Before I learned devotion, I mastered distraction.

I thought I was expanding my consciousness. In truth, I was running.

The Setup

There’s no denying this is a hot topic right now. The conversation around polyamory has resurfaced with new intensity, largely sparked by a recent podcast that’s been circulating widely. I’ve seen the posts, the shares, the reactions. And while I’m not here to critique the person or the production, I do feel called to offer something I haven’t seen much of: another perspective.

This is not a judgment of anyone else’s path. It’s a personal account. A story from someone who walked the path of open relating for years, lived its highs and lows, and came out the other side with a different kind of clarity. If you’re watching the conversation unfold and wondering what it all really means, here’s my lived experience.

Where It All Began

Before that week at Burning Man, my marriage felt more like I had a roommate. Romance had faded. Although we’d been married for four years, we were drifting. Was it really love or had I unknowingly signed up to be her safety net? When I arrived on the playa, I went from bored to excited, surrounded by what felt like freedom, authenticity, and open-hearted connection.

At first glance, polyamory seemed like an evolved way to love. Fluid, non-possessive, liberated. My unspoken assumption had always been that you were either in a monogamous relationship or there was no relationship at all. The idea of multiple partners, where everyone got along and honored each other’s emotions, was completely foreign to me. But in that week, it felt like everyone did get along. There was an intoxicating sense of novelty, energy, and experimentation.

I had been invited into a sex-positive camp where I knew only one person. What looked like a couple turned out to be a throuple. A cuddle puddle turned into a play party. Maybe an orgy? My head was spinning.

Some women wore nothing but panties and dust. I was aroused. I was curious. And I was there with my wife (now my ex), a business partner, and his wife. Over the next several days, the camp hosted workshops on love and relationships. Masculine and feminine polarity. Topics I had only known at a surface level. I was enamored. I was learning how to relate to “the feminine,” aka women. The week was filled with workshops, psychedelics, sexy dance parties, and unbridled hedonism.

I felt like a kid in a candy store. My wife at the time? She felt unsafe.

And that’s the dynamic most couples unconsciously enter into. I was in a relationship that relied on me to create safety for her. It was an unspoken expectation. While I didn’t violate our monogamous commitment that week, my energy was already shifting. My eyes were wandering. I was opening to a new possibility.

Entering the Poly World

Not long after, we moved to Encinitas, California, a hotspot for polyamorous spiritual seekers. I found myself surrounded by people who used beautiful, seductive language to justify their lifestyles. Being in multiple relationships was considered a path of spiritual awakening. I didn’t jump into partner-swapping orgies, but there was an unspoken permission field that encouraged exploration.

And I have to say: I gained some powerful tools.

Polyamory taught me how to communicate. Not just talk, but really communicate. The community practices a high level of transparency. Conversations that would make most couples squirm were held regularly and openly. Being in the practice of expressing, listening, and coordinating emotionally charged topics among multiple people leveled me up. I became more attuned, more present, more capable of sitting with discomfort and staying open.

I also got to explore my desires. I grew up in a conservative home where desire was taboo, especially sexual desire. There were parts of me I had never allowed to surface. Being in the polyamory world gave me permission to be honest, to be seen, to be curious. It was liberating. For a while.

The Pendulum Swings

But that pendulum swings.

Years of suppression turned into explosive expression, without consideration. I bulldozed feelings in the name of freedom. I mistook raw honesty for clarity. And it wasn’t until much later that I learned how to express desire with compassion. How to honor where others are emotionally while still being true to myself.

Polyamory helped me reclaim parts of me I had buried. And for that, I’m grateful. But it also became the mask I wore to avoid intimacy, still afraid of being fully seen by one person.

Eventually, we opened our relationship. And I treated it like a growth edge. I told myself that every trigger was an invitation to evolve. Every uncomfortable conversation was a chance to improve communication. I genuinely believed an open relationship was a valuable tool for growth. It can indeed facilitate growth, but it’s not the only path, and not every change it brings is desirable. It was easy to believe, everyone around me echoed the same message. At the same time, I was also participating in plant medicine experiences, including ayahuasca ceremonies. While these journeys were profound and beautiful, looking back, they didn’t necessarily reveal the underlying insecurities in my subconscious that were truly running the show.

The Cracks Appear

But over time, the cracks began to show. Beneath the surface-level consciousness and love, there was drama. A lot of it. The kind that distracts from building a stable home, from raising healthy children, from having a meaningful impact in the world. And the truth began to surface: I had been fundamentally dissatisfied in my marriage for a long time. I had just found a spiritualized way to hide.

I remember the day it all came apart. I was in a session with my coach. We were talking about relationships, and he hit me with a simple question:

“Out of 7 billion people on the planet, not one person is able to satisfy you in partnership?”

I answered “no” automatically. But something shifted. My body went limp. I felt exhausted. The rest of the day was a haze. I broke down and cried, and I didn’t even know why. Something inside me was unraveling. Energy that had been frozen for years started moving. The next morning, I woke up with complete clarity.

I had been hiding.

The open relationship had become a revolving door of distraction. A steady drip of new love hits. Dopamine, novelty, validation. I was high on it. I’d show up to parties with a woman on each arm, and it felt like I had cracked some kind of code. People admired me. I admired me. But I was still unfulfilled.

Once the clarity landed, I could see it for what it was. I wasn’t expanding. I was escaping. The coolness, the confidence, the spiritual eloquence, it was all armor.

Into the Desert

After my marriage ended, I tried dating. A few casual relationships, short-lived flings. But something inside had shifted. After several months, I knew I needed to take a break. I committed to 100 days of celibacy. That turned into seven months, thanks in part to the pandemic.

Dating apps were a wasteland. Nobody wanted to meet up. I was alone. And at first, it was miserable. I remember spiraling, convinced I’d never get laid again. That I’d die alone. Depression set in. But then something deeper emerged.

I started to enjoy the solitude.

I learned how to be with myself. To face the parts of me I had always tried to outsource to others. The part of me that needed to be seen as desirable. The part that needed the right woman on my arm to feel validated. That part began to dissolve.

And I found peace.

For the first time, I didn’t need a relationship to feel whole. I didn’t need the performance of being a “man in demand” to feel valuable. I stopped chasing and started listening.

Devotion Arrives

That’s when she appeared.

She slid into my DMs. Clear, self-assured, grounded. She knew what she wanted, and more importantly, what she wouldn’t tolerate. An open relationship was off the table. From the start, I knew she wouldn’t settle. She wasn’t impressed by my stories or seduced by my old spiritual language. She saw right through it.

And I chose her.

Over the next several months, I chose monogamy. Not as a limitation, but as a devotion. I stopped scattering my energy. I stopped needing the eyes of the room. I stopped seeking identity in the reflection of desire.

I grew up.

This relationship is rooted in truth. It’s built on presence, not performance. Intimacy, not image. It’s not about being seen. It’s about being. It’s not about collecting lovers. It’s about becoming love itself. I now know what sacred devotion feels like, not as a concept, but as a lived experience.

I am the master of my energy. And with that comes peace. Because here’s what I’ve learned: it was never about the women.

It was about the parts of myself I refused to love. I thought fitness would fix it, so I became an athlete. I thought fame and money would fix it, so I became a YouTuber. I thought women would fix it, so I chased them. One after another, sometimes two or three at a time.

And for a while, it worked. I felt important. Powerful. Free. But deep down, I was still just a man afraid to be alone.

Polyamory gave me clever language. It gave me the illusion of expansion while keeping me far from the truth. I used big words and spiritual ideas to justify what was ultimately just another way to avoid myself.

And I was damn good at it. I’m a wordsmith. I can spin stories that make almost anything sound conscious. I persuaded myself. I persuaded others.

One of the greatest lies I ever told myself was this:

That polyamory was growth.

But it was just conscious cosplay for commitment issues.

Today, my roots are deep. My energy is clear. My love is sacred.

And the sovereignty I once searched for in others, I’ve finally found in myself.

A Clarifying Note

I have nothing against polyamory or any version of open relationships. I have many friends who fit into different categories of open relating, and for some, it works really well. Any critique I offer is specifically about the lens through which polyamory or open relating is sold as a consciousness-expanding tool.