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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I’m really excited to introduce you to this week’s fantastic guest blogger. Molly Quell is a writer who is in an open relationship, and when telling people her relationship status she’s often confronted with some fairly inaccurate assumptions. She’s here to debunk some, and explain what her love life really looks like…

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A while ago I asked people to teach me how to feel compersion. I wanted to get my head around the idea of my partner being with other people, and build on the happy/horny feelings that sometimes sparked, without triggering a whole world of jealousy and insecurity. So massive thanks to this week’s guest blogger, the fabulous non-monogamous Amy of CoffeeAndKink (@CoffeeAndKink), for submitting such a gorgeous, personal explanation of what it’s like for her, and how to cultivate compersion in relationships.

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