My Mom, Not My Therapist, Encouraged Me To Explore Ethical Non-Monogamy

Exploring polyamory also helped DeMecia relearn setting boundaries and communicating. “You have to get used to talking openly about the physical and emotional impacts,” she says. In one instance, she’d been dating one person for a while polyamorously, and decided to take on another serious partner. When she told the first person, they had some real feelings about it. “They were super valid, and I had to say outright, ‘You’re not being replaced,’” DeMecia recalls. “We’ve had a lot of conversations and I’ve just been reassuring this person. You can be jealous, but it’s about working through that before downloading it to the other person. You can’t only say, ‘I’m jealous, I don’t want you to see that person.’ Instead, you’d think it through, and say, ‘I’m having feelings about you seeing this other person, not because of them or you, but because I feel like I might lose you or a part of you, and that is really scary.’ And then the other person responds and says, ‘You won’t lose me.’ It’s about affirming people, meeting them where they’re at, and being vulnerable — which can be terrifying.”