Have you considered what it’d be like to open up your relationship? From the conversations with your current partner to determining what type of polyamorous relationship you’re even interested in — there’s much to think about.
We asked a non-monogamous relationship coach to share some tips on what to think about if you and your partner are considering opening your relationship.
A quick vocab lesson
Open marriage, polyamorous relationship, swinging — the terminology can feel a little all over the place. Non-monogamous relationship coach Dedeker Winston says the best umbrella term today is consensual non-monogamy or CNM. It’s when partners give explicit consent to engage in romantic, intimate, or sexual relationships with multiple people — not to be confused with infidelity.
What relationship structure interests you?
This part can be overwhelming. Winston says the various relationship structures run the gamut. The most dominant one we see among polyamorous people is called an interconnected dyad.
“People are still in dyadic relationships, but they may have multiple partners and then their partner may have other partners, and it’s almost kind of creating this molecule chain,” said Winston who’s author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory and Multamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. “If I have two partners, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are also seeing each other.”
In contrast, triads or throuples are typically in a three-person relationship all together.
While the term polyamory typically implies building actual relationships and intimacy, that’s not always at the forefront when opening up a…
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