Polyamory & Non-Monogamy
Consensual non-monogamy, including polyamory, open relationships, relationship anarchy, and many other structures, is a valid and healthy way of doing relationships. Many people in non-monogamous relationships have had the experience of sitting across from a therapist who treated their relationship structure as the issue, or who simply did not understand it and expected to be educated. At MLC, we offer therapy with clinicians who get it, so you do not have to start by defending or explaining your relationships.
What this work makes room for:
- The real and ongoing work of jealousy, including learning what it is pointing to underneath, rather than treating it as proof that non-monogamy is wrong
- Communication across multiple relationships, including the honesty, negotiation, and care that ethical non-monogamy actually requires
- The logistics that are also emotional: time, scheduling, attention, and the feelings that come up around them
- Navigating different structures and agreements, including hierarchy and non-hierarchy, opening or closing a relationship, and what happens when partners want different things
- New relationship energy, compression, grief, insecurity, and the full emotional range that comes with loving more than one person
- Coming out as non-monogamous, or choosing not to, with family, friends, and community, and the stigma that can come either way
- The attachment patterns that show up, sometimes amplified, across multiple relationships
- The intersections, including how race, gender, queerness, disability, and class shape your experience of non-monogamy
What this work can look like at MLC:
- Working with jealousy and insecurity as information rather than as verdicts on your relationships
- Supporting the communication and negotiation that multiple relationships require
- Holding the emotional complexity of loving more than one person, including grief, compression, and everything between
- Navigating agreements, structures, and the moments when partners want different things
- Working with the attachment patterns that show up across your relationships
- Supporting decisions about coming out, and holding the stigma that comes with non-monogamy
- Holding the intersections of identity that shape your particular experience
The therapists at MLC bring this work as people who understand non-monogamy from the inside of the knowledge it requires. Many of our clinicians are well-versed in these relationship structures, and we meet you where your actual life and relationships are.
