Conflict can be hard to deal with for many people. Especially when the conflict happens at work, the source of your livelihood. Nobody wants to mess up their bag and work conflicts can be the perfect storm. Keeping a roof over your head is so ridiculously difficult in this country and so many people are living paycheck to paycheck. And for people of color, there are even more risks to getting into a work conflict with another coworker or worse, a boss, and are trying to figure out how to deal with it without losing your job. The combination of job discrimination/systemic racism, white people’s fear and implicit biases towards us have a huge impact on many people’s ability to make rent. This post will explain how to deescalate conflict in a general situation, the effects of systemic racism and personal experiences with racism, and finally, share professional suggestions as to what resolution can look like for us in these situations.

Deescalation is bringing a high-emotion/energy situation down to neutral. We deescalate situations all the time in our personal lives: “You at a whole 12 and I’ma need you to bring it down to 4, fam. We in public and nobody got bail.” In general, deescalating a situation is about maintaining safety of everyone in the area while respecting the upset person’s agency/humanity. The key is to balance keeping a level of order so that no one is hurt while not treating the person who is upset like an animal. Once you start seeing the upset/agitated person like an animal that needs to managed and contained, you’ve lost ethical control of the situation and the decisions that come after probably aren’t going to be the best.

So what does deescalation look like once conflict starts? Ideally, deescalation involves:

I described an ideal situation: all things and people being equal. But what happens when the playing field isn’t fair and 1 person has more power/privilege than the other? Personal experiences with racism and systemic racism in the workspace set the scene for how people approach each conflict. Since my intended audience is mainly Black people (and other POCs), I don’t think I should have to explain how racism and white supremacy affects how people are seen and treated. Who gets listened to vs. presumed to be lying? Who is assumed to be aggressive vs. who gets to be the victim? I think most POC in America have had moments when their fate was decided totally based on white tears, anger, etc. at some point in their work life. It can be a seriously scary moment when your job and ability to live hangs is up in the air to be decided by someone’s whims. What does deescalation even look like when the person doesn’t see you as fully human? The agitated person doesn’t want to reason with you or if you are the upset one, people around you are acting like you’re a wild animal. Often in the workplace, Black people are expected to perform extra happiness for the comfort of white coworkers and employers. A neutral face or any emotion that isn’t joy is often seen as threatening. At best, white people feeling threatened by you existing leads to multiple private meetings and pressures to change yourself and perform whatever person they want you to be for their comfort (extra emotional labor with no extra money to go with it). Or worse, you could be harassed and deal with gaslighting for months or longer before you give up and leave, are pressured to resign, or fired.

And it isn’t like it’s easy to find a job nowadays. Wider systemic racism affects job market and job discrimination is very, very, VERY real, especially if you are a person of color with many different marginalized identities at once. It’s 1 thing to be a cis Black man, looking for work and dealing with racial job discrimination. It’s a whole other thing to be a Black trans woman and dealing with racism, sexism, transmisogny, etc. all at once.  And without generational wealth, possibly being the one that takes care of family members, etc., we are often in a no-win situation. Many of us stay and deal with a toxic workspace (if we have that choice to stay) rather than be forced out into the unknown. If this sounds like abuse to you, it is because this is abusive. Your life and your ability to survive is tied up in the whims of privileged individuals and in the system. It’s no surprise that many Black people take the “clock in, do my job, and clock out” approach to work.

What does conflict resolution look like for Black ppl & other POCs in white-dominated workplaces? And I’m defining white-dominated as who ultimately holds the influence/power, not in terms of population size. The first thing I’d ask y’all to remember is that HR serves the interests of your company, not the rights/ethical concerns of employees. Basically, HR ain’t for you, fam. They don’t have YOUR best interests at heart and will throw you under the bus to save the company in a second. Never forget that. As a person of color in a white dominated space, it can seem like you are constantly deescalating and trying to prevent potential conflicts on a regular, especially the darker your skin is. On some level, everything about us is policed so we end up eventually policing ourselves: our body language, tone, how we word our emails, the way we laugh, our resting face…all of that needs to be adjusted if you make it a priority to make your white coworkers and bosses feel comfortable with you (and your Otherness). If you’ve worked in these kinds of places for awhile, it may be easier for you to navigate everything. Being able to work in a white-dominated workplace is not a sign of being better or worse. Your ability to co-switch and act in ways that make white people comfortable is not a sign of intellect. It’s a survival tool, sure. And like other tools, not all of us can use them. It just means that person needs to find a different tool that fits them.

If you are being harassed, document everything. Keep emails and send them to your personal email. Audio record meetings. Get verbally recorded or in writing confirmation of as much of the harassment as you can. See if you have trusted witnesses. Get a pro bono lawyer. Don’t brag about yourself making these moves. You are in a toxic situation with your abusive employer. These moves help to protect your livelihood. Unfortunately, there are times when conflict resolution isn’t enough. Always have a Plan B.

As a psychotherapist, I am going to put emphasis on the need to protect your mental health. It’s one thing to be able to survive and even thrive at the job, but do you have the mental and/or emotional energy for the other parts of your life? It’s important to find that balance so you can survive/thrive for as long as you need to while also being at peace with how you live your life in general. Find a balance between making those unfortunately  necessary for now sacrifices and setting boundaries for your mental and physical health. We all remember how drained about grandparents and parents were after coming home from jobs where they had to coddle white people at work all day for the sake of keeping a roof. Self-awareness is a way to make sure that you are being fulfilled and finding meaning/purpose in other areas of your life. That job is important because it pays bills, but it doesn’t have to be the most important thing in your life. Again, check out my post on how to set boundaries for some more information. It’s easier to maintain a solid work/life balance if you make some time for self care (Self care 101 post here and if you take the time to know yourself. You could also try different Mindfulness techniques (see post here] until you find the right one(s) for you. Mindfulness techniques are useful for checking in with yourself, managing anger, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and cravings, etc. Sometimes there are going to be no-win situations where staying is not an options. Part of having firm boundaries, taking care of yourself, and being more mindful of yourself is knowing when to leave a toxic situation at the point where the it hurts more than it’s helping. At the end of the day, it’s about how not only doing good for yourself now, but also keeping this same energy years from now. Sustaining yourself. Growing yourself, not the company.

Deescalating a heated and/or tense situation at work is hard enough as it is. Adding in racial dynamics can make work feel like a life or death chess match or survival strategy game everyday. And that can be draining. Figuring out how to set the right boundaries, doing some self care and mindfulness techniques, and having a life outside of work goes a long way in protecting yourself from the potential damages of working in a less than affirming work environment. Taking care of your health and mental health is priceless.The only way you’ll be able to survive and/or truly thrive in the long run is if you make yourself a top priority.

Thanks for reading. The next post will cover the phenomenon of detransitioning and the reasons that trans people might decide to detransition, and what you can do to support them in whatever actions they take.

This post is gonna be HEAVY, y’all. It would probably be helpful to read my Drug Use: When Is It A Problem post to get a sense of my professional stance on drug use before we get into this. If we aren’t on the same page about things like harm reduction, what makes people use drugs, the different types of relationships to drugs that people have, etc., you might get a little lost.

I’ve spent the last few years of my life working clinically with mainly Black and Latinx people from ages 12 to 80 with histories of drug use and that’s not even counting the years of non-counseling jobs/positions I’ve had where I’ve worked with people from this background. I personally have had to unpack a lot of my own biases, my assumptions, and the myths that society teaches us about drug use and the kinds of people who use drugs. We’ve all been socialized and fooled into believing straight out lies and myths. But now the climate is changing with this recent opioid epidemic. Now, there’s the performance of compassion in the media, in the government, and by some medical professionals. Suddenly everyone is expected to ditch all that socialization and all those lies about “addicts” that we were taught. The script is now publicly changing. It made me reflect on how Black people (and other POCs, but this is about Black people and our communities) were treated while our communities were/are ravaged by chaotic substance use and the messages we internalized because of it. We are blamed for a lack of morals and are punished for “weakness” through drug laws, arrests, prison, ineffective treatment programs that shame people and swipe their insurance cards instead of helping them heal, etc. And we as a people internalized this message while so many of our own have been abandoned. The jig is up though. This post is not about the intentions of the government or analyzing why things are the way they are. That’s not my lane. This post is a letter to Black people reflecting on some of the psychological effects that the War on Drugs has had on our communities and how we can unlearn the lies we’ve been taught by White supremacy in order to make our communities stronger.

Now, Black people, I know I don’t have to explain the stigma/judgment around crack and heroin in our communities, right? Y’all peeped that already? There’s no way you haven’t. We’ve all heard “crackhead” and “dope fiend” jokes. What’s so wild to me is that we know the government put crack in our communities to destabilize us. We know the War on Drugs was a set up and an attack on our communities, but we still crack jokes, disrespect people, judge them, etc. for having a drug use that got out of control. It’s cruel as hell and doesn’t make any kind of sense to blame the people who got caught up instead of the ones who set the trap. Especially when we all got at least 1 person in our families who got caught up in the War on Drugs on some level at some point. It’s a straight numbers game at this point. Local and federal governments treat Black people who struggle with chaotic use of drugs any kinda way with bigoted policies and we as a people let it happen because we generally don’t think they deserve better. Drug laws and policies are already known to have racist roots and the laws are enforced differently depending on the color of your skin. We all know white people get away with using and selling drugs in ways that would get us locked up forever. We don’t need research and news articles to tell us what we see with our own eyes. And it has changed how we think about and treat people in our own communities. Suddenly, he’s not your uncle or your neighbor. He’s dehumanized and turned into a “dope fiend” in your eyes. We’ve been fooled as a people by White supremacy to abandon whole people and forget about them. In my work, I’ve seen clients abandoned by their families: sometimes living right down the street and being outright ignored or some people never seeing their relatives again. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking chaotic substance use is a sign of moral failure or a sickness that means the lives of those Black people don’t matter anymore. The lack of community support is deadly for so many people because these kinds of social services for our own are usually 1 of first to get cut.

And because life ain’t simple, all this stigma is added by other types of bigotry. Many of the Black people who our communities have abandoned for chaotic drug use also happen to be LGBTQAI and/or are living with HIV. This isn’t a coincidence. We are all spoon-fed homophobia/homomisia from a young age. And the sex education in this country is made terrible on purpose. The same people in power who want you to think Black people are criminals and gay people ruin families also want you to be uneducated about sex and sexual health. It shocks me on the regular how many people don’t know the 4 body fluids that transmit HIV or don’t know what a “window period” is. But will seriously think you can get HIV from drinking a cup, sharing a bathroom, or that only gay people get HIV. Just loud and wrong. There is a reason they want you misinformed. Misinformation and racist laws/policies are DEADASS killing our communities. If we all actually knew the truth and used this knowledge to make informed decisions, we’d be stronger as a people. We are struggling as a people when we are willing to let each other die off some “Say No to Drugs” nonsense. Again, we are for real listening to values and policies created by the people who put drugs in our communities in the first place instead of healing ourselves.

The struggles that come with living with HIV and/or being LGBTQAI in a bigoted, ableist society adds to the burden of being Black. Not only are you dealing with a system that is killing you (if racist individuals don’t get to you first), many of your own people don’t even see you as a part of the community or as human. When someone tells you the same thing over and over again, you eventually believe them. If people are being told that they’re dirty, useless, sinners, lazy, will always be an addict, etc. over and over again, eventually they internalize that mess. There have been so many of my former clients who believe using drugs and having a history of “chaotic use” (again check my Drug Use post for a definition) means they “deserve” whatever people do to them or whatever dangerous policies/laws are passed. This sets up the environment for a cycle of poor mental health. Depressive, anxiety, trauma, etc. symptoms can be triggered and made worse by being exposed to bigotry and being abandoned by their families/communities. Living with systemic discrimination and prejudices can lead many people to cope with those psychological burdens with substance use. And that’s not even counting the lack of consistent quality medical care, systemic racism in medical and mental health spaces throughout history and now, and the lack of public health education/awareness available for many Black people. Ultimately, many Black people slip through the cracks and our communities are weaker for it. We talk about revolution, but how can we get free if so many in our communities are being left behind?

It’s time for us to look in the mirror. It’s time for us to start to heal as a community and unlearn all the lies. We gotta rebuild the bridges burnt down by believing in white supremacist lies about drug use. What can we all do to make sure people aren’t forgotten? Beyond laws and relying on people outside of our communities to make policy changes for us. Y’all know good and well that we can’t rely on this current political climate. So what can we do?

It’s been so wild watching the media suddenly seem to find all this compassion for white people struggling with chaotic use of opioids. It’s a clear slap to the face after years of criminalization, judgment, and abandonment of our people. We need to let go of the biases and the lies we were told about drug use and people who have chaotic substance use. Leaving our own people behind because they use drugs to cope with whatever they’re going through is cruel. Black people have always been denied the same compassion and access to support and we have suffered as a result. We don’t get access to the same treatment professionals, methods or programs. Most of the time, we have to make due with barely the bare minimum. Now, imagine doing that when even other Black people don’t consider you to be fully human. When you’re not factored into the “coming together” or into the revolution plans. That stigma, on top of others like I mentioned before, leaves so many of our own incredibly vulnerable. We as a people will be stronger if we pushed the lies aside and had more compassion for people in our communities who are going through it. This is part of community building and part of revolutionary work.

Thanks for reading. The next post will be about socialization: what it is, and how it affects how people see themselves, other people, and the world.

Boundaries are the limits a person can set on what they will accept and how people treat them. Knowing how to set boundaries for yourself is one of the most important life skills to learn. In an ideal situation, your parents and/or the other adults in your life showed you how to set boundaries through their actions and words. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, this doesn’t happen. And setting boundaries becomes a skill that people spend most, if not all of their lives trying to figure out on their own. Basically like playing the same video game level over and over again, trying to learn this same lesson. Setting boundaries can be hard or even feel impossible. Especially if you are used to your boundaries being laughed at, ignored, pushed aside, or not even acknowledged (this is common in child emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, child neglect, intimate partner violence/domestic violence, systemic racism, etc.). People in these situations learn to live with the fear that if they set boundaries, even really small ones (like needing alone time or a safe space), they will be punished for it. In the face of danger and/or fear, people mainly talk about fight and flight, but another common response is not resisting. The person begins to belief that no resistance = no pain. This also happens on a society-level. Society sees marginalized people setting boundaries as rude. Having no boundaries allows people full access to you and oppressors feel entitled to the bodies, cultures, etc. of others. That’s why setting a boundary like kneeling for the National Anthem can cause so much outrage. Laws and society’s expectations respect the boundaries of certain people while dehumanizing others to many different degrees depending on race, gender, ability, etc. In this post, I’m going to talk about what boundaries do and how to start setting solid personal boundaries. Firm solid boundaries are so necessary for good mental and physical health, for interacting with the people in your life, and for community-building.

Setting boundaries is a way to take care of yourself and your emotional/psychological needs (Check out this post explaining self care). Firm boundaries protect people from emotional harm, burn out, feeling drained, etc. Like how the skin, skulls, rib cages, etc. protects important organs in our body. Setting boundaries is a part of having good mental health and living a more satisfying life. Making solid boundaries gives everyone involved the opportunity to make sure their emotional needs are taken care of and to continue to enthusiastically consent to dealing with a given person/situation. When you trust other people to respect your boundaries, there’s a freedom there. You feel more comfortable being relaxed and being yourself because you don’t need to worry about any threats. Also boundaries are not hard and fast rules. They change as you change and as your needs and the situation in your life changes. Boundaries are not about setting limits on other people’s behaviors. You can’t control other people. You can only change and control yourself. Boundaries are ultimately for you, not for other people. They are guidelines for yourself so you can figure out what’s best for you in each situation.

Notice that these boundaries focus on what you can do for yourself and your own behaviors. Again, boundaries aren’t about other people’s actions. Boundaries aren’t “You can’t say that so stop it”. That’s trying to control someone else’s behavior. What you can do is separate yourself from people: block them, stop doing business with them, stop giving them money, etc. Setting boundaries requires a realistic awareness of yourself and compassion towards your own psychological/emotional needs.

Some people have a hard time with setting boundaries due to feeling guilty or anxious. Like I mentioned before, someone feeling guilt and/or anxiety when setting boundaries could come from trauma and/or multiple experiences of people and society telling you that you don’t get to have respected boundaries. That right there is definitely grounds for self-reflection and/or working that out in therapy. Like I mentioned in the self-care post, taking care of mental and physical health is not selfish. You will be a stronger and happier person in the long run if you protect your whole body and self. And on the other hand, if you think other people setting boundaries is rude, it really says A LOT more about you than it does about the person setting the boundary. Self-reflection is important here. What is making you feel like you deserve access to this person in this way? Who are you really? Check that entitlement.

I’ve noticed that many conflicts and issues come up because at the end of the day, many people don’t know how to set clear, firm personal boundaries. It can be hard for many people to know where to start. I’ll help.

One place to start is coming to a place where you internalize and truly believe that you have just as much of a right to boundaries as anyone else. Trauma, etc. could have you feeling like you don’t need or deserve protection, but everybody will burn out after awhile without taking care of themselves. Wearing a coat in cold weather doesn’t make someone weak, lazy, or selfish and neither does taking care of your mental and emotional health.

Know yourself and your limitations. If you don’t know yourself, you’re not gonna be able to communicate that to someone else. For the record, having limits isn’t a bad thing. It’s a human thing. Nobody is limitless and knowing your personal limits is another way of taking care of yourself, prioritizing yourself, and helping yourself grow.

Being more mindful of yourself is very helpful in learning how to set firm boundaries. Finding the right mindfulness technique(s) for you can increase self-awareness, help you manage anger and/or cravings, make it easier to understand your own emotions, etc. Check out my post here on mindfulness for more information.

Individual or group therapy could help you work through the deeper things possibly going on for you. It isn’t wrong to need professional help with figuring out how to make setting clear, strong boundaries easier and managing any related emotions, thoughts, and/or traumas that may come along. People need backup. That’s real.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen a situation turn sour between people because of paper-thin boundaries, my rent in NYC would be covered forever. For many people setting clear, firm boundaries is something that was never really taught. Boundaries don’t always feel nice, but they’re always necessary. Getting to a place where you really believe your mental, emotional, and physical health deserves to be protected and that you’re not weak, rude, etc. for setting boundaries is a struggle for many. Using self-reflection, mindfulness techniques, and/or therapy can help you learn your personal boundaries and be able to communicate them clearly to other people. Firm, clear boundaries will completely change your life and the way you engage with people at school, work, home, etc. And you will be in less and less complicated, vague situations if that’s not what you actually want.

Thanks for reading. The next post will be about the psychological impact of the War on Drugs on our communities.

Since I’m noticing more and more people interested in relationship alternatives to monogamy on social media, I decided to write about polyamory from the perspective of a relationship counselor. First, I’m going to get into what polyamory is, how it’s different from monogamy, cheating, open relationships, and swinging, and the different ways someone can be polyamorous depending on their needs. Then I’m going to talk about how to get into polyamory (as a single individual & as people in an ongoing relationship) from the perspective of a relationship counselor. This post is designed to share basic information about polyamory and to generally help people start to think about their own experiences in relationships and what their needs/wants are.

Before I get into polyamory, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page with what certain words and concepts mean. And I want to make sure that y’all can see what polyam (short for polyamory) clearly is as compared to some other ways of doing the whole relationship thing. Relationships are ways of being connected with one another. There are many different ways to connect with 1 or more people and usually we sort out different types of relationship by how it looks (the structure) and what’s going on between people in the relationship (the dynamics). Humans are generally social creatures on some level. Some people need more social time than others, but generally, we tend to enjoy the company of others in many different ways. We have many different kinds of relationships going on in our lives: family relationships, friendships, coworkers, acquaintances, classmates, homeboy at the bodega, the plug, the barber/hair stylist/braider, baby mommas, exes who you still talk to, lovers, partners, etc. With many different structures and dynamics. We make different kinds of commitments depending on the situation and depending on the dynamics/vibes, etc. in that relationship. You’re not gonna promise your barber a 5-ever love, but you are gonna commit to being in that chair at least 2x/month for as long as that hand is steady.

Monogamy: Monogamy (if we’re going by the book here) is when 2 people (structure) decide to be sexually and romantically exclusive with each other (dynamics). This is the type of relationship that we are all pushed by society into trying to conform to. Just like we all are pushed to conform to being cisgender (Google it if you don’t know what this means) and straight. As if everyone is the same. As if everyone loves, dates, and/or has sex the same way (if at all). People don’t even eat grits or rice the same way. There’s no way 1 relationship structure/dynamics style is going to be a comfortable fit for everyone.

Swinging: Swinging is when a couple that was previously monogamous decides they want to have sex with single people and other couples, called swingers. This usually happens at swinging parties or privately where all the partners can see and/or are aware this is happening. Other than having sex with other people, the couple is romantically exclusive with each other. Meaning the other connections are only sexual. They are dating and in a relationship with just each other.

Open Relationships: A couple decides to have sex with and maybe date other people outside of that main relationship. They can have sex with people together and/or separately. They can date people together and/or separately. It depends on what each couple agrees on. However, those sexual partners and dates tend to come second to the main relationship.

Polyamory: A polyamorous person is someone who can date, commit to, and/or love more than 1 person. It’s different from the other relationship styles I mentioned before because it does not focus only on sex and/or dating.Polyamory involves being in multiple relationships with multiple people. Building connections, feelings, and commitments with more than 1 person. Each relationship looks different depending on the situation and on the needs of the people in each relationship. In polyam, none of the relationships are secret. Every relationship has its boundaries and commitments depending on what the people in the relationship(s) want.

Cheating is when someone breaks the commitments in their relationship. Most people focus on sexual cheating, but there other ways to break trust. Cheating happens in non-monogamous relationships too. Cheating can involve lying, hiding pieces of information, breaking promises, etc. The main difference between having sex and/or dating outside of a relationship and cheating is honesty and clear communication. If you feel like you have to lie or hide something from a partner in any kind of relationship, something is wrong. Cheating and breaking commitments in relationships are violations regardless of how many people you’re dating. Serial cheating is emotional abuse and opening up your relationship or even becoming polyamorous will not stop a partner from cheating. Non-monogamous relationships are not a consolidation prize for monogamous partners who have given up or a muzzle to keep people who cheat from hurting their partners. If they can’t handle 1 commitment without breaking it, they are not gonna be able to juggle more than 1. At that point, you would be dragging innocent bystanders into your mess and that’s not fair.

There are actually many different ways to date people polyamorously. Just like any other relationship, it really depends on the situation and the needs/wants of everybody involved. To figure out what would work for you, it’s important to think about what you need in terms of the dynamics and structure in relationships.

The primary relationship is the main one while other relationships work around that main.Someone can have more than 1 primary relationship and more than 1 secondary relationship. Primary relationships are usually given priority over the other relationships. People who prefer primary/secondary relationship structures tend to give their primary partners more responsibilities and commitments. In many hierarchical polyam relationships, the primary partners have some level of influence and/or control over the secondary relationships. Secondary relationships are like smaller plants having to grow around a larger plant. A more obvious example of the kind of power primary relationships can have is called veto power. A veto in hierarchical polyamory is when a primary partner can “veto” or end their partner’s relationship with another person, usually a secondary partner. A veto is partner’s ability to end a relationship that they aren’t involved in because they (for whatever reason) do not want their primary partner dating that other person. In hierarchical polyam, the primary relationships are always given top priority.

1 romantic relationship doesn’t have power over any of the others and all relationships have the equal room to grow ideally without any influence from other relationships. In non-hierarchical polyam, each relationship is separate from each other. No one has veto power and no can dictate what goes on in a relationship that they’re not in themselves. Partners have equal power/say in their own relationships despite any differences in commitments, responsibilities, etc. in each relationship.

Learning about and getting into polyamory can seem like a lot so I tried to simplify this as much as possible:

If you’re serious about this lifestyle change, it’s time to put in work. Read books (here and here are good starts) and articles about polyamory. Go to events, etc. Get that knowledge. Once you feel like you have a solid idea of what polyamory is and what it can look like, it’s time to figure out if it’s right for you. This is where self-reflection, talking to people you trust, and/or talking to a therapist if you have one is important. It’s that serious. You are learning new ways to think about relationships and new ways to date/love. You don’t need to rush into this. Learn enough about yourself that you can communicate your wants/needs clearly and in detail to other people.Practice having clear communication with the non-sexual and non-romantic people (friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, etc.) in your life. Managing these other relationships in your life and nurturing them is good practice for managing multiple romantic/sexual partners.

Taking the time to know yourself and your needs/wants (and not who you’re expected to be or who you wish you were) will save you so much time, energy, and pain. Think about your needs in a relationship and the reasons leading you to make this change. Think about your relationship history (what you liked and didn’t like, regrets, successes, etc.) and how your history affects your choices now. Think about any worries or concerns you might have about making this change. Or anything you aren’t sure about. It’s better to think about this and figure this out now before you start trying a new way of dating.

And remember this isn’t all about you. This is also about the people you will be dating in the future and their feelings. What would you be bringing to the table for each relationship? Look at your life. Take stock of the situation. How much energy do you have for each relationship? Polyam relationships involve a lot of effort: clear communication even when it’s awkward, planning, honesty, actively working through your personal feelings of jealousy…with more than 1 person. Half-stepping isn’t an option for successful polyamorous relationships. If you don’t have the energy or time for multiple relationships, polyam isn’t for you. There are other kinds of non-monogamy options if you have time for sex and/or casual dating, but not relationships. Be realistic and honest with yourself, your needs, and your situation here and now.

You want to get into polyamory and you’re already a part of a couple. I’m assuming you already talked about your mutual interest in polyam with your partner and you’re both on the same page. If the BOTH of you aren’t on the same page, the BOTH of you aren’t polyamorous. That’s cheating. Enthusiastic consent is absolutely necessary in polyam. If you both aren’t really excited to try this, your experiment into non-monogamy will fail. There’s no such thing as reluctant polyamory. Coercing/pushing easily leads to resentment, abuse, etc. If you want to explore polyam and your current partner wants to stay monogamous, you can only control yourself and your behavior, not your partner’s. You, at that point, would have to decide if you want to stay in a monogamous relationship with this partner or end the relationship to explore polyamory. And again, if you are only trying polyam under the false idea it will stop a partner, who has cheated, from breaking any more commitments, your experiment with polyamory will fail. Polyamory, again, is multiple relationships. If a partner can’t commit to 1 relationship, they can’t commit to more than 1. Now, they’ll just have more commitments to break and more people to cheat on.

Now, I’m assuming the both of you are excited and ready to see what polyam is about. There are definitely some things for y’all to reflect on as a couple. Polyamory isn’t something to try to add spice to your current relationship. Other people’s lives and feelings are involved now. That would be using people like objects and no one likes being used without their consent. While you’re reading and reflecting on your feelings, wants, and needs, talk to your partner about what kind of relationship you would want to have together. Reflect honestly on how you both deal with change and/or stressful situations as a couple in the past.Reflect on your ability to evolve your relationship together as people and situations change. Talking about this honestly now in the beginning will do wonders and it teaches the both of you the kind of communication that is necessary for successful ethical non-monogamy.

Learning a whole new way of connecting in love and relationships is not easy. You gotta really reflect and honestly dig deep on what interests you about polyam and how you think it will benefit your life. Learn more about polyam – read books/articles, watch videos, and go to events/socials to meet polyam people. Again, don’t rush this. Make sure that polyamory will do for you what you think it will. Having realistic expectations of what polyamory is like and the kind of work/effort you have to do in these kinds of relationships are important. Knowing what you are looking for is also important. Not just for you, but also so you can explain your needs to others. Reflect on your communication skills and how you are with setting firm boundaries. These skills are very important in monogamous relationships and are much more essential when dating multiple people and managing multiple relationships. Know yourself. At the end of the day, it’s hard to have any kind of relationship without a strong sense of who you are and your needs.

Thanks for reading. The next post will be the 4th and final part of the 4-part parenting series: You So Vain: You Probably Think This Kid is About You on 7/22/18. It’s going to cover the option of not having children at all and other ways to support the next generation, create a family, have security, and build your legacy/accomplishments without raising children if that’s not something that fits the reality of your life.