what are some common misconceptions you see about living a non-monogamous life that you wish people would stop believing in and spreading?

People who are poly don't want a serious relationship and are not committed to their partners.

Or they are covering past traumas from their past so they look for love in many different places to ease the feeling of rejection

There's always the very basic closed off view that we're selfish, greedy, and just want to cheat. It amazes me how many folks don't understand the level of communication poly relationships have to have.

Although I do know people that just want to F around and they tell people they are poly, and I'm like, "I'm not judging you, but you having a bunch of fwb situationships doesn't really make you poly"

Because how would they know? That’s the main issue with monogamy - people have established scripts so don’t talk to each other. Then those scripts invariably fail because they never worked very well when society doesn’t repress women’s rights. And all of a sudden they find themselves miserable with kids or divorcing.

Meanwhile alternative relationship styles have no scripts so they encourage communication, consent and personal autonomy. So we have to create our own scripts as there are none. And we need to talk to each other to do it.

By opening up an existing relationship it means that something is wrong/you don't love your partner enough (had this with my nesting partner's family 😢)