Polywise Quotes

“I couldn't hold the possibility that maybe she was simply exploring her own sexual identity or wanting to expand her erotic experience through other connections without that implying she was in love with these other partners.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“We can also appreciate that love does not always conform to our ideas about it, and that its nature is to change and evolve over time.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Someone in the self-authoring stage can deconstruct mainstream monogamy and its limiting beliefs and intentionally sift through what works for them, leaving behind what doesn't. For instance, they might recognize how monogamy has traditionally aided patriarchal control of women, their bodies and their sexuality, and so instead create a partnership that is more egalitarian, where the domestic, financial and parenting responsibilities are more equally shared regardless of genitals and gender.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“The contrast between our newer nonmonogamous experiences and previous monogamous ways of being become more obvious to us, we are faced with all the ways we have potentially been inauthentic, disconnected or even in denial about who we are and what we have really wanted for ourselves and in our relationships. These reflections about ourselves can call our sense of identity into question and open us up to new levels of uncertainty.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“When people describe this experience to me, they talk about how living in a new paradigm activates, stimulates and rouses new and old parts of themselves, leaving them feeling fortified and enlivened, finally in connection with their true or authentic self.

I categorize this aspect of the transition from monogamy to nonmonogamy as being a more expansive awakening of the self aspect that can give people a new sense of clarity, meaning and purpose in their life.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“A beautiful benefit of CNM is that it can release the tension to get all your needs met by the same person. The result is frequently that they experience even more acceptance and appreciation for who their partners are and the gifts they bring to their life, because now they can focus less on what they are not getting.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Prescriptive hierarchy describes the practice of explicitly naming a particular relationship as primary as prescribes all future relationships subordinate to it. In this context, the primary status usually means that each member of a couple has the right to put certain restrictions or limits on how strong, deep, intense, or committed their partner's other relationships can become.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Sometimes a request to pump the brakes comes from a legitimate need to give our nervous systems a chance to recalibrate and integrate all the new changes. And sometimes the ask to slow down is a strategy to postpone exposure to the discomfort of seeing our partner with other people.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“A game-changing relationship is a unique situation that may open our eyes to previously unimagined depth, intimacy and connection on an intellectual, emotional, sexual and potentially even spiritual level.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Having to watch a partner morph into someone different under the influence of a new relationship can create strong feelings of resentment, frustration and confusion, and can even provoke the sensation that we are no longer desirable or important.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“As one partner inspires you to be a better version of yourself, this new and improved self has the potential to positively influence every aspect of your life.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Exposure to the concepts and ideas embedded in these areas of interest can awaken completely new passions, desires, questions, and trajectories of personal explorations that radically change the way you fundamentally see yourself and your relationships.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“I often pose the question to partners: "Would you still choose your partner if you were just now meeting them for the first time?" and it's fascinating to hear their answers. As we come to terms with the recognition of our core differences, our perspectives and our felt sense of the relationship can change dramatically.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“If you are a think-act-feel type, you will first ponder the implications of your potential decisions and then act accordingly, without a clear sense of how you actually feel.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“When it comes to agreements, specificity is worth its weight in gold, along with writing down agreements; clarifying what vague terms like fun, safe, play, sex, kink or later mean; and holding an attitude of open curiosity and collaboration.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Typically, this kind of miscommunication is not intentional or even conscious, since we naturally hear what we want to hear or distort what we hear to fit our personal hopes or expectations.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“However, to keep a relationship healthy and growing, we need to be courageous enough to rock the boat, bring up difficult conversations when necessary, and try to figure out how to bridge some of our differences, accept them or talk about options for moving forward in new directions.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Another facet of grief that we can experience in our CNM relationships is not so much about the sorrow or loss of what was, but rather the sadness and grief of what will never be.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“We can make our partners into the source of our hope, love, strength, ability to feel or regulate our own emotions, as well as the source of our meaning and purpose in life.

Our partners can be the inspiration for these things, as well as the objects or focus of our love, but they should not be the source of it. You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“On the other hand, not being able to immediately enter this phase (symbiosis) with a new partner can provoke feelings of resentment towards longer-standing partners or metamours because it feels like you are being thwarted from something pleasurable and enticing, leaving you constantly yearning for more of what you're not getting with a particular partner.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“I think that CNM requires more individual differentiation, which can support new CNM partners in being more healthfully differentiated from the start, even allowing them to more skillfully circumnavigate the gravity of codependency.

In this sense, you are much less inclined to bring the expectation that you will be each other's everything to a new relationship, and instead will answer the question, "What can we be to each other given our current life circumstances, our unique connection and our preexisting relationships?”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“New CNM partners usually cannot create a romantic life together from scratch, but have to adapt to, work around and hopefully influence the preexisting relationship structures that are already in place for each person.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Even though she lived with them and felt integrated into their lives, she couldn't really ask for the things she needed or wanted. When I questioned her about this, she said that every time she spoke up about imbalances in their relationships, it would "cause ripples" in the original dyad, and she was scapegoated as the source of the problems.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Part of the work is to make sure we are intentionally shifting the gravitational center of our personal identity away from simply being one half of a couple to being an independent individual and interdependent partner, operating within the context of open relationships.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“People change, as do their needs and wants, and we have to be tuned in enough to recognize those changes as they arise.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Rarely do I see relationships neglect as something that a partner is intentionally doing. More often, it is the unintentional ways that partners fall into the trap of getting too comfortable, undervaluing each other, forgetting to show appreciation, becoming romantically apathetic, no longer trying, ignoring each other, making assumptions, projecting discontent, struggling with stress management, and even starting to get bored with each other that can be the issue.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“If you already know that you don't want to make these changes, but you don't want to lose your partner, I really understand this dilemma. You've tried and tried to make it work, but it just keeps getting worse. In the heat of the moment judgements are hurled, ultimatums are made, insults are exchanged, trust and safety are eroded... it's a painful mess. In extreme cases such as these, it probably means you need to face the fact you and your partner are not compatible anymore.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“For nonmonogamy to work, it's important to allow your relationships to grow and change in the ways necessary to adapt to a new paradigm of relationship, sex and love, and this may include significant growing pains along the way.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Unfortunately, transitioning to nonmonogamy is not just an add-on to the original relationship, where everything gets to stay just as it is, but with the perk of more partners. Instead, it is a complete overhaul of the relational foundation upon which your current relationship stands.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships

“Finally, you could accept the invitation to give your partner's suggestion a try and embark on the road of discovery together, deciding to embrace the uncertainty implied in this decision. The risk could bring you closer, or it could drive you apart.”
― Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships