Managing Ethical Non-Monogamy during Difficult Seasons of Life

Mother’s Day is coming up- show her she’s special!

Call your loved ones; they won’t always be here.

Easter Bonnet parade next Friday parents! Show us your most creative work!

Did you drink any water today?

Alexa, add tampons, cat food, Ibuprofen to the shopping list. And Fever Tree tonic.

UK Economic Growth Forecast to Cut in Half in Blow to Starmer

What the fuck am I doing?

Can you fit me in for a therapy session this eve?

I’ll be home late tonight.

Two for One Cocktails- Mother-Daughter Deal Sunday 30th March

Where have the years gone?

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Babe, our house is a shit tip right now.

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Hey! Let’s book in a sexy date SOON x

The World we Live in

I was scrolling through X recently, (a practice that I feel increasingly ambivalent about), and I came across a one-liner put up by an anonymous poster:

“What wine pairs best with unprecedented times?”

I snorted a little in the dark, then thought about spending my kidnapped alone-time more productively by watching Love is Blind on Netflix. But something happens after 9pm in my brain, and instead of drifting off to sleep to the sound of fame-hungry vicenarians pretending not to care about physical attraction, I decided to press down again on the bruise of that post, forcing myself to reflect on what it all meant.

Ultimately, I’m not sure these are purely ‘unprecedented times’, despite them being fucking scary. The human race has continually endured conflicts of beauty, ugliness, joy, misery, harmony, battles, pointlessness and deep, existential meaning throughout the ages. And it will continue to do so, I imagine. However, the extent to which we have access to information in modern times (albeit subjective in its intent), is unprecedented, which naturally shapes the current zeitgeist. And that’s impossible to ignore, even when the narrowed bubble of our daily lives often necessitates us to compartmentalise, just to get through a day without spiralling while we’re making another packed lunch for a fussy eight-year old.

So, if you’re a little bit mad, and you’ve decided to add Ethical Non-Monogamy to your list of lifestyle considerations, let me carve some support into this little slice of life for you. None of us can single-handedly change the devastation and disquiet of these times that we live in, but I believe we all have our role to play in adding value to the world regardless, and for me, that’s a knowledge- (and experience base) around mental health and relationship diversity.

It would be understandable to wonder how we can be so focused on our inner relational worlds when the Earth is burning. And yes, many of us are in privileged positions to be able to do so. But the truth is that the flames have always been there, and human beings have evolved solely through a desire to survive; an instinct which has has been complimented by human consciousness, and is therefore based largely on a promise of ongoing hope, love and connection.

This idea is supported by a famous psychotherapist, and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel, who specialises in relationships and sexuality. It’s important to note that she was raised by parents who were survivors of the Nazi concentration camps; a massive trauma that has been woven into societal and cultural history. She describes her parents’ consequent outlook on life:

“My parents didn’t just want to survive, they wanted to revive. They wanted to embrace vibrancy and vitality — in the mystical sense of the word, the erotic. I owe them much of my perspective on life, as well as my belief in the power of will, the search for meaning, and the resilience of the human spirit. To me, there is a world of difference between “not being dead” and “being alive”.“

Click here for Esther Perel’s website

This is so relevant to the topic of Ethical Non-Monogamy, because ENM encompasses how so many people are now embracing that freedom to explore a range of human connections, in the way that feels most authentic to them. Is it the right path for everybody? No, but for those who are ethically or consensually non-monogamous, it affords them a unique vessel through which they can begin to embrace life in the truest sense of the word. I’m continually brought back to Perel’s core belief that:

“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships.”

So, it’s really bloody inconvenient when difficult seasons of life begin to get in the way of that!

It would be impossible for me to outline even a fraction of the challenges that you might come across in life when also trying to navigate ENM, but I can talk about the most significant things that have affected my ability to access and enjoy this lifestyle at times. So, if you can relate to any of this…

Let me help…

Grief and Loss

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that my mum died.

You’ll also know that many of my articles are about sex, erotica, orgasms, funny stories, and insightful conversations linked to the wonderful world of ENM, with a mental health spin. So this post might feel heavier than usual, and I’d like to give you permission to stick with some lighter content, if this one feels a little too raw for you right now.

However, as with many aspects of the human experience, some of them are heavy, and if we are currently involved in ENM relationships of any kind, it’ll no-doubt be useful to hear some of my personal experiences with painful seasons of life, and for me to share some ideas about how to navigate it all healthily.

So back to my mum. Mum was a fast-paced, witty whirlwind of dirty humour, smoking on the patio, endless support and generosity, ‘revenge is best served cold’, quiet gratitude on the beach, mischievous green eyes, ‘can’t say sorry’, insanely quick sandwich-making, useless information about any topic, and a life dedicated solely to loving her kids.

She was my person, and when she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in October of 2020, amidst the betrayals of the pandemic, I calmly sat with her in the hospital as she cried to me over a burning hot Costa coffee, and felt my world close in. I drove us both home, and the next day, was blessed with the most gruelling somatic experience of grief in the form of immediate back spasms. It was an excruciating physical pain, that did its best to block out the white noise of what my life would be without her. I was in bed for a month; unable to move, yet not one doctor could find anything wrong.

Over the next seven months, I set about working as a teacher on autopilot, rushing home to my mum’s house, cooking dinner for her and Dad, and sitting with her as she pretended that she wasn’t dying, before going back home to pretend to be a wife and mother to the best of my ability. As she deteriorated, I clung on to the sunny days, filmed my walks to take back to her for vicarious viewing, gifted her lucky dip bag of gifts to open after each painful treatment, talked about Cornish memories, played Cher, and held her hand as she slept and time slipped by slower and faster than I’d ever thought possible.

When May 2021 was nearing its end, Mum went fighting into the night (not one to go anywhere peacefully), and it enraged me that the weather was beautiful for two solid weeks afterwards. The blossoms pissed me off, the sunshine burnt my skin, and the blue sky was a big fat blemish on my life. The world was hissing in my ears and sometimes, it would get so loud, all I could do was read my four-year-old son a book about losing his nan, put him to bed, and then lay face-down on my fluffy bedroom rug for the night. Then I’d get up in the morning, go to work, fight all of the fires that typically happen within families after the bomb of death is dropped, hug my husband, love my son, and fail to remember any of it for at least 4 solid months.

Maybe you’ve felt a chasm of grief like this? I’m deeply sorry if you have.

Now, I thank whatever higher being that might exist, every day, for the fact that my husband and I had put a pause on any ENM activity over a year prior to this. Owing to the pandemic, and punctuated by my mum’s illness, we had facilitated an organic ending to the one couple connection we had, before times got very rough, but had continued the friendship. I’m thankful for this decision, because I know I would have been the absolute worst lover you can imagine during this time. I was barely there.

Initially, it was difficult to put a pause on ENM, but we continued to take a break from it for over two years, not knowing if and when we’d ever be ready to open up our marriage again. We retreated into ourselves, leaning on each other and shrouding ourselves in the simple comfort of monogamy, which enabled us to be insular, weird and selfish, in the way that humans need to be during deep grief.

All this is to say- if you are hit by the tragedy of grief (either in an anticipatory way or in an unexpected, shocking way), it’s okay to give yourself permission to take an immediate and indefinite break from ENM, if you know that you can’t tap into the emotional energy reserves needed to care for those connections. Most decent human beings will understand and will want to support you in whatever way they can.

Depending on the nature of your connection, it might be easy to have a simple conversation with a casual connection about what has happened, and explain that you won’t be in contact for the foreseeable future, while you focus on your family/ your own needs. With other connections, you may need to stop the sexual/ intimate nature of the relationship for a while, but may be open to leaning on the friendship during your times of grief. For very deep, or long-term emotional ENM connections that you may have developed, this adjustment to the nature of your relationship during early grief might feel more nuanced. Especially if they are some of the closest people to you, or if you are in a committed polyamorous relationship. In that way, you may want to lean into this closeness, and bring them along on your grief journey, so that you can travel the path together.

I know that, four years on, my husband and I have been lucky enough to develop an incredibly close connection with people who we consider to be a hugely important, inherent part of our lives. They are our best friends; lovers; confidantes. We would never, and could never conceive of not needing them in a future time of grief, if that was to arise. They would be one of our first phone calls, and I know they would come running if we asked.

Another little tip:

Some things that come up personally for me in the wake of losing somebody, even years later, are significant dates and anniversaries throughout the course of the year. So, this might be something you want to consider if you’re the type of ENM-er who likes to plan regular meet-ups or big social events. Now that I have processed my grief experience as much as I ever will, it’s sometimes easy to forget that I still struggle with particular days or times in the year. So, occasionally, my husband and I have planned a fun club event or a weekend with others, only for me to realise the day before that I feel like shit, and it’s because my mind and body are experiencing a griefy memory.

Side note: I don’t know if you’ve ever read ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk, but his book explains how our bodies can hold the memory of trauma- fascinating stuff!

Now, I refuse to allow these dates and anniversaries to dictate my life, and so I personally choose not to avoid planning things that add vibrancy around these times. However, I am kind to myself when my heart hurts, I give myself time to be alone briefly if I need that, and I lean into the fact that the people I have chosen to be with during these times are my greatest resource for mood-recovery and…well, fun! A strong margarita goes down quite well at that point, too.

Heartbreaks and Endings

There are many types of loss, that go far beyond the death of a loved one.

One type of loss which my husband and I haven’t experienced in a major way since opening our marriage, but one that we have tasted, (and one that is prevalent within the ENM world) is the loss of another connection or relationship, whilst having to continue nurturing your primary relationships/ other deep connections. Heartbreaks or endings are painful for all human beings, but having to deal with this whilst also having to be present in your marriage, for example, adds layers of complexity.

My own experience of this in recent months was mild, but it might help to explain the potential complications of this situation. I dated a woman for four months, separately from my husband, and the first three months were easy. I’d speak with her most days, we built intimacy organically over time, we’d plan fun dates together, and then I’d return home to my husband each time happy and refreshed. The fulfilment I felt from this connection fed directly into my marriage, and the stability I felt within my marriage fed back into my connection with her. However, for a variety of reasons, the final month of this connection became increasingly disconnected, confusing and anxiety-inducing for me, and ultimately it ended in a way that didn’t provide any closure. I didn’t love this woman, nor was I heartbroken. However, I had still invested significant and vulnerable parts of myself into our experiences within the past months, and I was left with a lot of complicated feelings with nowhere to put them.

It was a loss.

For a little while, I couldn’t help but funnel my questions, my anger, confusion, anxiety and sadness into my husband’s ears. And through that, we briefly lost our sense of ease, my husband lost his understanding of how to comfort me in this novel situation, and I temporarily lost my way in knowing how to nurture our marriage in the same way as I had before.

Now imagine another, more extreme example:

You’re polyamorous, and you’re involved in more than one committed relationship. Perhaps you have a nesting partner, as well as some other loving, deep connections. Maybe you’re in a triad, or a polycule. Now imagine that one of your relationships within this situation has ended and you are absolutely heartbroken. But your other loves are still there; they still have their own needs, wants, desires with you; they love you; you love them. And you’re simultaneously grappling with a huge sense of loss that renders you having to glue your heart back together while trying to nurture those who are still present.

What do you do in that situation?

Well, on a lesser scale, I learnt that it was okay for me to express my genuine feelings of loss, confusion or anxiety to my husband. In that way, I was being transparent with him, and my honesty brought us closer together. There was no sense in me wearing a mask around him, which would have insulted his emotional intelligence anyway. I also learnt that it was okay for me to lean on his support, e.g. I would ask him to hug me or stroke my arm while we watched TV and explain that I felt sad about the situation. However, I know that at times I did probably ask too much of him. For example, during my worst times of overthinking about my lost connection, I would ask for his opinion too many times about the same scenario, in an effort to soothe my mind. I would bring up the details of what was happening in ways that could have been uncomfortable or frustrating to him. In all fairness, my husband is a great sport in listening to me beyond the boundary of what many would find palatable, but after he expressed some stronger frustration in his sense of helplessness at one point, I learnt quickly that there should be boundaries here.

Some questions to ask yourself, if you’re going through similar might be:

Is it fair that my primary partner, or my other loves/ connections are expected to comfort me continually in the wake of one of my relationships ending?

If they are happy to offer comfort, what are they comfortable in offering? This comfort might include some reassuring discussions and physical affection, etc, but might not extend to listening to your ongoing ruminations about how things ended for weeks or months at a time. That’s understandable. Talk about boundaries.

How much should I share? How much do my other partners want to know? It’s honest to describe how you’re feeling, but perhaps they don’t need to see a hundred screenshots of conversations outlining the breakup. And perhaps they don’t need to hear about how much you’ll miss your ex’s oral skills.

Where else can you find support for this difficult time in my life? One person can’t be expected to meet every single one of your needs, so it’s okay to seek support from somebody who’s slightly more emotionally removed from the loss you’ve experienced. This could be a close friend; a therapist; your poor postman who just wanted to take a picture of your Amazon parcel and upload a picture of you, mascara-smudged and in your faded dressing gown, onto the server.

Anyway, I trust that you’ll know, or that you’ll discover the right way forward for you and your partner/s in the wake of a lost connection or relationship break-up, but these are things to consider, nonetheless.

Work Stress, Family Challenges, Low Mood and (insert fun-barrier here)

I’ve lumped these things together, because they’re often so interwoven, that it’s almost impossible to separate them when considering the impact they can have on your ability to manage ENM alongside them. Ultimately, they all feed into the web of life.

Work stress and family challenges are two things that most Ethically Non-Monogamous people will undoubtedly face at some point in their relational adventures. Nobody is immune to these things, unless you’ve forsaken your whole family to go and live a nomadic life in a labyrinth of caves somewhere warm, and you spend your weekends relaxing over some homemade kombucha and shagging some intrepid tourists.

I’m remembering the weeks leading up to a sexy event fairly recently, in which we’d just bankrupted ourselves with Christmas, I’d completely over-booked myself with work, and was grappling with a mountain of evil PTA-fuelled emails and school requests, trying to be Fun Mum, attending parents’ eves, sorting birthday gifts, completing therapy training, dealing with wider family problems, and then ‘cooking’ dinners consisting of a plop of hot dogs in a bowl complimented by a ramekin of tomato sauce.

This was all fine. Manageable. I was THRIVING.

Then the day before the event, my elderly dad came round and I had to teach him how to use online banking, which sent me over the fucking edge.

In response to all of these typical pressures, it would have been easy to draw a line and cancel the event, so that we could spend a lazy weekend at home, get the house in order, and eat a nice takeaway that gave us heartburn and stomach cramps. And if we had decided to do that, it would have been okay! Sometimes, it’s important to recognise when we’ve reached our limits, and there have been times when I’ve cancelled plans or kindly ended connections because the weight of them was just too heavy to carry at that time.

BUT-

My general outlook on life, particularly in the wake of my own experiences, and hearing the traumatic stories of clients in my work, is that if I can help it, there’s just NO WAY I’m going to let life pass me by.

So when you’ve got tickets to a Rock of Ages sex club event in bleakest January, and your lame-ass Millennial self gets to dance to a cover of Blink 182 while wearing a black, harness lingerie set and knee-high boots, wild horses couldn’t keep me away!

The advantages of this decision were confirmed when I got to temporarily forget all of the stresses of daily life, pack some outfits and a warm bottle of wine in the car, drive up North with my husband through twilight hills, and spend the weekend with four sexy friends who gave me incredible orgasms and a general reminder that joy is something I could choose against the odds.

So yes- we are going to be tired. We are going to be busy. We are going to have days when all we can do is cuddle our kids and make tea…but ENM, and all of the connections, experiences, and growth that it embodies…can actually be the perfect balm to settle the scrapes of daily life.

Depression

When we’re experiencing ‘low mood’, the choice is generally ours as to whether we address this with a slower social schedule, or embrace the relational, sexy or adventurous offerings of ENM. You know yourself best. However, during seasons of life in which your low mood has dipped into depression or intermittent depressive feelings, I’d highly recommend that you give your body and mind some deep rest, in order to recover. ENM is difficult to manage at the best of times. It takes physical, mental, social and emotional reserves to navigate it effectively.

That being said, it could be truly healing to lean on your ENM partner/s during this time. Just promise me you won’t do yourself a huge disservice, ignore your depressive feelings and rock up at a sex club when you’re dying inside. After all, when I’ve been circling the drain of depression in the past, and have been trying to give myself a cheap laugh, I’m reminded of the wise words of Emma Thompson in Love Actually:

Anxiety

Oof, anxiety is such a tough nut to crack in this world…and you’ll need an even stronger set of pliers to break the cycle of anxiety in ENM, because despite the bliss that can be experienced within Ethical Non-Monogamy, the route to this prize can be riddled with ruminations, irrational thoughts, and situations that challenge the core of your identity.

Let’s set aside the generalised anxiety that we can all experience in life now and again, and look at the anxieties that are specific to ENM.

Intimacy often requires our most raw, vulnerable selves to show up, and this means that our unhealed wounds are often invited to the party.

Anxiety in ENM can manifest as stresses and worries linked to the growth and evolution of our relationships; the adjustments we must make in order to nurture ourselves and our connections; the concerns about our place in the relationship; where it’s going; whether we can keep up and “is this what I want?”

We have to make a lot of choices and decisions when navigating ENM, and this can be overwhelming when it feels as though one wrong choice can be catalytic in setting a trajectory you might not be ready for. Our relationships are often our strongest anchor in life, and the act of broadening our connections or experiences beyond what we originally knew and understood, can untether us.

You might even be grappling with an anxious attachment style, which can create further challenges. If so, feel free to add my blog post ‘Are Attachment Styles a Factor in Successful Ethically Non-Monogamous Relationships?’ to your reading list: click HERE.

Add to this the wider societal impact of the stigma that many ENM people still face, and the internalised guilt, shame and uncertainty that comes along with that, and we’ve got a steaming brew of anxiety that threatens to scorch whatever it touches.

So, how do we manage this?

The first thing to know is that anxiety is a normal part of the human experience, but especially so when we’re experiencing new things, and things that are constantly changing. That’s the essence of ENM. Feeling anxious can be debilitating but anxious thoughts and feelings can be redirected into something valuable. We can allow the train of anxiety to arrive into the station of our minds, but you only need to acknowledge the signs on the carriages. You don’t have to jump in and get carried away by it all. I promise you, the tracks don’t lead anywhere you wanna go.

What can you do instead?

There’s no quick fix to anxiety, but the things below are essential to practise- consistently:

Self Awareness- anxiety is a protective defense mechanism that can be useful in some situations, and unhelpful in others. Either way, anxiety sends a message that we need to listen to. What’s lying beneath the anxiety? Is it fear- of being replaced; of being abandoned; of failing? Is it jealousy/ insecurity? Are you reliving a past wound and expecting the same to happen again? Have you written a convenient script to try to prepare yourself for a situation that is actually completely unknown? Dig deep and discover what’s going on.

Communication- express your thoughts and feelings to people you love, and trust that they will be able to hold that with you. Tackle your anxiety with curiosity, not shame, and create boundaries together. Don’t be afraid to express your needs, and be ready for these to change. Remind yourself that you deserve to go at your pace, and that you deserve to be considered. Now is not the time for people-pleasing.

Self-care and support- do all of the things that prioritise your well-being. Eat well, nourish your body, get some exercise in (sex counts btw), maintain your hobbies, be creative, carve time for rest. Seek support from others, and enlist the help of a professional for some insight and objectivity.

Step out of your comfort zone- perhaps this is a slightly divisive opinion but I stand by it: it’s not enough to be self-aware. Stopping at this point just makes you a passive witness to your own crimes against yourself: self-doubt, ‘stuckness’, negative self-talk, assumptions, fear.

It might sound obvious, but I see it every day within the beliefs and behaviours of my clients: Sometimes, although the experience of anxiety is painful and suffocating, these patterns and feelings are all a person has come to know. They’ve spent years in the mire of it. And that becomes their familiar, ‘comfort’ zone, because although it’s painful, it’s still more comfortable than the unknown. Some people have experienced anxiety for so long, that it’s become part of their identity, and without even realising, they are subconsciously resistant to changing their patterns, because they don’t know who they are without it all.

So be aware of this…be bold, be brave. You’ll have to crack a few eggs before an omelette is made, but you’ll feel far more peaceful over time, if you step out of that not-so-comfortable zone now.

So now that I’ve fixed all of your problems…

The truth is- life has a funny way of teaching us that, just as we think we have it all figured out, there are new things to learn; new things to adjust to; new paths to travel and excitingly; new people to meet and new adventures to embark on. We can’t ever be prepared for everything, but that’s the nature of it, and with a little courage, we can invite it in.

I don’t feel the need to convince you as to why ENM is worth it, despite all of the work it takes and the personal growth that it requires… because I suspect you already know that it’s worth it. After all, you’re reading this article. As ever, I welcome you warmly, and hope that I’ve provided at least some empathy for what you may have endured, some solidarity for what you may be going through right now, and some subjective guidance for how you might navigate your future in the ENM lifestyle.

You know I love to end on a quote, and when difficult seasons of life are upon us, I keep coming back to the comforting words of Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

So whatever comes to pass in this wild world of ours, I hope that we can all find the courage to find our own way.

And if that also happens to involve lots of love, fun, adventure, connection and a few hot fucks, then all the better!