Cnm Quotes

The insecurity in CNM can actually be a good thing in that it can keep us from taking our partners for granted or becoming complacent in our relationships in ways that are often found in monogamous relationships. Personally, I find security in the fact that when I’m in CNM relationships I know that my partners are not with me because they are obliged to be, but because they continue to choose to be.

You and your partner transitioning together to CNM, which you are happy about, but experiencing a real loss of the old relationship that the two of you had together. Even though you might still be together, the relationship has changed, and it’s common to have grief about the past relationship with your partner that is no longer, as well as grief and loss about the monogamous future you had envisioned with them.

We live in a culture that teaches us that "men" are the sexual aggressors and pursuers. We also live in a world where most women, trans, and non-binary folks have had negative experiences with men who are hitting on them. These factors tend to lead to some big gender differences for those exploring non-monogamy. Cisgender men often struggle when they first enter the world of non-monogamy. Within consensual non-monogamy (CNM) communities, most folks who sleep with cis men choose their partners based on referrals and endorsements. As in the world of business, it truly is who you know. Cis men who have been in the communities longer have dated and interacted with more people, and, therefore, have more word of mouth. It is an unfortunate reality that many, especially cisgender women, will not date men they don't already know about through their friends and communities. So, if you're a cis man exploring CNM, expect that it may take a while before you start seeing the kind of attention that others get. Focus on being kind, respectful, and honest. Respect the needs and boundaries of everyone with whom you interact. Spend lots of time getting to know other people simply as people - especially of your preferred gender to date - and form genuine friendships and connections with them free from any pressure to become sexual.

The conditions that breed a disorganized attachment adaptation are not specific to CNM by any means, but I have seen a variation that is unique to CNM. There can be something very disorienting that happens for some new CNM couples who were first monogamous together and were accustomed to being each other’s main source of comfort, support and relief from distress. As the relationship opens, a partner’s actions with other people (even ethical ones that were agreed upon) can become a source of distress and pose an emotional threat. Everything that this person is doing with other people can become a source of intense fear and insecurity for their pre-existing partner, catapulting them into the paradoxical disorganized dilemma of wanting comfort and safety from the very same person who is triggering their threat response. Again, the partner may be doing exactly what the couple consented to and acting within their negotiated agreements, but for the pre-existing partner, their primary attachment figure being away, unavailable and potentially sharing levels of intimacy with another person registers as a debilitating threat in the nervous system. As someone in this situation simultaneously wants to move towards and away from one’s partner, the very foundation of their relationship and attachment system can begin to shudder, and people can begin acting out in ways that are destructive to each other and the relationship. When this happens, I recommend working with a professional to re-establish inner and outer safety.

Just as scar tissue is stronger than regular skin tissue, traumas can lead to what researchers and mental health professionals refer to as post-traumatic growth, where 30 to 70 percent of individuals who experienced trauma report positive changes arising out of the traumatic experience they went through.66 Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun define post-traumatic growth as occurring when “someone’s development has surpassed what was present before the struggle with crises occurred. The individual has not only survived, but has experienced changes that are viewed as important, and that go beyond the status quo.”67 Such people have described profound changes in how they view their relationships, as well as how they conceive of themselves and their philosophy of life. Nonmonogamy can be a pressure cooker for growth. It is commonly and playfully known in the nonmonogamous world that you shouldn’t enter CNM unless you are ready to process, communicate, grow and then process, communicate and grow some more.

As discussed in Chapter One, the main factor in a child developing an anxious attachment pattern is inconsistent attunement from their primary caregiver—there is love, but it is unreliable. In CNM, as people begin to go on more dates, enter into additional relationships or experience new relationship energy with someone else, they can start to become less available, responsive or attuned to their pre-existing partners. The person experiencing an increase in their number of partners or a deepening in a specific relationship may not intend to give less to their other partners (often they think they can manage all their relationships to a high degree), but due to the limits of how many hours there are in a day, how many date nights there are in a week or how many people you can text with at once, splitting time among more and more people can create insecure conditions for their other partners. The person with a new partner has now become (intentionally or not) more inconsistent, unpredictable and inaccessible to their attachment-based relationships than they were previously.

There is a difference between being in a secure connection with someone and having a securely attached relationship. Secure connections are with people or partners who we don’t have daily or regular contact with, but with whom we know that when we reach out it will feel as if a moment hasn’t passed. We are secure in the bond that we have with such people, and this bond might be immensely meaningful, special and important to us, but it’s not necessarily a relationship that requires us to invest regular maintenance and attention. In CNM, these might be the partners we refer to as comets, satellites or casual. They’re the people who we see at special events a few times a year or our less-involved long-distance relationships. Securely attached relationships are based on consistency and reliability. These are the people who are there for each other in responsive and attuned ways more times than not. They are our “go-to” people who have our back and to whom we can turn when we feel hurt or threatened and or need support, comfort or reassurance. They’re the people we are excited to share our latest news or discoveries with. Sue Johnson simplifies what we are looking for in our attachment relationships through the three questions: are you available, are you responsive, are you emotionally engaged?61

New CNM partners usually cannot create a romantic life together from scratch, but have to adapt to, work around and hopefully influence the preexisting relationship structures that are already in place for each person.

I think that CNM requires more individual differentiation, which can support new CNM partners in being more healthfully differentiated from the start, even allowing them to more skillfully circumnavigate the gravity of codependency. In this sense, you are much less inclined to bring the expectation that you will be each other's everything to a new relationship, and instead will answer the question, "What can we be to each other given our current life circumstances, our unique connection and our preexisting relationships?

Whether you choose monogamy or CNM, the decision should be ideally based on your own clarity: where you are connected with your authentic values, needs and desires versus the more reactive, resistant, judgemental, fearful or wounded parts of yourself. Whether you're going to say yes or no to CNM, I want your criteria to be grounded in a place of inner knowing and resonance versus fear, pressure or avoidance.

Another facet of grief that we can experience in our CNM relationships is not so much about the sorrow or loss of what was, but rather the sadness and grief of what will never be.

A beautiful benefit of CNM is that it can release the tension to get all your needs met by the same person. The result is frequently that they experience even more acceptance and appreciation for who their partners are and the gifts they bring to their life, because now they can focus less on what they are not getting.

Authors on attachment theory will assert that being pair-bonded is the prototype for attachment in adulthood, that couples need to create a couple bubble around them in order to ensure security, and that your partner needs to be the one, single or main person that you emotionally depend on. I question if these criteria are even healthy from a monogamous standpoint (a considerable amount of the mono-romantic ideal can actually be codependency in disguise), but at the very least we can see how these ideas and assumptions within the field of attachment are excluding people in CNM relationships.

many of my clients have unfortunately heard previous therapists equate being CNM with attachment insecurity and pathologize them for their lifestyle and sexuality.

Similar to how a child can be securely attached to one parent, while simultaneously insecurely attached to another parent, polyamorous adults can have different attachment styles with different romantic partners that are independent of each other. While the current research on CNM and attachment is encouraging, the shortage of studies to reference creates a massive gap in the current attachment literature, as well as many unanswered questions about the relationship between attachment and CNM.

When we rely on the structure of our relationship, whether that is through being monogamous with someone or practicing hierarchical forms of CNM, we run the risk of forgetting that secure attachment is an embodied expression built upon how we consistently respond and attune to each other, not something that gets created through structure and hierarchy. Secure attachment is created through the quality of experience we have with our partners, not through the notion or the fact of either being married or being a primary partner.

Part Three is designed to walk you through the different components of secure functioning, not based on your relationship structure, but based on the behaviors that you can apply to any of your CNM relationships in which you seek to deepen polysecurity.

To me, telling people who are struggling with the transition from monogamy to CNM to go back to monogamy because CNM is just too difficult would be like telling the new parents of an infant who are struggling without sleep or personal time that maybe they should just send the kid back since they didn’t have any of these issues before the child arrived. This analogy may seem ridiculous because you literally can’t send the kid back, but that can be exactly what it can feel like for people who have made the transition out of monogamy into CNM, especially for people who experience CNM not as a lifestyle choice but as who they fundamentally are.

The fifth point of how to recover and reinvent yourself when you are going through an awakening of the self—what I also call a crisis of deconstruction—requires more attention than I can allot here, since the focus of this book is the sixth point of how transitioning from monogamy to CNM impacts our attachment.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives if you’re looking for a CNM. Go to acnm.org or mybirthteam.com, or call 240-485-1800.

I’ve seen the dangers of people depending on the structure of their relationship to feel safe together. When they change that structure, either through opening up from monogamy or transitioning to a less hierarchical form of CNM, it can expose relational insecurities that were disguised by the pseudo or contrived security acquired from the previous relationship structure. The takeaway message here is not to abolish all relationship hierarchies or shared bank accounts, but instead for people to procure secure attachment from their relational experiences instead of their relationship structures. Allow your direct experience with a partner to be the vehicle to secure attachment instead of having certain relationship concepts, narratives or structures be the vehicle.

Relationship Anarchy: This type of CNM falls at the very end or even off this chart completely. The term was first coined in 2006 by Andie Nordgren,52 who applied political anarchist principles to interpersonal relationships. Relationship anarchists seek to dismantle the social hierarchies dictating how sexual and romantic relationships are prioritized over all other forms of love, and so people who identify as relationship anarchists make less distinction between the importance or value of their lovers over their friends or other people in their life, and they do not only reserve intimacy or romance for the people they have sex with.

Attempting to do CNM with an insecure attachment style or having attachment insecurity arise as a result of becoming nonmonogamous can seriously disrupt a person’s sense of self, as well as their inner and outer safety in ways that can feel unbearable and be unsustainable.

There can be something very disorienting that happens for some new CNM couples who were first monogamous together and were accustomed to being each other’s main source of comfort, support and relief from distress. As the relationship opens, a partner’s actions with other people (even ethical ones that were agreed upon) can become a source of distress and pose an emotional threat. Everything that this person is doing with other people can become a source of intense fear and insecurity for their pre-existing partner, catapulting them into the paradoxical disorganized dilemma of wanting comfort and safety from the very same person who is triggering their threat response.

my clients report being highly anxious and off their emotional axis for hours, sometimes even days, before their partner goes on a date with someone else. Others seriously spiral out while the date is happening. Cognitively, they know that their partner is still alive, not abandoning them or doing anything wrong, but their body and emotions are in primal panic. In such cases, jealousy is not a sufficient or accurate description of what is happening for the partner in distress. When primal attachment panic gets mislabeled as jealousy, the partner experiencing it can be left thinking that there is something wrong with them, that this is their issue to figure out on their own and that they should be better at doing CNM.

Nonmonogamy can be a pressure cooker for growth. It is commonly and playfully known in the nonmonogamous world that you shouldn’t enter CNM unless you are ready to process, communicate, grow and then process, communicate and grow some more.

but many of my clients have unfortunately heard previous therapists equate being CNM with attachment insecurity and pathologize them for their lifestyle and sexuality.

yin and ying

No one has to become a Buddhist to reap the benefits of mindfulness meditation. All you have to do is practice, and you will become more mindful. It’s that simple — even if it isn’t always easy.

Mindfulness, as we saw, is the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.