Relationship Anarchy Test

Society hands us a very specific script for love: date, move in, get married, and put that one romantic partner above everyone else. But a growing movement is quietly dismantling this hierarchy. Relationship anarchy asks what happens when you stop treating love as a scarce resource and stop ranking romantic partners above your closest friends. It strips away the default expectations of coupledom, challenging the idea that commitment requires a label. The result is a radical reimagining of intimacy where every connection is custom-built from the ground up.

This 25-item test measures your alignment with relationship anarchy across five psychological dimensions, from your comfort with traditional norms to how you process jealousy. It maps your underlying orientation toward autonomy, hierarchy, and labels to reveal whether you prefer the safety of the standard relationship escalator or the freedom of a completely unscripted social life.

The term "relationship anarchy" wasn't born in a psychology lab, but in a 2006 Swedish pamphlet by activist Andie Nordgren. Nordgren's manifesto challenged the assumption that romantic love is a scarce resource that must be restricted to a single, prioritized couple. While mainstream culture often mischaracterizes relationship anarchy as simply an excuse to avoid commitment or a synonym for "non-hierarchical polyamory," it is actually a distinct political and relational philosophy that rejects the structural hierarchy of traditional family norms. Empirical psychology is only just beginning to map this territory, moving from qualitative explorations like Dr. Nicole Thompson's 2023 phenomenological interviews to quantitative measures of non-monogamy attitudes and compersion.

Your underlying orientation is shaped by how several psychological forces interact, starting with Normativity Comfort. This dimension dictates how safe you feel on the traditional "relationship escalator." Low scorers reject amatonormativity—the societal default that exclusive romantic coupledom is the ultimate life goal. They don't need a marriage certificate or a joint bank account to feel secure. This interacts heavily with your Hierarchy Orientation. A high scorer here believes it is natural to have a "primary" partner who holds veto power or automatic priority over friends and other lovers. Relationship anarchists score extremely low here, treating platonic, romantic, and sexual bonds as a flat network rather than a pyramid. They refuse to automatically elevate a romantic partner above a best friend.

But what happens when you combine a flat hierarchy with high Autonomy vs Merging? You get someone who fiercely protects their independent decision-making and private space. They resist the urge to intertwine finances, living spaces, and daily schedules. However, autonomy in this context isn't necessarily the same as insecure avoidant attachment; research shows that secure attachment and high emotional responsiveness can easily coexist with a high need for negotiated autonomy across multiple partnerships[^4]. These structural preferences inevitably collide with Label Importance. If you score high, you rely on terms like "boyfriend" or "spouse" to understand your obligations. Without a clear categorical label, you feel anxious. Low scorers prefer to let connections evolve fluidly, focusing on the specific agreements made rather than the title. A person with low label importance but high merging needs might build a deeply enmeshed, lifelong cohabitation with someone they simply call a "companion."

Finally, these dynamics are regulated by your Jealousy Mindset. Traditional scripts frame jealousy as a functional sign of love and a boundary to be protected. A low score here (indicating a growth or compersive mindset) means you view jealousy as an internal emotion to be deconstructed rather than a reason to restrict a partner. At the extreme end, you actively experience joy—compersion—when your partners find happiness with others. In fact, validated scales measuring compersion reveal a robust three-factor structure: happiness about the partner's other relationships, excitement for their new connections, and sexual arousal[^1]. When high compersion meets low hierarchy, you get a profile that actively dismantles possessiveness in favor of radical emotional freedom.

What does your percentile actually predict about your life? If you score in the upper percentiles for relationship anarchy, you are part of a growing demographic that actively dismantles mononormativity. Roughly one in five North American adults have engaged in some form of consensual non-monogamy (CNM) in their lifetime, with at least 5% currently practicing it[^6]. Your scores do not predict your overall relationship satisfaction— studies consistently show that CNM and monogamous individuals report comparable levels of psychological well-being and commitment[^5]. However, your profile does predict how you manage conflict and mate-guarding. For instance, while monogamous individuals frequently engage in mate-guarding, CNM individuals do so less often, though those with hierarchical polyamorous setups still mate-guard their primary partners more than secondary ones[^3]. A true relationship anarchist profile predicts a deliberate cultivation of compersion as a replacement for possessive jealousy, often resulting in lower overall relationship anxiety[^2].

This 25-item instrument uses a mixed-scale format to calculate factor scores across the five dimensions, which are then converted into your overall percentiles. Mixed profiles are the norm rather than the exception. For example, the "Anxious Egalitarian" might score extremely low on Hierarchy Orientation and Normativity Comfort, but high on Label Importance and Jealousy Mindset—meaning they ideologically want a flat, label-free network, but experience intense psychological friction and a need for categorical reassurance in practice. By mapping these contradictions, the test provides a mirror for your actual relational reflexes, not just your political ideals.

[^1]: Flicker, S. M., Vaughan, M. D., & Meyers, L. S. (2021). Feeling Good About Your Partners’ Relationships: Compersion in Consensually Non-Monogamous Relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(4), 1569–1585. doi:10.1007/s10508-021-01985-y [^2]: Rodrigues, D. L. (2024). A Narrative Review of the Dichotomy Between the Social Views of Non-Monogamy and the Experiences of Consensual Non-Monogamous People. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 53(3), 931–940. doi:10.1007/s10508-023-02786-1 [^3]: Mogilski, J. K., Reeve, S. D., Nicolas, S. C. A., Donaldson, S. H., Mitchell, V. E., & Welling, L. L. M. (2019). Jealousy, Consent, and Compersion Within Monogamous and Consensually Non-Monogamous Romantic Relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(6), 1811–1828. doi:10.1007/s10508-018-1286-4 [^4]: Ka, W. L., Bottcher, S., & Walker, B. R. (2020). Attitudes toward consensual non-monogamy predicted by sociosexual behavior and avoidant attachment. Current Psychology, 41(7), 4312–4320. doi:10.1007/s12144-020-00941-8 [^5]: Rubel, A. N. & Bogaert, A. F. (2014). Consensual Nonmonogamy: Psychological Well-Being and Relationship Quality Correlates. The Journal of Sex Research, 52(9), 961–982. doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.942722 [^6]: Scoats, R. & Campbell, C. (2022). What do we know about consensual non-monogamy?. Current Opinion in Psychology, 48, 101468. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101468