This came up in conversation between me and some nonmono friends the other day, most of whom feel similar to me in this regard, so I got curious about what folks in this sub think.

I know cheating is technically a form of non-monogamy, but no one ever calls it that, right? We don't ever hear people say, "oh yeah, we were monogamous but he decided to be non-monogamous without telling me," instead of "we were monogamous and he cheated on me."

Unethical non-monogamy already has a word - cheating. The rise of ethical non-monogamy as a term rather than just non-monogamy without the disclaimer (in which the ethical soundness is implied) has always struck me as odd, partially because the disclaimer on the front end feels unnecessary. When people say they're non-monogamous, I assume they mean they're not sexually/romantically exclusive. I don't assume they mean they're a serial cheater.

At times the ethical label even feels sort of disingenuous, especially in posts where people identify as ENM and then go on to list all of the blatantly unethical things they're doing.

I recognize I may be in the minority here in this sub and that's fine. I'm not interested in policing the language of others or convincing people to stop using the term. I'd just be interested in hearing why people prefer the ethical disclaimer and if there's anyone else out there who finds it unnecessary, or finds that it's used more often in online spaces than in real life conversations.