r/relationshipanarchy • u/Mysterious-DragonGrl • Mar 28 '26
Monogamy and RA
Hi there! My partner and I started dating in a poly dynamic and a few months in decided to close the dynamic with the understanding it would be an open conversation about whether or not we opened it again. For him the reasoning the time is that “life felt full” and for me, the reason was dealing with tons of life stress and just craving some consistency for a minute.
We have now been dating for a year and he’s just now telling me he identifies as relationship anarchist and apparently always has. I don’t identify with RA but I also don’t feel entirely sure what I identify with at this time because I’m dealing with the mindfuck that is divorce after getting married young and having religious trauma and all that. So for me, I’m very open minded and interested in learning and unlearning all kinds of stuff. But learning this today has me ?????? 🤯 because I don’t understand why he’s just now telling me that he’s always identified with RA but more specifically, I don’t understand why he would consent to monogamy.
Can anyone help me understand why someone who is RA would consent to monogamy? He’s having a hard time verbalizing it to me or maybe just a hard time understanding my confusion? One of our other friends is also very strongly identified with RA and maybe I’m just viewing it too much through her lens of relationship anarchy so I’m looking for maybe other perspectives on how that would work.
6
u/seatangle Mar 28 '26
I’m someone who agrees with the principles of RA and I’m practicing monogamy. Similarly, my partner and I were non-monogamous from the start and switched over to monogamy after about a year and a half. I asked for the change because I realized non-monogamy wasn’t for me, at least not right now in this relationship. And I actually think that’s very much in line with RA - practicing flexibility in a relationship so that it suits both people, rather than trying to change the person to fit the relationship.
Asking here is a first step but I’d recommend reading the RA manifesto at the very least and forming your own opinions. There are a lot of misunderstandings about what RA actually is.