Your Relationship With Your Metamour Belongs to You

Your Relationship With Your Metamour Belongs to You

It's a useful word. It describes how two people are connected.

The problem starts when we assume it also tells us what their relationship is supposed to be.

Some polycules are kitchen-table. Some are garden-party. Some are parallel. And people can get surprisingly invested in which model is the right one.

I don't think there is a right one.

I'm not particularly interested in prescriptive relationships on any level, and metamour relationships are no exception.

You don't have to love your metamour.

You don't have to be friends with them.

You don't have to want them at your kitchen table.

You also don't have to keep your distance from someone you genuinely like simply because the romantic relationship that introduced you is supposed to be "parallel."

Your partner may be the reason you met your metamour.

They don't own whatever happens between the two of you after that.

Kitchen Table, Garden Party, and Parallel Are Descriptions, Not Instructions

The terminology is useful because these arrangements really do create different dynamics.

Kitchen-table polyamory generally describes a level of comfort where partners and metamours can socialize together, potentially becoming friends or even something resembling extended family.

Garden-party polyamory occupies some of the space in between. Metamours aren't necessarily close, but everyone can comfortably coexist at birthdays, parties, holidays, or other shared events.

Parallel polyamory keeps relationships much more separate. Metamours know about each other but may have little or no direct interaction.

All of those can work.

All of them can also become unhealthy when they're treated as requirements instead of descriptions.

"We practice kitchen-table polyamory" can quietly become:

If you date me, you have to be friends with my partners.

That's not organic intimacy. That's an assigned relationship.

On the other end, "we're parallel" can become:

You aren't supposed to talk to my other partner.

That isn't necessarily respecting someone's independence either.

Maybe two metamours meet and can't stand each other.

Maybe they exchange pleasantries twice a year.

Maybe they become friends.

Maybe they become best friends.

Maybe they start dating each other.

I've experienced both of those last two.

One of my current romantic relationships began as a metamour relationship. We shared a partner, developed our own connection, and eventually realized there was something more there. The original relationship between that partner and me didn't work out. Theirs did. He and I have no beef; we simply weren't compatible.

Our relationship ending didn't make hers and mine disappear.

Another close friend also started as a metamour. The romantic relationship that originally connected us ended a very long time ago.

Our friendship didn't.

As it turns out, bonding over what a ding dong your mutual ex can be has some staying power.

Those relationships were possible because nobody dictated what we were supposed to become.

The Hinge's Job Is Not to Manage the Metamours

The person connecting two metamours is usually called the hinge.

I think a good hinge's responsibility is pretty simple:

• Communicate honestly.
• Own your decisions.
• Don't triangulate.
• Don't carry inflammatory messages back and forth.
• Don't manipulate one person's perception of another.
• Don't make one partner responsible for another partner's emotions.
• And then stay the fuck out of the relationship your metamours develop with each other.

The Hinge's Limits

That last part doesn't mean abdicate all responsibility.

If two of your partners despise each other, that's going to affect your life.

Think about a conflict between your spouse and your mother-in-law.

You can't order them to like each other. You probably shouldn't become the permanent messenger carrying complaints between them either.

But you do have to figure out what you're comfortable facilitating.

Maybe you're fine celebrating holidays separately.

Maybe you need both people to be capable of attending your birthday without starting a fight.

Maybe you're unwilling to listen to either person constantly trash the other.

Maybe the conflict becomes so hostile that maintaining both relationships is no longer something you're willing to do.

Those are decisions you have to make about your own relationships.

Your responsibility is to communicate those limits clearly while respecting that the other people involved get to decide what they're comfortable with too.

Staying out of the metamour relationship doesn't mean pretending it can't affect you.

It means recognizing that it isn't yours to control.

When the Hinge Creates the Conflict

Sometimes the problem isn't actually the metamours.

It's the hinge.

I learned this one the hard way.

Years ago, I dated someone who seemed to have an uncanny ability to generate conflict between his partners.

Early in our relationship, one of his other partners experienced a serious and painful medical situation involving the two of them. I didn't know about it.

Around the same time, I posted a completely ordinary photo on Facebook of him and me enjoying a date together.

She saw it.

From her perspective, I knew what she was going through and was publicly flaunting a happy date with our shared partner while she was hurting.

She understandably thought I was being an asshole.

Except I had no fucking idea any of this had happened.

He hadn't told me.

As I got to know him better, I also learned how conflict-avoidant he could be. Looking back, I have very little confidence that he ever simply told her:

She didn't know. I didn't tell her.

That sentence could have redirected the responsibility to the person who actually had the missing information.

Instead, I became the insensitive metamour.

That's triangulation through omission.

A hinge doesn't have to explicitly say, "She doesn't care about you," to create conflict.

Sometimes all they have to do is withhold information, tell different versions of events to different people, fail to correct a misunderstanding, or let one partner take the blame because owning the truth would make the hinge uncomfortable.

Conflict avoidance doesn't necessarily prevent conflict.

Sometimes it just outsources the conflict to your partners.

You Can't Follow Rules Nobody Told You About

That same relationship taught me something else about metamour conflict.

One of my metamours seemed to have an elaborate collection of expectations for how I should behave toward her.

The problem was that I didn't know what they were.

When I violated one, it was interpreted as disrespect, hostility, or an intentional attempt to hurt her.

I was essentially being graded against a rubric I couldn't see.

This connects to something I think matters in every relationship, not just metamour relationships: expectations can be spoken or unspoken, but other people can only knowingly agree to the ones we communicate.

You can want a particular kind of relationship with your metamour.

You can hope they'll acknowledge birthdays.

You can want more communication.

You can wish they'd check in before certain social situations.

You can prefer that everyone meet.

You can also prefer almost no contact.

But wanting something doesn't create an obligation the other person somehow should have known about.

Metamours aren't mind readers.

If something matters enough that you'll feel hurt when it doesn't happen, that's probably worth communicating before the resentment sets in.

And sometimes the other person's answer will simply be:

I don't want that kind of relationship with you.

That may hurt.

It also may be perfectly legitimate.

Parallel Isn't Don't Ask, Don't Tell

This distinction matters to me.

Parallel polyamory and Don't Ask, Don't Tell are not the same thing.

In parallel polyamory, I can know my partner has another partner without wanting a relationship with that person.

I don't need details.

I don't need to hear about their dates.

I don't need to socialize with them.

I don't need to know anything about their sex life that isn't relevant to my own health and consent.

That's privacy.

Privacy is healthy.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell makes ignorance itself part of the arrangement.

And that's where I have a problem.

I don't believe true DADT fosters healthy relationships in any direction because it undermines the open and honest communication polyamory requires to work.

I don't need the nitty gritty of my partners' other relationships.

But I need to be able to ask for information that affects me.

I need enough information to assess my sexual-health risks.

And if someone tells me their spouse or partner doesn't want to know anything about me, I have another ethical problem:

How do I know that person actually consented to non-monogamy?

"They know. They just don't want to hear about it" might be completely true.

It is also exactly what someone cheating on their partner could tell me.

A structure built around my inability to verify anything asks me to place an enormous amount of trust in one person's version of everybody else's consent.

I'm not comfortable with that.

That's different from someone saying:

"My wife knows I'm dating you. She doesn't want to hear details about our relationship."

Fine.

She doesn't owe me access to her life, and I don't owe her access to mine.

There's a meaningful difference between privacy and required ignorance.

Forced Closeness and Forced Distance Have Something in Common

Kitchen-table polyamory can be wonderful.

I understand the appeal. I've experienced versions of it. Shared meals, holidays, friendships, mutual support, people becoming chosen family.

But it only works when the people sitting at the table actually want to be there.

Mandatory KTP undermines the very autonomy polyamory is supposed to respect.

And forced separation can do the same thing.

If my partner says I must develop a friendship with another partner because "that's how we do poly," they're trying to prescribe a relationship between two other adults.

If my partner says I cannot develop a friendship with another partner because "we practice parallel poly," they're doing something remarkably similar.

In both cases, the hinge is deciding what the metamour relationship is allowed to be.

Maybe don't.

Your Metamour Doesn't Have to Make You Feel Secure

There's another expectation that can quietly get placed on metamours:

Make me comfortable with your existence.

That isn't their job.

A metamour can certainly make things easier by being kind, respectful, and considerate.

They can also make things dramatically worse by meddling, competing, manufacturing conflict, or deliberately disrespecting another relationship.

But ultimately, the work of maintaining security in a romantic relationship belongs primarily to the people in that relationship.

Your metamour cannot fix a partner who is unreliable.

They cannot communicate on your partner's behalf.

They cannot guarantee your partner will keep agreements.

They cannot manage your jealousy for you.

And they shouldn't have to shrink themselves until you stop feeling threatened.

Likewise, you don't have to become their friend to prove you're "really poly."

You don't have to experience compersion.

You don't have to enjoy hearing about their relationship.

You don't have to want group vacations.

Feelings aren't an ethics test.

What matters is what we do with them.

Sometimes Metamours Just Don't Like Each Other

And that's okay.

Not everybody likes everybody.

Polyamory doesn't magically change that.

The goal doesn't have to be friendship.

Sometimes success looks like:

We don't particularly like each other, but neither of us fucks with the other's relationship.

Honestly? That's enough.

Outright hostility is different.

So is unwanted meddling.

If someone is harassing another partner, sabotaging dates, trying to control their relationship, creating constant crises, demanding access they haven't been offered, or making the entire network miserable, the hinge eventually has to decide what they're willing to facilitate.

You don't get to shrug forever and say:

"That's between the two of them."

You're dating both of them.

Their conflict may not belong to you, but your participation in the situation does.

You can't force two people to get along.

You can decide what behavior you're willing to remain connected to.

Metamours Can Become Family. They Don't Have To.

Some of the most meaningful relationships in my life exist because of polyamory.

People I never would have met otherwise became friends, partners, and chosen family.

That's one of the things I love about polyamorous community.

But I don't think we should turn that possibility into an expectation.

Your metamour isn't automatically family.

They aren't automatically your friend.

They aren't automatically your rival either.

They're a person.

Maybe the shared partner is the only thing you'll ever have in common.

Maybe ten years from now the hinge will be long gone and you'll still be calling each other.

Maybe you'll fall in love.

Maybe you'll politely avoid each other forever.

You don't have to know at the beginning.

That's the point.

Kitchen-table, garden-party, and parallel polyamory give us useful language for describing different metamour dynamics.

They shouldn't become instructions for creating them.

The hinge has responsibilities: honesty, accountability, communication, and enough self-awareness to decide what kinds of situations they're willing to participate in.

The metamours have responsibilities too: respect boundaries, don't meddle in relationships that aren't yours, and don't make other people responsible for expectations you never communicated.

Beyond that?

Let the relationship be what it is.

Your partner may be how you met your metamour.

Your relationship with your metamour belongs to you.

Perspectives Worth Reading

Amy C. Moors et al., Compersion: When Jealousy-Inducing Situations Don't (Just) Induce Jealousy — Research examining compersion and jealousy in consensually non-monogamous relationships, including evidence that the two experiences can coexist rather than functioning as simple opposites.

Read the study: Moors et al. on compersion and jealousy in CNM

Marie Thouin et al., Facilitators and Obstacles to Compersion in Consensually Non-Monogamous Relationships — A qualitative study exploring what helps and hinders compersion, including relationship security, communication, having one's own relationship needs met, and feelings toward metamours.

Read the study: Thouin et al. on facilitators and obstacles to compersion

Andie Nordgren, The Relationship Anarchy Manifesto — A useful philosophical foundation for thinking about autonomy, communication, and allowing individual relationships to develop according to the people actually participating in them rather than predetermined social scripts.

Read the manifesto: The Relationship Anarchy Manifesto

Polyamorous Perspectives, Navigating Metamour Relationships in Polyamory — An earlier exploration of metamour relationships, including boundaries, communication, comparison, and the many different levels of connection metamours may choose to have.

Read the article: Navigating Metamour Relationships in Polyamory