I have to admit: I started messing with the idea of open relationships because I’m indecisive and greedy. I loved having multiple partners, with all their scents and their histories and their interests. I couldn’t get enough of finding new sexual kinks, adventures, and curricula. I could, at my most passionate, put myself on a course to increasingly hedonistic experiments and primal play. When I was just turning thirty, I lobbied for threesomes and voyeurism when my partners admitted they had sexual fantasies that involved other men. I thought it was the ultimate show of confidence — until I didn’t, and some of the choices they made would intimidate me and shrink me into a corner. I wanted to have my cake, eat it, and still sell it at a premium. But all relationships come with trade-offs.
Beyond the need to explore, I’d become crippled by the idea of relationships ending. I believed there was no “cut your losses” caveat for calling it quits. When I had to accept some relationships helped me and my partners more by ending them, it felt like I was championing failure. It was too much for me to own that some people could be damaged by my mercurial, pretentious tendencies. They had to love me forever.
If they didn’t, then maybe they hadn’t loved me at all. And, of course, I’d make them pay back precious time admitting as much.
Relationships were the unbreakable chain to my self-esteem. In this way, I felt turned inside-out and womanly. Among my friends, the masculine expectation was a rap mantra: I don’t chase ’em, I replace ’em.
But I always chased and I hardly replaced, instead adding to a hypothetical catalog of women I thought I could always go back to. This led to a series of almost-monogamous-but-swinging relationships that I’d soon taint by cheating or disappearing. The partners to whom I admitted being unfit to carry monogamy — the ones who stayed — told me that they’d try other models with me if we could stick to ground rules. As a cheater, I was used to swearing into agreements but breaking them as soon as they became even a little inconvenient.
Some of the rules I tried from the early open relationship phase make sense for mainstream couples. Most of us will not end up in a non-monogamous triad or a loosely-connected social bubble of free-flowing partners. In fact, a Psychology Today article about people who are non-monogamous long-term shows that, of the decade-plus relationship veterans, most keep two partners. Non-monogamy, with its myriad variations and traditions and philosophies, usually comes down to pairs. Those pairs often engage in some way with other pairs. That’s not what’s first advertised, but it’s the basic framework. Our fundamental relationships form that way and it’s the easiest dynamic to track. Even though building non-monogamous systems and practices eventually includes modes beyond the simple pair, that is where it necessarily begins.
With Adrianne, she’d had enough of me sneaking around to have sex with others and being unavailable at home while I also withheld what was going on. This don’t-ask-don’t-tell model led to confusion and mistrust. It put her at physical risk, and she felt used because I’d manipulated her to believe phantom commitments were taking up my time and not dates or booty calls.
The insane thing is that, unlike my nascent partners, Adrianne wanted to be open and non-monogamous. We’d talked about it since our first few weeks dating, and in the year of casually dating after that. But I expressed these desires as more of an escapade we’d pursue occasionally in the form of clubs, parties, arrangements, and the like. As if it came down to sex acts for me.
(That’s not how I was playing it out, but it’s the fantasy I believed in enough to sell.)
As much as she saw that vision, she believed we needed more solid terms about how we dated outside of each other. She’d see me on dating apps, and I’d see her profile too. Sometimes shocked, I’d send a cheeky message or match with her to see if she was shopping around to make a point. She was, and she wasn’t. We wanted to explore different styles of people than what we found with each other.
I preferred artsy types who were sexually fluid, may have had some experience in unconventional relationships, who were into part-time beach bumming and psychedelics as much as they were into 17th century realism or woodworking. She liked non-monogamous Black men who had found their way into the conventional world of tech and finance, who showed an industrious streak and could earn well, who’d built a grounding family presence (a nearby wife or ex-wife, kids).
Rule One
The first rule we set was that we were “our people” and that we shouldn’t go falling in love with others. For me, that meant I had to keep a watchful, suspicious eye on women who claimed to be open to non-monogamy but wanted more. I had to dangle my availability as a treat to be perpetually sniffed but not tasted. Adrianne didn’t appreciate any rivalries, spoken or unspoken.
But I didn’t realize how damaging of an agreement this could be, and I didn’t know anything about the term “couples hierarchy” six years ago when we tried. (I learned more about hierarchies with the book More Than Two, which is a controversial white blogger’s guide to non-monogamy.) Whether or not I called these newer lovers accessories or “side pieces,” that’s what my treatment amounted to, which was ugly and regretful. I came to resent the tightrope-walking I was doing to gain and sustain enough interest to be sexually intimate, but not enough to “label this anything” or escalate relationships out of a confusing purgatory between casual and heartfelt. I had a series of false starts and missteps, until I eventually met someone who changed my outlook and my view of the rules.
The Missteps: Chapter One
A single mother who’d been a longtime friend and confidante. We shared sexy messages in the mornings and talked about then-dormant writing careers that we knew, at all costs, we’d reboot. She lived in an outer borough, and I commuted to her place for short dates that were too often hampered by my anxiety about leaving before needing to travel again. I also didn’t want her to get it in her mind that I would become more available to more we met. After a few dates, she texted me looking for clarity.
“I’m hesitant to invite you to this event because my son will be there. I’m not the type to have people in and out of my life and, therefore, his life.”
“I get that. My mom was the same way.”
“So…are you going to flake on it or stop showing up?”
I didn’t reply. I waited until the day of the potential engagement and couldn’t think of any worthwhile excuse. I blocked her number and pretended she’d never reached out. Adrianne neither liked nor respected how I’d handled it, and questioned my vetting process.
“We agreed not to start dating people who expected more. She’s a parent, and you know each other. I figured someone like that might be off limits. Is this what you want?”
The Missteps: Chapter Two
I met a neighborhood lover who could assume the shape of the cheating flings. Less than a mile walk to her place, or an 8-minute bike ride, I knew that coming and going were easy aims. We were ill-suited for a relationship but we had undeniable chemistry. She was always willing to have a tryst. I began to pour into her, lamenting my relationship restrictions and frequent disagreements. This was a pattern of mine, trying to draw sympathy while also detecting what a lover’s appetite was to “fix” what ailed me. Hers was strong. Soon, she started to critique my other relationship and to accuse me of not wanting to be non-monogamous at all (because I didn’t choose her as the clear alternative). She was right; I was triangulating. I found that most women would naturally oppose the other woman even if I issued a crude version of their traits. As much as she might have been aware, she danced the psychological foxtrot with me. Soon, I was emotionally “cheating” with this neighborhood fling, using domestic dust-ups as a way to get into her bed. When Adrianne found out, the cracks in our bond widened. She didn’t know what I’d be willing to say to other partners, or how it might compromise her (which was one of the chief fears driving the “no falling” rule in the first place.) I was building a straw-house open relationship on a quicksand marsh and squirming as it sunk.
Rule Two
The second rule was “no sleepovers.” It was both an acknowledgment that we’d go on dates and have sex, and a dividing line when it came to beds. Beds. Sheets, pillows, and their homegrown wrinkles became a sanctuary where we bowed to the original relationship. The rule, I thought, also made the dates finite and closed the world of outsiders like a Cinderella story. Once the clock hit 3 a.m., the chariot reverted to a pumpkin, the openness ended, and it was back to normal. That rule went up in smoke when I met Elle.
I couldn’t stop texting Elle. We’d be on the phone day and night, blazing through reality with our blue-bubble poems and melancholia. We shared jokes, New York cynicism, and attraction I couldn’t bottle. I told Adrianne I was dating Elle and that I liked her, possibly more than liked her. I refused to tell Elle that I was in an ongoing, non-monogamous relationship. I waited until I knew she was as deep into the prospect of our bond before I revealed it. That caused irreparable damage. After many tearful half-farewells, Elle and I had one date planned to go to a museum. That turned into dinner, which turned into drinks, which led to a hotel. I woke up to the sound of my phone blaring the loudest bleep I’d ever heard. I was whiskey-punched and disoriented, downy hotel whites threatening to suffocate me in their love fog. I had kidnapped myself. Elle woke up and started shuffling her clothes on, sensing the world was shaking around us. Adrianne’s texts came in, to my phone and hers. I had broken the sleepover rule and any principle attached to it.
I had also broken the false seal on whatever was happening with Adrianne. So, with this latest jammed-up, narcissistic foray of mine, we had a bigger problem: an open relationship invites other complete, needful relationships. There’s no turning back from that.
Rule Three: Your Feelings Are Yours, Not Mine
I’d begun, finally in earnest, exploring the literature and resources for non-monogamy. Before, I was a reluctant boxer, slugging away at cheating accusations. And now I was an adjunct lecturer, quoting lines from Instagram posts by polyamory bloggers. The first level of open relating is an acknowledgement that 99% of people reach: I will have desire for more than one person in my lifetime. The second level of open relating is the one 99% of people never reach: I will steward that desire while taking good care of existing connections. Well-meaning people, of which I was not one, fumble this by instituting rules. Naïve people go about this process hoping that the rules that suit them will find them. Very selfish people push forward while the ramshackle appendages of poor relationship habits hang on to their newly formed identities. The non-monogamy identity became the pseudo-solution for my inability to manage time, to stop over-promising, to curb my desire for endless novelty. My need to be attached.
The first year of non-monogamy during the pandemic was a mix of keeping my partner circle enclosed to focus mainly on Adrianne and Elle, and learning what each of those relationships needed. I’d struggle to differentiate their boundaries, which vastly diverged. Elle needed some level of insularity, not to be told about my home life lest it drum up her insecurities about being excluded. Adrianne needed transparency and consistency or she’d be reminded of all my reckless decisions to run off for new romance. I started seeing Elle twice a week at a fairly predictable cadence, but I’d also stopped disclosing how important it was to me that Adrianne understood what I was doing and feeling. Instead, I would report on minor gripes I had with outside dating or downplay my growing affection for Elle. That cut both ways as I shut down anger and sadness and confusion when speaking to Elle, funneling those feelings into random books I’d picked up about polyamory practices and how this was normal for someone learning the lifestyle. She’d have to get used it eventually, I preached. Sometimes their boundaries—and my careless disavowal of them—ran afoul of each other.
Two years into seeing Elle, and after some travel had opened up, I planned a romantic weekend out of state. I’d become so used to shutting off Adrianne and operating out of a bubble that I told her last-minute about the travel plans. (We’d also talked briefly about traveling to the same place but decided not to.) She was angry, hurt, confused, and defeated.
“How could you not see that this short notice would be jarring?”
“Well, I told you. I don’t know what the issue is. What’s a time I could’ve told you where it wouldn’t be upsetting I was going out of town with my other lover?”
“There’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I guess you followed the letter here so nothing’s wrong. My feelings don’t matter.”
“But I don’t know what else I could have done! You seem like you want to be mad at me.”
That was a lot of the first few years: me asking her to hold her feelings in, or down, or saying that she hadn’t expressed them properly. I’d rail away at the skies about my feelings given any chance. I left early the next morning, bags packed, unsure if we’d ever come to a resolution.
Open relationships and non-monogamy aren’t just about rules. They’re about building a foundation of communication and trust. I wrote this story in this way to show that I was the problem, not the rules. I broke agreements (see: first paragraph), put my desire before everything (also: first, second, third, every other paragraph), and put compassion on the back-burner when it came to meeting partner’s immediate needs and wants (third section). In order to push harmony in my open relationships, I had to become a better listener, a good faith participant in conversations about relationship preferences and boundaries, an unselfish lover, and a politically-minded thinker as it pertains to women’s voices and rights. Cheating gave me a form of unsustainable, raw power. Non-monogamy required me to turn my back on that power and the reasons I sought it in the first place. No three rules will govern every pair the same way, but strong communication over time can strengthen the foundation you work from.
I have to admit: I started messing with the idea of open relationships because I’m indecisive and greedy. I loved having multiple partners, with all their scents and their histories and their interests. I couldn’t get enough of finding new sexual kinks, adventures, and curricula. I could, at my most passionate, put myself on a course to increasingly hedonistic experiments and primal play. When I was just turning thirty, I lobbied for threesomes and voyeurism when my partners admitted they had sexual fantasies that involved other men. I thought it was the ultimate show of confidence — until I didn’t, and some of the choices they made would intimidate me and shrink me into a corner. I wanted to have my cake, eat it, and still sell it at a premium. But all relationships come with trade-offs.
Beyond the need to explore, I’d become crippled by the idea of relationships ending. I believed there was no “cut your losses” caveat for calling it quits. When I had to accept some relationships helped me and my partners more by ending them, it felt like I was championing failure. It was too much for me to own that some people could be damaged by my mercurial, pretentious tendencies. They had to love me forever.
If they didn’t, then maybe they hadn’t loved me at all. And, of course, I’d make them pay back precious time admitting as much.
Relationships were the unbreakable chain to my self-esteem. In this way, I felt turned inside-out and womanly. Among my friends, the masculine expectation was a rap mantra: I don’t chase ’em, I replace ’em.
But I always chased and I hardly replaced, instead adding to a hypothetical catalog of women I thought I could always go back to. This led to a series of almost-monogamous-but-swinging relationships that I’d soon taint by cheating or disappearing. The partners to whom I admitted being unfit to carry monogamy — the ones who stayed — told me that they’d try other models with me if we could stick to ground rules. As a cheater, I was used to swearing into agreements but breaking them as soon as they became even a little inconvenient.
Some of the rules I tried from the early open relationship phase make sense for mainstream couples. Most of us will not end up in a non-monogamous triad or a loosely-connected social bubble of free-flowing partners. In fact, a Psychology Today article about people who are non-monogamous long-term shows that, of the decade-plus relationship veterans, most keep two partners. Non-monogamy, with its myriad variations and traditions and philosophies, usually comes down to pairs. Those pairs often engage in some way with other pairs. That’s not what’s first advertised, but it’s the basic framework. Our fundamental relationships form that way and it’s the easiest dynamic to track. Even though building non-monogamous systems and practices eventually includes modes beyond the simple pair, that is where it necessarily begins.
With Adrianne, she’d had enough of me sneaking around to have sex with others and being unavailable at home while I also withheld what was going on. This don’t-ask-don’t-tell model led to confusion and mistrust. It put her at physical risk, and she felt used because I’d manipulated her to believe phantom commitments were taking up my time and not dates or booty calls.
The insane thing is that, unlike my nascent partners, Adrianne wanted to be open and non-monogamous. We’d talked about it since our first few weeks dating, and in the year of casually dating after that. But I expressed these desires as more of an escapade we’d pursue occasionally in the form of clubs, parties, arrangements, and the like. As if it came down to sex acts for me.
(That’s not how I was playing it out, but it’s the fantasy I believed in enough to sell.)
As much as she saw that vision, she believed we needed more solid terms about how we dated outside of each other. She’d see me on dating apps, and I’d see her profile too. Sometimes shocked, I’d send a cheeky message or match with her to see if she was shopping around to make a point. She was, and she wasn’t. We wanted to explore different styles of people than what we found with each other.
I preferred artsy types who were sexually fluid, may have had some experience in unconventional relationships, who were into part-time beach bumming and psychedelics as much as they were into 17th century realism or woodworking. She liked non-monogamous Black men who had found their way into the conventional world of tech and finance, who showed an industrious streak and could earn well, who’d built a grounding family presence (a nearby wife or ex-wife, kids).
Rule One
The first rule we set was that we were “our people” and that we shouldn’t go falling in love with others. For me, that meant I had to keep a watchful, suspicious eye on women who claimed to be open to non-monogamy but wanted more. I had to dangle my availability as a treat to be perpetually sniffed but not tasted. Adrianne didn’t appreciate any rivalries, spoken or unspoken.
But I didn’t realize how damaging of an agreement this could be, and I didn’t know anything about the term “couples hierarchy” six years ago when we tried. (I learned more about hierarchies with the book More Than Two, which is a controversial white blogger’s guide to non-monogamy.) Whether or not I called these newer lovers accessories or “side pieces,” that’s what my treatment amounted to, which was ugly and regretful. I came to resent the tightrope-walking I was doing to gain and sustain enough interest to be sexually intimate, but not enough to “label this anything” or escalate relationships out of a confusing purgatory between casual and heartfelt. I had a series of false starts and missteps, until I eventually met someone who changed my outlook and my view of the rules.
The Missteps: Chapter One
A single mother who’d been a longtime friend and confidante. We shared sexy messages in the mornings and talked about then-dormant writing careers that we knew, at all costs, we’d reboot. She lived in an outer borough, and I commuted to her place for short dates that were too often hampered by my anxiety about leaving before needing to travel again. I also didn’t want her to get it in her mind that I would become more available to more we met. After a few dates, she texted me looking for clarity.
“I’m hesitant to invite you to this event because my son will be there. I’m not the type to have people in and out of my life and, therefore, his life.”
“I get that. My mom was the same way.”
“So…are you going to flake on it or stop showing up?”
I didn’t reply. I waited until the day of the potential engagement and couldn’t think of any worthwhile excuse. I blocked her number and pretended she’d never reached out. Adrianne neither liked nor respected how I’d handled it, and questioned my vetting process.
“We agreed not to start dating people who expected more. She’s a parent, and you know each other. I figured someone like that might be off limits. Is this what you want?”
The Missteps: Chapter Two
I met a neighborhood lover who could assume the shape of the cheating flings. Less than a mile walk to her place, or an 8-minute bike ride, I knew that coming and going were easy aims. We were ill-suited for a relationship but we had undeniable chemistry. She was always willing to have a tryst. I began to pour into her, lamenting my relationship restrictions and frequent disagreements. This was a pattern of mine, trying to draw sympathy while also detecting what a lover’s appetite was to “fix” what ailed me. Hers was strong. Soon, she started to critique my other relationship and to accuse me of not wanting to be non-monogamous at all (because I didn’t choose her as the clear alternative). She was right; I was triangulating. I found that most women would naturally oppose the other woman even if I issued a crude version of their traits. As much as she might have been aware, she danced the psychological foxtrot with me. Soon, I was emotionally “cheating” with this neighborhood fling, using domestic dust-ups as a way to get into her bed. When Adrianne found out, the cracks in our bond widened. She didn’t know what I’d be willing to say to other partners, or how it might compromise her (which was one of the chief fears driving the “no falling” rule in the first place.) I was building a straw-house open relationship on a quicksand marsh and squirming as it sunk.
Rule Two
The second rule was “no sleepovers.” It was both an acknowledgment that we’d go on dates and have sex, and a dividing line when it came to beds. Beds. Sheets, pillows, and their homegrown wrinkles became a sanctuary where we bowed to the original relationship. The rule, I thought, also made the dates finite and closed the world of outsiders like a Cinderella story. Once the clock hit 3 a.m., the chariot reverted to a pumpkin, the openness ended, and it was back to normal. That rule went up in smoke when I met Elle.
I couldn’t stop texting Elle. We’d be on the phone day and night, blazing through reality with our blue-bubble poems and melancholia. We shared jokes, New York cynicism, and attraction I couldn’t bottle. I told Adrianne I was dating Elle and that I liked her, possibly more than liked her. I refused to tell Elle that I was in an ongoing, non-monogamous relationship. I waited until I knew she was as deep into the prospect of our bond before I revealed it. That caused irreparable damage. After many tearful half-farewells, Elle and I had one date planned to go to a museum. That turned into dinner, which turned into drinks, which led to a hotel. I woke up to the sound of my phone blaring the loudest bleep I’d ever heard. I was whiskey-punched and disoriented, downy hotel whites threatening to suffocate me in their love fog. I had kidnapped myself. Elle woke up and started shuffling her clothes on, sensing the world was shaking around us. Adrianne’s texts came in, to my phone and hers. I had broken the sleepover rule and any principle attached to it.
I had also broken the false seal on whatever was happening with Adrianne. So, with this latest jammed-up, narcissistic foray of mine, we had a bigger problem: an open relationship invites other complete, needful relationships. There’s no turning back from that.
Rule Three: Your Feelings Are Yours, Not Mine
I’d begun, finally in earnest, exploring the literature and resources for non-monogamy. Before, I was a reluctant boxer, slugging away at cheating accusations. And now I was an adjunct lecturer, quoting lines from Instagram posts by polyamory bloggers. The first level of open relating is an acknowledgement that 99% of people reach: I will have desire for more than one person in my lifetime. The second level of open relating is the one 99% of people never reach: I will steward that desire while taking good care of existing connections. Well-meaning people, of which I was not one, fumble this by instituting rules. Naïve people go about this process hoping that the rules that suit them will find them. Very selfish people push forward while the ramshackle appendages of poor relationship habits hang on to their newly formed identities. The non-monogamy identity became the pseudo-solution for my inability to manage time, to stop over-promising, to curb my desire for endless novelty. My need to be attached.
The first year of non-monogamy during the pandemic was a mix of keeping my partner circle enclosed to focus mainly on Adrianne and Elle, and learning what each of those relationships needed. I’d struggle to differentiate their boundaries, which vastly diverged. Elle needed some level of insularity, not to be told about my home life lest it drum up her insecurities about being excluded. Adrianne needed transparency and consistency or she’d be reminded of all my reckless decisions to run off for new romance. I started seeing Elle twice a week at a fairly predictable cadence, but I’d also stopped disclosing how important it was to me that Adrianne understood what I was doing and feeling. Instead, I would report on minor gripes I had with outside dating or downplay my growing affection for Elle. That cut both ways as I shut down anger and sadness and confusion when speaking to Elle, funneling those feelings into random books I’d picked up about polyamory practices and how this was normal for someone learning the lifestyle. She’d have to get used it eventually, I preached. Sometimes their boundaries—and my careless disavowal of them—ran afoul of each other.
Two years into seeing Elle, and after some travel had opened up, I planned a romantic weekend out of state. I’d become so used to shutting off Adrianne and operating out of a bubble that I told her last-minute about the travel plans. (We’d also talked briefly about traveling to the same place but decided not to.) She was angry, hurt, confused, and defeated.
“How could you not see that this short notice would be jarring?”
“Well, I told you. I don’t know what the issue is. What’s a time I could’ve told you where it wouldn’t be upsetting I was going out of town with my other lover?”
“There’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I guess you followed the letter here so nothing’s wrong. My feelings don’t matter.”
“But I don’t know what else I could have done! You seem like you want to be mad at me.”
That was a lot of the first few years: me asking her to hold her feelings in, or down, or saying that she hadn’t expressed them properly. I’d rail away at the skies about my feelings given any chance. I left early the next morning, bags packed, unsure if we’d ever come to a resolution.
Open relationships and non-monogamy aren’t just about rules. They’re about building a foundation of communication and trust. I wrote this story in this way to show that I was the problem, not the rules. I broke agreements (see: first paragraph), put my desire before everything (also: first, second, third, every other paragraph), and put compassion on the back-burner when it came to meeting partner’s immediate needs and wants (third section). In order to push harmony in my open relationships, I had to become a better listener, a good faith participant in conversations about relationship preferences and boundaries, an unselfish lover, and a politically-minded thinker as it pertains to women’s voices and rights. Cheating gave me a form of unsustainable, raw power. Non-monogamy required me to turn my back on that power and the reasons I sought it in the first place. No three rules will govern every pair the same way, but strong communication over time can strengthen the foundation you work from.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Andrew Ricketts' work on Medium.