Shaping Consensual Nonmonogamy Agreements

Q: I’m working with a couple that wants to open their relationship, but I’m not sure where to start with the agreement-making process. How detailed do we need to get, and what should we focus on?

A: Often, therapists focus a lot on the content of agreements. Can this relationship style really work? Is there a rulebook for polyamory they could adopt? Is there a list of topics they should be forming agreements about?

The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to making agreements. That’s because, ultimately, what really matters isn’t the exact agreements the partners come up with: it’s the process by which they create their agreements, so that they can make agreements they can keep.

I probably don’t need to tell you that breaking agreements has serious consequences. It usually leads people to lie to cover up what happened, creating deep hurt and lasting resentment. In some cases, it can be very difficult for partners to find their way back to a strong connection afterward, not to mention the solid foundation of trust and reliability that’s needed for an open relationship to work. Even when the repair process goes well, it takes a lot of time and emotional energy.

Here’s the important point: broken agreements don’t just happen; they start with a flawed agreement-making process. If you’re working with clients considering consensual nonmonogamy (CNM), helping support them in a well-considered and thoughtful agreement-making process is one of the most helpful things you can do. If you can avoid setting them up for broken agreements, it’ll save you and them lots of grief down the road. Additionally, a good agreement-making process is a transformative experience, as it’s a powerful opportunity for partners to understand one another much more deeply.

So, why do people end up making agreements they can’t keep? Here are a few common reasons:

They’re rushed. Sometimes, a time-sensitive event is looming, or one or both partners are overeager to get started with their CNM journey. But rushing the process cuts out the time needed for the kind of nuanced, thoughtful discussions that lead to durable agreements. If there is a legitimate need for urgency, I let my clients know they’ll benefit from revisiting the agreement after assessing their future experiences, because an agreement made hastily doesn’t always stand the test of time.

They’re avoiding a tough conversation. It can be scary to tell a partner, “I don’t want to agree to that, even though I know it’s important to you.” But it’s so much better to have the hard conversation now, rather than after they’ve done something they can’t undo.

They just want what their partner wants. Sometimes, people believe they should want what their partner wants, without deeply considering whether it fits their own value system or personality. Other times, people may genuinely want something because their partner wants it, and they want to make their partner happy. Willingness and relationality are great starting places for forming agreements, but “happy spouse, happy house” isn’t usually a sufficient impetus for remaining true to commitments you don’t want to keep. People need to consider a situation carefully and realistically if they’re doing something primarily for someone else. Are you ready to commit to upholding the agreement, even when you feel less charitable toward your partner? Can you ground yourself in the benefits to you of keeping this agreement?

So, what goes into making a durable, sustainable agreement? Here are the five most important parts of the process:

Look within. The agreement-making process starts with each person getting aligned with their internal value system and what’s true for them. What do you want? What’s true for you? What emotions are you experiencing? What challenges are you having around this?

You might say to clients, “I recommend taking a deep and honest look at your values alongside the desires you’re experiencing. This part of the process is about you, not your partner. This is your opportunity to explore what’s most important to you, so you can show up more authentically in conversations.”

To help with their internal exploration, you might ask: What is it about an open relationship that appeals to you? What do you imagine you’ll experience that lights you up? What are your reservations? What could go wrong? What do you think is at stake for you? What does it mean to you? What do you want to experience in whatever relationship you build? What are the relationship qualities that are most important to you?

As the client explores each of these questions, your role is to reflect and help them go deeper, focusing on meanings, feelings, and perceptions, rather than on specific circumstances. Also, help them avoid the trap of magical thinking. There are pros and cons to everything. It’s important they focus on their full range of thoughts and feelings, rather than on how to get to whatever outcome they thought they wanted at the start of the process. The magic of great agreement-making depends on being in a fluid space regarding outcomes.

Communicate and explore the territory. Each partner will need to unpack a topic fully and come to understand the other partner’s perspective and experience as thoroughly as they understand their own. This isn’t a quick check-the-box conversation: it depends on partners getting curious about each other’s ideas and opinions. Usually, it requires many iterations and sustained attention in one direction at a time, so both partners feel understood. When this goes well, partners understand one another better than they did before; when it goes very well, they understand themselves better.

A common problem partners face in these conversations is getting caught in gridlock. In these cases, it’s important to help each partner feel safe enough to relax their grip on their rigid belief and fully explore other possibilities. Because clarifying the purpose of the conversation supports this process, you might say, “This isn’t a decision-making conversation. It’s a creative, explore-the-topic conversation, where you stretch out of your comfort zone to understand your own thoughts, feelings, and wishes, and get genuinely curious about your partner’s perspective. Nobody’s going to make this decision for you; you’re going to make it yourself when you’re ready. The current challenge is to open up about what’s important to you, however vulnerable that feels, and to lean in with a sense of wonder and willingness to learn about what’s important to your partner.”

Get specific. Specificity helps with understanding. Imagine that one partner says they want to open up the relationship so they can experience sexual adventure. In that case, you might want to ask how they might be able to experience sexual adventure now, even before opening up their relationship. Rather than delving into the content of their imagined sexual adventure, you might want to help them get specific about their feelings and desires with questions like, What is it about sexual adventure that’s important to you? What would you like your partner to understand about this aspect of yourself that you don’t think they’ve understood quite yet?

If one partner says they don’t want to open the relationship because they’re invested in experiencing safety, security, and reliability, you might want to do the same kind of unpacking of what this means and why it’s important to them. You can find out whether they can imagine being in some form of an open relationship where they still experience safety, security, and reliability.

Don’t rush to make decisions. People often wrongly assume that bringing up emotionally and sexually charged topics means they have to make some kind of decision connected to them. And they worry that the act of listening to their partner’s perspective means they’re tacitly agreeing with it. These assumptions hinder meaningful, creative discussions. So you might reassure clients, “You get to make your own decisions, based on what you believe and feel. Even if you spend a lot of time understanding your partner’s perspective, that doesn’t mean you ever have to agree with them or make the decision they want you to make.”

Often, when partners do a thorough, attuned, and careful exploration of options (focusing first on experiences they want to have, rather than on how to make those experiences happen), they find themselves almost magically making better decisions.

Frame a “first experiment.” When partners feel ready to forge ahead, I suggest they form a “first experiment,” rather than a “forever agreement.” I find it reduces stress and reinforces the fact they’ll need to revisit and reconsider their agreements along the way, no matter how carefully they discuss them beforehand. The school of life is a powerful teacher. They might find they have feelings they didn’t anticipate. They may be surprised by how difficult or easy some aspects of the experiment are. Taking baby steps in vivo can reveal important information they need to make informed decisions.

Unlike identifying personal values, forming a meaningful experiment is a team sport. It should be undertaken by partners who can collaborate and consider one another’s preferences, fears, hopes, and dreams. To help partners frame an experiment, you might ask: What are your shared goals? What kind of relationship are you both trying to build? What feels like a relatively manageable step to try? What are you hoping to learn from the experiment? How do you imagine you might set up the experiment to support the outcome you’re hoping for? How will you support one another along the way?

Every experiment should be evaluated after enough time has elapsed to see what was learned from it. Partners can put a date on the calendar to discuss how it went. Some questions you might ask at this stage are: What went well? What went not-so-well? What did we learn? What would make sense as the next experiment? What supports, strategies, and resources would be helpful?

Counterintuitive as it may be, having difficult conversations builds trust. Knowing your partner can and will disagree with you or bring up a tough topic is what lets us know they’re not leading a double life or keeping scary secrets. As therapists, we can encourage honesty and support explorations that engage our clients in an intentional and creative agreement-making process.