Opening Up: Things to consider before you make that dating profile

Opening Up

When an established monogamous couple decides to enter polyamory, the transition is often plagued with anxiety, insecurity, and even heartache. The quest for more love in one’s life can leave the love you already have unstable and on the edge of complete rupture. While entering polyamory is exciting and offers new opportunities—both for individual members of the couple and for the couple as a unit—this novelty and excitement come with a steep learning curve.

To navigate this transition with as little heartache and emotional distress as possible, certain practices can be helpful. While I certainly don’t mean to suggest that being poly requires a PhD in psychology, I do believe that understanding and practicing certain concepts can make the transition from monogamy to polyamory easier for everyone involved.

Managing Expectations

The first thing to understand is that you will experience profoundly negative feelings as part of this journey. You will absolutely feel joy, excitement, and perhaps even a renewed sense of youth. However, you will also experience feelings of abandonment, loss of control, insecurity, and, above all, jealousy. Adjusting your expectations to prepare for these emotions is necessary. If you only focus on the positives, the negatives will be destabilizing. The first time you feel unloved, it may seem like everything is falling apart and that you should abandon polyamory altogether. Without proper preparation, the first time you feel jealousy, you may blame your partner and react irrationally with anger and arguments. Having reasonable expectations about the negative emotions you will face will help you prepare for how to deal with them.

Understanding Emotions

Emotions are real and powerful, but they are not facts. They are psychological reactions that arise in response to external stimuli or internal thoughts. While it is true that you are feeling scared, angry, or happy, those feelings do not necessarily reflect reality. You can feel unloved even when your partner is madly in love with you. You can feel betrayed even when your partner has done nothing outside the boundaries you both agreed upon. The first step in managing emotions is understanding that while they are real, they don’t necessarily mean something bad is happening outside of your own mind.

As you learn to regulate your emotions, you will find that if you simply allow the feeling to exist—without resisting it or re-triggering yourself—it will pass like a wave. To be clear, “allowing the feeling” does not mean working yourself up, feeding into negative thoughts, or believing the emotion must be true. It means acknowledging and experiencing it without resistance. Is your anger accompanied by rising blood pressure and increased body heat? Is your fear making your mouth dry and your muscles tense? Recognize these sensations, allow them to come, and observe as they dissipate.

When I first started practicing this, I was amazed at how overwhelming feelings that seemed insurmountable in the first months of being poly gradually became minor and, over time, ceased altogether. For example, when I first had to knock on my own bedroom door while my wife was with her partner, I felt anger. Now, I feel nothing at all. When my wife was sent to voicemail while I was on a date, she used to be enraged. Now, she reacts no differently than if I were in a work meeting.

The Role of Therapy and Codependency 

Individual therapy is often a crucial first step in navigating this transition. If you struggle to regulate your emotions on your own and frequently rely on your partner for emotional stability, therapy can be highly beneficial.

While therapy is helpful for everyone, it is especially useful for people navigating major life transitions. Moving from monogamy to polyamory touches nearly every area of life: friendships, family dynamics, self-perception, and especially the relationship with your current partner. A therapist can provide support that friends or family—who may not understand polyamory—cannot. They can help you learn to regulate emotions, create space to experience them without believing they define reality, and break free from one of the primary obstacles to a successful transition: codependency.

Our society often celebrates codependency in monogamous relationships, making it difficult to distinguish between healthy interdependence and unhealthy enmeshment. Codependency occurs when your identity becomes intertwined with your partner’s to the extent that you struggle to separate your desires from theirs. It is normal and healthy to care about your partner’s needs and support their goals. However, in codependent relationships, you may find yourself unable to tell whether you genuinely want something or if you feel obligated to want it because your partner does.

For example:

• Do you want to go to Europe, or is it that your partner has dreamed of it their whole life and you feel you “have to” want to go?

• Do you dislike a particular sexual activity, or do you only dislike doing it with this partner?

• Do you prefer going to bed early, or is it that your partner has wanted you to, so it asbecome a habit?

Recognizing the difference between personal desires and sacrifices for your partner is crucial. While some sacrifices are part of a healthy relationship, a life centered entirely on sacrificing for another is neither sustainable nor fulfilling.Leaving codependency behind can feel like betrayal in a monogamous framework. However, polyamory requires an understanding that you and your partner are individuals with separate journeys. Therapy can help in navigating this shift in a way that strengthens rather than undermines your existing relationship.

Couples Therapy and Finding the Right Therapist

Couples therapy can also be critical, but it is essential to find a therapist who understands polyamory. A well-meaning but inexperienced therapist may offer advice rooted in monogamous norms that do not translate well to poly relationships. Ideally, your therapist should have experience working with polyamorous individuals and couples.

One reason individual therapy is discussed before couples therapy is that becoming polyamorous is a personal journey. While you may be transitioning from a monogamous relationship together, your individual experiences will be distinct. A good couples therapist will help you and your partner set boundaries that protect your autonomy rather than restrict one another’s freedoms.

Preparing for the Journey

Before actively dating, certain practices can help ease the transition:

• Develop friendships independent of your partner. Having individual social circles helps prepare for the reality of your partner spending time with others.

• Pursue hobbies and interests outside your relationship. Taking classes, volunteering, or going out with colleagues fosters independence.

• Build a supportive network. Even if your friends aren’t poly, having nonjudgmental people to talk to is essential.

• Consider potential triggers in advance. Be aware of common challenges, such as: 

o Your partner getting more dates than you.

o Your partner progressing faster in new relationships than you are comfortable with.

o Your partner dating people very different from (or very similar to) you.

o Feeling unfamiliarity as your partner explores new interests.

o Difficulty with “firsts”—first overnight, first love, first meeting with a new partner’s family.

Being aware of potential triggers allows for proactive planning instead of reactive conflict.

Committing to the Process

At some point, you and your partner will decide it’s time to move forward. Once you open your relationship, there is no easy return to monogamy. Constantly questioning whether you should “keep being poly” will create tension. Once the decision is made, each person must be responsible for their own path. You may decide polyamory isn’t for you, but you cannot dictate your partner’s journey once they have started exploring it.

The transition into polyamory is much like the early days of monogamous dating—it is thrilling but often turbulent. However, with preparation, support systems, and emotional resilience, you can move past the initial challenges into a stable, fulfilling poly life.