10 Years of Non-Monogamy: What I Wish I’d Known at the Beginning

5 lessons that would have made it all easier

By Sarah Stroh, author of Monogamaybe?: Honest Advice on Navigating Relationships from Monogamy to Polyamory, out on 21st July 2026.

After many years of flailing in monogamy, when I met polyamorous people for the first time at a lakeside festival outside of New York, I finally saw a path forward in my love life I hadn’t known was possible before.

Through non-monogamy, I thought I might be able to actually:

1. Be in a relationship that lasted longer than two years
2. Have that family one day I’ve always wanted, without feeling suffocated by it
3. Be completely honest about who I am: someone who feels most alive when they can freely connect physically, romantically, and emotionally with others (even if they already have a partner).

Ten years later, I’m living in Berlin, polyamorous, and have a child with a wonderful man.

We have our ups and downs, of course. But ultimately I’m happy, and in the longest relationship I’ve ever been in by far. Most importantly, I can be myself in it.

But getting here wasn’t easy. I made plenty of mistakes along the way.

So I want to share with you what I wish I’d known from the beginning about taking this path — if it feels right for you, this will help you on your way.

1. Don’t force it where there’s no enthusiasm

When I first learned about non-monogamy, I was pretty damn excited, and I was committed to making my next relationship open in some way.

That meant I told pretty much everyone I met about it, even people I didn’t have any intention of dating.

And luckily, when I did start dating someone seriously two years later, he was game to try it out.

At first, we didn’t do much experimenting. During the honeymoon phase, we were so focused on each other anyway.

But as time went on and we (mostly I) started to try out non-monogamy here and there, he realized how hard it was. He felt insecure and confused.

He tried to want it, but he couldn’t.

The reality is, most people out there don’t want to be non-monogamous. And that sucks, especially if someone we like or love is one of those people.

It’s possible for there to be some misalignment here, and to find a path forward. People do it.

But it’s also hard work.

If you really want this for yourself, the best option might be to cut your losses and end a relationship to find someone who wants the same thing as you. Rather than potentially make both of yourselves miserable trying to make it work. (More on this in detail in my book Monogamaybe?)

Now that I’m with someone who also wants to be non-monogamous, practicing it feels like a walk in the park in comparison.

2. Jealousy doesn’t just go away

I also had an idea from the beginning that as long as you log the years in non-monogamy, you eventually just stop feeling jealous at some point. You grow out of it, as you internalize the idea that love is expansive and your partner being with someone else doesn’t mean they will have less love for you.

What I didn’t realize is how big the discrepancy can be between believing this intellectually and feeling it’s true in your heart.

The reality is we all grew up in a world that believes true love can only happen between two people. It’s somewhere ingrained deep down inside of all of us.

That means working with jealousy is often a lifelong practice.

As my relationship with my partner Flo has deepened, we’ve moved in and had a child together, I’ve felt less jealous over time about women he is seeing. But with other men I’ve dated, I’ve sometimes felt very jealous. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that if Flo started seeing someone totally new, I’d be jealous about that particular person even though I wasn’t jealous about the last one.

3. It does get easier with the right tools

Jealousy doesn’t necessarily go away. But it can get easier to deal with over time.

It’s not that your gut stops doing backflips when you hear your partner is going on a first date. You may feel that fear forever.

But as you start to become more aware of how that fear manifests in your body and understand what triggers you exactly (and what doesn’t), you don’t panic about those feelings so much. In fact, with the right tools, we can let jealousy guide us to help us make decisions in support of our well-being.

4. Relationship security is really everything

And when it comes to dealing with overwhelming jealousy, we might not look in the places we think we should.

The time I struggled the most with jealousy was four years ago, when my partner was seeing someone he really liked a lot for the first time.

But that wasn’t the only thing going on.

I wanted to have a kid, and he wasn’t ready yet. So I was planning on doing it on my own.

Because of this, our relationship didn’t feel so solid. I had a lot of fear that him getting closer to someone else would break us apart.

Your jealousy is often not really about the other person your partner is seeing.

It’s often just the easiest place to look. It’s a lot easier to blame a third person for your insecurities than to take a hard look at the relationship itself and what might be in need of mending.

I go into this in much more detail in my book, but suffice it to say, it’s often not the other person that’s making things hard for you. That person is usually just adding salt to a wound that’s already there.

Work on that security first and foremost before trying to alter other relationships you’re not directly involved in.

5. Community actually matters a lot

Recently, someone in my extended family was telling me my life was “unrealistic,” having a family while dating other people.

And I took it to heart because I care what this person thinks.

It made me doubt myself. It made me feel insecure. It made me wonder if I should be more discreet about my life.

Thankfully, however, I know there are many people out there — close friends, people I see at parties, people I know through their work, people I respect and admire — practicing non-monogamy, and seeing them in my day-to-day reminds me that I’m not unrealistic. This is real.

I just recently found out another person I admire who talks quite openly about his life is also privately non-monogamous.

Knowing that feels healing.

Like I said at the start, it wasn’t reading about non-monogamy in a blog post that allowed me to take this path. It was meeting real people I respected doing this that made the difference.

There will probably be many times in your journey when someone’s going to call you crazy or selfish or psychologically damaged (sadly, it might even be your therapist!).

But the more you have people around you practicing non-monogamy, who are happy and well-adjusted, the easier it’ll be to tell the naysayers to f*ck off (not literally but inside).

If you’re just starting to explore non-monogamy, I hope these ideas save you some of the confusion I went through. If you’re interested in hearing more of my story, from struggling in monogamy to building a polyamorous life, and would like more practical guidance, you can now pre-order Monogamaybe?: Honest Advice on Navigating Relationships From Monogamy to Polyamory.

Jessica Fern, author of Polysecure and Polywise wrote:

“Stroh writes like a candid friend, tracing the real cost of not knowing yourself and the freedom that comes from finally being honest about what you actually want. Part memoir, part practical coaching, this book isn’t trying to convince you of anything — it’s helping you figure out what’s true for you.”

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