Considering Non-Monogamy?

00:00 | Introduction and Welcome

Gabriel Gonzalez: Hello everyone. My name is Gabriel Gonzalez and today we're going to be talking a bit about multiple partner relationships. We have about an hour on today's conversation. I'm going to try to condense the information and keep and give it and pass it on to you as quickly as I can so that then we can have some opportunity for questions and for any discussion that might still be necessary. So, I am a licensed clinical social worker with 19 years of experience. My couple's work is grounded on EFT, even though I'm also advanced trained on Gottman Method, but really what I find my niche is in that Emotionally Focused Therapy and the attachment.

And that's kind what we're going to be talking about today is how attachments are related to multiple partner relationships. I integrate EMDR, brain spotting, and other modalities when I work in individuals in trauma, but my expertise really where I have found and niche for myself has been in this world of the multiple partner relationships, and I call it multiple partner relationships, we'll talk about that in a bit, but really we're talking about consensual non-monogamy, polyamory, and non-traditional relationships.

01:51 | Content Warning and Webinar Best PRactices

Gabriel Gonzalez: That said, I want to be mindful of everyone participating today. There is this presentation does have material that could be activating to you. What we are asking individuals to do is that if they are feeling activated, This is not therapy, this is an educational experience, so I would ask you to if you need to excuse yourself silently and take a breather and then you can reengage with us as you need. If you do need to speak with somebody, I would invite you to dial 988 on your phones or even text 988 on your phones and there will be someone that you can talk to during that time that will help you kind of work through any activation that you feel.

Like every conversation before we get started we should we need to talk about kind of the things that will help us get along and so what you hear and what is said here keep it here if people choose to ask questions and share about their stories I hope that you are able to maintain that And offer them the respect of not sharing that forward. As I mentioned, this is not therapy, it is an exchange of information that can help you determine your next step. You should be muted by now. We're asking that if you have questions to use the chat for asking any questions, we will review the chat regularly and make sure that we get to important questions.

It may be that if your question is not answered in one of those moments is because there is material that will get to that to the answer to that question. And then if we are not able to get to that material, then during the Q&A options or the moment when we have more questions, we can talk through that. No one knows all the answers, we are all learning and so, I'm going to share my knowledge, I'm going to share what I have learned through my research and I invite that if you are seeing something different, I'm, share it with us, that's put it under chat and we'll talk about it. And then finally, be respectful to each other. 

04:13 | Learning Objectives and Opening Reflection

Gabriel Gonzalez: So today's learning objective, we're going to try to understand the landscape of ENM and CNM and polyamory, like some of the language, we're going to look at structures of those relationships. We're going to look at the attachment realities that are a part of these relationships. And finally, we're going to try to normalize it.

Normalize the reality that this is an appropriate form of relationship and what we are looking for is trying to figure out how to be successful at it. So here is a time for you to be able to connect with the material. So today I'm going to ask you to take a couple of minutes and just kind of think about these questions in front of you. What are you here? Why are you here today? What is a piece of information that is important for you to get today?

How do you feel right now at the start of this presentation about multiple partner relationships? And how open am I to learn about them?

And if you take a few seconds of your day and consider these as we engage in this conversation that we are having today. And if you if you so choose and you really feel like you want to share, please use the chat to share any thoughts that are coming to you right now as you think about this opportunity or this presentation and this material, these questions. And someone shared that they're excited and anxious and I am sure that there's many other emotions that are that we are all holding today. Just feel free to share those as you need use the chat as a place where you can also kind of decompress from some of that from some of those reactions that you'll have to the material. 

06:39 | The Monogamy Superiority Myth

Gabriel Gonzalez: So let's start. Polyamory is wrong. It is either multi-amory or polyphilia, but mixing Greek and Latin to create a term is wrong. And that in my opinion is about the only thing that is wrong with polyamory. It's the mixing of two languages to try to create It's a term that doesn't make any sense. And with that, we start looking at the monogamy superiority myth. And really, this is where we do a lot of our work with people and where we personally have to constantly be challenging, right?

Because we live in the world that is very mononormative, what ends up happening is is that we are confronted with a difference of our life experience and what the world around is telling us. So, earlier this year, The Journal of Sex Research published an article on the differences in relational satisfaction between monogamous relationships and multiple partner relationships. It was a meta-analysis. So in other words, what that means is that they took a bunch of already existing research and they extrapolated findings from them to try to figure out what really is happening. So as they compare the factors determining relational satisfaction, they encounter no significant difference overall, between these relationships and the satisfaction of its members. So whether people were on a monogamous relationship or whether people were on a multiple partner relationship, the difference in satisfaction was not significantly different.

In contrast, they identified things that affected the level of satisfaction within multiple partner relationships. On the negative side, societal discrimination and preference given to more normative relationships creates a perception of superiority towards monogamous interactions.

I'll share with you a story and I was this morning thinking about it as I was getting ready. Back to how early was my first interaction with any form of polyamorous relationship. And this was a memory that I had probably put away many in the back of my mind. I never thought about it until this morning, but I remember growing up around the age of eight, moving to a neighborhood where my grandmother lived, and there was the one house where there was the gentleman that had two wives and a bunch of kids. And I remember people, how people talked about it. And as I thought about that this morning, this statement about the power of this superiority myth really became a lie for me. On the opposite side, members of multiple partner relationships found increased satisfaction, connected to free will, getting their needs met, and increased sexual satisfaction.

So let me say that again, on the one hand, societal norms often create the challenge of feeling like you're not adequate, and create a sense of dissatisfaction, but that is in contrast to feeling that you have more free will, that your needs are being met, and that you have increased sexual satisfaction. 

The last part that they discovered in this research is that it all came down to communication, and that the bigger challenge that people had was that was the ability to communicate their dissatisfaction, and the needs that they were having within their relationship. This makes total sense to me, because in my 19 years working with individuals and couples, I can attest that most often challenges are connected to a lack of ability to feel safe. Safe to communicate what did not feel good and assert personal needs to ourselves and to our partners.

11:04 | Key Terminology for Multiple Partner relationships

Gabriel Gonzalez:So as we engage with this, let's look at some vocabulary. Hopefully, we're now going to get deeper into the understanding of polyamory.

Consensual monogamy is the practice of dating or being in a relationship with multiple consenting parties.

Ethical non monogamy is the practice of dating or being in a relationship with multiple parties in a way that protects the feeling of all parties involved, prioritizing open and honest communication. 

And that is a huge difference here. And so, the reality is that we all practice different forms of, well, that we may be practicing different forms of consensual non-monogamy or ethical non-monogamy. I just wanted to point your attention to the big difference to them. So, when people are talking about those two terms, that is the big difference. Is that in the practice of the non-monogamous relationships, you are actually being more careful with the emotions by being more open and honest in your communications.

Metamour is someone dating or in a relationship with a person you are dating or in a relationship with. 

An open relationship is a committed relationship in which one or both partners also date or have sexual relationships with other people outside the core relationship. 

So, polyamory is the act of practice or practice of engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners. 

Polygamy is the practice of having multiple married partners as of a certain gender. For example, a man might have multiple more than one wife. This practice is what is illegal in the United States. 

A primary partner is the person prioritized over their other relationships within an open relationship or polyamorous relationship. For example, the husband or wife relationship is an open marriage in an open marriage is prioritized over other partners.

Relationship boundaries are ground rules And we'll talk about these ground rules towards the end of our presentation today because they are actually presented as some of the most telling facts around whether relationship will be or not successful. 

Swinging is a type of open relationship or polyamorous practice in which groups including singles or couples may swap partners, engaging in group sex or other combinations thereof. It is sometimes referred to as “the lifestyle". So when you hear people talking about the lifestyle, that's often what they're talking about. 

And a throuple is a committed relationship of three people, sometimes it is an open relationship in which both partners they the same third person or sometimes it is a true three-way relationship without hierarchy.

Okay, we've got a couple questions in the chat about the differences between ethical and consensual non-monogamy. So I'll give you two examples. Consensual non-monogamy means that we agree that we are going to be non-monogamous. And so we all engage in creating or living within multiple partners relationships in accordance to a way that we have both agreed upon that is okay to do. So, for example, you may choose to have an open relationship where you have decided that it's okay to have an open relationship, but there's no communication about the dynamics that happens when you are with other partners, or how that affects the partner that you are in an open relationship with.

Ethical non-monogamy takes that a step further. What it does is that it creates a system where the partners within are constantly conscious and truly engage in ensuring that all the members of the relationship are safe and protected emotionally. So the difference would be in ethical non monogamy where the couples are going beyond an agreement to then having conversations regularly about the emotions that are coming through there, and then they're renegotiating agreements and maintaining communication about what and how the process is helping each other, and then all of the members are transparent and open about the interactions that they're having.

16:40 | What Counts As a Multiple Partner RElationship?

Gabriel Gonzalez: So, what is multiple partner relationship? So, why do I use that term instead of any of the other terms that we learned?

The term multiple partner relationships, for me, is an umbrella term that includes all forms and types of relationships that deal with a non-monogamous dynamic. And the reason why there is a move towards this conversation is because when people talk about polyamory or non-consensual, often people think that it has to do with sex or romance or a number of partners or disclose versus non-disclosed. And in reality, it encompassed all of those types. There is not one way to be polyamorous, there's not one way to be, I think, monogamous. The reality is that if you're trying to define these groups of relationships, what we're truly talking about is a relationship experience, including more than two people, and defined by those individuals involved.

And so what that means is that it can take any form, and it can include any range of sexual interaction, romantic interaction, number of partners, or any level of disclosure or non-disclosure. That's what a multiple partner relationship is, it's just basically a relationship that includes more than two in any form.

18:35 | Demographics of Multiple Partner Relationships

Gabriel Gonzalez: So in 2019, The Journal of Sex Research published an article. It was another meta-analysis that looked at the demographic characteristics of polyamorous relationships versus monogamous relationships. Here are some of the results from this journal publication. Now, as you look at this information, and as we're going to read through this, what I want us to remember is that, number one, the research in this area is very limited.

There has been an increase in popularity and interest over the past six years on this research or this area of research, but in reality, it is still very, very young or very limited, I should say. When we see a meta-analysis of population, we also need to recognize that it may be limited on the types of the kind of people that participated because we're looking at research that was published in 2019 but probably was happening somewhere in the previous decade, in the previous 10 years. So depending on how the population felt with the comfort of sharing the information, it affects the information, the results that you get. So, we are going to look into this and understand that this specific picture of the demographics of multiple partner relationships is evolving every day. And what was published in 2019 might be looking different right now in 2026. 

So, when they looked at the population, they found that when it came to the gender identity, most individuals that engage in non-multiple partner relationships would identify themselves as other, the Majority did. They also were mostly bisexual. They were less likely to have higher education levels. 

Religiously, there were mostly non-Christians, independently from how they grew up. And there is a place where I don't want to spend a lot of time because this is not a conversation about religion, but there are very specific tenants within the Christian religion that at times coming contrast with the monogamy.

Ethnically, they identify as multi-ethnic. They would not adhere to one specific group, but they would identify all of the groups that were present in their ethnic composition.

Lower socioeconomics, when it came to professions, they were more likely to be in IT than on education. And that really based in the education environments are often very conservative. So these individuals would feel uncomfortable within those environments. 

When it came to marital status, there was not really a big difference. People who were single or people who were married were engaging in non-monogamous relationships. But people who were multiple partner relationships were more likely to have a civil union than an actual marriage. And then they also were more likely to report multiple separations.

21:58 | Why Do People Choose Non-Monogamy?

Gabriel Gonzalez: Why do people consider these types of relationships? There are many reasons. I'm giving you three because those are the ones that I see most often when I work with these couples. And that is that they come to this place in their life where they realize that this is what feels most comfortable to them. And then it becomes a sense of identity for who they are and how they engage with others in relationship. They may be engaging in multiple partner relationships to address sexual differences, things like medical conditions that are now changing the dynamic between the partners for their sexual activity . Or there's no medical condition, one partner has a higher limit than the other, and they're trying to negotiate through their needs. There might be some trauma involved that prevents individuals from forming an attachment to one individual, so they're engaging with multiple and finding their needs met that way. And there's nothing wrong with that, or simply to comply with partner's request. And this is where I would take a step for a second because this is also one of the things that I see the most when I'm working with multiple partner relationships.

And there's a great book called Opening Up and in that book, the author attempts to guide relationships through the conscious exploration of this question of why are we engaging in in multiple primary relationships and one of the things that this author talks about is the reality That when a relationship is started to fix a problem that has not been dealt within the original relationship. It begins from a standpoint of this is from a a problematic standpoint and at least one of the members is not really bought into it. So one of the things that we work on and that we actually try to help individuals who are considering multiple partner relationships is to really identify whether this lifestyle, whether this choice for how they relate to others in romantic or non-romantic relationships is truly what they want for themselves and how to be honest with all of the members of that. For that polycule to truly be transparent about the emotions and the things that are coming up.

So starting a therapeutic journey is one way that you can explore some of these questions and especially when it comes to your partner, your partner shows up or engages with you to talk about the desire to enter into a non-monogamous relationship and you do not know if that is for you or not. 

24:58 | Redefining Normalized Relationship Structures

Gabriel Gonzalez: One of the most significant challenges I have encountered in my work with relationships is the lack of a prescribed structure. So individuals choose to open their relationship or they choose to engage into the non-monogamous relationship and suddenly they find themselves without a map on how to move forward. And there are no car rails, right? It feels like you're riding your bike for the first time without your training wheels. 

When you are in a non-mononormative relationship, there are prescribed structures that most of us take for granted, things like what is considered are cheating the progressions from dating to marriage, to family forming, to raising children, to pay for college and all these things that are just kind of written out for us in society. And now you're entering into a type of relationship that does not have those prescriptive guardrails. And so that non-prescriptive relational structure creates a problem because now the participants, the members of the relationship have to make decisions about whether they want a hierarchical relationship versus a non-hierarchical relationship, whether they are going to form a polycule that is open or a polycule that is closed and all of the emotions that come with that—with having to rewrite how you interact with others and how you live within relationships. 

And so part of what engages in this startup is to begin to redefine an approach to understanding these things. What is the meaning of cheating? What is the meaning of jealousy? What is the meaning of relationship? What is the meaning of sex?

Individuals that choose to enter into these relationships, are really challenging internal expectations. The things that you have learned your entire life are now being questioned as you're engaging to a relationship that is not what you thought it was going to be. And so as you strive to define these normalized values, people begin to wonder, what really is a relationship?

Is a relationship about sex? What is the difference between a friendship versus a non-monogamous relationship? Like, all of those questions begin to come up. The biggest question is, what constitutes infidelity? When you are in a monogamous relationship, infidelity means that you are being with somebody else. But when you're in a non-monogamous relationship and with somebody else, it's part of the equation. Now, how do you define that?

What is the purpose of sex? What is sex? It's sex, cuddling, it's sex, actual, what we what many of us consider sex or is sex sexting is sex people begin to try to figure out what does that mean and how does that affect the level of safety that they have within their relationship.

What is happiness? How do I achieve happiness? Do I need to do I achieve happiness because I have one partner and that partner fulfill all my needs or do I have or those happiness means that I get to share that those needs with multiple partners who are supporting me. What are the perceptions that people are going to have about this relationship that I'm choosing to get into? Who is considered family and how do we talk about that, how do I say to the school or to my actual family, how do I say to my mother that I have three male partners and two female partners and that we have chosen to live together or that we don't wanna live together, but we are engaging in this relationship where we support each other. How do you explain that? 

29:28 | Attachment and Multiple Partner Relationships

Gabriel Gonzalez: Now we're gonna look at it from what ultimately happens and the part that I think is most important for us here, which is the attachment that are a part of multiple partner relationships, right?

Attachment is about how safe and connected we feel in relationships. A secure attachment helps you feel emotional regulation, openness to exploration and self-reflection. An insecure attachment increases your dysregulation, your rigidity and disrupt the communication and unmet needs, that's what it leads to. 

So when you think about what is happening in your relationships, begin to consider where are they at in this spectrum. 

And we know from science that there are four types of attachment styles. What I want you to pay attention is the underlying messages in this in this scripts. Because in a multiple partner relationship, you may have any combination of those scripts and that affects the interactions and the dynamics within the relationship. If one partner says, “my partner does not care about me”, while another partner says, “my partner has high expectations and I cannot meet them” and another partner says, “I am unlovable” and all of those three partners are trying to work through a relationship. How do you get through those conversations and through those moments when it becomes hard?

31:15 | Elements of a Secure Bond: Connection, Rupture & Repair

Gabriel Gonzalez: The elements of a secure bond then is trying to figure out how do we make those attachment styles to be able to work with within a relationship. And so, what we know is that in order for you to create a secure bond, both partners need to be able to participate within both roles, the care-recipient role and the caregiver role.

And so, when somebody is in that care-recipient role, is about, can my partner reach out to me, clearly and vulnerably? And can my partner trust and receive my information comfortably? Can I receive that information from my partner? Where I'm in the caregiver role, am I accessible, am I responsible, responsive, and am I emotionally engaged with my partner?

Can we together create meaning, and can we together create a place where we can regulate our own affects? And then ultimately, can I respond to my partner with understanding empathy and comfort when my partner comes to me with some level of distress?

A successful and a healthy relationship is really truly moving through this cycle of connection, rupture, and repair. Often what happens though, and what leads to more unsuccessful relationships, is when relationships stays stuck between connection, rupture, connection, rupture, because the release of that repair is not experienced. The long lasting release is not experienced. And what happens is that the temporary release that we feel from the from the reconnection is not sufficient to really maintain the relationship. And so, something to also consider is that if you are in multiple partner relationships you are carrying multiple of these wheels right with each one of your partners at any given point you could be in the connection stage you could be on the rupture stage or you could be in the repair stage and how do you manage all of that?

The reality is that we do this all day long every day, we do this we have a wheel for our parents we have a wheel for our children we have a wheel for our co workers. As we interact with their attachments in a multiple partner relationships, the difference is the intensity of the meaning of that relationship. But you already have the skills on how to manage these wheels in different relationships, in different interactions with people.

34:15 | ReLationship COmplexity

Gabriel Gonzalez: So, in a two-partner relationship, monogamy (which by the way is kind of a modern construct as a response to more societal expectations), people live a bit easier because it's congruent with social normative thinking. It feels intrinsic, and it is not problematic, except that we also do have this term called serial monogamy, which is where individuals jump from one monogamous relationship to the next, the next, the next, really not finding that connection, not being able to connect well and not having their needs met. A three-partner relationship, or often known as a threesome, is actually the next most familiar form of a relationship.

In 2021, a research was made where 81% of the individual survey indicated some level of interest on a mixed gender, threesome. Preference was given for people that were not strangers. People wanted to engage sexually in threesomes with people that they actually knew versus a stranger that they had never connected with. Here starts the complexity, and I want you to look very, very quickly at the diagram with the three people in it. Count the points of connections. I count six of them. That means that any one of these members at any given time might be dealing with six interactions of the relationship. And so that begins to increase the complexity of those relationships. And that in itself It's was a revelation for me as I started working with this relationship because we always think we're talking about two people in a two people or three people or four people when we come into the office

But really we're dealing with a lot more than that We're dealing with the way that I relate to the one partner the way that partner relates to the other partner the way that we relate to each other the let it's it gets Exponentially more complex next. So then consider when you have bigger systems, when you have systems of 4, or systems within systems, in the diagram that has the many individuals, imagine all the potential forms in which those interactions could be formed. Individual polycules interacting with other polycules. So, ultimately, we have to have rules of engagement, and that's what I mentioned earlier today.

36:42 | Rules of engagement

Gabriel Gonzalez: And so, what was discovered as the best characteristics for rules of engagement in multiple partner relationships? For a successful agreement, your agreements should be general versus specific. The communication should be open. There should be a lot of communication about these agreements and not something that happens once. It needs to be renegotiated and re-evaluated regularly. And ultimately, and this is the one part that I have seen challenges a lot, is disclosure must be transparent, meaning before you agree to an agreement, you have to truly believe and feel comfortable with the statements in that agreement, right?

So if your partner says to you, I don't want you to ever go out and meet somebody and engage sexually with somebody else, but that is exactly what you want. Don't agree to do that because then the agreement will fall apart. And the relationship problems will continue to increase.Vulnerability and mistrust that can develop when they agree with me and when the relationships are not being successful. 

There are multiple nervous systems, and because of that, there are multiple threats that are present, because each one of those systems comes with their own attachment dynamics. One of the attachment dynamics that I see that we see a lot is that idea of jealousy versus compersion. And if If you do not know what that means, compersion is the ability to experience happiness because your partner is happy. There is a lot of work that is being developed right now about the difference between understanding what is true jealousy versus what is envy and how does that and how do we often misinterpret those one for the other. And then remember that the mistrust on the vulnerability can be happening towards any partner or towards a relationship or towards the person itself.

39:18 | Individual and Relational Readiness: Are Multiple Partner Relationships for Me?

Gabriel Gonzalez: I want you to answer this question with me: Are multiple partner relationships right for for me?

When researchers looked at our multiple relationships for individuals, what they discovered was that it was about the individual’s internal conditions that affected the individual's satisfaction within these relationships. So is the individual aware and able to see beyond the norms of the society and is the individual able to get a hold and maintain that internal affect under control?

Developing an awareness of your personal attachment system is important for this to be successful. Developing an awareness of personal values and its congruence with multiple partner relationships is also important. From a relational standpoint, then what is important is to examine the readiness of the relationship for this journey and to examine current agreements that you have that may be stated or not.

If you want more information or if you want to connect with us, you can do that by taking a photo of these QR codes and that will connect directly either to my page or to the practice’s page and we can connect if you want more information if you want to just have a conversation, let us know.

I am including for you in the slides a number of books and readings that you can do to learn more about attachment and to learn more about polyamory that are based on attachment theory. There is a bibliography and then I'll leave you those up so that you can connect with us.

41:50 | Q&A About Multiple Partner Relationships

Gabriel Gonzalez: So one of the questions that came up is whether I am encouraging couple individuals to be on an ENM versus CNM relationship or if I am accepting them as they are. I established the difference between the two just so that people have knowledge of what the different terms are but the reality is that we all have to make decisions for ourselves as to the kind of relationships that we want to be in. So I take people exactly where they are and we work from wherever they are. If somebody comes to me and says, we are working on a CNM, then we work on a CNM. If a group comes to me and says, we want to work on an ENM, then I work on an ENM. But the reality is is that is a choice that is very personal and my perception. I will respect what people are and I will walk the journey with them

The reality is that in the city of Houston, there are not a lot of practitioners that practice within this population. And so I am always an advocate for increasing opportunity for clients to be able to achieve or to get access to someone that they can work with and feel accepted and feel included and feel all the good stuff.

Participant: Hi. I was just going to ask you a question that I'm taking off my therapist hat and I'm thinking also like friends and sometimes the suggestion of couples therapy sometimes I notice like friends or family members or others I work with kind of panic. Oh my gosh does that mean the relationship is in trouble where sort of that's it like we're going to go meet you and we're going to break up right, there's that anxiety. And I'm curious about what are your thoughts on like kind of switching that anxiety and addressing it, and kind of what couples therapy can offer?

Gabriel Gonzalez: I also noticed that challenge in my own work as well. I would say that it's a multifaceted answer, right? So the first part is I work with clients to realize that multiple partner relationships are not what people are in this in this the current world that we live in what people are perceiving to be normal. But in our current world, individuals who choose to be in a non-monogamous relationship, are going to face levels of opposition, right? And so we normalize that, and we try to reduce that anxiety from the perspective of the members of the of the relationship.

Also, when and then we give knowledge or language to those statements that you mentioned, like the reality is that there is this perception that individuals who are in multiple partner relationships are not going to last. But let's be honest, And there are a lot of monogamous relationships that don't last, right? So we have those conversations so that they can also feel empowered and be able to have that conversation with whoever they need to, if they need to, right?

And then the last part of that is that if we are realistic, I mean, there's a reason why we talk about books like Opening Up and ensuring that your relationship is in a good standing when you decide to open up to other dynamics versus trying to use those other dynamics to try to fix the relationship. Because you're not fixing the problem. You're just patching it up. And so we talk about that. But couples come through and when couples when relationships come through, so we have that conversation about, hey, where are you at right now? and why is it that you're choosing to move into this dynamic? And let's talk about that.Let's make sure that our closets are clean before we engage.

One of the stresses that I had put in this presentation together was not to present multiple primary relationships to be like this difficult thing to do. And truly, what I am hopefully passing along is that it's all about awareness, awareness of self, awareness of the other people in the relationship, and awareness of the dynamics that are might be at play that helps you be successful with those relationships.