Dr. Liz and Rachel Rose from Hedonish.com talk about what it takes to open up a previously monogamous relationship. This was first seen on https://www.sdc.com/?s=dr.+liz+powell

Transcript: How do you get into non-monogamy when you are already in a monogamous relationship and you don’t want to end it?

Hi, everyone! I’m Dr. Liz. And today, we are talking about opening up relationships. Now, I personally have some issues with the terminology of opening up a relationship because when we move from monogamy to non-monogamy, we are doing more than just adding in more people. We are changing the nature of the relationship that we have in some very profound and fundamental ways.

The relationship that you have when you were monogamous in some ways has to die so that you can begin a new relationship in non-monogamy. One of the biggest things I see folks do that causes them problems when they come from a monogamous relationship and start exploring non-monogamy with that partner is they assume that there are all kinds of things they are going to be able to keep from their old relationship. They don’t examine what in an old relationship has to change other than how many people they are allowed to date or sleep with. And that runs into a lot of problems.

When you move out of the monogamous mindset, you also have to determine how you are going to start challenging mononormativity. So mononormativity is the cultural structure that privileges monogamous relationships over other kinds of relationship structures. And in particular privileges, sexual and romantic monogamous partnerships over other kinds of relationships.