A few years into non-monogamy, I genuinely believed I had things figured out. Not in an arrogant way, more in the way you feel when you’ve done the reading, had the hard conversations, and started to understand yourself well enough to move through relationships with some grace. I’d done the emotional work. I knew how to sit with jealousy, how to communicate needs I’d previously swallowed, how to show up for multiple people without losing myself in the process.

I felt, honestly, pretty evolved.

And then I got scabies. And then, not long after, molluscum. And I found myself sitting with my phone, working out how to call people I cared about and say words I’d never imagined having to say, not because anyone had lied or had been careless in any deliberate sense, but because we had all been living in this comfortable vagueness that none of us had thought to question. We’d assumed. We’d trusted. We just hadn’t quite asked.

It turned out the gap between what we’d assumed and what we’d actually said out loud was bigger than any of us had realised.

The Kind of Naivety That Doesn’t Look Like Naivety

What I’ve come to understand is that there are two completely separate skill sets in non-monogamy, and most of us get very good at one of them while barely touching the other.

The emotional side (jealousy, communication, attachment, needs), gets enormous amounts of attention. There are books, podcasts, therapists, and whole online communities dedicated to working through it. And that work is real and important and genuinely hard.

The physical side gets much less. Not because people don’t care, but because the conversation is awkward in a different way. It requires a kind of clinical specificity that doesn’t fit neatly into the warm, emotionally fluent register that ENM people tend to operate in. Asking about someone’s recent STI history before you sleep with them feels like a different register entirely, more like a form than a feeling.

So a lot of us, myself included, stayed vague. Asked broad questions when they came up naturally. Told ourselves that being thoughtful and caring and honest was the same as being careful.

It isn’t, quite.

Scabies and molluscum are very uncomfortable, but neither of them is extremely dangerous. Both are invisible until they’re not, easy to carry without knowing, and easy to pass on in exactly the kind of trusting, comfortable non-monogamous network I was part of. The person who passed them to me almost certainly had no idea. That’s not a comforting thought so much as an important one, because it means that goodness and care and emotional intelligence, all the things I’d been cultivating, don’t actually protect you from biology. Having specific conversations does.

What Making Those Calls Taught Me

I won’t pretend the phone calls were easy. There’s a particular kind of mortification in delivering news like that, even when the news is medically minor, even when nobody is angry with you. You rehearse what to say. You dread the moment before you press call.

What I didn’t expect was how okay every conversation actually was once I was in it, honest and adult and, in one case, strangely connecting in a way I hadn’t anticipated. The dread was so much worse than the reality. All that time I’d spent unconsciously avoiding specificity to sidestep discomfort, and the actual discomfort of the conversation I’d avoided was nothing compared to the situation I ended up in.

That stayed with me. The thing I’d been treating as too awkward to say was, in practice, completely fine to say. I’d been inflating it in my head into something much larger than it was, and in doing so, I’d left everyone, including myself, with less protection than we deserved.

Why I Think of It Differently Now

The reframe that shifted things for me is this: I used to think of the sexual health conversation as a hurdle, the awkward formality you get through before anything good can begin.

Now I think of it as one of the first genuinely intimate things you can do with someone.

When a person tells you their recent history, when they ask about yours, when you have the specific, slightly clinical conversation before anything has happened; that’s someone saying you matter enough for me to be honest with you even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s care made concrete rather than just assumed.

In non-monogamy especially, where your choices have a ripple effect on more than one person, the stakes of that conversation extend beyond the two of you in the room. The people in your network (your partners, their partners) are all trusting that you’re being thoughtful, not just emotionally but physically. That’s worth taking seriously in the same way you take the emotional work seriously. Not as a burden, but as part of what it means to actually look after the people you love.

I get tested regularly now and know my results before I’m in a situation where they matter. I ask specific questions, not as an interrogation, just as a normal part of getting to know someone’s life. And I’ve stopped letting the slight awkwardness of the conversation be a reason to stay quiet, because I know now what being quiet can cost.

I’ve made those calls. I’d rather have the slightly uncomfortable conversation a hundred times over than make them again.

The emotional work of non-monogamy is deep and real and worth every bit of effort it demands. The physical conversation deserves the same honesty, the same directness, the same willingness to say the thing that feels slightly hard to say.

Your body is in this, too.

This one felt important to write, and a little scary. If it resonated, or if you’ve been through something similar, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

xx, Luna Rose

Today I want to talk about the kind of ending that doesn’t get a name.

Not a breakup, exactly. Not a falling out. Just a gradual dimming, the texts that get slower, the dates that stop getting scheduled, the person who used to feel essential becoming someone you think about warmly but distantly. Someone you were, for a season, deeply tangled up with. And now you’re not.

In monogamy, there’s at least a script. You were together, then you weren’t. The story has a shape. People know how to hold it with you.

In non-monogamy, when a connection (a lover, a partner, someone who didn’t have a clean label but mattered enormously) fades or ends, you’re often left holding something that has no ceremony. No acknowledgment. No socially legible grief.

Just a quiet before and a quiet after, and the strange work of figuring out what to do with everything in between.

The Grief That Has No Container

Here’s what I’ve noticed: the depth of the loss rarely matches the formality of the relationship.

Someone you saw twice a month for two years. Someone who knew a version of you that your primary partner had never met. Someone who made you feel lit up and seen and specific, not more loved than others, but differently loved, in a way that was entirely its own thing.

When that ends, the grief is real. And it deserves to be treated as real.

But there’s often no container for it. You can’t post about it. You can’t call in sick because of it. You can’t always even explain it to the people closest to you without it becoming a complicated conversation about your whole relationship structure.

So a lot of people just swallow it. Quietly mourn something that was never publicly claimed. Move on before they’ve actually moved through.

I don’t think that serves anyone.

Why These Endings Are Their Own Thing

Losing a non-primary connection isn’t just a smaller version of a breakup. It has its own particular texture.

Sometimes your primary partner doesn’t fully understand why you’re sad, or worse, feels quietly relieved in a way they’re trying to hide. Sometimes the connection ends not because anything went wrong but because life shifted: someone moved, a schedule changed, a new relationship reconfigured someone’s bandwidth. There’s no villain. There’s no clean reason. It just happened.

And sometimes the connection doesn’t fully end, it just changes shape. You go from lovers to something undefined. You’re not together, but you’re not strangers. You share a world with mutual people in it. You might see them at a party, follow each other online, occasionally exchange a message that’s warm but carefully bounded.

That in-between state is its own kind of hard.

What I’ve Learned About Letting These Go

I won’t pretend I’ve figured this out perfectly. But here’s what’s helped me:

Let it be a real ending. Even if it’s quiet, even if nobody else marks it, give yourself permission to treat it as a loss worth feeling. Journal about it. Talk to a friend who gets it. Don’t just compress it into “it ran its course” and move on. It ran its course and it mattered. Both things.

Resist the urge to make it make sense immediately. Not every ending has a clean lesson. Sometimes a connection was just beautiful, and then it wasn’t, and you don’t need to extract a takeaway from it. You’re allowed to just miss it.

1. Be honest about what you’re actually grieving. Sometimes it’s the person. Sometimes it’s the version of yourself that existed in that connection (the one who read more, or talked about ideas until midnight, or felt young in some particular way). Knowing what you’re actually mourning helps you figure out what you actually need.

2. Don’t prematurely foreclose the friendship. Some of my most enduring connections started as something romantic and became something else. Not every shift is a loss. But let that transition happen naturally, not as a way of avoiding the grief of what it used to be.

3. Tell your primary partner what you need. This one is harder than it sounds. But if you’re sad and they’re the person you come home to, they need to know. Not to fix it. Just to hold it with you without making it weird.

The Part Worth Remembering

The connection was real. The fact that it ended, or changed, or quietly receded, that doesn’t retroactively unmake what it was.

I’ve had to remind myself of that more than once.

Non-monogamy invites you into a kind of loving that is plural and expansive and sometimes specifically heartbreaking. You get more. You lose more. You grieve in ways that don’t always have names.

But the grief is evidence of the love. And the love was worth having, even when the ending had no ceremony.

That’s always been enough for me to keep going.

Have you navigated the end of a non-primary connection? I’d love to hear what helped in the comments.

xx, Luna Rose

For a long time, I thought I was broken.

Not in a dramatic, obvious way. More like a quiet, persistent hum underneath everything. A voice that showed up whenever I felt attracted to someone new, whenever I caught myself wanting more than what I had, whenever I looked at my boyfriend and thought with guilt, this isn’t enough for me.

The voice said things like:

Why are you like this?

Why can’t you just be normal?

Why can’t you be like him, happy with one person, not always wanting more?

What is wrong with you?

I asked myself that last one so many times. What is wrong with you? As if wanting to love freely was a defect. As if the way I was wired was something to be fixed, suppressed, or at the very least hidden.

For years, I hid it very well (or tried at least).

The Relationship That Broke Everything Open

My last monogamous relationship was the one that finally made denial impossible.

We loved each other a lot. But we were also both trying to be something we weren’t. We both cheated. The trust was shattered. And what followed was not pretty. He became watchful and suspicious of my behavior. He even looked at my texts one time to see what I was messaging a male friend of mine. Once, at a concert, a guy was dancing near me, and he shoved him and said, “Get the fuck away from my girlfriend!”

I understood where it came from. He was scared. But I also knew, standing there in that moment, that this was what happened when two people tried to force themselves into a shape that didn’t fit. The shape breaks, and people get hurt.

I wasn’t a bad partner, but I was a dishonest one. Dishonest with him, yes, but more than anything, dishonest with myself.

The beginning of the end came on a trip I took while we were still together. I met someone and felt a connection so intense it stopped me in my tracks. And for the first time, instead of acting on it and hating myself after, I just sat with it. Looked at it clearly. Let it tell me the truth.

The truth was: I needed to stop pretending.

I ended the relationship. Not for him, not for the person I’d met on the trip, for myself. For the first time, I chose honesty over comfort. It was one of the hardest and most important things I’ve ever done.

The Voice Didn’t Stop Immediately

I want to be honest about this part, because I think it’s important.

Leaving that relationship didn’t silence the inner critic overnight. The voice had been with me for so long that it had started to feel like my own personality. I carried it into the early days of exploring non-monogamy.

Old shame doesn’t dissolve just because your circumstances change. It has to be slowly, deliberately dismantled.

What helped most was my current partner.

He came into my life and did something nobody had done before: he loved all of me. Not the edited, apologetic, carefully managed version. All of it, including the part that wants to connect with other people, to love freely, to not be contained. He didn’t just tolerate that part of me. He wanted it for me. He wanted me to be free.

I had never experienced that before. Being with someone who saw the fullest version of me and said: yes, her exactly as she is.

It changed something fundamental. Not overnight. But slowly, in the way that real healing works, until one day you realize the voice has gotten much, much quieter.

What I Know Now

Non-monogamy didn’t just change my relationship structure. It changed my relationship with myself.

It gave me a framework in which my desires weren’t shameful; they were just human. It gave me a community of people who felt the same things I’d spent years thinking only I felt. It gave me language for experiences I’d had but never been able to name.

And most importantly, it gave me the chance to be a genuinely good partner for the first time. Not because I was suddenly perfect, but because I stopped lying. To myself and to the people I loved.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me twenty years ago:

Wanting to love more than one person doesn’t make you bad. It doesn’t make you broken, greedy, incapable of commitment, or fundamentally flawed. It makes you someone whose heart works in a different way than the current norm, and there is nothing wrong with that heart.

Cheating isn’t the inevitable consequence of being wired this way. Cheating is what happens when you’re so ashamed of who you are that you can’t be honest about it. The problem was never my desires. The problem was the silence I kept around them.

You are not too much. You are not wrong. You have not failed at love.

You just haven’t found the shape of it that fits you yet.

To My Younger Self

If I could go back, I would find her, the girl asking what is wrong with me in the dark, and I would sit down next to her and say:

Nothing. There is nothing wrong with you.

You are a good partner. You are a loving person. You are not broken.

You just need a different kind of love story. And one day, you’re going to find it, and it’s going to be more beautiful than anything you can currently imagine.

I would tell her to stop shrinking. To stop apologizing for her own heart. To hold on, because the version of love she’s looking for is real and exists, and she deserves to have it without shame.

She did. And so do you.

If any part of this resonated with you, I’d love to hear your story in the comments. You are not alone in this.

xx, Luna Rose

There’s something that happens in long-term relationships that I feel like isn’t talked about enough.

It’s not bad, exactly. It’s just... a settling. A gradual narrowing of the version of yourself that shows up. You stop mentioning certain interests because they’re not really their thing. You let some conversations go unfinished because you already know where they’ll land. Over time, without either of you meaning to, you become a slightly edited version of yourself.

You don’t notice it happening. That’s the thing. You only notice it when someone new comes along and suddenly, unexpectedly, the unedited version of you walks back into the room.

The Person Who Made Me Remember I Love Books

The first time I really felt this was with someone I started seeing who was a reader.

Not casually, seriously. The kind of person who has opinions about authors, who listens to literary podcasts on their commute, who wants to talk about ideas for hours over dinner. And something in me just lit up.

We’d sit in coffee shops and pull books apart. We’d send each other podcast episodes and then debrief them like they were events. We’d go down rabbit holes on topics I hadn’t thought about in years.

It sounds so simple. But I remember sitting across from them one afternoon thinking: I forgot that I was this person.

Not that my primary relationship was lacking, it wasn’t. But somewhere along the way, that part of me had gone unwatered. I’d stopped feeding it because there wasn’t really space for it in my daily life. And I hadn’t even noticed the hunger until someone offered me a meal.

The Person Who Made Me Remember I’m Spiritual

Then there was someone else who loved talking about spirituality.

Again, not my primary partner’s territory. Not something we explore together. And so, over the years, it had become one of those parts of me I just kept to myself.

This new person flung that door open on the first date and never looked back.

We talked about energy and meaning and the strange experience of being alive in a way I hadn’t done in so long. I came home from those conversations feeling like a fuller version of myself. Lit up in a way I hadn’t been able to name until I felt it again.

What I Actually Learned

Here’s the insight that took me a while to land on: neither of these connections was showing me something wrong with my primary relationship.

They were showing me something about me.

Needs that had been quietly accumulating. Parts of myself I’d unconsciously archived because there wasn’t a natural outlet for them. Not because my partner had taken them away, just because no single relationship can hold all of a person. No one human can be the mirror for every facet of who you are.

Non-monogamy, for me, didn’t reveal a deficit in my relationship. It revealed a fullness in myself that I hadn’t been giving enough room to breathe.

Different people unlock different rooms. That’s not a criticism of anyone. It’s just the nature of human connection.

On Getting Needs Met Without Shame

I think a lot of people, especially those raised on the idea that one relationship should be everything, carry a quiet guilt about this.

Like admitting that a partner doesn’t meet every need is a betrayal. Like wanting more conversation, more intellectual spark, more spiritual depth, is evidence of something being wrong.

But needs aren’t accusations. They’re just information.

Non-monogamy gave me permission to take that information seriously. To stop pretending that one person could or should be everything. To go find the conversations, connections, and mirrors I was missing, without making my primary partner responsible for providing all of them.

The result wasn’t distance from my primary relationship. It was the opposite. When I stopped silently expecting them to meet needs they were never going to meet, something relaxed between us. I brought a fuller, less quietly frustrated version of myself home.

You can love someone deeply and still need things they can’t give you. That’s not a flaw in the relationship. It’s just the reality of being a complex person.

How to Use New Connections as Mirrors

If you’re in non-monogamy and noticing this pattern (other connections illuminating dormant parts of yourself), here’s how to make it useful rather than just interesting:

Notice what lights up. When a new connection sparks something in you, pay attention to what, specifically, is being activated. That’s information about an unmet need worth taking seriously.

Name it without blame. The goal isn’t to present your primary partner with a list of failures. It’s to understand yourself better and find ways to meet those needs, whether through other relationships, friendships, solo pursuits, or new conversations with your partner.

Let it make you more yourself. The best thing a new connection can do is remind you of who you are. Take that version of you with you everywhere, back to your existing relationships, back to your everyday life.

Don’t archive parts of yourself for anyone. If you find you’ve been quietly shelving interests or needs because they don’t fit the shape of your relationship, that’s worth looking at. A good relationship makes you more yourself. Not less.

The Unexpected Gift

I didn’t expect non-monogamy to be this much of a personal excavation. I thought it would be about love, about connection, about freedom.

And it is all of those things.

But more than anything, it’s been about recovering the parts of myself I’d unknowingly set aside and forgotten about. The reader. The seeker. The person who wants to talk about ideas until midnight and wake up still thinking about them.

New connections held up a mirror, and I saw myself more clearly than I had in years.

That, honestly, was the part nobody warned me about.

And it’s been one of the best surprises of my life.

Have other connections ever reflected something back to you about yourself? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

xx, Luna Rose

There’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in non-monogamy spaces. You’ll see it in Reddit threads, hear it at poly meetups, and find it in every beginner’s guide to ethical non-monogamy.

The word is compersion.

It’s usually defined as the feeling of joy you experience when your partner is happy with someone else. The opposite of jealousy. The holy grail of non-monogamy, depending on who you ask.

When I first encountered it, my honest reaction was: that sounds made up.

Not the word, I understood the word. I mean the feeling itself. The idea that you could watch your partner fall into excitement over another person and feel something warm and generous rather than something sharp and threatening. It sounded like something emotionally enlightened people felt. People who meditated and had done a lot of therapy and were definitely better at this than me.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to find out I was wrong.

The Honest Beginning

When my partner first started seeing someone new, I did not feel compersion.

I felt fine, mostly. And then occasionally not fine. And then fine again. The classic early non-monogamy emotional shuffle.

But there was one specific thing that got me every time: them coming home happy.

Not upset. Not guilty. Happy. Glowing, even. Talking animatedly about their evening, about a conversation (or steamy sex) they’d had, about how much fun it was.

And I would smile and say the right things and then quietly go somewhere in my head that was not very generous or evolved.

It wasn’t that I wanted them to come home miserable. It was more that the happiness felt like evidence of something I couldn’t quite name. Like it was proof that something over there was better than something over here.

I know now that this is one of the most common early experiences in non-monogamy. The happiness of a partner triggers comparison. Comparison triggers fear. Fear dresses itself up as jealousy.

The Shift

Here’s what nobody told me: compersion isn’t usually something you feel suddenly. It’s something that arrives gradually, almost without you noticing, as trust builds and fear quiets down.

The first time I genuinely felt it, I almost didn’t recognise it.

My partner came home one evening, and they were in a wonderful mood. They were relaxed, warm, and funny. We made dinner together and talked for hours. And somewhere in the middle of it, I realised I wasn’t bracing for anything. I wasn’t monitoring my own feelings or doing a quiet inventory of my insecurities.

I was just glad they’d had a good time.

It was a small feeling, not a revelation. But it was real. And once I felt it once, I started to feel it more.

What changed wasn’t my personality or my capacity for love. What changed was that I had accumulated enough evidence that my partner’s happiness elsewhere didn’t diminish what we had. That their good time had no bearing on whether they wanted to come home to me. That love, as it turns out, doesn’t actually work like a finite resource that gets used up.

Compersion, I think, is what’s left when scarcity thinking finally loosens its grip.

How to Actually Cultivate It

If you’re not feeling compersion yet, that’s not a character flaw. It’s just where you are! Here’s what actually helped me get there:

1. Stop performing it before you feel it. There is a particular kind of pressure in non-monogamy spaces to already be feeling the “right” things. Performing compersion you don’t feel doesn’t help anyone; it just buries the real feelings that need air. Let yourself be honest about where you actually are.

2. Separate your partner’s happiness from your own story. When jealousy spikes, it’s almost always because we’ve made our partner’s experience mean something about us. The work is to gently disentangle the two. Their good date is not a verdict on your relationship. Practice noticing when you’re making it one.

3. Build your own life alongside theirs. Compersion is much easier to feel when you’re not sitting at home waiting. Having your own experiences, your own dates, friendships, projects, and adventures, means you’re not white-knuckling it through their absence. You’re living your own story, which makes theirs easier to celebrate.

4. Let the small moments count. You don’t need to feel overwhelming warmth the first time. A flicker is enough. Notice when you feel even a little glad for them, and let that register as real. Compersion grows from being acknowledged, not from being forced.

5. Talk about it when it arrives. Telling your partner “I’m actually really happy you had a good time”, and meaning it, does something for both of you. It reinforces the feeling in you, and it builds the kind of trust that makes the whole thing easier next time.

Final Thoughts

Compersion isn’t the finish line of non-monogamy. You don’t graduate once you feel it, and not feeling it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

But it is one of the more quietly radical things this lifestyle has offered me. The discovery that someone else’s joy, even joy I’m not part of, can land in me as something good.

It took time. It took reassurance. It took my partner coming home happy and that joy spilling out into our relationship for me to stop bracing and start celebrating.

And then one day, I was just glad.

That was enough.

Have you experienced compersion? Or are you still waiting for it to show up? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear where you are on the journey!

xx, Luna Rose

We talk a lot about jealousy in non-monogamy spaces. We talk about where it comes from, what it means, how it’s just a signal, and how it’s not the enemy.

And all of that is true. But sometimes what you actually need isn’t a philosophical framework.

Sometimes your partner just texted you that their date went really well, and your stomach dropped, and now you’re sitting on the kitchen floor eating crackers at 11 pm, wondering what’s wrong with you.

That’s the moment I want to talk about. Not the theory, the toolkit.

Step One: Don’t Do Anything Yet

Seriously. Step one is to just pause.

When jealousy hits, the urge to act is immediate. You want to text your partner. Or spiral into comparison. Or write a long message you’ll regret. Or bring up that thing from three weeks ago that was apparently fine but now suddenly feels like evidence of something.

None of that helps.

The first thing I do, and I had to train myself to do this, is give myself five minutes before I respond to anything. I sit with the discomfort. I breathe. I acknowledge that I feel something without immediately turning it into a story.

Jealousy has a very short half-life if you don’t feed it. The spike usually softens within ten to fifteen minutes if you don’t immediately act on it.

Step Two: Get Curious, Not Defensive

Once the initial intensity has passed a little, I try to ask myself: What is this actually about?

Because jealousy is almost never really about the surface thing.

I once felt a sharp spike of jealousy when my partner came home glowing after a date. And when I actually sat with it, what came up wasn’t I don’t want them to be happy, it was I’ve been feeling kind of disconnected from them lately and I’m scared this means I matter less.

That’s a completely different conversation than “I’m jealous.” And it’s a much more solvable one.

Some questions that help me dig a layer deeper:

• Am I feeling left out, or left behind? (Loneliness vs. fear of replacement)

• Is this about this specific person, or about a fear that’s been quietly building?

• What would I need right now to feel more secure?

You don’t have to answer these perfectly. Just asking them shifts you out of reaction mode and into something more useful.

Step Three: Tend to Yourself First

This sounds obvious, but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve skipped it.

Before you have The Conversation, take care of yourself! Not as a way of avoiding the conversation, just as a prerequisite.

For me, this means: drink water, move my body, change my environment. I’ll take a walk or call a friend who knows my relationship situation and can offer a grounding perspective. Sometimes I’ll journal, not to process into the void, but to actually find out what I’m feeling before I speak it out loud.

The goal is to get yourself out of the flooded state and back into your actual self. Because the version of you that initiates a conversation from the peak of jealousy is almost never the version that gets the outcome you want.

Step Four: Have the Conversation (But Make It a Want, Not an Attack)

Once you’ve slowed down, gotten curious, and taken care of yourself, now you talk.

And the key here is framing it around what you need, not what they did wrong.

Compare:

• “You always seem so much more excited after dates with them. It makes me feel like I’m not enough.”

• “I’ve been feeling a little disconnected lately, and when you got home, I felt a pang of jealousy. Can we have some quality time this week?”

The second one opens a door. The first one puts your partner on the defensive and doesn’t actually ask for anything.

Jealousy is most useful when it points you toward a need you can articulate. The conversation then becomes about meeting that need, which is something your partner can actually help with.

Step Five: Acknowledge the Compersion, When It Comes

This one takes practice. But once you move through jealousy, there’s often something else waiting on the other side.

Compersion: the feeling of joy at your partner’s happiness doesn’t always show up first. For many of us, it shows up after we’ve processed the jealousy. After the conversation, after the reconnection, after the reassurance.

I used to think that if I felt jealous, it meant I wasn’t “cut out” for non-monogamy. Now I see it differently. The jealousy and the compersion often live right next to each other. The work is just clearing enough space for both to exist.

Final Thoughts

Jealousy in non-monogamy isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you or your relationship. It’s a very human response to vulnerability, and it deserves to be taken seriously, without being given the steering wheel.

The toolkit isn’t about making jealousy disappear. It’s about giving yourself something to do with it that actually moves you forward!

Pause. Get curious. Tend to yourself. Communicate a need. Rinse, repeat.

And eat the crackers if you need to. No judgment. We’ve all been there.

What do you do when jealousy hits? I’d love to hear what works for you. Drop it in the comments below.

xx, Luna Rose

Most women are taught a version of the same story when it comes to dating.

Be open, but not too eager.
Be attractive, but not assertive.
Be available, but let him make the move.

Desire, in this script, is something you receive. You are chosen. You are pursued. You are wanted.

And for a long time, I followed that without really questioning it. I felt attraction, of course. I noticed people. But I always waited for them to come and claim me.

The First Time I Didn’t Wait

One of the most meaningful non-monogamous relationships I’ve had started in a café.

I remember noticing him almost immediately. It wasn’t dramatic, just a steady kind of pull. The kind where your attention keeps returning, even when you try to focus on something else.

Normally, I would have left it there. Maybe made eye contact. Maybe hoped something would happen. But that day, I didn’t.

I walked over. Started a conversation. And then, just before I left, I asked him for a pen so I could write down my number for him. My hands were shaking while I wrote, and when I left, I wondered if I had made a complete fool of myself. But turns out, he loved it.

That small decision turned into something much bigger than I expected. We dated for over two years. It was a relationship full of curiosity, play, and a lot of great sex. The kind that only happens when two people meet each other openly from the beginning.

Looking back, what stands out to me isn’t just the relationship itself, but the fact that it existed at all because I didn’t wait.

The One I Almost Talked Myself Out Of

The second was even less expected.

He had been my Physiotherapist (I want to stress had been). There was already context, a pre-existing dynamic, and a lot more room for hesitation. It would have been very easy to dismiss the feeling or convince myself it wasn’t appropriate to act on.

But the attraction was there, and this time I recognized it differently and followed it.

That connection also turned into something long-lasting. It was full of depth, exploration (both in the bedroom and outside of it), and a different kind of emotional intimacy. It wasn’t just a passing moment of attraction. It was a relationship that unfolded over time and shaped me in ways I didn’t anticipate.

And again, it only existed because I made a move.

What Changed When I Started Choosing

Both of those relationships shared something in common beyond how they started.

They felt intentional from the beginning.

When you wait to be approached, attraction can feel like something that happens to you. When you initiate, it becomes something you actively participate in. You are not just being chosen. You are choosing.

That shift is subtle, but it changes the entire tone of the connection. There is less ambiguity. Less performance. Less wondering. You meet each other in something that is already mutual.

And for me, it created space for relationships that were not only long-lasting but full of genuine exploration. I had been fully myself at the beginning, so I felt comfortable continuing to express myself to my fullest.

How This Connects to Non-Monogamy

Non-monogamy asks you to question a lot of inherited scripts.

Not just about exclusivity, but about roles. About who gets to want, who gets to initiate, and how desire is allowed to move.

In many traditional dynamics, men pursue, and women respond. That structure doesn’t just shape behavior. It shapes how we relate to our own attraction.

But when you step outside of that, you start to see how limiting it can be.

Especially in non-monogamy, where connections don’t always follow familiar paths, waiting to be approached can quietly close doors. There are people who might be interested but hesitant. People navigating their own dynamics. People who won’t step forward first, even if something is there.

If you only ever wait, you miss them and the fun, intimacy, and love that they can bring you.

Desire Is Something You Can Act On

There is something powerful about allowing your desire to move through you, instead of holding it back.

Not in a forceful or performative way, but in a simple, grounded way. You see someone. You feel something. You move toward it.

Sometimes nothing comes of it. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it surprises you. And sometimes, it turns into something real. Something that expands your understanding of what connection can look like.

A Different Way of Loving

Looking back, those relationships were meaningful because they showed me that I didn’t have to wait to be chosen in order to experience love, attraction, or connection. That I could step toward what I wanted. That I could participate in creating the relationships I was curious about.

And in the context of non-monogamy, that feels especially true.

Loving outside the box isn’t just about having more options. It’s about engaging with your own desire more honestly.

It’s about choosing, not just being chosen.

A Little Fun Quiz For You!

Are you new to non-monogamy and aren’t sure which relationship style is for you? Check out this fun and quick quiz that finds out if you would do best with monogamish, open relationships, relationship anarchy, and more!

Take The Quiz

Got any questions or stories about non-monogamy? Feel free to drop them in the comments below!

xx, Luna Rose

When people first start exploring non-monogamy, the conversation usually revolves around freedom.

Freedom to explore attraction. Freedom to experience new connections. Freedom from the rigid scripts we were taught about what relationships are supposed to look like.

And while those freedoms are real (and very beautiful), what people talk about less often are the realities that show up once you’re actually living them.

Non-monogamy has been so very rewarding for me. But, in all honesty, it can also be emotionally demanding in ways people don’t anticipate. Looking back, there are a few things I really wish someone had told me earlier.

1. Jealousy Isn’t Something You Can Avoid

A lot of people approach non-monogamy with the goal of eliminating jealousy. They imagine that the ideal version of openness is a state where jealousy simply disappears.

In practice, that almost never happens.

Jealousy is a very important signal. It often contains information about fear, attachment, insecurity, or unmet needs. Trying to avoid it entirely usually just pushes it underground, where it festers and becomes harder to talk about.

Ironically, many people in healthy non-monogamous relationships don’t have less jealousy; they just have better conversations about it. They treat jealousy as something to understand rather than something to suppress.

The goal isn’t to never feel it. The goal is to learn how to express it and move through it.

2. If One Person Isn’t Genuinely On Board, It Doesn’t Work

This one sounds obvious, but it shows up more often than people think.

Non-monogamy only works when everyone involved is genuinely enthusiastic about it. Not tolerant. Not reluctantly agreeing. Actually stoked.

That doesn’t just apply to the primary couple. It also applies to the people you date.

At one point, I started seeing someone who said they were open to non-monogamy, but over time it became clear that what they actually wanted was for me to become their primary partner. They hoped that eventually my relationship would end and that things would shift in their direction.

The tension that created was enormous. Every interaction carried an unspoken pressure. What was meant to be a fun and exploratory connection slowly became emotionally loaded.

At one point, it even started to threaten my existing relationship.

That experience taught me something important: non-monogamy requires alignment across everyone involved. If someone is secretly hoping the structure will eventually change in their favor, the dynamic becomes unstable very quickly.

3. STIs Aren’t Always Obvious

This is the least glamorous point, but it’s important.

When people think about sexual health risks, they usually imagine the big, well-known infections that show up in standard testing panels.

But not everything is obvious.

Things like scabies, for example, are surprisingly common in some sexual networks and are not technically considered STIs in the traditional sense. They spread through skin contact and can take a while to recognize (believe me, I know).

The lesson here isn’t paranoia. It’s all about staying aware!

Regular testing, clear communication, and basic knowledge about different kinds of infections are part of responsible non-monogamy. Being informed protects everyone involved.

4. Dating Other People Can Bring You Closer to Your Partner

This is the part that sounds the most counterintuitive from the outside.

Many people assume that dating others will create distance in a primary relationship. In some cases, it can. But in many cases, the opposite happens.

Seeing your partner through the eyes of other people can remind you of their desirability in a way that familiarity sometimes dulls. The novelty that appears in new connections can spill back into the existing relationship.

There’s also something powerful about returning to each other after independent experiences. The relationship stops feeling like the default and starts feeling chosen.

For many couples (including my partner and me), that shift deepens intimacy rather than weakening it.

5. Non-Monogamy Won’t Fix a Struggling Relationship

One of the most common mistakes people make is opening a relationship in the hope that it will solve existing problems.

Sometimes the reasoning goes like this: maybe new experiences will bring excitement back. Maybe outside connections will relieve pressure. Maybe the relationship will feel lighter.

But non-monogamy rarely fixes underlying issues.

If communication is weak, it will become more obvious. If trust is shaky, it will be tested. If resentment is present, it will surface quickly.

The couples who tend to thrive in non-monogamy are usually the ones who already communicate well and are willing to confront difficult emotions directly.

Final Thoughts

None of this is meant to scare anyone away from non-monogamy. For many people, it can be deeply fulfilling and growth-producing.

But it is not the effortless free-for-all that some people imagine. It asks for emotional honesty, communication skills, and a willingness to sit with uncomfortable feelings sometimes.

The reward for that work, at least in my experience, is a relationship that feels more intentional. Less based on default and more based on choice.

And being chosen, again and again, can be one of the most powerful experiences a relationship can offer.

Got any questions or stories about non-monogamy? Feel free to drop them in the comments below!

xx, Luna Rose

When my partner and I first opened our relationship, one of the earliest (and surprisingly loaded) questions we faced was whether we would date together or separately.

On the surface, this seems like a logistical choice about scheduling and preference. In reality, it is a decision that shapes the emotional architecture of the relationship.

The structure you choose influences how autonomy feels, how jealousy emerges, how power circulates, and how secure each person experiences uncertainty. This is not simply about dating style; it is about the psychological terrain you are agreeing to navigate together.

The Containment of Dating Together

Dating together often feels stabilizing, especially at the beginning. Being present allows you to see what is happening rather than imagining it. There are fewer unknowns and fewer gaps for the mind to fill with catastrophic projections.

On top of all that, shared experience can feel bonding. You witness each other’s reactions in real time, process attraction side by side, and remain physically oriented toward one another while exploring something new.

However, containment has tradeoffs.

When dating is always shared, individuality can soften in subtle ways. Desire becomes collaborative rather than personal. Instead of asking, “Do I want this connection?” the question can shift into, “Does this work for us?” That shift may feel intimate, but it can also blur differentiation.

Differentiation, the ability to remain a distinct individual while staying emotionally connected, is essential for long-term relational health. Dating together reduces ambiguity, but it can also reduce the opportunities to practice autonomy.

The Exposure of Dating Separately

Dating separately introduces a very different emotional landscape.

Your partner has experiences you do not witness. They build chemistry in spaces where you are not present. You must rely on trust rather than proximity to regulate your sense of security. For many people, this is where non-monogamy becomes psychologically real.

Separate dating reinforces the idea that each person is an individual making independent choices rather than half of a unified system. Autonomy becomes embodied rather than theoretical.

At the same time, this autonomy activates attachment patterns quickly. Questions about priority, significance, and comparison surface more readily. The absence of containment requires stronger internal stability.

Nonetheless, differentiation can deepen intimacy in an unexpected way. When two people return to each other after separate experiences, the relationship can feel actively chosen rather than structurally assumed.

The reunion carries weight precisely because independence was possible.

I can remember many times when either my partner or I returned home from a date with a renewed sense of love and attraction for each other. I know it might sound counterintuitive, but this is a very real experience for many.

Power Does Not Disappear

Neither structure is neutral. Dating together can unintentionally privilege the original couple. New partners may enter a dynamic that already has established rules and implicit hierarchies. Decisions may center around the existing bond even when everyone involved believes they are acting ethically.

Dating separately introduces a different asymmetry. One partner may receive more attention or move faster emotionally. Social differences, personality differences, and gender dynamics often create uneven experiences. These imbalances are not evidence that something is broken; they are reflections of reality.

The question is not whether power exists, but whether it can be acknowledged without defensiveness.

Security Is Not Structural

It is tempting to believe that choosing the “right” format will prevent jealousy or insecurity. In practice, security does not arise from logistics.

I’ve seen couples date together and still feel threatened. I’ve seen couples date separately and feel surprisingly steady. Trust is built through consistent reassurance, clear communication, and repeated experiences of being chosen.

Structure creates the environment; it doesn’t create the trust. The emotional skills you bring to that structure matter more than the structure itself.

The Real Tradeoff

Dating together prioritizes shared experience and visible containment. Dating separately prioritizes autonomy and differentiation. Both will expose vulnerabilities. Both will challenge assumptions. Both require communication that is more intentional than what many couples practice in monogamy.

For my partner and me, we didn’t land in one place permanently. We experimented. In the beginning, dating together felt safer. It allowed us to ease into the reality of openness without overwhelming our nervous systems. We could glance at each other across the room. We could feel connected while something new was unfolding.

But eventually, we realized that if we stayed there, we would never truly know ourselves inside non-monogamy. We would only know ourselves as a unit.

Dating separately forced us to grow up a little. It forced us to sit with the quiet of an empty apartment while the other was out. It forced us to have harder conversations about reassurance, comparison, and what it actually means to feel secure.

And what surprised me most was this: the nights one of us came home from a separate date were often the nights we felt the closest. Not because we were trying to prove anything. Not because we were competing. But because the return felt intentional.

We were not together by default.

That doesn’t mean it was always easy. There were uncomfortable conversations. Moments of insecurity. Times when we had to admit we needed more reassurance than we expected. But those conversations deepened us. They clarified what we valued. They forced us to articulate why we were building this life together in the first place.

In the end, I don’t think the question is whether you date together or separately.

I think the question is whether you are willing to look honestly at what each style brings up in you, and whether you are willing to grow through it instead of organizing your relationship to avoid it.

Non-monogamy doesn’t remove emotional risk. It makes it visible.

And in my experience, that visibility, while uncomfortable at times, has made our bond more conscious, more intentional, and ultimately more alive.

Got any questions or stories about non-monogamy? Feel free to drop them in the comments below!

xx, Luna Rose

There’s something people don’t admit very often.

That moment when you notice someone else looking at your partner, not casually, but with intention. The eye contact lingers. Their body shifts closer. The energy in the room changes in a way that’s subtle but unmistakable.

And instead of your stomach dropping, something else happens.

You feel a spark of electricity run through you.

It might catch you slightly off guard. Aren't you supposed to be jealous? Aren't you supposed to feel territorial?

You don't feel either. Instead, you are incredible and undeniably turned on.

Desire Is Social

We tend to think of desire as something that lives inside us. But attraction is profoundly social.

Humans are wired to pay attention to what others pay attention to. We notice who gets looked at. Who gets chosen. Who generates interest. Status, visibility, and desirability are not abstract ideas. They shape arousal.

When someone else wants your partner, it reframes them in real time. They are no longer just the familiar person you share routines with. They become visible as a sexual being in the social field.

That visibility can disrupt complacency or feelings of normalcy.

Familiarity tends to soften desire over time. Novelty intensifies it. And nothing is more novel than seeing your partner through someone else’s hunger.

Suddenly, you’re not only looking at them as “mine.”

You’re looking at them as an autonomous person who is wanted by others. And that difference matters.

Let’s be honest, there’s usually a flicker of insecurity in the mix. You might feel a pulse of competitiveness or comparison. That edge between “they could want them” and “they’re here with me” is real.

But that tension is often what makes it electric.

It’s not full-blown fear. It’s activation.

You become more aware of your partner’s desirability. You might feel more desire for them as well, feelings that had been dormant coming to life. You want them more intensely because you’re reminded they are not static. They are dynamic.

The Psychology of the Edge

What you’re feeling in that moment isn’t pure jealousy. It’s what some researchers call eroticized competition.

There’s a small surge of comparison, but instead of collapsing your attraction, it heightens it.

Why?

Because desire thrives on the unknown.

That subtle uncertainty, “they could be wanted elsewhere,” reintroduces tension. And tension, in contained amounts, fuels arousal.

It’s the same mechanism behind many fantasies: being watched, being chosen, being competed for. The mind registers possibility. The body registers aliveness.

You’re not turned on by the threat of loss.

You’re turned on by the reminder that this person beside you is not static or secured by default.

Being Chosen in the Presence of Options

Here’s where it shifts from simple attraction to something deeper.

When your partner is clearly desired by someone else and still turns toward you, still reaches for your hand, still leans into your body, it lands differently.

Their presence becomes intentional.

It’s not about exclusivity keeping you together. It’s about choice.

Being chosen in a world where alternatives exist carries more weight than being claimed in a closed system. There’s something profoundly erotic about knowing your partner could move in another direction, and watching them move toward you instead.

When It Brings You Closer

This dynamic can either create distance or intimacy. The difference is whether it’s acknowledged.

If you pretend you didn’t notice it, the energy can turn quiet and weird. But if you name it, “I saw the way they were looking at you tonight,” something opens.

Not in accusation. Not in insecurity. Just in awareness.

That shared recognition can deepen connection. You’re not denying attraction exists outside the relationship. You’re standing inside that reality together.

And for many people, that honesty is what makes it hot.

Watching someone else desire your partner doesn’t have to threaten what you have. Sometimes, it amplifies it. It reminds you that the person beside you is not secured by default. They are alive in the world. They are capable of being wanted by many.

And they are choosing you.

That awareness doesn’t dilute intimacy. It makes it even more electric.

Got any questions or stories about non-monogamy? Feel free to drop them in the comments below!

xx, Luna Rose

Let's talk about one of the most celebrated ideas in non-monogamy: Freedom.

We talk about the freedom to choose.
The freedom to explore.
The freedom to exist outside rigid scripts and expectations.

And for many people, that freedom feels like oxygen after years of feeling constrained. Like being set free from a box you didn't even know you were stuck inside of.

But here’s the part that often gets left out of the conversation: Freedom on its own is not enough.

Without care, freedom doesn’t lead to connection. It leads to distance and neglect.

In fact, freedom without care often isn’t freedom at all; it’s just plain avoidance!

When “Freedom” Starts to Feel Hollow

A lot of my friends who are non-monogamous start living this lifestyle because they don’t want to feel controlled.

They don’t want to justify every desire.
They don’t want to manage someone else’s emotions.
They don’t want to shut down parts of themselves that are crying for attention.

This is totally understandable! I myself started exploring non-monogamy with my partner because of exactly these reasons.

But sometimes, the language of “freedom” gets used to avoid something more subversive: the discomfort of being emotionally accountable to another person.

It can sound like:
“I don’t want to feel responsible for how you feel.”
“I shouldn’t have to reassure you.”
“That sounds like control.”
“I don’t want expectations.”

It may seem like those statements are about autonomy.

But really, they’re about opting out of care while still wanting connection.

Freedom vs. Avoidance

Healthy freedom says:
“I can make my own choices, but I need to remain aware of how those choices impact my partner(s).”

Avoidance says:
“I can make my own choices, and what you feel about them isn’t my responsibility.”

One invites trust. The other slowly erodes it.

Care doesn’t mean centering your entire life around someone else’s comfort. But it does mean holding yourself accountable for the impact your choices have on those with whom you are in partnership.

It means committing to clear communication, respecting boundaries, and showing up with love.

It means not treating emotional impact as an inconvenience or people as disposable.

Care Is Not the Same as Control

One reason care gets rejected is that it’s often confused with restriction.

Let me be really clear! It does not mean suppressing desire. It does not mean managing someone else’s emotions for them.

What it does mean is:

• offering context instead of secrecy

• checking in instead of disappearing

• being open to hearing impact without becoming defensive

• and sometimes adjusting behavior when something consistently causes harm.

Care doesn’t eliminate freedom.
It just makes sure that your freedom doesn't cause harm to someone else.

Without that, freedom tends to benefit the person with more confidence, more experience, or more options, while the other person quietly stretches themselves thinner and thinner.

A More Useful Question

Let's look at an example of what this might look like:

Instead of asking,
“Am I allowed to do this?”

It can be more revealing to ask,
“If I do this, how will it impact those I care about? How will I show care afterward?”

That question doesn’t restrict freedom. It deepens it.

Because freedom that can’t survive honest conversation isn’t expansive, it’s fragile.

What Sustainable Freedom Actually Looks Like

Sustainable freedom includes choice and responsiveness.
Desire and consideration.
Autonomy and accountability.

It allows relationships to evolve without becoming disposable.

It acknowledges that love doesn’t thrive on control, but it also doesn’t thrive on emotional absence.

The Bottom Line

Freedom without care isn’t radical.
It isn’t neutral.
And it isn’t brave.

More often than not, it’s a way of avoiding the discomfort of your actions impacting someone else.

Real freedom isn’t the absence of responsibility.
It’s the willingness to choose connection, again and again, without coercion.

That kind of freedom doesn’t run from care. It is built upon it.

Got any questions or stories about non-monogamy? Feel free to drop them in the comments below!

xx, Luna Rose

I don't think that it's much of a secret that most of us are taught that love means possession.

Not explicitly, no one says, “to love someone is to own them.” But this concept is hammered into our brains through media and society from the moment we are born.

So often, commitment is framed as exclusivity.
Jealousy is treated as proof of care.
Losing someone is described as having something “taken away.”

Without even being aware of it, we absorb the idea that if you love someone, they belong to you and you belong to them. This seems like almost a give-in.

While non-monogamy challenges this assumption, it doesn’t automatically undo it. Many people open their relationships while still carrying the idea of ownership inside of them.

I want to make something very clear: Loving without owning is not about detachment. It’s about changing the structure of love, not the depth of it.

Ownership vs. Commitment

Ownership says:

• Your choices reflect on me

• Your time is something I’m entitled to

• Your desire needs to be managed

Commitment may sound similar on the surface, but it’s built on something else:

• Mutual care

• Ongoing consent

• Choice, renewed over time

So, while ownership relies on fear of loss, commitment relies on trust in return.

This distinction matters because many conflicts labeled as “jealousy” are actually insecurities about ownership and the fear that love only stays if it’s controlled.

Why Letting Go Can Feel Like Losing Love

For many people (yours truly included), the idea of not owning a partner triggers grief. Not because love is disappearing, but because certainty is.

Ownership promises permanence. Choice does not. But it's important to remember that the stability that ownership offers is actually a false sense of security. Anyone can leave a relationship, even if you're in a monogamous marriage.

Nonetheless, when love is framed as something someone chooses rather than something they owe, it can feel less secure, even if it’s more honest.

That insecurity isn’t a personal flaw. It’s a learned expectation being challenged!

Loving Without Owning Still Involves Needs

There’s a misconception that loving without owning means wanting less.

Less reassurance.
Less closeness.
Less care.

In reality, it often means being more specific about what you need.

Instead of:

“You shouldn’t do that.”

It sounds like:

“When that happens, I need reassurance.”

Instead of:

“You’re mine.”

It sounds like:

“I choose you and I need to feel chosen back.”

Letting go of ownership doesn’t eliminate needs (not in the slightest!) But it does change how those needs are expressed, and sometimes how often they need to be voiced.

Freedom Isn’t the Opposite of Care

One of the biggest myths about non-monogamy, and love in general, is that freedom and care cannot exist at the same time.

But freedom without care feels destabilizing, and care without freedom feels suffocating! Loving without owning means holding both:

• The freedom to choose

• The responsibility to understand your impact

Not because you're obligated but because connection matters.

What This Looks Like in Practice

There are many ways that you can practice loving without owning. It can look different for different folks. Here are some ways that my partner and I practice it:

It looks like:

• Allowing your partner to change without treating it as betrayal

• Asking for reassurance without demanding restriction

• Letting uncertainty exist without rushing to control it

• Staying in conversation instead of issuing ultimatums

It’s less about what’s allowed and more about how trust is maintained.

Why This Is Harder Than It Sounds

There is no way to sugarcoat this. Ownership is simple because it draws clear lines.

Loving without owning, on the other hand, is ongoing work. It requires attention, communication, and emotional presence.

But remember, there’s no contract that guarantees safety! Only patterns of care that are built over time.

I know this can feel exhausting, especially for people who were taught that love should lock things in.

But it can also make you feel deeply alive! Because being chosen, again and again, is different from being claimed once. It is a deeper and fuller version of love (in my humble opinion).

A Different Definition of Love

To love without owning is to say:

I want to walk alongside you. Not because you’re mine,
but because I choose you, again and again.

This kind of love doesn’t promise certainty, but it offers honesty and a willingness to commit, time and time again, to eachother.

For me, this has turned out to be a deeper form of security than ownership ever was. Because it comes from within myself, and nobody can ever take it away from me.

How do you practice loving without owning? I would love to hear! xx

I remember the first time my partner went on a date with another woman. It was exciting, confusing, and hard all at once. I wasn't sure what to do with all of these emotions. Wasn't I the one who had wanted to open up our relationship? Why then did fear and doubt accompany my excitement?

Most advice about non-monogamy focuses on logistics: rules, boundaries, communication, and expectations.

Very little prepares you for the moment your partner actually walks out the door to meet someone else for the first time.

Not hypothetically.
Not someday.
But tonight.

This moment is emotionally unique, and many people are surprised by how intense (or confusing) it feels, even if they were the one who wanted to open the relationship.

Here are some things to remember if your partner is about to go on their first date outside of the primary partnership.

1. The Feeling might not feel like Jealousy

You might think that jealousy will be the main emotion you encounter. But for many people, it is something a little bit more nuanced.

What shows up for you might look like:

• quiet unease

• nervous energy

• sadness without a clear reason

• a sense of being “unmoored”

This is all very normal! These feelings arise because first dates aren’t just about attraction. They symbolize massive (sometimes scary-feeling) change.
They mark the moment when non-monogamy becomes real instead of theoretical.

You’re not necessarily reacting to the other person. You’re also reacting to the loss of familiarity.

2. Being the One Who Stays Home Is Its Own Experience

Watching your partner get ready can feel strangely intimate.

You might even help them choose an outfit. Offer encouragement. Notice their nerves. Hear the excitement in their voice.

This can create a sense of emotional whiplash:

• support and resentment at the same time

• love and vulnerability in the same moment

It’s normal to feel proud of yourself and unsettled at the very same time. And while they may feel like it, these reactions aren’t contradictions; they’re evidence that you're human! Plus, it shows that you are opening yourself up to discomfort out of love for yourself and the other person - good job!

3. Time Feels Different When You’re Waiting

Once your partner leaves, it may feel like time stretches out before you.

You may:

• check the clock more than expected

• feel distracted even with plans

• oscillate between “I’m fine” and “this is hard”

This isn’t a failure of emotional regulation. It’s your nervous system adjusting to uncertainty.

For some people, it helps to avoid being alone during this window, not to distract yourself from your feelings, but to give them somewhere softer to land.

That might look like:

• spending time with a friend

• making low-stakes plans (a walk, dinner, watching something together)

• doing something embodied rather than mentally absorbing

Not because you’re “coping badly,” but because connection can help regulate uncertainty, and having another human nearby can make that process gentler.

4. Wanting It to Go “Badly” Doesn’t Mean You’re Unsupportive

Now onto something a bit less sexy. Many people (myself included) find themselves thinking things that we might be ashamed to admit:

I kind of hope it’s awkward.

This doesn’t mean you want your partner to suffer! It means a part of you wants reassurance that you’re still important.

The desire to be worthy doesn’t disappear in non-monogamy. It just becomes more visible.

Plus, trying to suppress this thought usually creates more shame than relief. Naming it, even just to yourself or a friend, often helps soften it.

5. The First Date Is a Threshold, Not a Test

You might feel a lot of pressure to “handle” the first date well.

But this moment isn’t a measurement of how evolved or secure you are.
It’s a threshold experience, one that introduces new emotional terrain.

You don't have to be cool and collected to cross the threshold. You just need to stay present instead of shutting down or silently enduring.

6. The Afterward Matters More Than the Event

What happens when your partner returns is often more important than the date itself.

This is where:

• reassurance is needed

• reconnection matters

• feelings surface

And remember, it's completely okay to ask for:

• time together

• check-ins

• clarity about what you want to hear (or not hear)

Contrary to popular belief, non-monogamy doesn’t mean you stop needing care. It means care has to be more intentional.

7. Over Time, This Gets Easier, But Not Because You Stop Caring

The good news is that with experience, the intensity usually softens. Not because love becomes diluted, but because your nervous system learns:

• connection can stretch

• you are not being replaced

• uncertainty, while uncomfortable, won't physically hurt you

The first time teaches you that love doesn’t always feel expansive when it expands. Sometimes it feels like sitting with discomfort and discovering you can breathe through it. And that's okay!

That doesn’t make you bad at this. It means you’re learning.

So many people talk about jealousy in non-monogamy like it’s a flaw you’re supposed to somehow outgrow.

Something to transcend.
Something that means you’re “not ready.”
Something that proves you’re doing it wrong.

But the longer I’ve lived this way, the more convinced I am of something else: Jealousy isn’t the problem. Silence is.

Jealousy is a part of being human; it's information. But silence is what makes it fester.

In my experience, when jealousy shows up, it’s not really about another person’s body, time, or love. It’s about what isn’t being said. What hasn’t been named. What feels unsafe to ask for. What we’re afraid will make us “too much.”

When jealousy is not met with full attention and respect, it usually shows up in quiet ways.

It sounds like:

• “I’m fine, really.”

• “It doesn’t bother me.”

• “I don’t want to be controlling.”

• “I don’t want to ruin the vibe.”

So often, we swallow our jealousy. We tell ourselves we’ll process it later.
That it’s ours to deal with. That good, evolved people don’t need reassurance.

But feelings don’t disappear just because we say we're fine, no matter how hard we pretend! They keep building deep inside of us.

And then they usually end up leaking out sideways as distance, resentment, passive comments, sudden shutdowns, or rules that come out of nowhere.

What we call “jealousy” is often just unmet needs plus fear.

Fear of being replaced.
Fear of not being enough.
Fear of asking for reassurance and hearing no.
Fear of discovering we’re more attached than we wanted to admit.

In monogamy, jealousy often gets masked as protection:

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t want anyone else.”

In non-monogamy, it gets masked as personal failure:

“If I were more secure, I wouldn’t feel this way.”

Both stories keep us quiet and disconnected from ourselves.

Jealousy doesn’t need to be defeated. It needs to be listened to.

The most healing moments I’ve seen in relationships (including my own) didn’t come from eliminating jealousy, they came from someone saying, gently and honestly:

“I’m noticing something come up for me, and I want to express it to you.”

That sentence alone creates the space for the jealous feelings to be met with safety. Not because it solves anything, but because it replaces secrecy with contact.

The truth is, jealousy becomes dangerous when it’s avoided.

When one person is spiraling internally while the other thinks everything is fine.
When needs turn into expectations because they were never voiced as requests.
When reassurance becomes something you’re embarrassed to want.

What I’ve learned is this:

You don’t need to justify your jealousy!
You don’t need to analyze it completely.
You don’t even need to know where it’s coming from yet.

You just need permission to bring it into the room.

Non-monogamy doesn’t require emotional perfection.
It requires emotional visibility.

It asks us to replace silent endurance with awkward honesty.
To choose “this is vulnerable” over “this is embarrassing.”
To trust that naming a feeling won’t automatically destroy freedom.

And sometimes jealousy isn’t asking for a change in behavior. It’s simply asking for presence.

For a check-in.
For reassurance.
For eye contact, a slow exhale, and the feeling of being held in the process of it all.

If you’re feeling jealous right now, you’re not failing. You’re touching something tender!

And tenderness doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means you are human.

The real question isn’t “How do I get rid of this?”
It’s “Who feels safe enough to hear it?”

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in feeling tired and misunderstood when it comes to explaining my non-monogamy to family members. You might be thinking, “Shouldn’t that be private?” And maybe for some people it is. But for me, sharing this feels important. Talking about my choice to live and love outside the norm feels like an essential part of normalizing non-monogamy and other ways of being in relationships. It helps broaden people’s perspectives and fosters greater understanding and acceptance of lives that look different.

And, yes, it can feel exhausting. I can't tell you how many times I am peppered with questions that feel more sensationalist than anything else. Things like “Will you stop dating other people when you get married?” or “Won't that be weird for your kids?” The main way that I combat this is by bringing the conversation back to the fact that, for me, non-monogamy is a lifelong journey and decision to choose love over fear and freedom over control.

So, if you're on your own journey of non-monogamy and are being bombarded by questions like these, here are some tips I've developed to help:

Free subscribers: Behind the paywall, I’ve shared my personal tips for talking about non-monogamy with family, friends, or anyone who might have a hard time understanding it.

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Hello everyone!

It has been quite a while since I last posted here. It would be an understatement to say that I hit some big bumps in the road when it comes to my love life. I needed a bit of a break from sharing my experience on this page, but I am now ready to jump back in.

Something that I love about non-monogamy is the fact that it is fluid and ever-changing to fit the needs of those involved. Sometimes it involves multiple committed partners, and other times it looks like pulling back and putting all your time and attention on a primary partner. There are no rules of what is “good” or “bad,” what is “right” and “wrong.” I am a firm believer that black and white thinking only entraps us in judgment, fear, and stagnation.

Non-monogamy has taken a very different shape for me over these past two years. I ended a turbulent and passionate relationship that almost destroyed my primary partnership, contracted scabies from a partner (something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy), and decided that it was time for me to take a break from being intimate with others. I needed time to reflect, recuperate, and build back trust in my primary partnership.

Now, some people may say that once my partner, Nile, and I decided to close our relationship to new partners that we were no longer non-monogamous. I couldn't agree less with this. Non-monogamy is a mindset and practice more than it is a set of hard rules.

Nile and I still talk about people we are attracted to. In these past two years, we have both kissed other people, and he's even been more physical with others. Non-monogamy is a dance for us, one that can be fast and exciting or slow and deliberate. And the best part - in this dance, all parts of us are accepted and no desires are demonized. It's truly a beautiful thing!

So, this post is a reminder that, just like our own lives, non-monogamy has its own ebbs and flows. If you're not dating multiple people right now or are taking a break to be with yourself, you can still be non-monogamous! To me, non-monogamy just means a commitment to living a life that prioritizes being able to express your full spectrum of love in a way that feels good to you.

This page has been quiet for quite some time now. To be honest, every time I’ve sat down at my computer to write about what I’ve been going through, the words wouldn’t come. I was still too wrapped up in my own grief and confusion. I didn’t have the distance necessary to get clarity and the courage to share my thoughts.

Now that more time has passed, my fingers and brain seem to be connected again and I feel ready to open up about my experience. My hope (which is the hope will all of the pieces that I write here) is to shed light on the different ENM scenarios that are out there and to normalize different relationship constellations and experiences.

Long story short (as the title says) I fell in love with someone who I shouldn’t have. Okay, maybe this title is a little click-baity. It’s not that I shouldn’t have fallen for him, but more that he was not in a position to be dating someone practicing ENM of any kind. In other words, I feel in love with a monogamous person. And not just any monogamous person, but one that had been yearning for a primary partner (and had never had one) for years.

But why did I date them at all, you may ask? Well, first off, he was not completely upfront with me in the beginning about what he was looking for. But more importantly, it was because I ignored my inner voice.

Now, I think that listening to your intuition can be challenging, especially when you are faced with someone or something that you are really drawn to. I know we’ve all been there; in a relationship with someone who is not good for us but we just can’t seem to stop. It becomes almost an addictive experience. Hormones and NRE (new relationship energy) are not to be underestimated. The more time I spent with this person, the deeper I sunk into a hormonal haze that clouded my vision and dulled my inner warning system.

It felt incredibly good to be with him. We were in that new relationship time warp where the rules of physics don’t seem to apply anymore. When we were apart time dragged by like it was moving through molasses, evenings together would be over what felt like a blink of an eye.

Now, this wasn’t the first time that I had fallen in love with someone new outside of my primary relationship. I was used to feeling infatuated with my other partners. Daydreaming about them and counting down the days till I saw them was something that I enjoyed and looked forward to. However, this time things felt very different and very ungrounded. Not only was I falling for this person harder and faster than I was used to, but he was the first person I’d dated who was unhappy with my relationship structure (and was very vocal about it).

The whole situation was a very potent mix of amazing moments of deep connection, words of affirmation like “I’ve waited my whole life for you” (which now I know was actually love bombing), and deep disappointment from him about our non-monogamous relationship. And to say the least, it greatly affected and confused me, making me question my primary relationship (one that was happy and full of love). I was getting completely lost and was ignoring all of my mental warning alarms that were screaming “Take caution! This is going to end badly! I even wrote down these apprehensions in my journal. In one entry from around this time period, I wrote:

“I feel lost and out of my element. I feel scared and like I know that people are going to get hurt in this situation, including myself.”

Despite these wise realizations, I continued to run, head first, towards the burning blaze of a situation that I was co-creating. And why? Because I was too wrapped up in the NRE and fantasy of the relationship. I was completely hooked.

As you can probably imagine, things did not get smoother from here. Stay tuned for Part 2 to hear the rest of the story.

There are lots of things about my non-monogamous relationship that shock my friends. But I would have to say that I get the most gasps from them when I tell them that Nile (my primary partner) and I sometimes have sex with other people in our shared bed.

And I get it. I think I (and a lot of us) grew up with the idea that the bed two people share is sacred. And I don’t necessarily disagree! But at the same time, I also don’t believe that having sex with another person in that bed pollutes its sacredness. I think that the idea that sex can dirty or defile anything (from a bedroom to a person,) is tied up in a lot of religious dogma. Dogma that I do not identify with.

That being said, I can understand how bringing other people into your shared bedroom can feel… well strange. I’m not going to lie, it can be a little weird for me! Not only is my room filled with Nile’s things but it also holds so many memories of us together, especially in our bed. So sometimes when I bring someone over, it takes a bit of time until it feels normal to see them in the sheets with me. After a bit of time, however, I have found that both my partners and I have been able to relax and share some very sweet moments there.

To clarify, Nile and I only invite other people into our bed when one of us is out of town (which means it is a somewhat rare occasion.) There have been a couple of instances in the past where I vacated the house so that Nile could bring someone home (because they didn’t have anywhere else to be intimate together,) but we recently decided that this felt a bit odd. This means that for now, we only bring people home when one of us has the place to ourselves. And this has been working well for us!

My biggest piece of advice for you (if you are interested in inviting others into your shared bed) would be to experiment with your partner. Only through trial and error can you figure out what feels best to you. You might find that it feels totally normal! Or you may decide that you want to keep intimacy with others strictly outside your shared home. Every conclusions is valid; none are wrong.

Circling back the beginning of this post, yes, I do think that the bedroom is sacred. But to me, all of my living spaces are sacred, and sharing these places with the people that I love only makes them more special.

I think one of the fears that many people (myself included) first have when considering a non-monogamous relationship is that of falling in love with someone else and, in turn, falling out of love with their primary partner.

I totally get this fear! When you first start dating someone there are so many hormones and new relationship energies flooding your brain that the whole thing can feel like a straight-up drug (my favorite drug). One starts to wonder: How can a long-term, sometimes long-standing, relationship compare with the exhilarating (and sometimes addictive) quality of a new lover?

Well, I’m here to tell you that, at least in my experience, dating others has actually brought me and my primary partner (I’m going to call him Nile from here on out). closer together. Let me tell you why.

First of all, in my previous relationships, I always felt like I had to hide my desire to be intimate with others. This secrecy and guilt ultimately put a lot of distance between me and my partners. I was concealing a big part of who I was from them, and at the same time was not being true to myself about my needs. Being with someone who fully accepts (and even celebrates) my intimacy needs has built a strong and honest bond between the two of us. This means that every time I go on a date with someone else, I feel a huge amount of gratitude for Nile, and I come home genuinely excited to see him.

Secondly, getting hot and steamy with other people actually invigorates our sex life! We all know that once you’ve been with a person for some time, sex can get a little repetitive and dare I say even boring. And while there are ways to keep things fresh and interesting without adding more people in the mix, I’ve found that having fun sexcapades with others positively impacts my sex life at home (and gives me and Nile new ideas for positions, role-playing, and more).

The last thing I will touch on is the fact that every time I go on a date or spend the night with one of my lovers, I come back with a deeper appreciation for Nile (it sounds cheesy but it’s true.) While you may fear that falling in love with someone else will make you fall out of love with your partner, I think (if your partnership is healthy) that it does the complete opposite! Rather than distancing me from Nile, forming connections with new people actually strengthens my bond with him. When I engage with someone new, flaws and all, it serves as a reminder of Nile's qualities and gifts, reminding me why I have chosen to live my life alongside him.

So, even though the idea of loving others to enhance your love for your partner might seem counterintuitive, it has truly transformed my perspective. It has also reinforced my belief that love is abundant, and the more we welcome it into our lives, the more it manifests itself, often in the most unexpected and delightful ways.

I think jealousy is one of the main things that scare people away from non-monogamy. And it’s understandable; jealousy is uncomfortable. It forces us to face all of our biggest fears and insecurities, especially the ones that we really don’t want to look at. That’s why I think it’s so important to talk about it.

The thing is, one of the most beautiful (in my opinion) parts about engaging in non-monogamy is exactly this: It gives us the opportunity to engage with our insecurities and question the narratives that we hold to be true. It also offers us the chance to liberate ourselves from all of the societal conditioning that we grow up being spoon-fed.

Now, that doesn’t mean it’s easy - at all. I can attest to this fact because I recently had my first big encounter with romantic jealousy (or at least the most significant in my life so far.)

I used to think that I didn’t get jealous and to be fully honest, I took (way too much) pride in this idea. Whenever my partner would express feelings of jealousy I would point out just how extremely chill I was and ask him “Why can’t you be more relaxed about this like me?” Looking back I realize that this is NOT the way to respond to someone sharing their insecurities with you.

Flash forward to a few months ago, my partner started dating someone he really liked, which had never really happened before. All of a sudden I was filled with so many mental and bodily sensations! My stomach was in knots, my mind was full of worry, and I found myself making excuses for why this girl wasn’t worth his time. I judged her age, her words, her actions, anything I could get ahold of. All the while I was completely and utterly unable to say the words that were truest: I’m jealous of her.

In the midst of all of this, I also placed a lot of judgment and distrust in my partner, which ultimately hurt both of us a lot. The more I pushed the more he withdrew, until the topic of this girl was like a landmine that neither of us was good at navigating. We always came out of our discussions bruised and troubled.

Then, one day I did the scary and ego-deflating thing, I confessed my jealousy. I offered up my insecurities on a silver platter for him to see. And his response? Love. When he no longer felt that I was attacking him and his character he was able to soften. Plus, jealousy and feelings of inadequacy were things that he could relate to.

I won’t lie, I’m still jealous of her sometimes. But now, when I feel that jealousy, instead of throwing it onto him, I take responsibility for it as my own. There is nothing wrong with her, or with him, or with me for that matter. And that - reminding myself of the humanness of us all - helps quiet my mind, rooting me in truth.

So, I guess, even though jealousy can be uncomfortable and vulnerable, facing it and accepting it is the only way to help it move through - and keep on loving others.