Don't ask, don't tell

Don't ask, don't tell (DADT) describes an arrangement in which partners have agreed that outside sexual or romantic connections are permitted but they deliberately do not share information about those connections with each other. Both partners know in principle that the agreement is open; neither has details of what the other does within it.

DADT is structurally distinct from parallel polyamory. In parallel polyamory, partners know that other partners exist and may know who they are — they simply do not socialise. In DADT, the information channel itself is closed: partners may not know whether the other has any outside connections at present, who they are, or what is happening with them.

DADT is controversial within the wider ENM community. Critics argue it sacrifices the transparency that makes ethical non-monogamy ethical: a partner may say yes to the abstract structure but cannot give specific consent to specific dynamics, and a partner who is misled within a DADT frame has limited recourse because the structure itself was designed to make information unavailable. Supporters argue that for couples who have determined they function better with privacy than with disclosure, DADT can be a sustainable agreement honoured in good faith.

Where DADT tends to break: when one partner accidentally encounters information about the other's outside life and discovers it lands differently than they assumed; when an outside connection escalates in a way that affects the primary relationship and cannot be silently absorbed; or when the agreement was reached because one partner felt unable to ask for transparency, not because both genuinely preferred privacy.