Real stories from real people navigating the beautiful mess of non-monogamy. From first-date butterflies to jealousy spirals and everything in between—these writers are sharing their unfiltered journeys so you can learn, relate, and feel a little less alone in yours.
Hello Loving Without Boundaries Community! Research published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that more than one in five single American adults re
Hello Loving Without Boundaries Community! Sometimes you find out something about your own life years after it happened. Years ago, I contributed an essay to Dr
Recently, when I asked my audience what they wanted to know about non-monogamy, an interesting question came up: why do I use the term consensual non-monogamy (
"I got railed last night." That's the kind of conversation you only get at a lifestyle event. Here's how to actually get the most out of yours from packing
For Polyamory Love + Therapists
Dear polyamory newbies: if you're dating someone who is more experienced than you, don't take absolutely everything they say about polyamory as gospel. Just bec
Things to consider about our mononormative world.
The surprising vulnerability that can emerge when your partner encourages you to date someone else
Cheers, beautiful people. I want to tell you about John. John is 70 years old. He has been married for 28 years to a woman he loves deeply. They built something
A Necessity for Transitioning to Non-Monogamy
If a married couple has a threesome a few times a year, are they non-monogamous? Some would say yes. I'm not so sure. In this post I'm unpacking the differe
If you’re new to non-monogamy—or considering it—these are the mistakes I see most often.
Is "brutal polyamory" the answer?
Why I said yes to the Non-Monogamy Hub, and why I think it matters for our community right now. Beautiful People! I want to tell you about something that genuin
Hello, Loving Without Boundaries (LWB) community! I am happy and inspired to share my latest podcast interview with Gary Brick. Oooooh, how I have been waiting
Musings on what non-monogamy actually requires, and why bringing it into a broken relationship is like renovating a house with a cracked foundation.
Non-monogamy is less about sexual freedom and more about dismantling the idea that love requires ownership. A look at why that philosophy changes how we relate.
No feelings sounds clean until the feelings show up anyway. Suppressing emotions in ENM doesn't make them vanish — it makes things messy.
The Pandora's box story has become shorthand for a fear a lot of couples carry into ENM: once you open it, you can't close it. But there’s more to that stor
Mel came to learn about open relationships. She left knowing herself. A real story about ethical non-monogamy, transformation, and finding your calling.
I've been using the phrase "conscious swinging" for a while now, and it always creates a pause. A small recalibration. Maybe because the two words seem at o
Three real client stories — Diana, Calvin, and Gina — and what they all discovered about navigating ethical non-monogamy without going it alone.
Watch now | Who is for, and why to try it
On villainizing yourself for who you are and finally, slowly, letting that go
Your mind chose non-monogamy but your nervous system is still catching up. Aria Diana explains the somatic gap — and how to gently close it.
What if your erotic energy is a guide drawing you through life?
Jealousy won't disappear, alignment matters more than rules, and opening up never fixes a shaky foundation. Five honest lessons from lived non-monogamy.
When I say I don't recommend opening your relationship unless you are genuinely prepared for the relationship to change and potentially to end, this isn't becau
Excitement will get you started. But knowing your why is what keeps ENM from becoming a chaotic mess. Start here before you open up.
You’ve probably heard the phrase move at the pace of the slowest person when it comes to opening up a relationship. And I would agree with that with a “yes and…
If your first reaction to your friend telling you that they're struggling in their polyamorous relationship is “maybe you should just go back to monogamy”, you'
Hey, so if your first open relationship crashed and burned, you know you can just…try again, right?
Struggling in non-monogamy doesn't mean you're failing. Why being patient and compassionate with yourself matters more than having it all figured out yet.
Join a cozy online party on February 10th for connection, reflection and belonging
One of the most common questions I get from polyamorous clients is, “Can you be too traumatised for polyamory?” The short answer: it’s up to you. The long answe
Your partner walks out the door for their first outside date — and nothing prepares you for that moment. Here is what to expect emotionally.
I’ve been non-monogamous for 10 whole years - and it all started in 2016 when I was still at school! I was 17 years old, and in my first open relationship with
The discourse around the term "polyamory under duress" is pissing me off, because people aren't approaching the conversation with enough nuance and real-world c
Opening your relationship means unlearning a lifetime of mononormativity. Struggling with that transition is not a failure — it is expected.
A follower asked me: “Any advice on how to stay true to your new path when the old ways are so tempting?”
I don't know which polyamorous bisexual needs to hear this (I did!), but you do not have to date every single person that you're attracted to!
So you're thinking about coming out as polyamorous this holiday season. Here are four tips to help you with that.
Non-monogamous relationships, like any other relationships, are nuanced. What works for one person may not work for another, and different people can make the s
Figuring out what you've been taught that you should want and believe in, and distinguishing that from what you actually want and believe in, is hard.
Dating around while secretly hoping one person wins your monogamy is not polyamory. Leanne Yau draws the line and explains why honesty is non-negotiable.
Fielding exhausting questions from family about your relationship style? Luna Rose shares how she keeps conversations grounded and her boundaries intact.
A follower asked me recently, "Under what circumstances would you tell someone that non-monogamy just isn't for them?". My answer: I would never tell someone di
Non-monogamy doesn't look the same for everyone and that is the beauty of it
If you are a more experienced polyamorous person dating a newbie, your responsibility is to give them the space to figure stuff out and try things at a reasonab
We don't talk enough about the fact that you can align with polyamorous values and enjoy the idea of polyamory, maybe even identify as polyamorous in your heart
I’ve been non-monogamous since 2016, and educating on it full-time since 2020. I’m not usually this direct, but based on what I’ve seen, here is my most brutall
Some people hear the word agreements or boundaries and think of rules, restrictions, or a list of “don’ts.” I see them differently. Agreements are an act o
Struggling in your first year of polyamory doesn't predict whether it's for you. Early difficulties are usually about adjusting to change, not failure.
If you think you know everything there is to know about polyamory, spoiler alert: you definitely don't. You may not be making the same mistakes you did before,
There is no One True Way to polyamory. Believing there is one means you're falling into the same trap that you did in monogamy, where you're more focused on doi
The truth is that polyamory isn’t something to be glamorised or demonised - there are pros and cons to any relationship style. For me, polyamory is what works a
What to look for, and what to avoid
Monogamy isn’t the problem—but the pressure to be everything to one person might be.
is not so new for me.
Just because someone has been polyamorous for a long time, it doesn't mean they're good at it. Similarly, just because someone is new to polyamory, it doesn't m
A list of truly ridiculous and wrong, but unfortunately common, takes I’ve seen in the polyamorous community:
Do you get anxious when you think about trying something new or making a big change? That’s okay, most people do. And doing non-monogamy for the first time when
Are you "bad at polyamory", or were you just not taught anything other than monogamy?
Marriage as proof of love. Romance over friendship. The nuclear family as default. These mononormative myths are propaganda — and we're done.
Choice or orientation? The polyamory identity debate is nuanced, loaded, and worth having. Here's why your answer changes everything.
I am begging the polyvangelists to realise that polyamory is not the answer to all relationship issues, nor would the world be a better place if everyone was po
Do not be your partner's only resource for information about polyamory If you're the person who's more experienced and they're a newbie. Not just because that c
Polyamory gives you the freedom to form multiple relationships, but it does NOT mean you have freedom from accountability, communication, or consideration - in
Do your friends not support your polyamorous relationship? Here's how to tell. If your “friends”:
Freedom from monogamy is not freedom from responsibility. More partners means more accountability — not less. Here's what freedom really means in polyamory.
Me asking a monogamous friend for advice about an issue in my relationship:
Polyamorous people can be just as immature as everyone else, but they are definitely much more likely to have put at least *some* thought into why they are prac
Opening your relationship is kind of like training for a marathon. It might not be super comfortable at first, but you need to do the work in order to get to th
If you think about it, saying “if my partner asks me for an open relationship, that's cheating" is not that dissimilar from saying “if my partner realises they'
Friendly reminder that being “experienced” in polyamory does not mean you are immune to or incapable of making mistakes, bad/toxic behaviour, jealousy/insecurit
Tolyamory is a new term coined by Dan Savage last year, which refers to relationships that are, in principle, monogamous, but where the people involved turn a b
Everyone is entitled to their opinion… but these are just a few I fundamentally disagree with.
Proposing an open relationship to your partner is not cheating. You may be upset about it. It may not be what you want, and you'd be perfectly within your right
There are two types of commitment you need for a polyamorous relationship to be sustainable and fulfilling for everyone involved:
FYI: "Our relationship is sinking” is a terrible reason to open the relationship.
You do not have to have multiple partners at every single stage of your polyamorous journey.
Are you actually struggling with polyamory, or are you just struggling with change?
Developing confidence in a non-monogamous relationship means you have to move THROUGH challenges when they happen, not run away from them.
Polyamory isn't contagious; you don't 'make' someone non-monogamous just by existing around them. For many, the desire was already in them, waiting to be awaken
“My partner keeps cheating on me, so we're trying polyamory with the person he cheated on me with. Any thoughts?”
Retreating to monogamy whenever you experience a difficult emotion is not going to make you any better at navigating non-monogamy - it just makes you more scare
A raw account of falling for a monogamous man while practicing ENM — how NRE and love bombing can silence your intuition even when every warning sign is.
Yes, dating other people has brought me and my primary partner closer together!
If you have spent years labeling yourself a cheater, you might just be non-monogamous. One woman recounts the journey from chronic shame to finally feeling.
How I learned to appreciate it for its beauty and embrace its inevitable transformation.
ENM, open, polyamory — they're not the same thing. Here's a clear, no-jargon breakdown of what each actually means and how they differ.
Someone calling themselves non-monogamous on an app does not mean they practice it ethically. Five red flags that reveal the language is being used without.
Here's an exerpt: "I'm not here to write a paper debunking the theories of "Sex at Dawn". There's others who have done a much more thorough job of that than I.
Leanne Million shares what being ambiamorous feels like from the inside: insecure in polyamory, limited in monogamy, and learning to accept both sides.
After so many years, this pet project of mine has grown to 60+ entries, and I have no plans to stop . . . but that means the traditional blog format leaves some
The post This Polyamory Sh*t is Hard! appeared first on Leanne Million Coaching.
The post Why I’m Polyamorous & Married appeared first on Leanne Million Coaching.
Alex Phillips: Joining me now is Leanne, a non-monogamy educator and advocate. Leanne, picking up, I hope you heard what Katheryn was saying. She’s saying that
Polyamory's most common fear is your partner leaving for someone else. One writer dismantles why that fear often reveals something about ownership, not love.
I’ve been seeing a worrying trend on the internet recently, where people say that anyone who cheats in a monogamous relationship “should just be polyamorous”. W
Once upon a time I was bounced from a polyamory-focused group on social media for insisting that their tolerance of certain behaviors in the group created a saf
Polyamory, polygamy, and ethical non-monogamy are conflated with each other all the time. This problem comes up quite often on my page and the Internet in gener
EDIT JULY 2023: I was interviewed on the Sex & Psychology podcast about this article (a whole 2.5 years after writing it!) and you can hear an expansion of my o
When I first started dating in 2015, I barely knew anything about relationships, let alone non-monogamous ones. Growing up in an Asian country meant that I had
Normal. There’s a loaded word if ever there was one . . . Our sense of normal comes from what we see every day. It’s determined by what most folks do and find
I’m in an obnoxious amount of non-monogamy focused groups on social media. So many, in fact, that the majority of activity online most days is speed-reading the
I suffer from Imposter Syndrome: the phenomenon of feeling like you suck at something regardless of evidence to the contrary. That label rings true for me when
In a perfect world, coming out wouldn’t be necessary; we would feel free to be our authentic selves and live our lives without negative consequences. But in mos
As with any group that doesn't follow the dominant narrative, finding support as a non-monogamous person is not the easiest thing. Support networks are often ta
Most of my friends identify as monogamous. They are lovely and caring and only want to see me happy! I am delighted to have them ask me questions about ethical
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