How To Tell Your Wife About Your Girlfriend

Disclose relationships in polyamory without screwing it all up.

One of the unique aspects of polyamory is the fact that, unlike most other forms of monogamy and nonmonogamy, we usually disclose our partners to each other.

In monogamy, disclosing that you have a new love or sexual partner, which we’ll put under the umbrella of “intimate relationship,” is not a happy event. Telling your husband that you have a new sexual partner in monogamy comes with a “Great, I’ll file for divorce tomorrow,” response.

In an open relationship, you might not disclose all your sexual partners to your emotionally intimate partners. You might, “go do your thing,” and have an “understanding.”

But in polyamory, you can have a mixture of physical, emotional, and spiritual partners. You might have a strong monogamous-like bond to some, a lesser attached boyfriend or girlfriend that you love, close relationships that are more like friends and less entangled, and an open and purely physical relationship with others.

Most polyamorous people have some form of disclosure that happens at some level of relationship.

There might be polyamorous people who rarely even flirt, and might disclose that they’re even talking to a potential new partner because it is so rare.