When Your Meta Don't Wanna
In this episode Libby talks about how to navigate things when metamours don't want to be friends.
Transcript
So here's the scenario. You are in a relationship with a partner and that partner has another partner. That person, by the way, for those of you don't know, has a special term, it's called metamour. That is the special word for your partners partner. So your partner's dating someone or in a relationship with someone you're in a relationship with your partner. And so you have a metamour and you wanna know this person, maybe you wanna be friends with them. Maybe you're really into kitchen table poly, which is the idea that you can be on such good terms with your metamour, that the two of you could sit down in someone's kitchen, either yours or theirs and have a cup of coffee and hang out, maybe you wanna be besties and, you know, gang up on your partner from time to time or have threesomes or whatever.
Or maybe you just have gotten the idea that being friends with, or at least on good terms with your metamour is the correct way to do polyamory. Or maybe you're new to non-monogamy and you just really wanna do everything, right. And you think one of the things that's really important is to get to know your metamour. But unfortunately, in this scenario, there's a problem. Your metamour doesn't want anything to do with you. They don't wanna be friends. They don't wanna hang out. Maybe they don't even wanna be in contact with you in any way, or maybe it's the other way around. And for some reason or another, you don't want anything to do with you or metamour what now that's what we're gonna talk about in this episode.
So a lot of in on the internet in books has been spilled up out metamour in polyamorous relationships. Just recently today it is March 2nd is when I'm recording this. And just recently on February 28th, there was metamour day, which is a day that is Valentine's day, times two. So you get 14, you know, February 14th is Valentine's day, 14 days later, you get metamour day. And that's just talking about the additional love you get in your life that comes special with polyamory that you not just get your partner, but you also get your metamour. And so it's love to, and, you know, usually that's great and there are really all kinds of good reasons why you might wanna have a relationship with your partner's partner. Some reasons that I can think of are that it kind of breaks through that idea that having multiple relationships is a zero sum situ and that we're all in competition with each other.
And I think that's especially true in heterosexual relationships. You know, there's this idea of sort of competing for a mate. And if you are just on the same team instead, then that kind of like just breaks that whole idea. It can also just be really nice to know the other important people in your partner's life. And you know, I usually wanna know my partner's friends and, you know, meta Moore is just like a really good friend. It can also just be really efficient and nice to be with all of your partners at once to be able to have them share space with each other, to go to events not just as a diad, but as like a triad or a quad or whatever. And in this case, I don't mean that everybody's dating each other, but just like being able to be with a group of people instead of just one on one I know for me, I really love it when I'm with all of my partners, it can be really nice.
It can be nice to grow your polyamorous family, to think about out, maybe living together, to think about sharing, you know, family obligations, whether it's domestic duties, childcare duties, financial obligations, all that kind of stuff. And I mean, interconnectedness can sometimes feel really good. Another thing about knowing your metamours that can be nice is that you can collaborate on loving your shared partner together. You can share information that you know about your shared partner. You can scheme to get them a really great birthday present or a really great Christmas present, or, you know, support each other in, in helping your partner out. A metamour can also be an extra friend that you have things in common with given that you both love the same person. You might like some other things the same as well. Having a metamour can also be really nice because it's a backup in a crisis.
And you know, if caregiving gets intense, like if your partner, if your shared partner really needs a lot of care or a lot of port having an additional person who can be on point to give that support can mean that nobody gets burned out, you know, you can take turns and this can also be true with childcare. You know, having an additional adult in your partner's life can mean an additional caregiver for your kids. I'll also say that, you know, even when metamour relationships are challenging or triggering or difficult confronting difficult things helps us grow and makes us better people. So that can be cool about knowing your metamour, you know, it could just be, you know, challenging yourself. And I'll also say that if you all wanna engage in sexy times together, that could be fun, you know, threesomes, moresomes, that can be cool.
All of these reasons are good reasons to maybe wanna know your metamour and possibly have a good relationship with them. Some reasons that you also might wanna get to know your meta more and be connected to them is for transparency so that everyone knows who everyone is and what everyone else is doing so that nobody worries about anybody cheating or anybody telling one person, one thing, and another person, another thing, you know, it prevents that isolation that can allow a hinge partner who isn't very interested in being ethical. If you keep both people isolated from each other and in the dark, then that can give the hinge person a lot of control, right? And also obviously, if you are able to isolate your partners from each other, then if you are doing non-ethical non monogamy, if you're cheating, nobody will know.
Another reason you might wanna know your metamour is to make sure that they respect your relationship with your partner and you, if you're like a real person to your metamour, then they will have to think twice about doing things that might undermine your relationship. Another reason you might wanna know your metamour is to feel included in your partner's other relationship. This one I don't actually think is all that great, but I know why that is some sometimes how people feel they really love their partner. They wanna be involved in every aspect of their life, including their other relationships. This can get sticky though, in terms of healthy boundaries, but I, you know, it's a reason you might want to know your metamour. Another reason you might wanna know your metamour is that it can make it easier to feel conversion. If you know the person with whom your partner is sharing their joy, you know, it's easier if you know the person, you like them to be happy for both of them.
And another thing that can help with knowing you're metamour is if you're insecure, if you are having fears that this person, that your partner's seeing is way cooler than you pretier than you better than you in some way, if you actually know that person that can really help ease those feelings, humanize that person, you know, just sort of bring everything down into reality. Now, I wanna just say here, even though I'm giving you lots of reasons why it is good to know your metamour possibly good to practice kitchen table poly, that I don't think that kitchen table polyamory is the one true right way or most evolved way to practice polyamory as I'm getting into, this is the whole point of this podcast, but I just wanna say it up front, because I have seen a lot of that sort of been the prevailing representation of polyamory is that, oh, we all get along and that's the way it should be.
And if you don't do it this way, then you're less evolved or you're doing it wrong or whatever. And I just don't agree with that. Now do engage with kitchen table polyamory with all of my partners for the most part. And it's really wonderful. One of my favorite feelings is waking up on Sunday morning at my house when both of my non nesting partners have slept over. And one of my partners is reading books to my kids on the sofa. And another one is making coffee and a third is sleeping in upstairs and I'm flipping pancakes. My home feels so alive with love and connection. And it just makes me really happy. And I'm really grateful that my partners all seem to get along with each other really well. And I will also say that I do know some people who hardline won't in get involved with someone, if the metamour relations won't work out because they don't wanna miss out on that joy of that interconnectedness.
And they also don't want the stress that comes along with people not getting along. And I get that it's worth being honest, that a metamour not wanting to meet you and getting to know you and be connected to you can sometimes be a red flag. It can mean that they aren't willing to confront the reality that their partner has other partners. They may feel like they are trying this polyamory thing out, but they're not really into it. And they really don't wanna be there, but maybe they're feeling dragged into it or forced, or maybe they're not being honest about how they really feel about it. Maybe they have unmanaged, jealousy and insecurity that they're avoiding dealing with. And again, they think that just by not knowing you that maybe it'll just get better over time. Maybe they actively don't want to care about you specifically, or the relationship that you have with your shared partner.
Maybe they're specifically unsupportive of your relationship with their partner and they don't want to know you so that they can feel better about just not considering you at all. They may be, you know, in, in connected to the not being supportive of their relationship, they may wanna really keep your relationship with your partner in a small box. And so they may wanna make sure that they keep you out of being included in their lives because that'll help diminish the significance you're able to have in your shared partner's life. Or there may be real problems in their relationship with your shared partner that they're afraid of you knowing about and being connected to. And on the flip side, again, this totally happens that maybe your shared partner has said negative things about you to your metamour, and that has soured their opinion of you. And so it's a way of keeping you isolated from each other.
And again, in that case, you know, that's a, that's a really problematic thing for your partner to be doing, but it's just worth keeping your eye on. Another reason your metamour may not wanna know you is that they might just be scared. You know, they might be scared of the unknown. They might be intimidated by you. They might they might just be afraid of what, what this might mean. If they were connected to you, I'll say, if you are not willing to engage with your metamour and any of these are sounding maybe a little familiar to you, I really encourage you to get honest with yourself and get present to why you might not wanna be connected to your metamour if, and any of these reasons are what's real for you. Well, actually I think it's good that you don't wanna engage with your metamour because any of these things can really hurt your metamour and cause you to harm them.
And what I'd really encourage you to do is have some Frank conversations with your partner about where you actually are in terms of where you wanna be in polyamory, how you feel about it all, because you might think that avoiding confronting these things is protecting you in your relationship. Or you might think that, you know, if you avoid it now, you'll feel better over time. But in my experience, avoidance just kicks the can down the road makes you less capable of coping or working through things, makes you more fragile, less resilient, and instead ends up making a problem fester and grow until it really just becomes something that's unmanageable and has the potential to destroy your relationship. But that said, there are some really valid reason to not wanna be connected to your metamour. The two that really come to the top of my mind are that first of all, your metamour might have shown themselves to be harmful in some way, maybe you share community with them and you observe them in harmful behaviors.
Maybe they've they're dishonest. Maybe they have terrible boundaries. Maybe they act in ways that are really counter to your values. Maybe you've seen them treat other people poorly. And in this case, you may question your partner's judgment and it's really reasonable for you to be wary and want to keep your distance. Another reason that I can think of is that they've shown themselves be harmful to your partner, and gosh, when that's going on, it can be really hard. It can be really hard to see your partner exposing themselves, to hurt with someone. And you might wanna try to push your partner to end the relationship. You might really wanna help them see the light, but I would encourage you to resist this urge because you know, your partner's an adult, their partner, your metamour is an adult, and you don't really get to tell your partner who to date.
And that includes you. Don't get to tell them not to do things that might get them hurt because sometimes being hurt is part of, part of our process. And we need to go find out what that's like. What you do get to do is you get to give voice to the impact that this relationship is having on you. And then if you have to, you get to set boundaries to protect yourself that the impact is less. If this person's gonna continue with this relationship, that's harming them and could potentially harm you. And again, a perfectly acceptable boundary is to just not interact with your metamour and sometimes to not interact with your partner when they're with your metamour. But I get that it can be hard. So that's a hard one, a third reason, and this is the one I'm gonna spend a good amount of time talking about is that sometimes nobody's harmful, two people are perfectly fine on their own.
People are dealing with their shit. People have confronted their insecurities. It's not that they're avoiding. But despite that these two people, these two Metamoris just don't get along. Maybe they communicate differently. Maybe they just have wildly different strategies to get their needs met. Maybe they have opposing attachment behaviors. Maybe they have radically different ideas about etiquette and boundaries. Maybe they just trigger the fuck out of each other, or maybe just can't agree on whether or not pineapple is an acceptable pizza topping by the way it, it, it is, it it's delicious on pizza, just saying, so incompatibility doesn't mean anything has to be wrong or that anyone is bad, even though you think that compatibility with metamours would be highly likely given that they're both compatible with the same shared partner, it can instead happen. And it definitely happens that two metamours are like oil and fire.
I'd say oil and water, but like a little emulsifier with oil and water. And you're fine. You can have like aioli it's delicious, or well, maybe not a, but you know what I'm saying, but oil and fire you're better off keeping those two things apart unless you want things to burn up. And, and I don't mean in a good way. And I mean, I will say that sometimes with the incompatibility can be that two people that are dating the same person are really similar, but different in one really crucial way. That just creates a lot of friction and dissonance and it's painful. Now I'll say I am, I am a big fan of working to overcome in compatibilities and helping people bridge in compatibility is a lot of what I actually do for a living. I do that because I think we all tend to seek out people who are slightly incompatible with us.
A lot of my couple's work is working with two people who have, who are, who love each other, who wanna be in a relationship with each other, and they're very different. And so we gotta work through it. But I actually think that incompatible people in your life can sometimes be a tremendous catalyst for growth and help you with greater understanding of yourself and of people who are different from you. Most of the people I'm close to in my life are not perfectly compatible with me and that's extremely common. And I think it's been really good for me in becoming a more well-round did compassionate person to have people who are different from me in my life. And I, I really believe that if we only ever deeply connected with people who are exactly like us, we couldn't end up actually very rigid and inflexible and sort of dogmatic and miss opportunities to learn from people who are different from us and make space for those differences.
I might do even go so far as to say that being capable of overcoming in compatibilities is essential for healthy families, healthy communities, and a healthy human society, but also growth is hard and exhausting sometimes. And you usually choose to go through the effort to grow with someone because you're getting something out of it. And in this case of incompatible people, you choose growth over distance and estrangement because you wanna continue to be close to the person you love. And you've made certain investments in that relationship that make the growth worth it to you, but you don't get to choose your metamours, your partner chose those people. So if you just plain, don't get along with a metamour and you don't feel like doing the work to make it work with them, or you try, but it's like bashing your head into a brick wall.
I'm gonna tell you, you don't have to. Yes, yes. It might be easier on your partner or easier on your metamour or even easier on you if you were able to figure it out with them. And there's something to be said for investigating why someone is so challenging or triggering to you and asking yourself, if you might wanna do some work on that, that it might benefit you just on the whole. It might be good for character in your personal development. It can be really good and valuable to confront difficult feelings that a challenging person brings up for us. But also you might just not need that right now to my earlier point, that work might not be something you're up for, or you might just not have the capacity for it at this exact moment in your life. We can only work on ourselves so much before we get exhausted.
Maybe you're already in therapy right now, processing childhood trauma, or maybe you've got a really demanding job right now, or you've got three kids or a sick family member you're taking care of, or maybe you've got health problems that you're dealing with. Maybe you just, for whatever you have limited bandwidth, you have limited spoons and maybe you just wanna break from opportunities for growth. I want you to know that it is totally okay to sometimes say, Hey, this relationship, I'm not gonna work on this one. Or you can say, I'm not gonna work on it right now because I can't.
So this is a really valid choice. And I just really wanna make sure that I say that it's important, but I also wanna say that the choice is not without consequences. All of those wonderful things I said above about great it can be to be close to your metamour. If you're choosing not to be in relationship with that person, then you don't get those things. And neither does your partner and neither does your metamour. And so I don't think you can just make that decision to not be connected to them. And then that's that, and all your work's done, because no matter what this person will still be in your life, however, tangentially for as long as your partner is with them. So I have some things to offer you to keep in mind, if you proceed with that position of not being in any kind of connection with your metamour, first of all, it's important to do your best to communicate where you are kindly, but firmly let your partner know what's up, let them and your metamour know what is and isn't okay, so that everyone's on the same page.
It's really important that as best you can to be really clear about wherever your boundaries are and do that up front instead of leaving your partner or your metamour to accidentally push on them or step on them. It's not fair to anyone in this situation to like litter your relationship with a bunch of buried landmines. This will not only feel bad for you when someone steps on them, but it will also feel terrible for them too. And they'll, they'll blow up. And by the way, I, I just wanna jump in here and say that anytime I'm mentioning boundaries in this episode, when I'm talking about are lines that you draw for and around yourself, they are limits on your behavior and on what you will tolerate. So it's what you will, and won't do what you will, and won't take responsibility for. I wanna be clear about that, cuz sometimes people think, well, I set a boundary that my partner can't do this.
That's not a boundary. You can't make a boundary on someone else's behavior that is at best a request or at worst a demand or a rule. But the reason why I say boundaries is that really you can only control yourself and my emphasis in everything I have to say pretty much everything I have to say, period, but definitely in this episode what I'm saying here is that you really have to think about what you're doing and because you can't control the other people in this situation, only yourself. So for the sake of your partner, another thing you wanna do, if you don't wanna have anything to do with your metamour is you should acknowledge the consequences that your choice has on your partner and hold space for your partner's feelings around it, where you can instead of minimizing them or defending yourself, because this is gonna be hard for them.
Your partner will have a lot of more juggling to do of who can be where, when and how now. I don't want you to let that compromise your boundaries. I don't want you to let your partner guilt you in any kind of way, but I also do want you to show your partner some grace and understanding and care where you can try your best, not to actively make things more difficult, such as really asking your partner for things that you know, are gonna put them in hot water with their other partner, and try to show respect for the challenges that are gonna come up around things like special occasions or, you know, birthdays holidays, things that you both might wanna go to and be aware also of the power differentials between your relationship, your partner and your metamour, and be careful to avoid allowing that power to impact your partner's relationship with your metamour.
I talked about this in my episode, about couple power and privilege, but really in, in this case, it's even more important to be mindful of unexamined hierarchy and be careful not to pull rank or otherwise interfere with your partner's other relationship up. And I wanna acknowledge here that if you're the non nesting partner and you don't want anything to do with your metamour, you also have some power. There, there are ways you can undermine that relationship. And so it's just really important to be aware that you do have some power to impact that other relationship. So do your best to not let your unwillingness to interact with your partner's partner to place inherent limits on how your partners, other relationship can grow and evolve. Because if you're doing this, of course, it can damage your partner's relationship with your metamour, but it can also create a lot of resentment between you and your partner though.
I'll add here. That's sometimes both of the previous situations are just unavoidable. If there's a special occasion that you wanna attend with your partner and you don't wanna share space with your metamour, someone is gonna miss out and missing out might mean that there's a loss of integrating that person into your partner's life or sharing an important milestone or things like that. As I'll go into in a second, deciding who gets what role in your shared partner's life is not your job to figure out that responsibility belongs to your partner who is also known as the hinge in this situation. If you don't wanna communicate with your metamour again, that's fine, but make sure that you remain very respectful of how you talk about them and their relationship with your partner. You don't wanna do or say anything that could potentially undermine the relationship.
Like I said, and you also wanna tread lightly on how you share information that involves your partner and with whom, if you're sharing information about your partner and it trickles to your metamour through mutual friends, that can be a form of triangulation and it can cause hurt feelings. If you and your metamour have shared community or shared spaces, be careful that you don't say or do things that could harm or hurt your metamour as best you can try to make space so that your metamour can have access to social connections, because I've found in my experience that polyamory community can be really important to have networks of support. And a lot of times, if we don't have support within our polyamory community, we don't have port around our polyamorous relationships because that's not something that, you know, monogamous people always can get. And so I just, I think it's important to make that space.
And one way that it can, that can help is to try to keep your friend group separate so that you don't run into more overlapping connections with someone that you don't wanna be connected to be generous where you can with your metamour two, not for them, because again, I know you don't wanna have anything to do with them, but because it's just good karma, give them the benefit of the doubt. Try to make space where you can just be gracious and be forgiving of your partner if they screw things up because they probably will. And that's because they're in a difficult situation that is likely impossible to navigate flawlessly. So again, just grace, except this time for your partner. Okay? So that's, if you are the person who doesn't want anything to do with you are metamour. If you are the partner also known as the hinge, I have so much sympathy for you because this can really suck.
And I'll say again, that if one of your partners doesn't want anything to do with the other, it might be a signal to take a look and see what might be underneath that stance that your partner has because there might be a yellow or a red flag there that you need to look at. It also might be worth taking a look at whether you are fostering a healthy connection between your partners or whether you are hindering that I have seen some hinges, like really, really with the best of intentions, undermining those relationships by trying to manage them or by being a go between. And I'll get into that. And also, I wanna say you can absolutely decide that it just won't work for you. If your partners can't be connected to each other, you're allowed to have that be a deal breaker for you. However, that doesn't mean you have license to pressure your partners to be connected or get along.
So you can try cuz we all get to have influence over the people whose behavior impacts us. We get to try, we get to say our case, but in general, I've not seen that go well. And it can actually backfire on you by again, creating resentment between your partners and leave them feeling that they're wrong for not being able to get along. When actually this is more common than you might imagine. It's actually not that uncommon at all for metamour to not get along again. I, I, I think sometimes people who have a lot in common, sometimes there's a little bit of friction and that can make it hard or they might be polar opposites. And that's why your partners, you know, that's why you're drawn to both of them. So if you find yourself in a situation where everyone's done their best, but your two partners don't wanna be connected to each other and you decide you wanna stay in this situation and you wanna make it work.
Here's what I would suggest for you. The big one, this is so huge. If you get nothing else from this podcast and you're a hinge, this is the one I want you to hear own your agency. When your partner's needs that they have from that they have from you are in conflict or you run into a situation where you have competing commitments with them. It is your choice, what to do about that. And your choice alone, never throw one partner under the bus with the other one. If you have to let one partner down or cancel something with them to meet a need or fulfill a commitment with another own that you are choosing that never blame your metamour, you're an adult. You get to decide what you're gonna do and what you're not gonna do. Nobody is making you so own that. Okay. And, and when that happens, because it inevitably will, okay, it's gonna happen to you.
I also want you to be gentle and forgiving of yourself. You just one person, you're a human in a difficult situation and happens. And it's impossible to make everybody happy all the time. And that's not your responsibility. So be gentle with yourself if you have to let someone down. So another thing to know is that a lot of pain in this kind of situation can come from what information is being shareand how, and with whom information is one of these covert status. Things like being in the know, being in the inner circle of your partner and what what's going on with them is important. So you really are gonna need to tread carefully and massively up level your communications game. If you tell something to one partner like show are a big life thing with them, it's really important to make sure that your other partner gets that information before they hear it from someone else, or they might feel left out or not included.
That's just like one example. So just be really aware of that in terms of how you make people feel included in your life and what they get to know. And don't know, especially if there's an inequity, because one partners just happens to be closer to you in some kind of way. Just that's really important to be conscious of another thing I said this earlier, don't allow yourself to be the go between between your two partners. If your partners don't want contact with each other, don't let them and don't let yourself turn into their owl. If your partners have a disagreement, don't take sides or involve yourself, don't feel the need to let one know how the other one feels about them. Don't try to build a bridge. Don't try to, you know, advocate for the other person's point of view. I've found that a really good rule to follow in general is just to not speak for other people and don't advocate on their behalf without their consent.
Now you're sure to mess this one up in a while, but if you're making a habit of it or even thinking like, it's your job to do, you're doing something called triangulation and it's gonna blow up in your face. You may feel like you're trying to mend fences, but I've never seen this do anything but hurt the relationship. And I'm not talking about your relationship with your partners, although it can hurt that, but I'm talking about the more you try to help quote unquote help. The more it can actually really hinder the relationship. And even if you aren't intending to triangulation can actually end up being pretty manipulative and controlling. So really just back off, just stay out of the middle of it. It, it sucks. Anyway. It's not fun. Also. There are times when you'll want to tell one partner about something that happened with you that involves your other partner, because you wanna tell stories about your life with them.
That might come up. And what I encourage you to do is get consent from both of your partners to share information about that other partner with each other. I'd also encourage you to get maybe some kind of blanket understanding of what's okay. And not okay. Again, it's good to have some boundaries around communication and what people wanna hear and don't wanna hear. And I also think it's useful to tell someone after the fact what you've been saying about them and about your experience with them, because sometimes it can be really stressful to be in the dark. And I know this sort of feels like counter to the previous thing where I say, don't be the go between. But again, when you're talking about you and what you say and what you feel it's different. And sometimes it's really important to keep everyone informed on what that is, because sometimes we end up making up stories in our head.
And so again, the more proactive you can be around communication about where you're at and how you feel about everybody, the better. And to that end, I, I think it can be useful sometimes to make a point of saying positive things about your partners to, to each other and sharing stories about how they add to your life or how wonderful they are. Again, you wanna make sure you get permission to do that. Both from the person hearing the thing and the person you're saying the thing about, but I think it can be useful. And again, this is not with the intention amending fences, but more just having them understand you and understand why this persons in your life. Another thing that's really important though, is again, don't pressure or shame. One of your partners into being connected to the other. This is really not cool and it's disrespectful of their boundaries.
And it's also not likely to work and tends to just make things worse that said, you, you also get to feel how you feel about it. You get to be angry, you get to be sad. You get to be frustrated. You get to be disappointed, whatever you're feeling about this is valid. Just be mindful of how you express those feelings. And to whom I'm not saying you can never tell your partner that you're disappointed that they don't get along. Because I think like they might be disappointed too. You know? I mean, it, it might be useful to share that grief, but I suggest saving your unfiltered processing about this difficult situation for someone outside of these two partners, because that again can kind of come across as blaming just because you're upset. And this is hard. Doesn't mean anything is doing anything wrong and it's important to hold space for that too.
It's also really important to stick up for both of your relationships. If you're ever in a situation where one partner is asking for things that could undermine or harm the other relationship, don't allow yourself to participate in that set a limit there. And absolutely don't allow either of your partners to dictate what happens in the other relationship. Again, that's just, that's not cool. If one of your partners is a nesting partner, a tricky thing can be negotiating your shared space. And I did a whole episode on this a couple of weeks ago. The reality is they have a right to not interact with people in their own home that they don't wanna interact with. So there's that, but you also live there and have a right to be able to have people in your home and use your space as you want to. So this can be a really gridlocked issue because both of you have a reason position on it.
And so the key thing there is find a healthy and kind and compassionate way to talk about it and negotiate and work it out together. Be really careful not to railroad anybody into accepting a situation that they find unacceptable. And also don't allow yourself to be railroaded out of being able, able to have the people you love in your home. And lastly, hinges ask for things that you need to support you in maintaining your relationships. Your metamours may not wanna have anything to do with each other, and they certainly don't inherently owe each other anything, but they both theoretically love you and want you to be happy. Just make sure that you frame any requests as being for you. Whew. Okay. Okay. So now I'm gonna go back to where I started, which is what do you do if it's you, if you're the one who's metamour wants nothing to do with you doesn't wanna be your friend doesn't wanna be connected to you as with every other person said in this situation, I wanna start by encouraging you to take a close look, to see if your metamour is unwillingness to engage with you is a sign that there are red flags with them or problems in your partner's relationship with them, or maybe even a signal that there's something off in your relationship with your partner.
When there are problems between metamour, it is sometimes a big flashing sign that the hinge partner isn't creating enough security in their relationships. And I've also seen hinge partners. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally pitting their partners against each other as some kind of power play. Maybe it shows up as making one or the other field more like the favorite or sometimes it's the hinge talking negatively about one partner to the other. And I've also seen this come up with metamours feeling like they have to compete for one of those finite resources, because love is infinite, but, you know, time, energy, attention, those aren't, and then the hinge, just not managing expectations or owning their choices very well. That kind of behavior can be used as a way of gaining control or manipulating one's partners by isolating them from each other. So I'd really look out for that.
Again, I don't wanna vilify someone if that's going on for them, cuz sometimes it's unintentional, but it's really important to not allow that continue. And so, you know, and hinges again, you gotta look at this and do your work. You know, if you only have so much time, don't leave it to your med, to your partners, to compete over it own that it's your time. It belongs to you and then how you wanna use it. Anyway, also for the person who, whose metamour doesn't want anything to do with them, just like everyone else. In this situation, you get to decide presence or absence of red flags, whether you want to do parallel poly, when you would prefer to do kitchen table poly, or whether you just like to have some kind of relationship with your meta, you can't force anyone to the kitchen table obviously, but you also can't force yourself to be happy about not having that.
If that's something you want, if it's really important to you to have that kind of arrangement and you're not getting it in this relationship, it might be worth like putting your energy into finding a partner whose partners will be able to do that with you. But you know, sometimes you just love who you love and the relationship with your partner is worth having, even without being able to have a relationship with your meta. And if you decide to continue, I have some tips and these tips are very road tested because I've been in this situation. I saved this part for last because this is the role I have been in, in the past. First of all, allow yourself to feel however you feel about it. If what you really want is to be connected and get along with everyone and have a big happy poly family.
This can really suck and it's okay to be unhappy about it. It's okay to grieve, not getting the relationship and configuration that you wanted. It's okay. Also, if you feel rejected and vulnerable, because this isn't a boundary you chose, it might feel like, you know, you're not you not good enough. It could really hurt. But just because you're hurt, doesn't mean anyone is wrong, but your feelings are still valid. So the other thing I'd advise you to do is make sure you get clear communication about where the boundaries are with your metamour, because if your metamour is saying, you know, I don't wanna be connected to you. You need to get clear on what that really means. Your metamour or your partner may have a hard time being clear about that in part, because they may feel uncomfortable or mean about setting those clear boundaries with you.
But I think it's really important for you to get clear on what is and isn't okay. And I'd also say show respect and gratitude for those boundaries when they are being set for you. It's much better that your metamour is being clear about where they are and what they want and don't want so that they're not trying to like fake a relationship with you while all the while quietly building resentment towards you and your shared partner. Also, you may feel powerless in this situation, but remember that you get to have boundaries too. And what I mean by boundaries is again, you get to decide on the situations, you'll allow yourself to be in and you get to bow out of situations. You don't wanna be in my next piece of advice is complain about the situation to your friends or other partners. But you know, be mindful about how much you complain about them to your hinge partner, because this situation is probably hard for them too, but spending a lot of time commiserating about how much it sucks that that your metamour isn't game to be close to.
You can also end up looking a lot like ganging up on your metamour, which isn't respecting their relationship. Also as best you can try to take their rejection on the chin and try to let it go. The reality is not everyone is gonna like you. And that is just the way of the world and not everyone has to. And the, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you either. So please again, don't internalize your metamour desire to not be close to you. I went through that and it really tore me up, but ultimately I realized that when someone doesn't like me, most of the time, that's about them and not about me. I mean, maybe there are things in about you that you need to work on, but the reality is also you can't please everyone. And it is a crucial life skill to be able to let go of people who just aren't your people.
And the other thing is make sure that your partner sticks up for your relationship. And don't be afraid to ask for what you need and advocate for yourself. Try to turn your focus away, though, from what your metamour may or may not have with your partner that you might want. And instead focus on what you want with your partner and let them navigate the places where there's friction. Again, don't get caught in this trap of fighting over resources that are your partners with your metamour focus on your relationship with your partner, not on what your partner has with your metamour. It's just not, it's not a good place to go. And if your partner is not owning their own agency, then don't let that fly. You know, really encourage them to own their choices here and don't let them throw your metamour under the bus.
Also you need to respect your partner's other relationship and offer whatever support you can for them to freely engage in it. And also be careful to tread that line of not demanding so much support for your relationship that you're forcing your partner to repeatedly stick up for their other relationship with you. I realize that you may not feel like you owe your metamour anything, especially because maybe they're acting in ways that are hurtful towards you. But again, if you start playing tug of war, the person who's most going to get hurt is your partner, the person that you love it can be hard to support them in loving someone who has again, who's causing you pain and who doesn't want anything to do with you, but that relationship is not about you. It's about your partner and their happiness. And if you love them, you wanna encourage them to be with the person that they love.
Even if that person doesn't love you. As I said, I was in this situation myself several years ago with a metamour. I dated someone new and their more established partner just really didn't get along with me. And even though we started to try to have a friendship, we ultimately, she ultimately decided she didn't wanna do that with me anymore. And it sucked and it was hard and it made me feel hurt and rejected and vulnerable and really insecure for a little while. And it was made harder by the fact that the person who didn't wanna be close to me was my partner's nesting partner and had been with my partner for a very, very long time. There were times when I was afraid that my metamour's rejection of me would keep me shut out of aspects of my partner's life that I hoped to be a part of, but I actually think my metamour did what they could to prevent the us.
And I think that they really did their best to respect my relationship with our shared partner. And in many cases went way above and beyond to protect the time that I got to have with my partner. So, you know, even though they couldn't be friends with me, they were and continue to be incredibly respectful of my relationship, which honestly can't have always been easy for them. Now that's not to say that there weren't many bumps in the road and many challenges, but we have ultimately worked to respect one another and support our partners relationship with each of us. And I've come to see that even though we're not friends, they've really done every thing they could to be a great metamour to me while not also sacrificing themselves and their own needs and boundaries. And that's the best that I can hope for. And, you know, years later they've also expressed to me that they really did wanna be able to be friends with me, but it just wasn't possible for them.
And they also grieved that we couldn't have a relationship. So, you know, again, I just wanna voice that this is a thing that happens and it's more common than you think. It's funny because like some of my friends when I first started getting involved with my partner, looked at our situation and were just like looking at me and scratching their heads and going, why would you wanna do this? But, but while it was hard and, and not what I was looking for, like, I really want like big poly family, everybody interconnected, everybody showing up at Thanksgiving together, co-parenting together, blah, blah, blah. This situation also taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about boundaries. It taught me a lot about being able to just respect where people are at when it's not where you want them to be. And to really just accept what is, and again, I also just, I learned that this situation isn't that unusual.
So please know that if you're in this situation, you're not alone and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It doesn't mean you're doing polyamory wrong. It doesn't mean that that you're bad and, and it, you know, it, it's just something that happens and it's okay. Okay. So I'm gonna recap now, but first I just wanna thank you for sticking with me on this episode. I know it's a little longer than my normal one. But I just, I had a lot to say there was a lot in this episode that needed to be said. So to recap, yes, it can be challenging and even disappointing if your metamour doesn't wanna have, have a relationship with you, but it's, it's a thing that happens. And it doesn't necessarily mean anyone is doing anything wrong. Definitely keep an eye out for those red and yellow flags.
But also sometimes that's not the issue. It's just for all different kinds of reasons. It's not working. I went through a lot of advice on what to do if you're in this situation. And I'm not gonna recap it all. But my top advice is for the person who doesn't wanna be connected with your metamour is to be clear on your boundaries. If you're the hinge, remember own your agency and own your choices. And if you're in this situation where your metamour doesn't wanna be connected to you just remember to take a deep breath, be kind to yourself and try not to make it about you because it probably isn't. And truly I can understand if you really want kitchen table poly, that you might be disappointed, but none of this is the end of the world, or it doesn't have to be as long as you and your metamour respect each other's relationships and each other's boundaries. And as long as your partner learns how to hinge like a, it can work and sometimes work really well. I can say for myself, it has worked really well. It will require that everyone conducts themselves with grace and generosity, respect and care, but you can move through it and have a wonderful relationship and possibly find something really beautiful in it all. So go forth and have the relationships you wanna have, and don't have the relationships that you don't wanna have.
