I love Doctor Nerdlove. He’s a brilliant advice columnist whose responses often give me a new perspective on love and relationships. He is kind and patient, but willing to call someone on their bullshit when that is required. This response to a writer who is bitter about women was especially exceptional. I’m opening with a thorough arse-kissing because for the first time in ages I disagree with something he wrote. It’s a really old post, and normally I wouldn’t highlight those because who gives a fuck that I disagree with something that someone wrote ten years ago? I want to discuss it, though, because the emotional wail of anguish that sits at the heart of why I disagree has been on my mind a lot lately. I don’t want to do that without first telling you how much I love his work, though. Tl;dr – I’m using an old Doctor Nerdlove post as the springboard for a rant, but you should know I massively respect him and if he ever finds himself in London I will buy him a pint and a pasty by way of apology. Let’s talk about compromise in relationships, and why I never want anyone to ‘settle’ for me.

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I am monogamish. Monogamish like mostly monogamous. Monogamish like not polyamorous. Monogamish like ‘I’d love to have a boyfriend who loved and respected me enough that he was happy to share me around (and vice versa) while never making me feel like I’m second best.’ Monogamish: a manifesto. Let’s do this.

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I’m a firm believer in the power of writing to help you work through your feelings. I often find myself halfway through a post, suddenly realising that the emotions I have about this or that story have evolved or become clearer as I’m writing: we are our stories, and trying to capture the narratives that run through our lives is such a powerful (and valuable) thing to do. Today’s guest blogger is writing to capture a bundle of complex emotions about FOMO, relationships, and life in his 40s that are tricky to label and digest. Especially because, when you’re polyamorous, many of the scripts we have around different life stages don’t quite seem to fit. Thank you so much Northern Boy, and I hope your thoughts can help other people who might be struggling with similar things…

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I follow a number of sex educators, researchers and journalists who are sceptical about the idea of ‘sex addiction’ – where an activity is so wrapped in societal shame, it’s hard to separate out what might be a ‘problem’ for an individual with what constitutes simply a ‘problem’ for a conservative society. As a result, I’ve always been hugely wary of anyone trying to tell me (or people I know) that we might be sex ‘addicts’ as opposed to just ‘fans of fucking.’ But as yet I’ve never had anyone write about sex addiction for the guest blog, so I was delighted when Big Ed Magusson pitched me a post about exactly this. He’s here to share his own journey exploring addiction and libido. If you would like to read more, his collection of short stories – Addictive Desires – is available on Amazon and Gumroad. And do check out his website as well if you’d like to read more of his work.

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I’ve been honoured to host some fab guest blogs on ethical nonmonogamy over the years – like this guide on how to cultivate compersion or this lovely piece about the realities of open relationships. Often, though, it’s as intriguing to learn from other people’s mistakes as their successes. So just as I’ve tried to write guides on how to be bad in bed before, this week’s guest blogger, Alex, is here to tell you how not to do polyamory. Or in his own words…

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