Polyamory - The Hunger Games, Throuple Edition

Here’s Why I Eventually Said: “I’m Out.”

Before the internet explodes, relax.

This isn’t an anti-polyamory post. This isn’t me saying monogamy is morally superior.
And this definitely isn’t me pretending I suddenly became a trad wife who bakes sourdough and thinks eye contact with another man is cheating.

Absolutely not.

I support people designing relationships that genuinely work for them. I work with clients in open relationships, polyamory, kink, swinging, relationship anarchy, don’t-ask-don’t-tell dynamics, monogamy, situationships and affairs, whatever else modern love has cooked up this week.

I genuinely believe different relationship structures work for different people at different stages of life.

But as someone who lived open relationships for over a decade, here’s the thing nobody told me:

You’re allowed to leave.

You’re allowed to realise something once fit you… and doesn’t anymore.

That realisation caused more identity panic than half the relationships did.

Because open relationships weren’t just something I did.
They became who I thought I was.

The progressive one.
The evolved one.
The sexually liberated one.
The therapist who could hold complexity.
The cool girl who didn’t “need” ownership or reassurance.

Meanwhile, my nervous system was backstage chain vaping.

The Bit Nobody Talks About Enough

Open relationships worked brilliantly for me… in theory.

When the dopamine was high? Incredible.
New attraction? Amazing.
Sexual novelty? Yummy.
Escaping domestic boredom, parenting, bills, bins and general adult life? Honestly, liberating.

Nothing wakes up a dead nervous system quite like a new crush texting:

“Still thinking about last night…”

But alongside the excitement came something else:

Anxiety.

A lot of it.

Because whilst I was enjoying freedom… another part of me was quietly scanning the horizon like I was about to be shot through the heart.

“Cool cool cool… but what if he leaves me?”

And before the CNM community starts warming up their keyboards:

“Yes Jemma, but you have to do the work.”

I KNOW.

I DID THE WORK.

I went into six years of deep psychotherapy.

I literally retrained as a therapist.
I specialised in open and poly relationships.
I attended one of the UK’s first intensive CNM/poly therapy trainings (for a year!)

For Christ’s sake, I became the homework.

And therapy absolutely helped me understand my triggers better.
I communicate better. I recognise activation faster. I don’t disappear or emotionally detonate like I used to. (Sometimes)

But healed people aren’t floating around like enlightened Buddhists who never get jealous again.

I still got and get triggered.

I just became better at noticing it before I accidentally burned my own life down.

The Moment The Penny Dropped

This part makes me laugh now.

There I was, sitting in advanced poly relationship training, roleplaying anonymous client scenarios.

And every single scenario sounded like:

“Well Sarah slept with Jack, but Jack didn’t tell Michael that Emily already knew about the Berlin sex party, but only after Olivia got dysregulated because the Airbnb boundaries weren’t clear…”

And I remember sitting there thinking:

“This feels like endless relationship admin with emotional damage.”

Like… an enormous amount of emotional administration forever.

A trigger was never far away.

A new person.
A new crush.
Someone liking someone more.
A different sexual dynamic.
One partner getting more attention.
Someone feeling abandoned.
Someone wanting reassurance.
Someone wanting freedom.
Someone needing processing.
Another 4-hour “deep conversation” at 11:47pm when all I actually wanted was a cup of tea and silence.

And suddenly I thought:

“I don’t think I want to live like this anymore.”

Not because polyamory is wrong.

Because I was tired.

Correction: I was bone-achingly exhausted by it all.

I think part of me used openness to escape boredom, deadness and disconnection inside my marriage and inside myself.

That doesn’t mean my marriage was all boring.
I loved my husband deeply.
I loved many parts of our life.

But there was always one foot out of the door for both of us.

Always an exit route.
Always another possibility.
Always another person.
Always another emotional thread running in the background.

And over time it became hard to tell the difference between freedom… and chronic nervous system dysregulation with good marketing.

The Beginning Of The End

The real ending came when I asked for exclusivity for a while.

Not forever. Not religious conversion.

I just wanted a pause.

A nervous system exhale.
A chance to find each other again underneath all the extra people.

But by then we’d trained ourselves so deeply into openness that we didn’t know how to return to just us.

Sex had become tangled up with other people. Fantasy had become externalised. There was always another woman, another man, another story, another dynamic in the room with us.

I asked for a pause.

My husband agreed… but only after “one last party” and fucking one last fuck buddy first.

Honestly? That was the moment my nervous system packed its bags before I did.

So after the pause, zero sex, lots of couple therapy and the crater between us growing by the day - I conceded to reopen.

Then my husband met his current partner, who also had a girlfriend, and suddenly we were entering what felt like Polyamory: The Hunger Games Throuple Edition.

I was already fighting to be seen. How was I going to survive now he had two partners, one German and one American? (Always his crushes.)

And I remember thinking:

“Oh my God.
I cannot do another round of emotional torture.”

That was it.

Not rage.
Not moral superiority.

Just:

“I don’t want this for my nervous system anymore.”

Where I’m At right now

I date. I’m honest.
Nobody thinks I’m exclusive, and I don’t expect exclusivity from them either.

But the difference is this:

I’m single.

There’s no marriage structure whilst I’m trying to hold together 14 emotional side quests occurring simultaneously.

And that feels calmer.

Will I become exclusive again one day?

Possibly - I’m open to it.

Could I imagine a relationship with flexibility, honesty and nuance? Absolutely.
Could I imagine a relationship with calmness and devotion? One hundred percent.

I’m not naïve enough to believe human beings suddenly stop finding other people attractive because they’ve committed to each other.

But I also no longer romanticise endless emotional labour as “evolution.”

Sometimes peace is the evolved choice.

Sometimes nervous system safety matters more than ideological purity.

Giving myself permission to stop forcing myself through triggers in the name of being “open-minded” has been one of the most healing things I’ve ever done.

If I ever do a TED Talk, it might just be on this.

What most people don’t say, which I absolutely do say in therapy with my clients is that just because something worked for you then, and you built an identity around it for years, doesn’t mean you have to stay there forever.

Insert any relationship style or identity into that sentence.

If you’re reading this, consider this your permission slip to leave something or someone that you’ve outgrown.

Maybe you’ve outgrown that version of you.

Life is a journey.
Relationships evolve.

And part of understanding yourself is knowing your identity is allowed to change its mind. Trust me your new identity will kick and scream as you evolve and yes I kept testing out kink parties just incase I’d got it wrong!

Listen to your nervous system.

Just because something makes you feel alive doesn’t mean it’s what your nervous system needs.

Now if you need me, I’ll be over here having significantly less “processing conversations” and significantly more naps.

Love

Jemma

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