Note: All links in this post are regular old links, I don't make a dime off any of them; all opinions are my own; the gifted books are noted as we come to them. I am a big nerd for 'the book that explains that,' as you all may have gathered if you've been reading my blog for any length of time. If there's a book length explanation of an idea or a phenomenon, I'd like it, please. (When I found out I was pregnant, I ordered a pile of books on pregnancy and infancy and consumed them all in about three weeks, WHILE doing L1 reading for law school. Pity and fear me.) So my relationships are not par ..read more

To group chat, or not to group chat? That is the question. ...Shakespeare definitely didn't say that. However, he also didn't have multiple chat apps, a polycule, calendaring with different individuals and groups, and the modern world's expectation that we be "on" for work an absurd amount of the time breathing down his neck. If he did, the monologue might have been a little less existential. (I hope not. I enjoy that play. Being existential and including great dick jokes is one of my favorite things about Shakespeare.) Let's pretend my analogy isn't at all awkward and roll directly into a con ..read more

Many of us are familiar with the metaphorical image of the "downward spiral" - of things getting worse, rapidly, personally or relationally, in a continual and often accelerating pattern. Combine this with the fact that our partners, our families, our closest friends, know how to "push our buttons" and work us into a negative state in the quickest time available, and we can find our intimate relationships to be the home of our most frequently repeated downward spirals. It doesn't have to be this way. The same intimate knowledge that lets us push someone's buttons can let us build them up in th ..read more

A frequent question that polyamorous educators and content creators get asked is "How do I meet new people?" Slightly less often (and more from non-men) we also get "how can I tell if someone I met online or once at a meetup is safe?" (Or "actually good at polyamory" or "as experienced as they say they are" or other similar questions.) While there's no one perfect answer to any of these questions, I want to talk about them a little today. You meet other polyam people the way you meet anyone you'd like to date - either through hobbies & activities, through mutual friends, or through apps. N ..read more

I've been watching a lot of tv, and reading a lot of books, with non-monogamous and polyamorous representation in them. Beyond the fact that we keep getting tv shows cancelled on dramatic and breakup notes (Gossip Girl and The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself come to mind), I just keep noticing a pattern of books and tv that display polyamory as a step or stop off on someone's path to self discovery. We don't have much representation of joy, of long term polyamory, of people settled into their lives as polyamorous people - instead it's a lot of coming of age stories or memoirs with someone di ..read more

"You're like a chestnut," I told my partner. "What?" "You're like a chestnut, you have these prickly burrs of rough edges and big boundary walls and 'how dare they think they can get close' and if they make it through the briar bramble it's a very thin skin and a succulent, good heart." "Honey, are you eating human flesh again?" he glowered at me and we descended into a pile of giggles. But, as unoriginal a metaphor as it is (I know Jo in Little Women is called a prickly chestnut at least once, for many of the same reasons), some of our loveliest and most loved humans do have walls on walls of ..read more

What happens when your step off the relationship escalator isn't as graceful as you want it to be? Sometimes polyamorous people talk about relationships being "on" or "off" the relationship escalator, or "de-escalating" relationships, either in the sense of going "backwards" a step on that escalator or moving off it in an intentional manner. If you're not familiar with the concept, the Relationship Escalator (a term coined by Amy Gahran several years ago) is a way of conceptualizing mononormative relationships - first you meet, go exclusive, catch feelings, (those last two can be reversed) get ..read more

It's a pretty standard (and occasional pet peeve) question to polyamorous folks who choose to live together - "Where do you all SLEEP?" Sometimes delivered with a wink and a nod to lean uncomfortably into sexual territory, sometimes earnestly asked by a family member who isn't sure if they get it, sometimes delivered in well-meaning disbelief by an old friend who's come by the new house for the first time, it's a very personal question. Where monogamous people get the assumption that if you live together, you share a bedroom, and get to be shockingly different by having separate rooms (have yo ..read more

In this post I talked about the ways that lacking scripts for polyamorous breakups can allow for more complex possibilities - but also create pressure to behave according to new scripts. Being "polyamorous enough" to manage our breakups in non-traditional, friendly ways and to share space with exes immediately (or to not say a word about our discomfort in those breakups and resets to anyone in public) can be an expectation we aren't actually comfortable with. Those scare quotes are there for the same reason they are in my discussion of compersion - there is no such thing as "polyamorous enoug ..read more

It comes up here occasionally that I have kids. They're both under 10, they're funny and cute, and I love them even when they aren't funny or cute. I mention them when they (or their very existence as a force on my life) are relevant; mostly I don't get into great detail because this blog is about adults having relationships. Every time they come up, directly or because I mention classes I'm teaching and "Polyamory and Parenting" is on the list, I get at least 1 DM or email that says "thank you for normalizing polyamory with young kids" and another that says "I'm childless - how can I better s ..read more