to have a relationship of this kind by jumping in and trying it out and not giving up at the first discomfort. Dissident relationships are just that: breaking away from a system that's intruded on our memories and our souls, but they exist because perhaps that system is no longer functional for some of us.
2. Self-love isn't about slathering face creams or buying vibrators like crazy: self-love is about recognizing yourself, knowing how to set boundaries and priorities, putting yourself first, and clearly identifying what you accept and don't accept in your life. Self-love has a lot to do with self-knowledge and self-care.
3. When you don't admire yourself, when you don't love yourself, when you don't take care of yourself, you have no way of knowing how someone is doing for you, even if they are.
4. I believe that dissident relationships, even though this relationship didn't work for me (even though I love him and my life is better with him in it), are an option available to humanity to expand love and care into our lives, and they are perhaps the best possible option. It just takes a lot of emotional intelligence to pull it off.
5. Just because you're leaning toward a non-monogamous relationship doesn't mean the one you're in is the right relationship for you.