November 13, 2026:

My partner and I have been together for ten years. We’re both queer, we live together, and things are genuinely good. But we got together so young that I sometimes feel that I skipped a whole chapter of sexual exploration. I suspect my partner shares this feeling. I’m interested in trying out ethical non-monogamy, but at this late stage of our relationship, how would we even get started?

– Late-Blooming Bisexual 

I want to start by saying your feelings of desire, fear of missing out, and fear of messing up are totally understandable. The internet makes it easy to feel like everyone else knows more and has done more, so you’re getting left behind. 

You don’t say how old you are, but I believe it’s never too late to explore queerness, non-monogamy, or any other experiment in your quest for self-discovery and joy. And I can help you do that! 

Here are five easy first steps to take into your ethical non-monogamy journey.

1. Ask yourself the hard questions first

Before you talk to your partner, you need to check in with yourself to understand what you want to get out of opening up your relationship. Here are some questions to ask yourself that may guide your journey into ethical non-monogamy: 

• Are there specific feelings or cravings you can only satisfy by exploring with other people? Exploring queerness with people who have a different gender than your partner is a common answer here. But it’s also valid if you just want to feel free, have fun, or do specific sexual acts that do not interest your partner.
• What scares you most about opening your relationship? Feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and shame may come up for you. Can you, personally, move through those feelings? Can your partner?

2. Know the risks—and rewards—of an open relationship

As a certified lover girl who is also, let’s say, kind of a ho, I’m an acolyte of this adage: Ethical non-monogamy does not inherently cause problems in relationships. But it does frequently reveal problems.

It’s not uncommon for certain disconnects or assumptions to go unaddressed for years in long-term monogamous relationships. Two partners might have different perceptions on trust, fidelity, or even love itself, but skirt “addressing” those issues through passive aggression or silence. 

Involving multiple partners—sexual or romantic—in a formerly monogamous relationship can unleash a certain amount of chaos that ends up unearthing these kinds of problems. Ethical non-monogamy (ENM) requires transparency and communication, not avoidance.

Non-monogamous couples already have fewer social scripts to reference than monogamous couples. 

You might not call it a script, but you’ve certainly experienced it. Think of your standard rom-com. Boy meets girl, boy and girl get married, have 1.5 kids, and live happily ever after experiencing a few bumps—and definitely no erectile dysfunction or orgasm issues—along the way. 

Our culture is steeped in these messages from TV, to books and everywhere else we look. They are usually heteronormative, stereotypically gendered, and, perhaps this goes without saying, centered on monogamy. Regardless of how much or how little you play by these rules, they provide a benchmark for monogamy against which couples may measure themselves.

So it’s hard for non-monogamous folks to know how they’re supposed to act in an open relationship. Any relationship format that bucks against the norm can be confusing to navigate!

That’s why a healthy ENM dynamic necessitates a lot of honest, internal work to work well. And partners need to be committed to writing the next chapter of their story themselves—together. 

3. Communication, communication, communication

After checking in with yourself, Late-Blooming Bisexual, you have to talk frankly about your desires with your partner. 

Explain what you think you’ll get out of forging connections with other people, and why this is not a quest that can be taken by just the two of you. This part takes bravery, and it may be the scariest step, but I think this kind of vulnerability begets even more intimacy and closeness! 

If your partner does, as you suspect, share your feelings about having missed a chapter of sexual exploration, then you are on your way to the fun part of ethical non-monogamy.

Setting expectations and boundaries is a good first step to opening up any relationship. Here are some more practical questions that may help draw some boundaries.

• Do we want to date and play together as a unit, or separately?
• Do we both want to date people of all genders and sexual orientations, or only those who feel explicitly queer?
• Can we go on dates, or is it just about hooking up? Can you hook up with the same person multiple times, or is it strictly going to be one night stands with people at bars?
• How emotionally connected can we get with other people?
• Can we have sleepovers? Who’s allowed to sleep over?

Every relationship will set different rules and boundaries that make sense for them. 

Some people prefer to hear about their significant other’s trysts only after a date or a hook-up—rather than getting a heads-up. Focusing on the debrief allows them to share in their partner’s excitement at a new encounter and minimizes the awkward feeling of knowing exactly when and where their partner is canoodling with someone else. 

For other couples, the opposite might be true. Every potential new partner in the polycule must be discussed before anything happens, so that everyone can feel safe and secure. 

Expectations and experiences are bound to change over time, so put regular check-ins on the calendar. Maybe you can schedule an official chat once a month or after every extracurricular date. 

Later, you may want or need to check in less routinely. But frequent, open discussion in the beginning of any open relationship is what can make the difference between ethical non-monogamy and infidelity. 

4. Don’t get obsessed with rules or labels

Setting rules is a great start, but I don’t think you should get too deep into debating rules or excess jargon. 

ENM can come with a lot of insider lingo. People love to use terms like “compersion” (the feeling of vicarious joy when your partner experiences joy), “metamour” (your lover’s lover), and “nesting partner” (the partner you live with). 

If those words are fun and useful tools to understand relationship dynamics, great. If not, you don’t need them. 

The rules are there to help keep you honest and make sure everyone’s being treated fairly. But no amount of verbiage or list-making can make you immune to relationship challenges, ruptures, or heartbreak. 

So the most important part of this process is to try to have integrity around your relationships. Both the anchor relationship that you started this whole thing with and the newer connections you build deserve earnestness and care. 

Above all, make sure you and your partner feel empowered to be entirely transparent about your needs, your wants, and your capacities.

5. Do unto others as you would have done to you

I’m a firm believer that none of us know how to be in a relationship—open, monogamous, or otherwise! The kind of curiosity and honesty that non-monogamy asks of you might just be the right amount of curiosity and honesty all relationships should have. 

And since all of us are just fools operating on our own timelines when it comes to love and life, now is as good a time to start the ENM journey as any.

But whatever you do, don’t forget to water the plants at home: It’s easy to turn these newer relationships into a form of escapism or avoidance of the problems you don’t want to address in your main relationship. 

Non-momogamy is a beautiful way to experience all the love and sensations that this life has to offer. But if you’re using it to bandage over a wound in your core partnership that needs healing, you may find yourself with two or three relationships stressing you out rather than just the one. 

Sometimes, opening up can be about ameliorating a difference in libido or easing loneliness in a long-term or long-distance relationship. But it won’t “fix” that problem; only the hard work of relationship maintenance can do that. 

The golden rules I advise are to treat everyone with respect, including yourself, and be radically honest about your feelings—not just with your partner but also with yourself.

That way, you can have real fun with your non-binary friend-with-benefits, your dominatrix, and the subby twink that you see on Thursdays. 

And if you take care of others, odds are they’ll do the same for you.

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