Are You Polyamorous or Just Not 100% Monogamous?

I hang out on the outskirts of the ENM, the Ethically Non-Monogamous world.

But I really am mostly monogamous, with a bit of room to expand as I so choose. Thus I bequeath to myself the descriptor ‘ethically monogamous-ish.’ In shorthand, I am open.

I care about the ethics of what we are doing when we are intimate with others. I care that we are tender with each other’s hearts and safe with our bodies and spending the extra time communicating.

And not because communication is lubrication, which it is, but because we need to make sure our communication is very clean, very honest, and very clear to make the complications and complexities work.

I know a lot of people who consider themselves part of the ‘ENM lifestyle’. I think most people end up with a version of being ‘not monogamous’, and that few are truly polyamorous.

But most of us are in the vague, often uncharted and ambiguous land of “being open”.

The folks who seem the happiest have primary partners that they deeply love, and are free to play with others within boundaries they have designed together, if they so desire. But they always come back home to their love, and their loyalty and commitment remains constant with their partner. I would call this monogamish. They are open-ish. They tend to be happy and content. Even if one or neither of them are seeing anyone outside of the relationship. They stay open, no matter what. They are securely attached. They have healthy boundaries.

A smaller number of them enjoy knowing each other’s outside partners. Kitchen table polyamory it is called. Some might form a polycule of sorts on their own terms. They may have never felt confined by feelings of jealousy or they may have learned how to manage those tough feelings over time, and now feel stronger and clearer. They are committed to a polyamorous lifestyle with multiple serious, committed relationships.

The folks that seem the least happy are the ones who really did not want to become non-monogamous but feel that it is a better alternative than breaking up with their partner who patiently-now-urgently requires this.

Often, their partner fell madly in love with someone else and they are courageously trying to keep their commitment to each other going, while allowing for navigation around a new love. There is a lot of pain and drama and intensity, and love. Sometimes their relationships bend and adapt and they truly find a way to be ENM. Sometimes its just too hard and they break up. These folks are struggling with opening their once monogamous now ENM relationship.

There are a ton of folks who care deeply about their long term partner and want to stay with them out of loyalty, shared histories, children and finances, but they truly have moved on from the relationship, which is almost always completely non-sexual or platonic by the time they open it up. They lack of intimacy they have experienced has made it very difficult to connect, but the caring for each other is strong.

Sometimes they find their way into ENM and stay open to the abundance of lessons and change. Sometimes one of them ends up not being honest and open, entering into the world of ‘cheating’. Sometimes their relationship ends. I see them as exploring having an open relationship and learning all they can.

Unfortunately it seems to me, some people gage their ENM success by the number of relationships they have. I listened to a man admit he felt shameful because he didn’t know if he was truly ENM anymore since he had 4 partners and now only had one. I don’t think he resonated with my comment that counting the number of partners one had was rather missing the intent of ENM. ENM is all about intentions in a fluid state of openness. It is not defined by a body count(sic).

Some people are into non-hierarchical ENM relationships. They eshew terms such as primary and wish to distance themselves from any mononormative approaches. They care about being ethical, communicative and usually non committed. They are solo polyamorous, meaning they have multiple partners but consider themselves single. Some people are single without partners.

Others are really not really into an open, ethical lifestyle. They are not interested in relationships or thinking about the ethics involved with being nonmonogamous. They are up front that they are after sex and NSA fun (no strings attached). I don’t see this as ENM, polyamorous or open. I see them as people looking for (and often finding) a lot of free sex.

I am amazed by all the terms used these days to define one’s sexual preferences, sexual orientation, and relationship configurations. I learned from my mentor decades ago that in order to be truly free we give up certain freedoms. So deciding your relationship preference is about knowing yourself, having good boundaries, and staying ethically true to them.

Just like I think it is normal to love anyone of any gender, I think it is normal to love more than one person. That does not mean that you must. You are free to be straight or queer, in an open or closed relationship. You get to choose. Like most meaningful things in life, its all about choice.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.