For my nesting mate, Rich, and I to open our monogamous relationship we first needed to go through a breakup. The eventual expansion first needed a contraction.

Rich told me in the winter of 2021 that he was Polyamorous-by-orientation and that for him to live and love as his authentic self he needed to change the nature of our commitment. This ‘news’ broke my heart and left me feeling rejected and disoriented. In that moment, and in the months that followed, I had to come to accept that I had lost the relationship I had dedicated myself to and had to let go of the future I’d imagined we’d have.

I’d felt this kind of numbing hollowness and visceral pain before, but the difference here was that I was still in a relationship with the person who had instigated the breakup. I’d lost our monogamous relationship, but not the human with me at the centre of it and I had the chance to build something new. This new chance was characterised by an internal struggle with everything I’ve ever known about myself and how I love. To learn I needed to look inside. My contraction.

Being Poly-by-orientation meant that Rich needed to pursue relationships with others and I would be free to do the same, if I wanted. It was my choice.

Choice.

This word was and 18 months later, continues to be a fulcrum point of our non-monogamous experience. For Rich, Polyamory isn’t a choice. It’s his fixed orientation. According to Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, people who experience Polyamory as a sexual orientation describe being ‘wired that way’ and this is Rich’s reality. But I don’t identify in this way. I’ve been happy monogamous and I am now happy being non-monogamous and for this reason, I see my Polyamory as an active choice. I choose to date other people and I choose not to when I don’t feel I have the capacity. That’s not to say that people who are Poly-by-orientation don’t take breaks from dating too, I am simply acknowledging that Polyamory can be experienced as both a choice and an orientation.

When Rich and I first opened our relationship, we started dating just weeks after the initial discussion. Rich dated other people and I dated myself. Sometimes I describe this experience as ‘remaining monogamous.’ Rich and I were both doing something entirely new and outside of what’s socially expected of romantic relationships. Rich started having relationships with others and I started to have a proper relationship with myself. Despite this perceived lack of new people in my life, I was getting to know someone new. My authentic self.

I knew that to be happy in any relationship I needed to be happy within myself, at least to a greater degree than what I was at the time. When I realised that my insecurities about not being enough, not being valuable and being replaceable were the same in the contexts of both monogamy and non-monogamy I knew I would be okay in this new relationship.

Initially, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to date at all and was met by many concerns and cautionary tales both in person and online of Mono/Poly relationships gone wrong. People questioned if Rich had forced me into this new relationship dynamic and others queried if Rich was being ‘unfaithful’ because he was dating other people. Neither of these were true because I enthusiastically consented to our open relationship, even if I found parts of it difficult to understand. To continue in this dynamic, I had to find what Lola Phoenix calls an ‘anchor’—or my personal reason for being non-monogamous in their book, The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy.

My anchor was double-edged. Celebrate Rich’s identity and commit to building a better relationship with myself. This anchor was essential in grounding me in times of anxiety and uncertainty and in preventing me from revenge dating.

Leanne Yau, the creator of the Poly Philia Blog, describes revenge dating as “dating someone for the sole purpose of taking revenge on, or manipulating, someone else.” Yau says it is quite common when someone is struggling with Polyamory to try to deliberately hurt or make one of their current partners jealous. While I wasn’t motivated to do this, I did relate to the mononormative ideas that underpin this concept, including the desire to ‘prove’ to Rich and to myself that I would be able to attract the attention of others and be worthy of their love. As the early months of our non-monogamous relationship unfolded, I found that I was clinging to the pillars of safety that had been taught to me by our mononormative culture and that searching within for answers helped me create secure attachment with myself.

This new relationship that I was cultivating with myself became essential to sustaining a relationship where my nesting partner is Poly and I am somewhere between Polyamorous and Monogamous. Of course, communicating about the structure of our relationship, the people we are dating and our safer sex practices are fundamental to a happy relationship, but for me, having a dialogue enshrined in compassion and understanding with myself is just as important.

In fact, psychotherapist Jessica Fern describes this as being fundamental to building and sustaining any romantic relationship in her book Polysecure. “Secure attachment with yourself means being aware of your feelings and desires as well as being able to tend to your own needs and knowing how to advocate for them in relationships. In the absence of this, your relationships can be built on a false premise, or, at the very least, will struggle to be sustainable,” Fern writes.

I’ve started to see ‘returning to monogamy’ or ‘not dating others at the moment’ as a conscious decision to return to myself and celebrate the other kinds of intimacy present in my life. Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi in their book Life Isn’t Binary identify 13 types of intimacy that we experience through various relationships in our lives. Some of these include emotional, spiritual and mindful intimacy. I’ve learned to place more importance on connections with friends, families and colleagues that offer me relational closeness based on ideas, beliefs and thoughts in ways Rich and other romantic partners never could. I’ve also learned to experience sexual and creative intimacy with myself, which has been just as transformative.

When we first opened our relationship, Rich expressed his desire to choose freedom. He wanted to choose to be free with his body and mind and this was something I’d initially taken personally. Didn’t our relationship offer him all the freedom and fulfillment he needed?

But now, I understand what this choice really means.

Being in a relationship where I can be fluid in my interactions and self-expression has helped me become whole. This means that I bring my authentic self to all my relationships, be they with family, friends or romantic partners. And I see Rich doing that same, based on his ability to be openly Polyam.

It’s for this reason that our Mono/Poly dynamic works. It’s rooted in respect, trust, communication and self-determination. We’re our authentic selves, together.

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