Dictionary
Below you’ll find a dictionary for words related to psychology, attachment or polyamory/ethical non-monogamy. Please don’t forget that words are just symbols for experiences and ways for us to convey our internal worlds to other people (and vice versa). If you truly want to understand someone else, I would advise you to ask them what a certain word means to them.
Ambiamory is the capability of potentially enjoying both monogamous and polyamorous relationships.
Ambiamorous people might feel that it depends on the person they are with, the period in their life, or other internal or situational factors, whether they want to engage in a monogamous relationship or polyamorous relationships at a certain point in their life. The emphasis is not on any specific type of relationship structure, but rather on what feels most authentic and fitting to their needs at any point in time.
Defined as such, ambiamory perhaps leans somewhat more towards polyamory than it leans towards monogamy, as sometimes polyamory is defined as being open to other romantic relationships, without necessarily having one.
Compersion in the most general terms is a feeling of delight or empathetic happiness or joy at someone else’s happiness.
When referenced in polyamory, it refers to feeling happiness in experiencing one’s partner enjoying romantic or sexual connections with others.
Cheating has many different definitions. Probably because it differs to everyone.
Here I define it as follows: Cheating is anything that a person does, says, or does not say that transgresses the rules of one’s specific relationship, particularly regarding romantic or sexual connections. Since the rules of each relationship differs, it also differs when something is considered cheating. Even in monogamy these rules differ; whereas some people consider it cheating when their partner has significant emotional ties to people of the opposite gender, therefore forbidding friendships that are too close, other monogamous couples don’t find this a problem at all.
Within ethical non-monogamy, where people have consensually agreed to have multiple sexual or romantic connections, there is obviously still the possibility of cheating when someone does something that is not within their agreements. For instance, when having sex with someone and not sharing this with their partner where they know their partner would want to know this.
The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell-rule is an agreement where people have decided that one or both partners are allowed to have sexual connections with other people, but have also agreed to not share (or share minimal) information about those activities. Often, the reason for this decision is that the sharing of specific information can feel uncomfortable or unpleasant to one or both partners. Everybody who practices ethical non-monogamy has a certain level of information-sharing that they are comfortable with. Some people get excited when they see their partners having sex right in front of them or savour the details of a sexual encounter their partner had (which were hopefully shared with the permission of everybody involved), whereas other people would develop acute cases of stomach ache when they would even imagine their partner being intimate with someone else, even if they do want to support their partner in having other connections. Every level of information sharing within a relationship is valid if it is mindfully negotiated and consensually decided upon and only you get to decide what works best for you. However, the DADT-rule does come with specific challenges.
To the people within a DADT-agreement:
-the person engaging in ‘outside’ activities might keep an inkling of a feeling that they’re doing something wrong, especially in a situation where only one person is pursuing other sexual connections. As a result, they might feel perpetual guilt or shame.
-when it’s not very clearly agreed upon how you both want to communicate about these activities, you might create a zone of ambiguity, where you always worry about what exactly your partner is doing when they say they’re away for a couple of hours. If not mindfully done, this agreement can perpetuate anxiety rather than alleviate it.
-while this agreement is often decided upon to keep anxiety and insecurity in check, it can also prevent a deepening of intimacy within a relationship. When you create space to talk about insecurities together, you have a chance to get to the core of your fear and deepen your bond with your partner.
-whereas DADT might really work for you and that is beautiful and valid, very often this rule is used as a compromise when one partner doesn’t really want their partner to have other sexual relationships. Rather than really wanting this lifestyle, you might be living a life you don’t really want out of fear of losing your partner.
To the person from outside of the pre-existing relationship engaging with someone in a DADT-agreement:
-there is often no space for you to check if the other partner is really okay with this agreement, since often this other person is said to not even want to know of your existence.
-since many people (absolutely not all!) put an agreement like this into place as a form of compromise; because they do not really want their partner to have other sexual connections, one might wonder if this agreement is kind or ethical. Even if someone consents to a specific rule, consent under duress is not the most kind situation for someone to be in. Knowing why this rule is put in place can help you understand if your metamour truly wants this agreement, or is settling into a situation they don’t really want. As a ‘third’ coming into this type of situation, check in with yourself carefully if you feel comfortable with this. You might feel different about seeing someone once, versus developing a relationship with someone with a DADT-agreement.
-Even if someone’s partner agreed to them having sex with other people, it becomes difficult to consent to specifics. How do you know that what you’re doing with someone is not violating their partner’s boundaries? Blanket consent is not informed consent. Often overlooked is that causing someone harm, even if done indirectly, can also take a toll.
-if you become more involved with a person in this type of agreement, it’s likely that there will be very limited space for you to grow your relationship as people in a DADT agreement prioritize the protection of their relationship by cutting out information about other bonds.
-you are often a secret; whereas sometimes your partner’s partner might be open to knowing your name, very often they want to know as little about you as possible. Each bit of information about you can be threatening or scary, and the people in this constellation have chosen to deal with this by not talking about it. You might want to consider if you want to place yourself in this position; you deserve to be celebrated as a person and the value and joy you bring to people.
-it becomes more challenging to communicate transparently about things like STDs and safer sex practices. If they actively keep information from their partner, do they communicate about what barriers they use, how often they get tested? What do they do when they have slipped, is this communicated to their partner or you?
Ethical non-monogamy is considered an umbrella term used to describe any consented-upon relationship style that involves either the openness to, or act of having consensual intimate relationships with more than one person at the same time.
Examples of ethical non-monogamy are:
-polyamory
-swinging
-relationship anarchy
Interoception is your brain receiving information about your body’s internal state, such as hunger, an ache or an itch somewhere, or a tightness in your chest. Knowing what is going on inside your own body is important, not just to recognize that you’re thirsty and should drink some water, or that you’re holding a pan that is too hot and you should let go, but also to know what emotions you are actually feeling and what actions you should take.
Levels of interoception differ from person to person. Whereas one person might understand exactly that the dark pit in her stomach means that she is sad and lonely and that she should reach out to friends for support, another person might walk around for days with a general, vague bad feeling. If you don’t learn how to recognize and specify your internal cues, you also won’t know what is truly going on inside yourself and what you’re supposed to do about it.
You can heighten your awareness of your internal cues by spending some moments a day to scan your body. What do you actually feel right now? Do you notice tension anwyhere, maybe in your shoulders, chest or stomach? Is that tension compressed, tight, dark, heavy? Do you know what happiness feels like in your body, and do you notice how anger and sadness feel differently in your body? Many people notice that when they’re angry, for instance, they might feel a hotness in their hands, an energy-surge from within preparing them for action. This makes a lot of sense, since anger is often about the trespassing of boundaries and fighting for what’s important.
Becoming more and more specific in your observations, learn to get to know yourself intimately. You might want to browse for full body meditations (by Plum village for instance), to guide you through a body-scan. When you feel something, spend some time to discover where in your body you feel these emotions. Being able to just observe your emotions without engaging in the thoughts surrounding them, will also help you process these emotions and see their messages more clearly.
Monogamy is a relationship with only one partner at a time, rather than multiple partners. A monogamous relationship can be sexual or emotional, but is usually both.
New Relationship Energy is the period of infatuation that typically comes at the beginning of a new relationship. In this period where you’ve just started discovering a whole new person and you’re seeing everything through pink glasses, you can easily find yourself thinking of them often, feeling enamored, wanting to spend a lot of time with them… your body is flushed with hormones making you feel in love (and sometimes dysregulating your whole nervous system making it difficult to eat or sleep).
As delicious as NRE can feel, when you have existing partners it is very important to take care of these pre-existing bonds. Monogamous people in NRE sometimes start neglecting their friendships when they fall in love, and while the rush and dedicated focus that comes with NRE is very human, when you have another partner at home who might already be feeling a bit insecure or tender about your connection with a new person, it’s important to be mindful and check in with each other regularly. Being aware of what is happening helps place your feelings in perspective. NRE will pass; and ultimately we probably want to create sustainable loving connections, not just the neurochemical highs of infatuation.
Pansexuality is possible sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people might state that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others.
Some people view polyamory more as an optional relationship style or a choice. It might be said that these people practice polyamory and consider the benefits of certain aspects, such as the freedom to engage in multiple sexual contacts, rather than seeing polyamory as part of their identity.
Other people do regard the underlying philosophies of polyamory as part of their identity or worldview. People who consider polyamory to be more core to their identity often say that loving multiple people feels very natural to them, and that they have often unhappily tried to ‘fit in’ to monogamy. The discovery of polyamory can feel like a big relief. Philosophies that are often mentioned are for example:
• The belief that love is not a finite resource. For polyamorists, love is not something that is depleted or decreases in value if it happens to be given to more than one person.
• The desire to be fully oneself and the desire to support your partner in being fully themselves. One does not try to define any expressed need as bad or wrong, but only as what it is: a need of an autonomous person, which can be discussed openly and honestly. This also includes attraction to others.
• Seeing any fears and jealousies that arise as an invitation to engage in a learning process and understand deeper insecurities or request loving care. For many polyamorists, this is preferable to, for example, structurally limiting a partner’s freedom (“this makes me insecure, so you can’t do that”).
• Being able to decide for yourself which form of relating suits you best, and to be able to create that in openness and honesty with the people you relate with, instead of feeling like one has to follow the dominant narrative.
Simply put, this story is: love is especially true love when you find one person with whom you share all expressions of romance and sex for the rest of your life.
Just like the fact that monogamy looks different to everyone, ethical non-monogamy looks different to everyone. People can prefer different forms of relating for different reasons. Characteristic of ENM is that people can structure the relationship exactly as befits the people in the relationship(s), dreaming from scratch of what they desire and would want.
When someone is married to more than one person.
Polyandry: When a woman is married to two or more men at the same time
Polygyny: When a man is married to two or more women at the same time
A pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns refer to either a noun that has already been mentioned or to a noun that does not need to be named specifically. The main possessive pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.
In recent years, more awareness and space has arisen surrounding gender and how people identify. Both science and history clearly show that gender is a very complex structure, having roots in both biology and culture. In order to be a society that creates acceptance and space for everyone, being respectful towards how people identify includes wanting to be curious and aware towards which pronouns someone uses.