Last year at my virtual birthday party my mom raised a glass and said “There is absolutely nothing I could wish my daughter on her birthday, because her life is already perfect.”

What? Does she even know me?

Right around that time I started talking to my now ex about moving out. The world was starting to panic about COVID. All four of us were home twenty four-seven having meetings at the same time, including the kindergartner. My mood fluctuated between wanting to escape, break things, and hide under the blanket and wait it all out. To make matters worse, I couldn’t see my other partner as much as I wanted to because of the pandemic. …

Since my husband and I decided to open our marriage, I’ve been paying extra close attention to the progression of relationships of our non-monogamous friends. I have witnessed a few poly families grow stronger, but, unfortunately, a large majority has fallen apart. I hate losing people from my life, so figuring out the magic ingredients of relationship viability is extremely important to me.

I’ve noticed a few indicators of relationship success. These are applicable to any kind of relationship, monogamous or not:

• Feeling safe to openly communicate about anything
• Willingness to listen and put in effort to see the other person’s point of…

Sometimes I feel terrible after particularly awesome dates. The day after is usually the worst — I experience an influx of emotions, maybe even bouts of crying or a depressive state. On the surface everything may seem normal. The date was amazing, I am home with my family, work is fine, everything is fine, yet I’m in this horrible mood for no particular reason. Shelter-in-place has further exacerbated these feelings and, although I’ve been feeling particularly down, I see this as an opportunity to dig deep and fully work through the triggers and underlying emotions.

After a few post-date withdrawals, I developed some tactics for working through the onslaught of difficult feelings. Clearly, part of the reason for my petty state was purely chemical: hormonal shifts do happen after particularly good dates. This Scientific American article references some research studies done on prairie voles (and another study with humans) that did show a stress hormone increase after a few days of separation between those animals and their mates. …

We were having dinner at my parents’ house when my husband asked my grandma how she felt about my grandpa’s thirst for adventure and constant road trips during his life. Nobody expected what came after. She said “I know he loved going on those trips and sometimes I came along, but other times I knew his mistresses were there so he didn’t invite me.” This wasn’t shocking to me, but the rest of the family members’ jaws dropped and they stared at grandma blankly.

“Why would you suffocate anyone you love with unnecessary restrictions?”

“Of course he dated other women, I also fell in love with other men while being married to my husband – so what? It’s normal and sometimes good for the relationship. It’s very healthy to get away every once in a while,” she continued. …

I have to hide this huge most loving part of me from most of the world, because seeing it as it is would make most of the world uncomfortable. I have to hide it from my relatives. They have a hard time processing the fact that I have tattoos, they’d most likely have a heart attack if they found out I have multiple romantic relationships at the same time.

I have to hide this huge most loving part of me from most of the world, because seeing it as it is would make most of the world uncomfortable.

I have to be very cautious at work when sharing how my weekend was or when a boyfriend visits me for lunch. I only have pictures of my kids on my desk, because I don’t think my workplace is inclusive enough (yet?) to handle more than one man’s face displayed in my cube. …

In her article, Non-Monogamy: Measuring Degrees of Sexual and Romantic Exclusivity in Relationships, Anne-Laure Le Cunff defines veto as an agreement in polyamorous relationships that gives one person the power to end their partner’s other relationships. From my experience, her definition could be applied to any kind of relationship — monogamous, non-monogamous, friendship, or other.

Exercising a veto can be one of the most damaging behaviors in a relationship. Sure, there are couples that agreed to the veto power and are still together, but I’ve seen far more cases where the relationship fell apart thanks to the toxicity of the veto. Luckily I’ve never felt like I had to veto any of my partner’s partners, so I may be biased, but regardless, I don’t think it would be right for me to dictate their life in this way. Essentially, it is not my business. …

A few months after my husband and I opened our marriage I fell for a guy who told me that he was polyamorous, and that it was just the matter of time before his wife would come to terms with that. I really liked the guy (I’ll call him S), so I patiently waited for him to explain to his wife why it was okay for him to date someone else, and more specifically why it was okay for him to date me. …

Something interesting happened to me recently… I fell in love with my body.

When I was growing up I was an awkward, lanky preteen with bony knees. I felt like my long limbs were out of place, constantly getting in the way, bones sticking out in all kinds of random places. For the most part I had a decent diet and played sports fairly actively, so I blame my DNA. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking I had no unique features, that my face could belong to a person of any gender. I was rather disassociated, absentmindedly, and thought that me - my consciousness, my soul - was completely separate from my human form. …