Open Dialogue: Mono/poly Marriage with Courtney Boyer

Thank you Chip Colquhoun, Christopher Mueller, DiAG, and many others for tuning into my live video with Courtney Boyer! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Open Dialogue is my recurring monthly Substack Live:

• Everyone can watch the live and engage with me, my guest(s), and each other in the live chat,

• Only paid Passport 2 Pleasure subscribers can access the full replay and leave questions and comments for us to respond to.

Monopoly Marriage (mono/poly love)

​This month’s Open Dialogue guest was Courtney Boyer, who talked with us about her monogamous/polyamorous marriage, what that actually looks like in practice, and the journey behind her new memoir, Opened. We’re looking forward to having a candid conversation about love, honesty, and rewriting the rules of modern relationships. We got lots of great questions from the audience throughout.

Courtney Boyer, M.Ed., M.S., is a therapist-turned relationship and sexuality expert, coach, author, and speaker whose work centers on love, desire, and authentic self-expression. Drawing on her background in mental health and human sexuality, as well as her lived experience, she helps others untangle societal expectations, reclaim their voices and bodies, and create relationships rooted in honesty and autonomy. She is the author of the memoir Opened, which explores her journey into a monogamous polyamorous marriage and a more liberated way of loving, and Not Tonight, Honey: Why Women Actually Don’t Want Sex and What We can Do About It.

Follow Courtney on:

Buy signed or ebook versions of Courtney’s books.

In this episode we explored topics like:

1. The origin story: How did you and your partner first discover that you had different relationship orientations — and what was that conversation like when it finally happened?

2. The hardest part nobody talks about: When people imagine a mono-poly dynamic from the outside, they often assume the polyamorous partner has it easier. In your experience, where does the real difficulty live for each person?

3. Jealousy and the mono partner: For the monogamous partner in a mixed orientation relationship, jealousy often gets framed as the central challenge. But is it? What does jealousy actually feel like in your relationship — and has it changed over time?

4. What the poly partner gives up: There’s an assumption that the polyamorous partner simply “gets what they want” in these arrangements. What does the poly partner actually sacrifice or navigate that rarely gets acknowledged?

5. The Nikki Glaser question: @Nikki Glaser went viral in April after describing her relationship as a non-reciprocal arrangement — she’s monogamous, her partner can hook up with others, and she says she “kinda likes it.” The internet called it everything from a red flag to relationship goals. What’s your take — and what does that reaction tell us about how little people understand about intentionally designed relationship structures?

6. Communication systems that actually work: Not “you have to communicate” — everyone says that. What are the specific conversations, check-ins, or agreements that have made the biggest difference in your marriage?

7. When it gets hard — the real version: What has been the moment where you genuinely questioned whether this structure was working? What did you do with that?

8. The identity piece: Does the monogamous partner ever feel pressure to “become” polyamorous over time? Does the poly partner ever feel pressure to “settle into” monogamy? How do you hold both identities without one gradually erasing the other?

9. What you’d tell someone who just discovered their partner has a different relationship orientation: Not the inspirational version — the honest version. What do they actually need to know?

10. What this relationship has taught you about love that a conventional relationship couldn’t have: The reframe — what has living in this dynamic revealed about intimacy, trust, and commitment that you couldn’t have learned any other way?

We want to hear from you:

1. If you found out tomorrow that you and your partner had fundamentally different relationship orientations — one monogamous, one not — what’s the first conversation you’d want to have? And honestly, do you think you could have it?

2. Courtney talked about what the poly partner actually gives up in a mono/poly dynamic — the parts that rarely get named. Did anything she said surprise you or land differently than you expected?

3. Jealousy came up in this conversation in a way that reframed it for a lot of people. Where does jealousy show up in your relationship right now — and what do you think it’s actually trying to tell you?

4. Nikki Glaser’s “hot husband” moment sparked a reaction across the internet that ranged from concerned to deeply relatable. What was your reaction — and what do you think that reaction reveals about how you think about desire, structure, and what’s “allowed” in a relationship?

5. Courtney and her partner have built something that works — and it required specific agreements, not just good intentions. What’s one agreement or conversation in your own relationship that changed everything? Or one you know you need to have but haven’t yet?

6. Feel free to share anything that landed from this conversation — a reframe, a question it opened up, or something you’re still sitting with.

The comments are a subscriber-only space; that’s part of what makes them one of those rare feel-good places in the digital world. This AI (Ally Iseman) is committed to conversations where we lift each other up. We’ve learned how to talk to each other about stuff that matters in respectful, curiosity-led ways, even if it’s uncomfortable. If you’d like to join the discussion, please take a moment to upgrade or subscribe now.

If you didn’t get to ask your question in the Live, or you thought of something else, please don’t hesitate to drop it in the comments. I read them all. And don’t be afraid to respectfully and curiously engage with each other in the comments as well. This is meant to be a conversation where we can all learn from each other!

Open Dialogue

This recurring hourlong Substack Live series is part interview, part conversation, part Ask Me Anything (AMA) and is the quickest, easiest way to get your sex, love, and modern relationship questions answered by me, live on your screen*, without applying for private coaching.

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⚫️ The last Sunday of every month at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.

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About me:

» I work with successful and highly-impactful couples and individuals who want to turn burnout into burning desire in their love, sex, dating, and relationships.

• award-winning screenwriter working on my first book,

• ICF Certified Relationship Coach and NCSF-registered KAP (Kink Aware Professional) specializing in Modern Relationship Design,

• founder of the global platform Passport2Pleasure.com,

• non-executive director on numerous advisory boards for various sexual+relational wellness brands like ProDX Health STI test kits + NOMAD Lifestyle Travel Groups,

• sought after podcast guest on the topics of love, sex, modern relationships, play parties, and consent and communication,

• featured expert for platforms and publications like LADbible, The New York Times, HuffPost, Cosmo, Well+Good, Grazia, POPSUGAR, AskMen, +more,

• contributing writer and educator for the leading industry publication Sexual Health Magazine and brands like pjur, Arya, and afterglow.

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—Ally💗