Why Isn’t Non-Monogamy Working for Me?
If that question sounds familiar, you’re not alone, but you’re not going to be able to figure out the answer until you
"Why isn't non-monogamy working for me?"
Does that question sound familiar to you? It does to me. In fact, when I think back to the early days of my polyamory journey, it's almost depressingly familiar. And I know I'm not the only one. If you haven't asked it yourself, one of your partners or friends probably has.
But while we might be asking the same question, we’re not necessarily doing so for the same reasons. While you might be asking, "Why isn't non-monogamy working for me?" because you have trouble getting dates, someone else might be asking, "Why isn't non-monogamy working for me?" because while they have no trouble getting dates they are struggling to find long-term, committed partners. There are even people who have found everything they wanted from non-monogamy but still find themselves asking, "Why isn't non-monogamy working for me?" as loudly as anyone else for reasons they can’t identify.
Just as there are many different reasons to want to explore non-monogamy and build non-monogamous relationships, there are many reasons things might not be working. And if you don't take the time to figure out the exact reason behind your personal situation, you're never going to find the answer you're looking for.
So, let's take a look at some common reasons behind the feeling that non-monogamy isn't working; whether there are things you can actively do to fix the issue, things you need your partner(s) to do, or if it's simply a case of learning how to live with discomfort and adjust your expectations.
Non-Monogamy doesn’t make relationships and dating any easier
The reason that you feel that non-monogamy isn't working for you could be that you have unrealistic expectations of how difficult your journey is going to be.
There is an old adage in the polyamorous community that relationships are hard, and non-monogamy only makes them harder. Which is true. Kind of. But not really. Because if you want to be pedantic (and who doesn't love being just a little bit pedantic now and then), non-monogamy doesn't make relationships any harder, but instead tears away the support structures we've built up around them.
Think back to the beginnings of every monogamous relationship you've ever had. Do you remember all the work it took? The readjustment of your life? The changes you made to your social calendar? Learning which habits were annoying or disruptive? Working out when to introduce them to family and friends? No, you don't. Because, at the time, you were both swimming in New Relationship Energy. Everything about them was sunshine and rainbows, and the emotional work you were doing didn’t feel like work because it meant you could spend more time together. Plus, all the people in your life knew what was happening. Everyone knows what being in a new relationship is like, and (hopefully) were prepared for and accepting of the disruption.
But non-monogamy strips us of all this. When you are creating a non-monogamous relationship, you have to actively think about every change in your life, especially when you are new to the lifestyle or one of you already has an existing partner. And the people in your life will not automatically understand and accept you. At best, they'll be confused, and, at worst, they can be actively hostile.
You need to do “The Work” (and not just on your relationships)
The reason that you feel that non-monogamy isn't working for you could be because you've not done "The Work", or think you've already done enough.
Many of us struggle with non-monogamy, especially in the early stages, because we haven't done "The Work". Transitioning from compulsory monogamy to ethical non-monogamy is an active process. We can't just jump from one to the other. We have to actively dismantle our ideas of what a relationship is and then just as actively rebuild it based on our unique needs and desires.
And that's not easy to do. Nor is it easy to know how to do. It involves finding the resources that work for you, whether that means books, podcasts, social media, or coaching. And the pace at which we do this work varies as well. If you have a busy job and lots of life commitments, finding the time to read or browse online content can be hard. But as long as you are trying your best, figuring things out and learning at your own speed, things will slowly get easier.
But there is a little secret that I want to share with you. Even if you have been doing "The Work" - you've read the books, listened to the podcasts, and read every article on this website and every other website you can find - you haven't done enough. None of us has. When I call exploring non-monogamy a journey, I mean the type of journey where the destination matters less than how you get there. It's fine to have an end goal in mind, but no matter what you think, the route to get there will never be a straight line, will likely involve a lot of pit stops and detours, and so you can't ever take your eyes off the road.
And something important to remember is that "The Work" doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to non-monogamy. We all have issues and traumas that impact our relationships. For example, working on issues rooted in abandonment, low self-esteem, or jealousy might help your relationships, but they'll also help in every other area of your life. Working on ourselves is never a bad thing. In fact, exploring non-monogamy might make some things easy to face, as it involves stepping away from the shields you've put up to ignore them.
Do you actually know what you want from non-monogamy?
The reason that you feel that non-monogamy isn't working for you might be because you don't actually know what you want from it, or are afraid to admit it to yourself and your partner(s).
Ask yourself, do you know what you want from your non-monogamous relationships? I mean, do you really? Like, really? Because even if you are absolutely, 100%, no takesies-backsies certain that you know - or even already have - exactly what you want from non-monogamy, you might be wrong.
Something that took me a long time to realise is that most of us know very little about what non-monogamy can look like. Most of us begin exploring non-monogamy with a very limited view of what it offers. It's not exactly like there's a lot of realistic representations in the media, where non-monogamy is normally portrayed as purely about sex, a way to try and save a dying relationship, or a sign someone isn't able to commit to a relationship. And even if we do have a better-than-average idea of the different ways non-monogamy can look, it's very common to have a block that keeps us from being honest about our desires and needs. Many of us have denied a desire for certain sexual experiences due to shame, and many people in couples refuse to admit they want to form committed relationships for fear of upsetting their existing partner.
The process of figuring out what you really want from non-monogamy can be a long journey of self-discovery. First, we need to learn all the possible ways to build relationships that exist. Then we have to learn to recognise and accept our own needs and desires that we might be ashamed or scared of. And then we have to work out how to communicate this to the people in our lives, and process their reactions. Which is easy if they are supportive and enthusiastic, but harder if they are confused and need their own time to process, or outright traumatic if they are hostile.
Sometimes, things don’t work out as fast as you would like
The reason that you feel that non-monogamy isn't working for you could be because it's simply taking a lot longer than you want.
When I first began my non-monogamy journey, I really struggled finding dates. My partner at the time had no problems. She could go on any dating app and get a hundred Likes and even more Messages in a few minutes, while I spent hours carefully crafting accounts on different apps and platforms, creating personalised messages, only to be utterly ignored. When we went to in-person events, she would go home with phone numbers, and I would have some polite no thank yous (and a fair few not so polite ones). Of course, it could have just been the fact that men, generally speaking, have a harder time finding dates. But as we got to know people in the community, it felt like every other man I met had no trouble getting dates. I couldn't see anything they were doing that I wasn't. The only difference was that it worked for them but not for me.
And so our journey continued. It had its ups and downs, and over time, I managed to get a few dates, but not what I was really looking for. Then, several years later, I met someone. It wasn't on an app or at a non-monogamous event. We were at a show in London, and I was introduced to a friend of a friend. They weren't even non-monogamous, but we had an instant connection, and they ended up being my first long-term polyamorous partner.
And suddenly, it felt like a wall had been broken. I hadn't done anything different. It had just taken time to meet the right person. Even after that relationship ended, being single or only in one relationship at a time has never felt hard, because I knew it could happen.
This is just my story, of course, but I've learned over the years it's a very common one. One partner finds it easy to find dates, while the other struggles (and it's not always the man who struggles). But it could also be that you find the right person, but it takes time to figure out the right relationship dynamic, or for some other aspect of life or the relationship to work.
Just because other people don’t look like they are struggling doesn’t mean they aren’t
The reason that you might feel that non-monogamy isn't working for you could be because it feels as if you're the only one who's struggling.
This can be an unfortunate side effect of an important part of polyamory. In this article, I've talked about the importance of seeking out other non-monogamous people, whether that's online influencers or an in-person community. But while this is important, it can have the unfortunate side-effect of leading us to compare ourselves to other people.
When you look at other non-monogamous people, you are going to see many of them doing "better" than you. There will be people who look like they find non-monogamy easy, who seem to be having crazy sex every other night, look hotter than you, and breeze through life and relationships without even realising that some people find non-monogamy hard.
But you have to fight that feeling, because it's almost always not true. When you see someone doing "better" than you, it will always be for a reason. It could be that they have been non-monogamous for a lot longer than you have. Or they might have been lucky and found what they were looking for faster than you. Or they may simply have been born with the looks and charisma that make dating easy.
Or - and this is especially true for online influencers - they could be putting up a manufactured image of what their relationships look like. A big part of being a non-monogamy influencer is breaking down prejudices and presenting non-monogamy as a valid and healthy way to build committed relationships, so they curate a version of their lives that presents an idealised version of their relationships. Or they choose to only celebrate their successes on social media, and don’t want to air their troubles in the same way. Just because you post about your life online doesn't mean your audience is entitled to every little piece of you.
Just because someone else's life looks perfect doesn't mean everything is as it seems. I've known plenty of "perfect" relationships - both monogamous and non-monogamous - which eventually ended in total self-destruction due to reasons that had been there all along, we just hadn't been privy to.
Sometimes, people just aren’t being ethical
So far, I've talked about reasons that non-monogamy doesn't feel like it's working for you that are personal, each of which has ways you can work on to try and figure things out. But sometimes, the reason non-monogamy isn't working for you is the people you are doing it with.
In many ways, non-monogamy is no different to monogamy, and one of those ways is that people will use it to control their partners. You might be 100% onboard with non-monogamy, but if a partner or a metamour is forcing you into something you are uncomfortable with, then it will never feel right. I've spoken to more than one person whose partner pressured them into things they weren't comfortable with, such as inviting other people into threesomes or insisting they blend their life with a metamour with whom they didn't have a connection.
But this doesn't necessarily need to be intentional. Sometimes, it's an issue with one partner wanting to move faster than the other. If one partner is very enthusiastic and throwing themselves into things, they might not notice the other is uncomfortable and needs to slow down, especially if the second partner doesn't want to seem like a buzzkill. Or, on the other hand, someone who wants to go very slowly might leave their partner feeling unsatisfied and disappointed with how non-monogamy feels.
So, why does it feel like non-monogamy doesn't work for you?
As we've discussed above, it could be one of many reasons. Or more than one. There's nothing to say you might not be encountering all the points I've raised here. Or ones I haven't touched on. This is just a short, in no way exhaustive list of some of the more common reasons non-monogamy might not feel like it's working. Just as there is a vast spectrum of relationship dynamics, there are just as many reasons things might not be working for you.
Everyone's journey is different. Things that work for some people won't work for others. But when you find yourself facing a wall, you can't just hammer your face into it over and over again, hoping to brute force the issue. Sometimes, you need to identify the trigger that breaks it down. Other times, you just have to wait until it collapses by itself. Perhaps, you need to think about whether you are supposed to going down this road at all, and you should consider taking a different turning. Or maybe someone is holding you up against the wall and refusing to let you see that those other roads even exist.
The important thing to remember is that just because non-monogamy feels like it's not working, it doesn't mean it can’t work, or that it's not worth it. It might take longer than you'd like. It might be more uncomfortable than you'd like. And you might have to face some truths you'd rather avoid. But I promise you, in the end, non-monogamy can work for us all.
Just in our own way.
Would you like to learn more about polyamory, keep up to date with articles when they are posted, and also receive a FREE COPY of A Basic Guide To Ethical Non-Monogamy? Then sign up for my newsletter.