Rebuilding Trust in Non-Monogamy

How do I regain the trust of my partner after I selfishly broke an important term of our ethical non-monogamy agreement?

My husband and I are about six months into opening our relationship. A key agreement is that if we meet someone we want to sleep with, we let each other know before we do.

I recently slept with someone on a first date before I told my husband I wanted to and a lot of trust has been broken because of it. I am allowing him to be angry with me, we’ve discussed it and I want to work on repairing it, but not entirely sure how??I’m just really ashamed of myself for behaving like this. I hate hurting my partner and I hate the idea that I lost some of his trust in me.

If I could go back in time to when you made this agreement, I would have definitely advised against it. A lot of people opening their relationship attempt this type of permission based agreement because it sounds good and it soothes feelings in the moment but it's actually not a fair agreement for either party.

Think of it this way, what if you had an agreement that you would always call your partner if you weren't with them on their birthday? It seems innocuous, right? Why wouldn't you call your partner on their birthday? But here's the thing. If you aren't the kind of partner that is considerate enough to do that, a rule is not going to make you into a considerate partner.

This rule inadvertently punishes the partner that is super busy on that day and it slips their mind but is otherwise considerate and lovely and rewards a partner who otherwise ignores you and even belittles you, but calls you on your birthday. And if you have a partner who is inconsiderate, their ability to meet this one tiny rule might actually lull you into a false sense of security and shield the rest of the issues. Because after all, they called you on your birthday! Shouldn't you be happy?

I'm going to call this a rule actually -- because that's what it is. Instead of controlling your own behaviours, you're both attempting to control each other's. It doesn't make you bad people, but it exposes how dysfunctional this practice is.

It might be beneficial for you and your partner to read this together. Ask yourselves what specifically changes in the time slot between before you have slept with someone and after that merits the need to call your partner and ask essentially for permission to sleep with someone else. Ask yourselves what function it's meant to achieve other than as some sort of symbolic gesture of caring for each other – and isn't that better met through other means?

Ask yourselves if you were on a date with someone and things were getting spicy, how would you feel if they called their partner and their partner was unhappy and they told you they couldn't do anything with you because their partner basically said no – would that be fair to you? Ask yourselves if you were being called at 12am after a long hard day to hear your partner is about to sleep with someone else if you wouldn't feel a pressure to say "yes" or to pretend to be happy about it... even if you weren't. Does this rule actually facilitate communication?

When you consent to opening your relationship and agree that is what you're going to do together, you have already given your tacit permission for each other to sleep with other people. There really is no need for this extra hoop. Especially because all it does is create a symbolic meaning around an action that lets both of you down. If your partner experiences negative emotions about you sleeping with someone else, that shouldn't control your actions nor is the right time to handle it just before the sex happens. Not to mention, permission based rules like this put pressure on the person giving the permission. If you had called your partner and they were okay with it at the time, what happens if they experience negative emotions later?

I once had a partner who made this big show of saying they were not going to sleep with a person they were going on a date with. I didn't really care truthfully, but they put this decision on a pedestal. And then they ended up sleeping with that person. And then I got upset, even though I didn't care before. I got upset because they made a Big Deal out of not sleeping with them.

Rules can be useful, but you have to know what happens if they are broken. The problem is when most people put in rules like this, they are assuming the rule will just "work" to control the other person and it makes a Big Deal out of something that may not actually have that much symbolic meaning behind it. When the rule is broken, rather than it being an issue to address, it becomes a Big Deal because it's a symbol now, instead of an agreed mode of operation that serves a function.

Again, I totally understand why you both agreed to this rule. It gives you both a false sense of security. If you know every time your partner is going to sleep with someone else, you have a forewarning system because deep down, you're scared to lose them. It tricks you into believing that you will have some early warning sign of your partner leaving.

But the truth is that if the rule of monogamy doesn't prevent people from leaving their partners, no rule you implement between the two of you is going to prevent you from breaking up if that's what is going to happen. And truthfully, as I talk about in my 101 article, putting the responsibility on either of your shoulders to prevent this from happening is only going to feed anxiety.

If you're both wanting to stay together, I suggest that you put this indiscretion behind you and let go of the power you've given it over your relationship. I totally understand that it feels like the trust has been broken but you not telling your partner just before this happened is not a deeper sign of you not caring about them because you could have done that and still not cared about them. Instead of creating these trust fall style exercises to prove your commitment to each other, focus on what actually strengthens your relationship. Shame is not a motivator for change and this rule is not serving either of you.

Have you both discussed what you want your open relationship to look like? Do you have scheduled, intentional time together? Especially if you live together, it is easy to take each other for granted and assume time spent in the same physical vicinity together is dedicated time – but it's not. Block out time for just the two of you and time you both spend with other partners and spend that other time apart, even if you don't have a date so you can learn to deal with the time apart first instead of having to deal with the complicated feelings of your partner being with someone else and missing their presence in your life. If you have scheduled, dedicated time together and you've both talked about and agreed on how you both balance spending time together and spending time apart then it doesn't really matter what happens outside of your relationship.

You are never going to be able to control if your partner falls in love with someone else and wants to leave you. Even if you closed your relationship, you could not stop that from happening. He also cannot stop you from falling out of love with him either. Putting the pressure on yourselves to stop this with rules and agreements will not work.

Opening your relationship involves re-establishing trust with one another because you both have grown up in a mono-centric society that has told you that love looks one way. You're going against the cultural script you were raised with and that is going to give you fear and anxiety. It feels more precarious and dangerous, but monogamy is no guarantee either of having a partner who will always stay with you. We understandably as humans fear the loss of our social connections. We're social creatures. Give yourself permission to feel anxious and sit in the discomfort of that anxiety.

If you have a good understanding of what you both want out of your relationship, that is going to ground you a lot more than this rule ever would. Because you could follow this rule and still not value each other. If you value each other, then show that through actual actions that contribute to your relationship rather than these arbitrary hoops that don't do anything to actually help you relate with each other and invest in each other. I think you can easily move past this, but take a moment before you make another rule and agreement and actually ask yourselves if the rule brings you closer together, if it serves you, and explore each scenario if the rule is broken and how you might handle it rather than waiting for the worst to happen and dealing with both the emotional fallout and the broken rule.

I hope this helps and good luck!