Scenarios

What would you do if…

The workbook’s questions can feel abstract until you imagine them happening to you. Each scenario below is a small situation tied to specific workbook questions. Read, imagine, then jump straight to the question and answer while the situation is still vivid.

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Starters

Low-stakes situations to limber up your thinking.

Sketching the future, alone

It's a quiet evening. You're trying to imagine what your relationship landscape might look like in five years — who's around, what your weeks feel like, what's load-bearing and what's optional. There's no one to consult. It's just you and the question.

Why it mattersDesigning a future relationship before there's a partner to react to is a clarifying exercise. The answer you reach alone is yours to bring; the answer you reach with someone else is shaped by their reactions to yours. Both are useful — they're not the same thing.

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Mapping your triggers before you need to

It's a Sunday afternoon. You're trying to figure out what would specifically set you off if you opened up — which axes you already know are tender, which you're guessing about. You're doing this on a quiet day, on purpose.

Why it mattersNaming a trigger when nothing is at stake is dramatically easier than naming it mid-activation. The list you make today is the list you can hand to a future partner — or use to spot the wave in yourself before it crashes.

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Meeting your partner's new partner

Three months in, your partner asks if you'd like to meet the person they've been seeing. They suggest dinner at their place. You realize you don't actually know how you feel about it.

Why it mattersMost people assume they're a kitchen-table type or a parallel type, but the truth tends to be venue-specific. Sketch your default first, then notice what would change it.

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A new partner tags you in a public photo

Your newest partner posts a clearly affectionate photo of the two of you and tags you. Your colleagues, your in-laws, and a few friends from a more conservative circle will see it.

Why it mattersVisibility decisions don't just affect you — they affect every partner you have, and they're hard to take back. Better to settle a default and a renegotiation path than to relitigate after each post.

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Your partner asks to spend the night out

Your live-in partner asks if it would be okay to spend the night at a date's apartment this Saturday. You weren't expecting the question. You realize you'd never agreed on whether overnights were on the table.

Why it mattersSleeping over is a small action with a big symbolic weight: it changes mornings, beds, and routines. Decide whether it's something you each want, refuse, or want only conditionally.

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Intermediate

More moving parts; useful before you fill out the workbook.

You catch yourself making a rule

You hear yourself say something like 'we don't kiss other people on the mouth' or 'no sex on the first date.' It came out fast. Now try to look at what you actually meant — was it about your body, your safety, your pacing, your fear?

Why it mattersRules feel safe because they sound concrete. Most rules, when looked at honestly, are either a self-boundary in disguise or a request for an agreement. Translation is a skill — you get better at it.

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A new partner asks when you were last tested

Things are about to escalate with someone new. They ask when you were last tested, and what you tested for. You have to give a real answer.

Why it mattersSexual-health agreements are easier to make when nothing is at stake. Decide your testing cadence and what counts as 'safe' on a quiet Tuesday, not in the moment.

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A partner wants to move in. You don't want anyone to.

You've been seeing someone for eight months, and it's good. They've started bringing up cohabitation. You've never wanted to live with a partner — being solo poly is part of how you actually thrive, not a phase to grow out of.

Why it mattersBeing solo poly isn't a default monogamy is escaping from — it's a structure with its own values. The harder conversation is naming what you want clearly enough that a partner can hear 'this is mine' without 'this is rejection.'

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NRE just hit and you can feel it

You met someone three weeks ago and you're vibrating. Sleep is weird, your existing rituals feel less interesting, and you keep noticing yourself wanting to change things — your apartment, your weekly cadence, your travel calendar. Some of those are real wants. Some are NRE.

Why it mattersNRE is not fake. It's also not a state to make permanent decisions in. Knowing what you'd want to protect — and what you'd want not to decide — gives you a chance at riding the wave instead of being carried.

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Hard cases

The kind of situation people wish they'd talked about earlier.

Your partner is dating someone you don't trust

Your anchor partner has started seeing someone you've met twice. Both times something was off — comments that punched down, a quiet contempt for your partner's job. Your partner doesn't see it. You can't put your finger on a single thing that crosses a line.

Why it mattersThis is the hardest case for any agreement about veto, because it hinges on a feeling, not a rule. If you don't have a veto, you need a different way to be heard. If you do have one, you need to decide whether unease is enough to use it.

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An ultimatum, gently delivered

Your partner has been talking about wanting children. You're not sure. They tell you, gently but plainly, that if you can't say yes within a year, they need to be free to find someone who will.

Why it mattersAn ultimatum isn't always a threat — sometimes it's an honest deadline. Whether you treat it as information or as coercion changes how you handle every fork in the road.

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You're tired of being the messenger

There's friction between two of your partners. You've been relaying — softening this, summarizing that, deciding what to pass along. It's exhausting, and you're starting to notice that both relationships are running on your filtering instead of on direct contact between them.

Why it mattersHinge-as-messenger is a known failure mode. Naming when you're carrying too much — and what direct contact (or no contact) would look like instead — is part of the work the role asks for.

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