Common Challenges
Living ethically non-monogamous can bring unique joys — but also distinctive challenges and emotional work. Some of the common experiences people bring to therapy include:
- Navigating jealousy, insecurity, or complicated feelings when partners have other relationships.
- Communication breakdowns: difficulty articulating boundaries, needs, or feelings across multiple relationships.
- Time and emotional labor: balancing emotional energy among partners, meeting needs, and avoiding burnout.
- Social stigma, misunderstanding, or lack of acceptance — from family, friends, community, or even health professionals.
- Identity and self-worth issues: feeling judged for relationship style, grappling with internalized mononormativity, or wondering if their relationship is “valid.”
- Differing expectations among partners regarding hierarchy, jealousy, commitment, and autonomy.
These are real, valid experiences — and they deserve care, support, and skillful navigation.
What Therapy Offers — From a Poly-Affirming Lens
At Argyle Therapy Group, therapy for ENM/polyamory is not about “fixing” you or making you conform to monogamous norms. It’s about supporting the relational and emotional work that makes ENM/poly thrive. Depending on your needs, therapy may help you:
- Clarify your values and desires around love, intimacy, boundaries, and consent
- Develop strong, ongoing communication with multiple partners (or potential partners)
- Navigate jealousy, shame, insecurity, or fear in non-monogamous contexts
- Process past relationship trauma or internalized stigma around non-monogamy
- Build time-management, emotional-labor balance, and self-care strategies in multi-partner relationships
- Strengthen trust, consent, and transparency; the foundations of ethical non-monogamy
- Explore identity (sexual, relational, feminist, etc.) in relation to ENM/poly, and align relationships with your authentic self
Therapy becomes a place of integration: where you bring your values, wounds, hopes, disappointments, and create relationships that feel honest, ethical, and deeply connected.
