You used to date multiple people. Maybe you were in a polycule, a triad or some other kind of ongoing nonmonogamous structure. Maybe you were more of a solo poly type, with an ever-evolving constellation of partners of various sorts. Maybe it was an open relationship with one partner and fun side quests with others on the occasional weekend.

But somewhere along the line, you stopped. Not because you decided it was wrong or bad to be nonmonogamous. But because nonmonogamy stopped working for you the way it once did.
 

Friends, that’s what happened to me. It was a strange experience: I’d learned so much when becoming nonmonogamous, from communication skills to a sort of “both/and” philosophy of life, always looking for creative ways to get everyone’s needs met. I’d developed a huge community of friends, lovers, exes and more. I’d become intolerant of overdone rom-com plotlines where the hero(ine) had to choose between two lovers. 
 

But then a lot of life had happened: long-term chronic pain, eventually leading to two surgeries and cancer treatment, which in turn had long-term side effects—plus the breakup of a life partnership that left me questioning my judgment about partners. I found myself needing to take a step back. I certainly didn’t feel like I wanted to be monogamous, not exactly, it’s just that I didn’t want to do nonmonogamy anymore either. 
 

My thinking about nonmonogamy hadn’t changed. But my desire to actually be involved with multiple people had disappeared. So who was I now?
 

To think my way through that question, I wrote a book about it, called Post-Nonmonogamy and Beyond. When I would mention it to people in my circles, while I was writing, often their eyes would light up and they’d say, “Oh wow, I’m totally post-nonmonogamous!” I thought: maybe this is more widespread than I’d realized.
 

The current research confirms it, as it turns out. At any given moment, in both Canada and the United States, 4 to 5 percent of the population is doing some kind of nonmonogamy. Other research shows that more than 20 percent of the U.S. population has been nonmonogamous at some point in their lives (there are no stats for Canada). By putting these figures together, we can see that right now there are about four or five times as many former nonmonogamous people as there are current ones. 

And of course, the number of formers will only go up as time goes on, because nonmonogamy continues to become more popular, producing many more people who are having a current experience that may become a past one.
 

Maybe you’re part of these growing ranks of the post-nonmonogamous. Maybe you’re single, maybe you’re partnered with only one person. Maybe you’re deeply involved with what author Rhaina Cohen calls “other significant others”—people who don’t fit the traditional definition of a life partner but with whom you’re sharing elements of partnership (the way I do with my two Best Exes, with whom I spent many years in a triad in the mid-aughts and 2010s). Maybe you never want to be nonmonogamous again. Maybe you can imagine one day re-engaging with nonmonogamy, but for whatever reason that day is not today.
 

How did you get there? For some people, it just kinda happens; one or more of your relationships end over time, and you wind up single, or in partnership with just one person, and you choose not to seek out more partners. One of my Best Exes calls this “monogamy by attrition.” 
 

In my book, I posit three other main pathways, based on my own experiences and those of other people in my communities (plus a lot of reading). For some people, a low libido or a downshift in libido reduces their desire to seek out partnership. Not because all partnerships have to be sexual (hi, aces!), but because, statistically speaking, an awful lot of them start that way, so if sexual desire isn’t much of a motivator, a lot of people may lose the urge to date. 
 

For others, stress or trauma, in the broadest sense, saps the time and energy they might have spent seeking out multiple partners. It could be a sudden tragedy, a pileup of everyday responsibilities under late-stage capitalism, an illness, burnout or a need to take time to heal from childhood wounds. 

Still others may have developed a sense of contentment in solitude that dampens their enthusiasm for dating. Why bother getting on the apps when you can stay home and have a blissful night with a good book and a mug of tea (and maybe your favourite sex toy)? 
 

Regardless of your pathway, or combination of pathways, you’re not alone if you’ve entered the world of post-nonmonogamy. Welcome!

Now what? Well, that’s up to you. 
 

Some people experience nonmonogamy as an orientation—a thing that remains true about them regardless of what their relationship status is at a given time. Others experience nonmonogamy as more of a practice, something they can do without making it part of their identity. When we’re talking about post-nonmonogamy, I don’t think it matters terribly which category you fall into. I think the labels are less important than the mindset shift that often comes when people engage in nonmonogamy for a meaningful amount of time, with some emotional depth. 
 

When you’re taking part in a relationship style that doesn’t fit the norm, it’s hard to avoid experiencing some kind of change in perspective. And once that shift has happened—regardless of what the particulars are for you—I don’t think your mind ever really goes back to the form it had before. You carry the insights, skills and world views you picked up through nonmonogamy into your post-nonmonogamous life: the way you approach teamwork at your job, problem-solving in your family, leisure with your friends, resource-sharing with your community, perhaps your political convictions too. 
 

My book is an invitation to think through what that looks like for you. For me, it looks like a large, far-flung international network; a commitment to my chosen family and to the notion that all family is chosen; a refusal to adopt a scarcity model for love and care. 

Post-nonmonogamy is an attempt to acknowledge that ephemeral truth: that nonmonogamy changes us, even if we’re not doing it anymore.
 

For a deeper dive, pick up Andrea’s book Post-Nonmonogamy and Beyond (Thornapple Press, 2024).