Why Your 1st Year of Polyamory is NOT Your Destiny

Written By Leanne Yau

There's a distinction between struggling with change and struggling with non monogamy. In the first six to 12 months of becoming polyamorous, you're doing both.

You're struggling with both. You like your stability, you like your routine. You don't like things being changed up. You don't want to have to find your footing in a new situation. That's all stressful. Dealing with uncertainty and change is can be more terrifying than the change itself. Of course, you're activated because you haven't really been given the time to find your feet and settle in and adjust in a new normal yet. Once you've adjusted, if you still feel negatively, then yeah, maybe it's not for you. And obviously, if all that activation is too much for you and you want to stop, you're very welcome to.

I'm not saying you have to tough it out for a year. I'm just saying that if you are motivated to do non monogamy and you're struggling within the first year, it’s not a good guideline, generally speaking, for how good you are at non monogamy or how cut out you are for non monogamy. Because most of the time shit is so up in the air, you're not going to be able to clearly discern whether or not you are actually comfortable with non monogamy.

If you find yourself thinking, “How am I not okay with this yet???” in your first year of trying out non-monogamy for the first time, my top advice is to just be patient with yourself. You’re not going to get anywhere shaming yourself or feelings that you’re having. But you might get a lot further by being curious and compassionate about your emotional state.

Dealing with change is super hard and that is okay. Everyone has a different timeline for how long it takes for them to adjust to a new normal and grieve what used to be.

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Leanne Yau
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