metamours

Musings on Metamours

MelC 1 Comment
post-party legs shot with a former metamour, and dear friend

coordinating party outfits with a former metamour, and dear friend

“Metamour” (noun)
The partner of your partner.

Within the realm of honest non monogamy- and polyamory especially- I think that the significance of the metamour relationship is too often overlooked and underplayed. It is strangely too easy to ignore the awesomeness of having your partners bond, and to be oblivious to the multitudes of relationships that come hand in hand when you are in multiple relationships with other people in multiple relationships. And, when metamours find themselves in opposition to one another, it can endanger multiple intimate relationships.

I’ve noticed that, when forging metamour relationships, many people focus on “getting along” first and foremost. It seems to be a too-common trope, especially amongst people still fresh to polyamory, that if you aren’t sexually attracted to them, then your metamour needs to be enthusiastically tolerated. I find that a little disappointing, personally. I’ve been there and tried that- tolerating my metamour- and I noticed that, for me, it affected my relationship with the shared partner.

At a very fundamental level, I believe we are all in relationship to one another. Even with the people we haven’t met yet. And, the moment you start engaging with someone who has multiple relationships, you are forging your own relationships to those relations. It’s kinda unavoidable.

How do you prefer to organise your relationships?

How do you prefer to organise your relationships?

I’ve become what would be termed a “Kitchen Table Polyamorist” (as opposed to the compartmentalised “Kitchen Cupboard” style of polyamory, or Parallel Polyamory where you know about your metamours but don’t talk about them). I enjoy not just meeting my partners’ other partners, I also desire to form friendships with them and have an enthusiastically positive relationship with them. And that kind of friendship can’t be forced, or feel obligated, it’s something I desire to be authentic.

Reality check: you won’t like all your metamours, and they won’t all like you. And, when that happens it will suck, and you may well find yourself wrestling with your inner Perfect Poly Person and try to force yourself to like them. You might have metamours who end up (directly or indirectly) hurting you- even in ways that have nothing to do with your partner- and that pain may still be felt long after the relationship you shared is done (been there, done that).

You might have partners who refuse or are resistant to meeting your other partners, their own metamours. Your partners won’t always get along, and may even hate one another without ever meeting. Over the years, you may experience the really not-so great metamours, the ones who stalk you at work and harass you day and night, who assault and bully you.

friendshipBut what if your metamours were like your family, and you could purr and snuggle with them with as much ease as you do your partners? Dance with them at festivals? Laugh together into the wee hours of the night? Conspire about what shirt to buy your shared partner, and collaborate on birthday surprises?

What if you could even share a home with a metamour (independently of your partners) and develop loving and close familial bonds with them? What if they became not just metamours, but deeply connected friends?

Any healthy relationship is founded on knowing your mutual needs, wants, and desires. My advice is to treat your metamour not as metamour, but as a whole person. They are an entire human being, and you can embrace that there is the possibility of knowing them beyond the scope of the partner you share. Maybe all you’ll ever do together is go for tea- if that’s so, then I humbly suggest to make sure you don’t just talk about your partner. Ask them about themselves. Learn what things they love, what make them tick, what they loathe, what excites them. In short, explore what it’s like to get to know them just as you might with any potential friend, lover, colleague or acquaintance; don’t limit them to the label of ‘metamour’.

And, if you are reading this, and are struggling with a metamour, then I invite you to consider the following:

  • What story or judgements might you have about this individual? Where has that come from?
  • Are you picking up red-flags? (Red flags are important, don’t let your inner PPP push them aside- talk about them with your partner, and/or address them with your metamour.)
  • What could you do to reach out, and connect with your metamour in a meaningful way?

One day, I know I might find myself again with a metamour who I am not all that enthusiastic about, one who I have reservations about, or who just rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure what I will do in that case, but I do notice that the practice of unconditional positive regard has helped me get over pre-judgements about people, reduce my experience of jealousy, enhance my capacity for compersion, and that I have better relationships in my life today, in general, than I did two, five, ten years ago.

At electroswing with two of my favorite humans- who also happen to be my metamours. Photo by Geo Anomeleye Shutter& Spore VFX

At electroswing with two of my favorite humans- who also happen to be my metamours. Photo by Geo Anomeleye Shutter& Spore VFX, cropped with permission.

My metamours today are women who I love, am inspired by, share the dance floor with, and purr like kittens with. I have great memories of driving an overheating GM van back from Burning Man, with my metamour and I switching off driving and navigating as we refilled the coolant every hour and our partner napped in the back. Yes, we do all the ridiculous things you might expect, we conspire for birthdays and surprises, and while my sexuality with women remains with question marks, yes there are a few who I’ve made out with. Most of the time I’ve spent with my metamours has nothing to do with our shared partners though; it’s been about us building our own connection. And, yes, sometimes they intimidate me, but mostly, they inspire me.

My metamours have taught me about new possibilities in unconditional love, and through the growing kinship, I find a sisterhood and healthy relationship with women that I’ve never had before in my life. There are still some metamours I haven’t met, and some who I yearn to know more. And I have tremendous gratitude for all of them, because I know that it ain’t always this good.

There is a full spectrum of relationship possibility open to you, you get to choose together what kind of relationship you forge with your metamours! 

Navigating Non Escalator Relationships

MelC 26 Comments

aka “So, you’re in a non-escalator relationship- what now?”
(dedicated to ‘Alexander’)

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED AND HAS MOVED. Find the update by clicking on this link.

Non escalator guide

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Needing Novelty

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“I want to explore more of our connection. I feel like we are moving towards something that will be exciting and profound.”

I gazed out at the full moon, bright in the sky above us, smiling through the bittersweet sadness I had been feeling. “Me too,” I said. “And, I know we will.”

Bathed in moonlight, Orion and I sat and talked. We shared for three hours about how we have been feeling, about the new things we have been realizing in our lives and our relationships.

There can be sadness in poly.

I have had nothing but compersion for Miranda and Orion since they started their relationship, but sometimes, it triggers sadness in me.

They have beautiful chemistry- I see how they both come alive when they are around one another, and it makes me happy to see these two people I adore experiencing that joy and excitement. They’ve had some bumps in the road the last few months, but ones that ultimately have proven to be positive and transforming.

At the same time, however, Orion and I have noticed our own dynamic shifting. We are no longer in “N.R.E.” or “New Relationship Energy”. That warm glowing tingly feeling has given way to something we have nick-named “F.R.E.” or “Familiar Relationship Energy”. The longevity of the friendship we had before becoming intimate has given our relationship a depth that is profound, and we learn from one another every time we spend time together. But, something has been missing, something has been out of sync.

Orion and I both have had long term relationships where sex became an ‘obligation’. The “peck-peck, poke-poke” approach isn’t something either of us enjoyed in those relationships, nor is it something we want to experience ever again- least of all with one another. And so we have embraced an attitude of moving with authenticity in our relationship. When we feel the chemistry connecting, we follow it to where it leads us. And lately, that chemistry has not had much intimacy in it.

I wonder sometimes if it is me. If I am ‘broken’. I’ve been dealing with some body pain issues in the last few months which have impacted my level of confidence in my sexiness, and that has brought up a lot of feelings of insecurity in me. And, I can count on one hand how many times I have had sex this year. I am longing for more intimacy. I am yearning for it. I can’t just keep giving those full body rippling orgasms to myself. It is something that really, I want to share. I need to share.

Miranda and Orion have been diving deeper into their relationship, and I am joyful and compersive, but also find myself confronted with my own sadness and longing. I remember fondly the feeling of NRE I had with Orion, and I want to feel that again. I am sad that someone else is getting to experience something that I’m not able to experience right now. And that sadness runs deep, into a deeper part of my psyche that I still need to explore, triggering all sorts of insecurities from childhood.

In general, I am happy with the relationships in my life right now. I’m able to balance my work life and my love life, and the relationships I maintain each have their own beautiful dynamic, and they seem to work, well, synergistically.

But- I would love to have more sex. And, oh my god, I want to have more sex with Orion. I want to make love to the whole frickin Universe with him.

There’s a dilemma with this: whilst I have the time for more sex, I don’t feel I have time for more Relationship. And I don’t want random sex. It takes too long for me to trust someone and let down my guards to feel that full heart-opening sexual experience. But there isn’t anyone in my life right now that ‘fits the bill’ so to speak.

Intriguingly, Orion and I have both noticed that we experience more chemistry together when one or both of us has been diving into new relationships, and experiencing sexual satisfaction with others. We spent a while the other night, under the moon, talking about the potential pros of having relationships that were purely poly-sexual experiences, and the challenge of finding people to have such relationships with where there can be trust, but no strings attached.

Hrm. Sex with people we can trust, who can be friends without being an emotionally involved relationship. Maybe some readers know where this is going?

It is really too early to say how this is going to develop. There are so many other factors to consider, and whether this is something we explore together or with other partners remains to be seen. There’s a few people I’m going to talk to, get some ideas, suggestions, perhaps even some invitations? Orion and I know we want to awaken our chemistry together again, to get back to that place of mind-bending physical and emotional delight that we know we can share with one another, and the path to get there involves unpacking a lot of layers of stuff, and having lots of open and fiercely honest conversations with ourselves as well. Novelty, we agree, is something that both of us thrive on.

Novelty Relationship Energy. It’s gotta be a thing.

“Thank you,” Orion said as we hugged goodnight.
“For what?” I asked, eyelids a flutter.
“For walking the walk. Other people talk about compersion and such. You really do it. I learn so much from you. I have never shared my life so openly with anyone. Thank you.”

Sigh. This man takes my breath away. I don’t know that I have ever received a compliment quite like that. I’m excited to see how our relationship continues to evolve, and I don’t ever want to take what we share for granted.

The Compersion Conundrum

MelC 12 Comments

Compersion: Describing an empathetic state of happiness and joy brought about by knowing or witnessing the happiness and joy of another individual. Often used to describe the positive feelings an individual can experience when a lover is enjoying another relationship. Considered to be the opposite of jealousy.

Polyamory: The practice, state or ability of having more than one intimate, physical, loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved. 

How, and when, do you let your other partners know you are interested in someone else? When do you tell them when you are now seeing someone new?

I find I am fairly laisez-faire when it comes to this. I don’t expect anyone to be beholden to me in relationships, just as I wouldn’t expect to be beholden to them. Still, though, I like good healthy communication, and I am always curious to know about my lovers’ other lovers. I have friends who have joked that I seem to be immune to jealousy. I wouldn’t say that I am totally immune. Just that my capacity for compersion in most cases out weighs the jealous part of my brain.

I’m uber compersive. I can feel compersion at the drop of a hat- at the sight of strangers walking arm in arm down the street; as my friend tells me about his first romantic getaway with his girlfriend; when I am having dinner with a new crush and his wife and see them get snuggly together; even reading gooey Facebook statuses will have me in compersion. I will admit, there are times I even feel compersion and jealousy simultaneously- like they are battling in my head for supremacy. There’s a rationale process that usually wins over and compersion triumphs. See, Jealousy just wouldn’t be logical.

And even so, I cannot feel compersion if I do not know something is happening.

The network of cross-connections amongst my sweeties and metamours is complex- and with so many interwoven relationships, it is healthy to remember to treat every person as an individual, and to honor each relationship as the unique and dynamic phenomena it is. I’ve struggled with this a lot in the past. I think I am getting through that finally.

Well, almost. I found myself tested on that this week.

For a while now I’ve happily watched a flirtatious relationship develop between Orion and one of my best friends, Miranda. The friendship Miranda and I share is one of the closest platonic friendships in my life, and I really value that. I’ve rejoiced at her explorations into polyamory, celebrated her NRE, cried with her heartbreaks. We are bonded by many commonalities in our backgrounds and lifestyles. A few months ago we talked about the possibility of someone wanting to date both of us, and decided it would be weird, tricky, messy. We are in each other’s lives on a daily basis. We share a lot of things; sharing lovers seemed like taking things too far. But I started to see the chemistry between Orion and Miranda, and knew that something was likely to happen.

Orion talked to me about his crush on Miranda a couple of months ago, and I said that he should just go for it. I knew she was attracted to him. I love him, and I love Miranda, and I want them to explore and enjoy. I feel totally confident in the uniqueness of what I share with Orion, and I know how much he has taught me through being my lover- there’s no feeling of ‘I might be replaced’, which could come up in a newer relationship. Orion and Miranda? I instantly knew, right in my gut, that this was a good thing, and something that needed to happen.

I was therefore totally unprepared for the fit of anxiety and jealousy that came upon me when I found out, after the fact, that Miranda had spent the night at Orion’s.

Perhaps the weirdest part was that I had dreamt about it… in those sleepy moments of almost-wakefullness, I dreamt I heard Orion’s and Miranda’s voices talking. When I woke up, it hit me right then- she must have been at his place. But why wouldn’t I know? Shouldn’t I have known?

A little gentle prodding, and Miranda let on that this was, indeed, what had happened. I spent the day questioning myself. Should anyone have told me? Was this something I had some god-given right to know? Not really. Miranda’s always been good at keeping me up to date on her latest goings on. Orion has always told me when he’s got a new crush that might develop into more. And with Orion, I have never felt anything but happiness about him developing his other relationships. I have never wanted anyone to be beholden to me about anything in relationships. All I ever ask of my partners is ‘please be present with me, please communicate with me, please honor our connection whatever it may be’.

So why was I so upset?

I played through alternative scenarios in my head- what if I had known? What if, when Miranda had texted me that she wasn’t free that evening, she had mentioned ‘I’m at Orion’s’? How would I have reacted? I think I’d have sent her a thumbs up and a ‘Yay! Have fun!’ I feel like I was kinda denied that instant compersion because, well, I didn’t know it was happening, and you cannot feel compersion for something you don’t know is happening. The Big Sister in me feels sad that I was left out of knowing about something that I was really excited about, even though it had nothing to do with me. It’s not that I feel there’s an obligation to let me know every little detail. I just feel that in a spirit of perpetual openness, why hide something that might be relevant for someone to know? It’s not like I need a play by play detailed account. And going forward, it isn’t something I need to get too involved in. I just wish I’d had that opportunity to feel the compersion first, before the jealousy. I’m still uncertain how I should have found out though.

I’ve talked about this with both of them now. I think things are all good. We’ve all learned something out of this.

pompomThis experience has taught me something very important about myself and how I process things. I like to know what’s happening! Once I have shared my love with someone, that is not something I can take back, and even if I am no longer involved, I love to know that they are experiencing beautiful, happy things in their life. I had a huge grin on my face last night as ElkFeather told me about a girl he has a crush on. She’s someone I know peripherally, and I feel like they would be a really lovely pair. I’m rooting for them. This discovery of my desire for compersion brings me as well to understand the frustration I have felt with some other situations in my life: I think two exes of mine are now seeing each other. But I really have no idea. I just pick up on things, and it is sometimes enfuriating to be in the void of ‘not-knowing’. I get a little resentful of it. I’m not sure that there’s any obligation to tell me, of course. But again, they are two people whom I can see being incredibly compatible together  and I just wish I knew for sure if that was actually the case, so I can cheer them on!

I acknowledge this might make me one of the strangest people on the planet. I’ve just never found the head-in-the-sand approach worked very well for me. Whilst looking up definitions of compersion for this article I came across a book, “Compersion: Using Jealousy As A Path To Unconditional Love“, and I think that this concept- that you can transmute jealousy into a positive experience that brings about a feeling of emotional expansiveness- accurately summarizes one of the things I absolutely adore about polyamory: it challenges me on every ounce of selfishness and past-attachment, and the only way through all of that is by continually working on myself to find that place of natural (not forced) unconditional loving. When jealousy turns into compersion, it is a beautiful thing indeed. And I don’t like the feeling of being denied that opportunity to experience compersion with any loves, whether they are still a central feature of my life, or not.