Ethical non-monogamy and relationship therapy
Therapy for ethical non-monogamy and open relationships
Your relationship does not have to follow a conventional model to be taken seriously.
I work with people in ethical non-monogamous relationships, including open and polyamorous relationships, and with couples thinking about opening a relationship that has previously been monogamous. Sessions are available in Enfield, North London, and online across the UK.
Choosing ethical non-monogamy does not mean you have to be comfortable with everything it brings
You can believe in openness and still feel jealous. You can want your partner to have other relationships while still missing them when they do. You can value freedom and still need reassurance that you matter. Difficult feelings do not automatically mean that your relationship structure is wrong.
The relationship structure is not automatically the problem
You may be dealing with something specific to non-monogamy, or something any relationship can struggle with
You might come because of jealousy, agreements, another relationship or a difference in how open you each want to be. Other difficulties may be more familiar: repeated arguments, emotional distance, changes in sex, parenthood or uncertainty about the future.
Knowing what you have agreed does not always tell you what to do with the feelings that follow.
What can become difficult
Ethical non-monogamy creates possibilities. It can also expose things that are hard to think about.
Opening a relationship
The idea may feel exciting to one of you while leaving the other feeling unsettled or unsure. Therapy can make room for that difference rather than treating agreement as something that has to be reached quickly.
Jealousy and feeling replaceable
Jealousy can hold fear, comparison, anger, grief, exclusion or a wish to know that you still matter. Sometimes it is also responding to something real that has changed between you.
Sex was agreed. Love was not.
Sex with other people may have felt manageable. Falling in love can bring something different, particularly when somebody wants more time or begins imagining a future with another person.
New relationship energy
A new connection can be vivid and absorbing. The established partner may understand that intellectually and still experience a very real loss of time, attention or emotional availability.
Agreements, boundaries and trust
What was explicitly agreed? What was assumed? What happens when the wording of an agreement is technically followed but one person still feels misled, excluded or betrayed?
Different speeds
One person may feel ready while the other needs much more time. Consent becomes especially important when saying “not yet” feels as though it might put the relationship at risk.
Consent and difference
“I said yes” and “I freely want this” are not always the same thing
Ethical non-monogamy may be something both people actively want. In other relationships, one partner raises it and the other agrees because the alternative feels like losing them.
I would want to make room for that difference. Therapy is not there to persuade the more hesitant partner to become comfortable with non-monogamy. Nor is it there to persuade the partner who wants openness to abandon that part of themselves.
We can think about what each position means, what is at stake, whether there is genuine room for consent and what happens if your needs cannot simply be negotiated into alignment.
If one person feels unable to say no because of fear, threats, intimidation or coercive control, couples therapy may not be the safest place to begin. I would help you think about more appropriate support.
Established non-monogamous relationships
The difficult part is not always opening the relationship
You may have been polyamorous or open for years. Therapy can focus on how the relationships are actually being lived, rather than questioning whether non-monogamy itself is right for you.
Hierarchy, nesting and power
You may describe the relationship as non-hierarchical while sharing a home, finances, children or years of history with one partner. Therapy can look at how priority and power operate in practice rather than arguing about the right label.
Metamours and how close is close enough
One person may want kitchen-table closeness while another wants respectful distance. Neither position has to be treated as more evolved. The question is what each person needs and what is realistically sustainable.
Time can communicate priority
Friday nights, overnights, holidays and birthdays are not simply diary decisions. They can become emotionally charged because they say something about who gets protected time and who is expected to adapt.
Equal freedom does not always feel equal
Two people can technically have the same freedom while having very different opportunities, libido, confidence, caring responsibilities or amounts of time. Fairness is not always the same as symmetry.
Being visible or hidden
Who knows about your relationships? Family, children, friends or colleagues? It can be painful when one relationship can be publicly recognised while another has to remain largely invisible.
Parenting and domestic labour
If one partner is out on a date while the other is looking after children or carrying more of the household, freedom can become entangled with labour, resentment and whose time is treated as protected.
Sex-positive does not mean uncritical
Desire can be spoken about without shame, without assuming every desire should be acted on
I work in a sex-positive way. That means sex, kink, fantasy, attraction, libido and desire for other people can be spoken about directly without being treated as embarrassing or automatically pathological.
Sometimes jealousy is not simply an insecurity to work through
Your partner may genuinely be giving less time, attention or care to the relationship. An agreement may have shifted. You may be responding to a real experience of being deprioritised. Therapy can help distinguish what is being stirred up inside you from what is actually happening between you.
How I work
Curious about the relationship, not suspicious of its structure
I pay close attention to what happens between you, the meanings you each give to closeness and freedom, and the histories that may become alive around desire, jealousy, exclusion or dependence.
I will not assume monogamy is the goal
I will not assume non-monogamy is necessarily the right answer either. The task is to understand the relationship you are trying to make and whether it can be lived honestly by the people in it.
I will not reduce everything to jealousy
What gets called jealousy may include grief, fear, envy, anger, loneliness, humiliation or a very real experience of being pushed to the edge of the relationship.
Difference and power belong in the room
Race, culture, gender, sexuality, class, disability, parenting and financial security can shape how much freedom each person actually has.
Your relationship does not need to be measured against monogamy
I will not assume that an open or polyamorous relationship is less committed, less serious or less capable of being emotionally significant than a monogamous one.
A note on language
Why I use “ethical non-monogamy”
I use ethical non-monogamy as a broad term for relationships in which people knowingly and consensually make room for sexual or romantic connections beyond one exclusive partnership.
Within that are many different ways of relating, including open relationships and polyamory. You do not need to arrive with the right label, and I will not assume that two people using the same label mean the same thing by it.
For me, the word ethical does not mean that every arrangement described as non-monogamous is automatically fair. Consent, honesty, power and the effect our choices have on other people still need to be talked about.
Questions you may be carrying
There can be more than one truth in the room
Yes. The aim would not be to get you to a particular answer, but to understand what each of you wants, fears and imagines openness would change.
That difference deserves to be taken seriously. Therapy can help you understand it, but it cannot guarantee a compromise that leaves neither person giving up something fundamental.
Absolutely. You may want help with communication, sex, parenthood, trust or emotional distance. Your relationship structure can simply be part of the context.
This would need to be discussed before beginning so that I can understand the relationship system, who is seeking therapy and what everyone is hoping the sessions will hold.
A relationship does not need to be conventional to deserve careful thought
The first session is a 50-minute consultation and a professional session in its own right. It gives us room to understand what is bringing you and whether regular therapy with me feels appropriate. Ongoing work is not assumed.
Request an Initial ConsultationOnline or in person
I work online across the UK and face to face from therapy rooms in Enfield, North London.
Where I work →Coming alone? Individual therapy is also available.