ENM Glossary: Every Term You Need to Know
A comprehensive dictionary of ethical non-monogamy and polyamory terms, from anchor partner to veto power, organized by category for easy reference.
Entering the world of ethical non-monogamy can feel like learning a new language. Terms like "metamour," "NRE," and "polycule" get thrown around, and if you're new to ENM, it can be confusing to follow conversations.
This glossary covers the essential terminology you'll encounter in ENM communities, organized by category to help you find what you need.
Relationship Structures
These terms describe the overall structure or approach to non-monogamous relationships.
Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM)
An umbrella term for relationship structures that involve multiple romantic or sexual connections with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Also sometimes called "consensual non-monogamy" (CNM).
Polyamory
The practice of having multiple romantic relationships simultaneously, with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Polyamory emphasizes emotional connection and love, not just sexual relationships. From Greek "poly" (many) and Latin "amor" (love).
Open Relationship
A relationship where partners agree that one or both may have sexual or romantic relationships with others. Often used to describe arrangements where there's a primary couple who date others.
Open Marriage
An open relationship within a marriage. The married partners agree to sexual or romantic relationships outside the marriage.
Swinging
A form of ENM typically focused on recreational sex with others, often as a couple. Swingers frequently engage with other couples or singles in social settings designed for this purpose.
Relationship Anarchy
A philosophy that rejects hierarchies and traditional relationship categories. Relationship anarchists don't place romantic relationships above friendships or follow prescribed relationship structures. Each relationship is defined by the people in it.
Monogamish
A term coined by Dan Savage describing couples who are mostly monogamous but have some flexibility for outside connections—often with specific rules or circumstances.
Solo Polyamory
A polyamorous approach where someone doesn't seek or prioritize a primary partnership. Solo poly people often maintain independence (separate living spaces, finances, life decisions) while having multiple relationships.
Polyfidelity
A closed polyamorous relationship where members are romantically and sexually exclusive with each other. New members are only added with everyone's agreement.
Relationship Terms
These describe specific relationships or roles within ENM structures.
Partner
A person you're in a romantic or sexual relationship with. In ENM, you may have multiple partners.
Primary Partner
In hierarchical polyamory, the partner who takes priority in terms of time, resources, and life decisions. Often (but not always) a spouse or live-in partner. Some people find this term problematic for implying other relationships are less important.
Secondary Partner
In hierarchical polyamory, a partner who receives less time, priority, or life entanglement than a primary partner. Some find this term devaluing.
Nesting Partner
A partner you live with. This term describes the living situation without implying hierarchy. You might have a nesting partner who isn't your primary partner, or a primary partner you don't live with.
Anchor Partner
A partner who provides stability, support, and grounding in your life. Similar to "primary" but emphasizes the quality of the connection rather than hierarchy over other relationships.
Comet Partner
A partner you connect with infrequently—maybe someone who lives far away and you see only a few times a year—but the relationship picks up easily when you're together, like a comet that periodically returns.
Metamour (Meta)
Your partner's other partner. Your metamour is someone connected to you through a shared partner, but you don't have a direct romantic or sexual relationship with them.
Paramour
A lover, particularly one in an extramarital relationship. Less commonly used in ENM than in monogamous contexts.
Telemour
Your metamour's other partner (who isn't also your partner). Essentially, you're connected through two degrees of separation.
Hinge
The person in a "V" structure who is dating two people who aren't dating each other. The hinge connects the two ends of the V.
Polycule
The network of people connected through romantic relationships. If A dates B, B dates C, and C dates D, all four are part of the same polycule even if A and D never interact.
Relationship Configurations
These terms describe specific relationship shapes and arrangements.
Dyad
A relationship between two people.
Triad
A relationship involving three people who are all romantically or sexually involved with each other. Also called a "throuple."
Quad
A relationship involving four people with various connections between them. Might be two couples who are all involved with each other, or other configurations.
Vee (V)
A configuration where one person (the hinge) is in relationships with two people who are not in a relationship with each other. Named after the letter V.
N, W, and Other Letter Configurations
More complex relationship structures named after the letters they resemble when diagrammed. An N might be a V where one of the non-hinge partners also has another partner.
Constellation
Another term for polycule—the network of interconnected relationships.
Kitchen Table Polyamory
A style where everyone in the polycule is comfortable hanging out together—they could all sit around a kitchen table. Emphasizes friendly or familial relationships among metamours.
Parallel Polyamory
A style where relationships are kept more separate. Partners may not interact much or at all with their metamours. Not secretive, but compartmentalized.
Garden Party Polyamory
A middle ground between kitchen table and parallel—comfortable sharing space at social events without being close friends.
Dating and Connection Terms
New Relationship Energy (NRE)
The excitement, infatuation, and intensity that characterizes new romantic connections. Can involve feeling obsessive, having difficulty focusing on other things, and idealization of the new partner. Usually fades over time into more stable attachment.
Old Relationship Energy (ORE) / Established Relationship Energy
The comfortable, secure feelings of an established relationship. Less intense than NRE but often deeper. Sometimes used to describe what you're working to protect while navigating NRE with someone else.
Limerence
An involuntary state of intense romantic infatuation with another person. Similar to NRE but specifically refers to the obsessive, sometimes distressing quality of early attraction.
Fluid Bonding
Choosing to have sex without barriers (condoms, dental dams) with a particular partner. Often done after testing and discussion, and may affect agreements with other partners.
Safer Sex
Practices that reduce (but don't eliminate) the risk of STI transmission. Using barriers, getting regular testing, limiting certain activities, etc.
Unicorn
In ENM contexts, typically refers to a bisexual woman willing to date both members of a heterosexual couple equally without having independent relationships with either. Called a "unicorn" because they're considered rare and often sought after.
Unicorn Hunting
When a couple (usually heterosexual) actively searches for a unicorn, often with problematic approaches like treating the third person as an addition to their relationship rather than a full partner. Often involves unrealistic expectations and couple privilege.
Couple Privilege
Advantages that established couples have over newer or non-primary partners. Includes things like automatic inclusion in events, legal protections, social recognition, and decision-making power.
Dating Market
The pool of potential partners available. In ENM, this might be affected by relationship status, what you're looking for, and how openly non-monogamous the dating environment is.
Emotional Terms
Compersion
Feeling happiness or joy when your partner experiences happiness with another partner. Sometimes called "the opposite of jealousy" (though both can coexist). From the term coined in the Kerista community.
Jealousy
The fear or anxiety about losing something you value—typically your partner's attention, love, or the relationship itself—to someone else. A normal emotion that can be worked with.
Envy
Wanting something someone else has. Different from jealousy in that envy is about desire for something, while jealousy is about fear of losing something.
Frubble
British slang for compersion. Sometimes used as the verb form ("I'm frubbling").
Metamour Issues
Difficulties arising from your relationship with metamours or how their relationship with your shared partner affects you.
Insecurity
Uncertainty or anxiety about yourself or your relationship. Can be triggered by ENM situations but often reflects deeper patterns.
Communication Terms
RADAR
A framework for regular relationship check-ins: Review, Agree, Discuss, Air, Reconnect. Designed to help partners maintain communication about their relationship and any adjustments needed.
Boundaries
Limits you set for yourself about what you will or won't accept in your life. Different from rules (which govern others' behavior).
Rules
Restrictions placed on partners' behavior. Often created to manage insecurity but can be problematic if too controlling.
Agreements
Mutually decided-upon understandings about how the relationship will work. More collaborative than rules.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT)
An arrangement where partners agree not to share details about outside relationships. Can work for some people but often criticized for preventing communication and creating secrecy.
Disclosure
Sharing information about your ENM status, other partners, or relationship structure with relevant people. Can refer to telling new dates, telling existing partners about new connections, or coming out more broadly.
Coming Out
Revealing your ENM relationship style to others—friends, family, coworkers. Can carry similar risks and considerations as LGBTQ+ coming out.
The Elevator Speech
A brief explanation of your relationship style that you can give to curious people without getting into excessive detail.
Scheduling and Logistics
Google Calendar Polyamory
The joke that successful polyamory requires serious calendar management. Reflects the reality that multiple relationships require coordination.
Date Night
Scheduled time for one-on-one connection with a partner, often necessary when balancing multiple relationships.
Logistics Brain
The mental load of managing schedules, plans, and coordination across multiple relationships.
Parallel Scheduling
When a hinge's partners' schedules don't overlap—they never have to juggle being wanted in two places at once.
Scheduling Conflicts
When multiple partners want time on the same day, or when relationship needs exceed available time.
Problematic Patterns and Red Flags
Cowboy/Cowgirl
Someone who enters a polyamorous relationship with the goal of "roping off" a partner from their other relationships and converting them to monogamy.
Couple Privilege
See definition above. When this goes unexamined, it can lead to mistreatment of non-primary partners.
One Penis Policy (OPP) / One Vagina Policy
Rules restricting a partner to additional relationships with only one gender—usually allowing a woman in a heterosexual couple to date women but not men. Often reflects insecurity, sexism, and double standards.
Veto Power
When one partner has the ability to end another partner's outside relationships. Controversial—seen by some as necessary protection and by others as inherently disrespectful to the vetoed person.
Prescriptive Hierarchy
Hierarchical rules that exist regardless of how relationships develop—for example, always prioritizing a primary even if another relationship becomes equally significant. Contrasted with "descriptive hierarchy" which simply describes how things currently are.
Relationship Broken, Add More People (RBAMP)
Using polyamory to fix problems in an existing relationship. Almost never works and usually creates more problems.
Polyamory as Solution to Cheating
When someone who cheated suggests polyamory as a way to legitimize their behavior. Often a sign that the real issues (dishonesty, boundary violations) aren't being addressed.
Unicorn Hunting
See definition above. Becomes especially problematic when couples treat thirds as disposable, expect them to have equal feelings for both partners, or impose couple-centric rules.
Stashing
Keeping a partner hidden from your other relationships, family, or social circle. Different from appropriate privacy—stashing involves actively concealing a relationship that the hidden person thought was more integrated.
Other Useful Terms
Poly-Saturated
Having as many relationships as you can handle. Not looking for new partners because you don't have capacity.
Polysecure
A term from Jessica Fern's book of the same name, referring to having secure attachment within polyamorous relationships.
Compersion Culture
A community or relationship style that emphasizes and celebrates compersion, sometimes to the extent of shaming people who experience jealousy.
Hierarchical Polyamory
A polyamorous structure with explicit ranking of partners (primary, secondary, etc.). Some people practice hierarchy ethically; others critique it as inherently problematic.
Non-Hierarchical Polyamory
Polyamory without ranking partners. Each relationship is allowed to develop according to what the people in it want, without predetermined limits based on other relationships.
Egalitarian Polyamory
An approach aiming to treat all relationships as equally important and valid. Similar to non-hierarchical.
Relationship Escalator
The societal assumption that relationships should follow a specific progression: dating to exclusive to moving in to marriage to children. ENM often involves stepping off this escalator.
Woke Monogamy
Monogamy that's been examined and chosen consciously rather than assumed by default. Someone who knows about ENM, understands it's valid, and chooses monogamy for themselves.
Monogamish
See definition above—mostly monogamous with some flexibility.
Poly-Friendly
Therapists, doctors, or other professionals who are educated about and supportive of polyamorous relationships.
Chosen Family
People you consider family based on love and commitment rather than biology or law. Common in ENM communities where legal and social recognition of multiple partners is limited.
Acronyms Quick Reference
| Acronym | Meaning | |---------|---------| | ENM | Ethical Non-Monogamy | | CNM | Consensual Non-Monogamy | | NRE | New Relationship Energy | | ORE | Old Relationship Energy | | KTP | Kitchen Table Polyamory | | DADT | Don't Ask, Don't Tell | | OPP | One Penis Policy | | RBAMP | Relationship Broken, Add More People | | RA | Relationship Anarchy |
Using This Vocabulary
A few notes on how to use these terms:
Language evolves. The ENM community continually develops new terms and reconsiders old ones. Something acceptable today might be seen differently in a few years.
Not everyone uses the same terms. Different communities and individuals prefer different vocabulary. When in doubt, ask what terms someone prefers.
Context matters. Some terms (like "secondary") are fine in some relationships and offensive in others. Follow the lead of the people in the relationships being described.
You don't need to use all of these. Some people embrace the full vocabulary; others prefer plain language. Use what's useful for communicating clearly.
Definitions aren't universal. This glossary reflects common usage, but you'll encounter variations. If you're uncertain what someone means, ask them to explain.
Understanding this vocabulary helps you navigate ENM communities and communicate more precisely about your relationships and needs. But ultimately, what matters most is the actual communication—the words are just tools to help that happen.