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Trying Out Ethical Non-Monogamy? These Are the 4 Mistakes Guys Tend to Make.

Living with my boyfriend, his wife, and his wifes girlfriend led to some big-time drama. It probably wasnt the wisest decision to move into their tiny Cambridge apartment after only five months of dating my boyfriend, but I was young, in love, and wanted to give my first attempt at polyamory my all.

4 Mistakes That'll Tank Your Relationship

I made more than my fair share of mistakes while in my first ethically non-monogamous relationship. Ethical non-monogamy is an umbrella term for any type of relationship that isnt monogamous, including polyamory (i.e., having more than one romantic, committed partner), open relationship (i.e., sleeping with other people than your committed partner with your partners knowledge and consent), and more.

Naively, I went in with this notion that healthy forms of communication could solve every problem. (Isnt that what therapists always say?) While undoubtedly necessary, communication is just the first step to a successful polyamorous or open relationship, and there are probably 50 steps that come after.

Research has indicated a in open relationships over time, and its of people living in the United States are polyamorous, or participating in other forms of ethically non-monogamous relationships. A whopping have at least attempted some kind of ethical non-monogamy at some point in their lives.

If youre one of the modern men interested in dabbling in polyamory, open relationships, or other forms of ethical non-monogamy, I have your back. God knows I made plenty of mistakes in my first ethically non-monogamous relationship; the main one, which eventually led to our breakup, was that I viewed him as a best friend I slept with, not a committed, romantic partner.

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So you wont be as foolishly unprepared as I was, I reached out to ethical non-monogamous relationship experts for advice. With that said, here are four mistakes guys make-as well as how to avoid them.

No one wants to feel unwanted or unloved, especially in a relationship, says , the founder of , a private club offering educational experiences in relationships, kink, and intimacy. If you've gotten to the point where your partner is comfortable with expanding your relationship, it's important to have them as your priority, not the other partners you're playing with.

Especially when the relationship first opens up, the excitement of sleeping with new people can affect how you treat your partner. It can easily seem that you care more for these random hookups than you do about each other.

Over time, random hookups may lose their excitement and you may feel the need to have an emotional connection with the people you're sleeping with, Saynt explains. When you feel the emotional connection with a secondary partner is more important than the physical, you may be heading into polyamorous territory.

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Its completely fine if thats the case, but its necessary to keep the lines of communication open to prevent hurting your original love interest. It's okay to be poly. It's okay to be open. It's not okay to be secretive about which one you truly want to be.

Lots of men conflate open relationships with short-term relationships-they do not mean the same thing and should be managed in different ways, explains Anne-Laure Le Cunff, non-monogamous researcher and founder of .

Its necessary to be on the same page as your partner, which is why you both need to answer a number of questions together.

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What are your plans for the future? Do you ever want to get married? Raise kids? Le Cunff asks.

Even when I lived with my ex-boyfriend (and the rest of the poly crew), I didnt see myself being with him long-term. In fact, thats why we broke up. He asked me, Do you see yourself being with me until we die? Because I want to be with you forever. I had never really thought about how our relationship would look in the future because I assumed it wouldnt make it that far with him having a wife and all. We eventually broke up because I told him the truth: While I loved him, I didnt see myself with him down the line.

Some couples think opening up a relationship to outside intimate partners can reinvigorate a relationship thats experiencing a lull or rough patch, says a relationship coach and Amazon bestselling author.

Being in an open relationship requires trust, constant communication, understanding, and compromise. If those areas of your relationship are not already strong, opening up the relationship will be like throwing gasoline on a fire. This cannot be about filling a void within yourself nor a denial of an intimacy issue between the couple.

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Saynt agrees, noting that couples often have the conversation after they cheat. It happens way too often. You're out with friends. You meet someone amazing. You hook-up or sleep together. You feel guilty, so you try having a conversation with your partner about being open in order to reduce the guilt you feel for cheating.

That is not the way to approach an open relationship. If you truly want to explore opening your relationship to new partners, you need to have the conversation early and often. Trying to convince your partner after the fact is a form of coercion and will only lead to resentment and distrust, Saynt says.

Its a fine balance knowing just how much to share with your partner about your outside activities. Needless to say, you never want to lie about hooking up with someone or lie by omission. But at the same, they might not want to hear all the sordid details. (Unless, of course, you have a .)

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We don't omit partners we've hooked up with to prevent the other person from feeling like they are being lied to, says Saynt, opening up about his own ethically non-monogamous relationship. But we also have a rule on oversharing. I'm excited that they are able to experience other people, but I've realized over time that knowing every detail of their encounters actually makes me feel bad.

Discussing exactly how much you would like to share is pertinent prior to the first time you ever hook up with someone else. A common mistake that newly open partners often encounter is not finding out what that balance is, which has the potential to unintentionally create perceived dissonance within the relationship, Dougherty adds.

The key to making any type of open relationship work is openness, honesty, respect, and collaboration, Dougherty concludes. Its a balance expressing to your partner that the presence of another will not diminish the love and attraction that you have with one another."

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