Every subculture has it’s own vernacular, but if you’re new to open relationships, or not in a community of people who are open or poly, you may not know these helpful words:
New Relationship Energy (NRE):
That feeling you get when you’ve just started a new relationship and everything else seems secondary. You’re so focused on that person in all their perfection. You want to spend all your time with them, you never fight, the sex is intense and passionate. This is important to recognize in an open relationship, because you may be experiencing this with someone new, while your primary partner is not, and this can cause jealousy and conflict. The key to this struggle is compersion (see below), validation of your partner’s feelings, and making sure your primary partner knows how important they are to you.
Compersion:
The joy you can feel from witnessing your partner’s happiness. This may be sexual, such as watching them with another sexual partner or hearing about the story later, or more of that “warm fuzzy feeling” you get when they come home from a date feeling giddy and excited. Compersion is said to be the opposite of jealousy, and cultivating compersion can certainly help with the feelings that come with jealousy like sadness, anger, and fear.
Metamor:
This is the partner of your partner who is not also your partner (say that three times fast!). In different relationship structures you may or may not know this person, you may or may not be friends with them, and you may or may not like them. No matter what, it’s good to know what to call them. You share a joint love (met-amour), and this person can be an invaluable resource to you!
Polycule
Your polycule is the family tree of your open relationship. This includes you and your partner and all your metamours. All of these people influence each other, and it is important to take each person’s experience and feelings into account when making decisions. This is why communication and negotiation are such an important part of open relationships!
Fluid Bonded
Being fluid bonded is a safe sex practice where everyone agrees to get STI tested and share results. After that, those people may eschew safer sex practices like using condoms and dental dams when having sex with each other. They will either not have sex with people outside their fluid bonded group, or all agree to use safer sex practices each and every time they have sex with someone else, to protect the safety of those in the group.
If you have any questions about any of these words, or there are some that I’ve missed, please feel free to message me, email me at counselingwithcolleen@gmail.com or comment!