Episode 137 - Meta's Fault
Your partner is making decisions about your relationship based off of your metamour’s feelings and resentment is building.
That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.
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Thank you to Chris Albery-Jones at albery-jones.com for the theme music.
Podcast transcript
I’m married recently opened poly[am] with a mono spouse/NP (we’ll call them Spouse), and we both did a lot of hard the work together to figure out how to keep our relationship strong. And it’s working really well! My new partner (“Partner”) is also married but has been poly[am] for several years now, with one additional sexual partner and their spouse/NP (“Meta”).
When I first got together with my Partner, my understanding of their simple agreement with Meta was that as long as whatever Partner was doing was ethically above-board with everyone involved, it was fine with Meta. Meta was originally concerned about Spouse's hesitation because of Meta's own past experiences, and was very fixated on making sure they were comfortable with my being poly[am] (this will come back later). Spouse and I have had a lot of conversations and they are supportive.
About 8 months ago new Partner and I shared feelings of our love with each other, then told Spouse and Meta. Suddenly Meta has concerns about Partner having sex with someone that involves love. It’s not concern about the sex (again, Partner already has another sexual partner besides Meta).
As Partner originally described themselves to me as poly[am], this took me by surprise (and, to be fair, Partner too). Both Partner and I want to have sex with each other, but also acknowledge that Meta and Spouse are our primary partners (respectively). People are of course allowed to change their minds, but I also feel a bit like I was offered a bait and switch arrangement, where Partner said they could offer poly[am] but now there are new rules being placed on Partner and my relationship by Meta.
As a consequence, I asked to go more fully parallel while Partner and Meta worked things out. However Partner has shared with me that Meta's past trauma is keeping them from feeling comfortable with us having sex that involves love, even though they claim to have a positive view of our relationship and of me. This is supposedly not a result of jealousy but rather their past relationship trauma.
I am becoming very resentful of Meta for controlling our relationship and taking so long to do the hard type of work that my Spouse and I did (my Spouse has an unusual family background that made these discussions particularly emotionally challenging), especially after Meta and Partner passed themselves off as experienced poly[am]. Partner claims Meta likes me a lot, and I feel this from them when we have shared conversations, and I like them a lot as a person too.
However, I feel like if Meta really did "like" me so much, they would be more concerned about the consequences of their actions on my feelings and on my relationship with Partner. But I also recognize that trauma isn't always logical, and their past traumatic experience in a relationship involving love and sex is greatly shaping their view of the situation.
I'm starting to feel like this is creating my own terrible experience for me, putting Partner and me in an untenable position the longer it goes on. In particular, I am feeling more like an object whose needs don't matter and a lot like "the other woman". Partner recently said that they and Meta had a discovery that they think Partner discussing more about how I impact Partner's life in positive ways will help Meta form positive associations with this kind of connection.
Rather than giving me hope for my relationship, it's made me feel like a tool for Meta's necessary therapy. I would have given up a long time ago, but Partner and I share a powerful emotional and intellectual connection as well as some really strong chemistry and an unusual demographic identity – all of which have been so meaningful to me in exploring many things. (This isn't just one possible relationship in the poly[am] dating world for me; if I end it, I'd probably just return to monogamy.) I believe in being a part of healing a broken world and broken lives, but I also feel lost, heartbroken, and like I'm not sure what to do next.
Response
Firstly, I want to say that I think that you need to put the responsibility where it lies here and this is something that I see a lot of people do. The meta isn't controlling your relationship. Your partner is. Your partner is a grown adult. Your partner is making the decision to prioritise their relationship with their meta over you. And your partner is the one who is responsible for that.
And it's very difficult sometimes to put that responsibility where it lies, especially if you have a friendship with your metamour. Especially if you know this much, which I don't think that you necessarily should. Maybe you were attempting to be more kind of like kitchen table style or more kind of close friendships with metamours and things like that.
But I feel like there's way too much information being told to you about what's going on between your metamour and your partner's relationship that doesn't have anything to do with you. That you can't even control. And it's all a lack of responsibility that your partner is taking for the decisions that they are making in their lives. If they want to stop having sex with you because their other partner is having an emotionally difficult time with that, that is their full ass decision to do.
And that is their responsibility to take and instead of being like, “Oh, I can't have sex with you because Metamour is upset”. Like Metamour isn't their mom. It's not like they can't come out to play because mommy said no. They're a grown adult. They're making the decision.
They don't want to upset Metamour and like I'm sorry. But yeah, like there's trauma. There is stuff that your metamour has to work out but that's not none of your business. And it's not even something that like— does your metamour want you to know? Is your metamour even comfortable with you knowing this much about like what's going on in their trauma and things? Like it's not your business.
Technically like I know you're friends with them, but you just know too much information and it's information that doesn't help you and it's information that is being put there in the place of actual responsibility that your partner should be taking and saying “I am choosing not to have sex with you, because it makes Metamour uncomfortable and I'm prioritising their emotions over your feelings in our relationship”.
And just be honest about that. Just be honest about that. You know if you want to say that you both have nesting/primary partners, whatever, and then you know, you're going to prioritise those people, then that's what that means. And they need to be fully honest about that and your partner needs to be fully honest about that. So I think that it's easy for you to blame the metamour.
Because that's kind of the decision that's being engineered in a way by — you know, it's kind of the logical step for you to do if you know this much information about the situation but really, the person who is responsible for deciding not to have sex with you anymore if that's what's happening or slowing down your relationship or doing — that is your partner's decision. That is your partner's whole ass decision as a grown adult who is more than capable of dealing with the situation.
And you know, your metamour is welcome to have feelings. Like your metamour’s welcome to have feelings and trauma, but that doesn't mean that other people have to stop and wait. Like that's not what that means. That doesn't mean that your metamour has the right to decide what goes on. What if I had a friend who you know, liked karate, and I didn't like karate because someone beat me up with karate? I can't tell my friend, “You can't go to karate because I've had a problem with karate. I have trauma around karate. You can't go and do karate”.
Or if I had a partner and I had trauma around that, like I know that sounds like a stupid example but I'm not allowed to control what other adults do because of my own traumas. And yes, I can ask them not to talk to me about it. And you know if — I don't know what's being disclosed or what's being talked about, I mean, obviously, you want to let each other know for sexual health reasons, perhaps like “Hey, FYI, there's a new STI sort of risk because I'm having sex with so and so”.
But you were having sex before and as you pointed out, your partner is having sex with other people. So I don't understand like, yeah, I love this person. And now all of a sudden that changes the sex? Whatever situation that the meta needs to work out with their own feelings is stuff that your meta needs to work out but it has nothing to do with you. And Partner needs to take responsibility for that. And that's where the blame should lie.
So I think that instead of you sitting there and holding resentment over your metamor, for something that is a partner's decision, then I think what you should do is, “Hey, listen, so you're deciding not to have sex with me because of your other partner, but that's a decision that you're making”. And you know, it's not necessarily you want to be like, “Well, you have to have sex with me or like…”
That's not what I'm saying. But I think that you can put a boundary down of like, “I don't need to know this much about like what's going on with meta. I don't need to know that”. And I don't think it's helping — like it'd be one thing if your partner had said, like, “Hey, I need to put a pause on our sexual relationship for a short period of time”, and maybe gave you a beginning and end date or maybe gave you a rough idea.
I think you would even probably, I mean— that would still suck but you probably would feel a little bit better about it. Then you would knowing that there's all this stuff, but I think you know, putting that boundary down. I'm a little bit taken aback and confused by what you mean about like, basically, if this relationship ends you're gonna go back to monogamy.
I think that's a little bit strange of a thing and like I kind of understand that, maybe you're frustrated with the whole experience, but this is just an experience with some people who, you know, one partner you have that isn't necessarily like hinging well as what we say. But that doesn't necessarily mean that polyamory itself is like, unsafe, and you could actually be cheating yourself out of finding someone else who shares your same identity by deciding that just because this situation isn't working out, that you won't go forward.
But again, that's like totally up to you. But I think that the two things that I would do in this situation is like put up stop on knowing so much about like, what's going on with your meta like, I would be like, “I don't need to know this. I do not need to know this”. And I would also like, you know, I would see if knowing less over a period of couple of weeks made me feel a little bit better about the situation.
And see if it changes — anything changes within a couple of weeks and sort of make your partner aware like “Look, I see this as your decision. I don't want to hear anything about what's going on with meta. This isn't meta’s decision, this is your decision. You are deciding that you're not going to sleep with me anymore because of other things that I have no control over that are not my business to know. But you are making that decision in this relationship. And I feel like that's not really fair. And I'm gonna give this you know, a couple of weeks and see how things change and if things change, but what I need from relationships is this, and that is what I need. And if I don't get what I need from the relationships, or I feel like I'm not being prioritised, or I feel like I'm kind of being put aside, then I don't know if I want to be in this relationship anymore”.
Because I think also it would be helpful for you in the future going forward to define from the beginning what you want from relationships because, like, you're saying that they are promising you polyamory and now you feel like you're not getting it because you know, there's some sort of connection between love and sex and the in you know, I assume that your partner's not having sex with you anymore because of your meta’s feelings.
But the thing is, like asexual people and people who don't engage in sex all the time engage in polyam. So polyam can exist without sex, but if you personally need sex to have a closer intimate relationship, then that is something that I think that you should define going forward with partners of like, “If we are in a partnership, this is what I expect from the partnership” and then that way, you know, you will know, but I think like in general, as I said…
To sum up, I do think you should put the responsibility for this where it lies. It's not really your meta’s decision. It's your partner's decision and if you can muster up the ability to like try to ignore the information you have about the meta and focus on the fact that it's you know, your partner, like I said, meta’s not like … “my mommy won't let me come out to play”. Like that's not what's happening here.
Your partner is a fully grown adult human being capable of making their own decisions, and this is a decision that they're making. So knowing that ask yourself, do you want to go forward with a relationship where somebody— I mean, you both acknowledge that you have “primary nesting partners”, so maybe this isn't as big of a decision for you? Or maybe you're just finding out actually that even if you are a “secondary” to someone, you still don't want someone else to be basically responsible for making decisions, unilateral decisions that affect your relationship when they're not in your relationship.
And that's a learning experience. Sometimes you learn that and then going forward when you have other partners. You can ask them like, “You have a nesting partner, you have a primary partner, but does that? Are you going to make decisions based off of the way that your primary partner reacts to this or are you going to make decisions based off of what you want?”
And now you know that going forward, but maybe you wouldn't have been able to figure this out. And it's not necessarily about experience, no matter — you know? Because things like this can be something that other people don't have any problem with. But if you have a problem with that, then maybe this isn't cut out.
This isn't the relationship for you because as much as you may feel close to this person, if you're not comfortable with your partner, making their decisions based off of someone else's feelings and not their own wants and needs, then that is not a person who's compatible with you, no matter what other things may work out wonderfully.
Unfortunately, that's an incompatibility. So unless they're going to take responsibility, and think about it, and you know, as I said, you know, metas can be uncomfortable with it, but Meta can sit in discomfort. Meta is also a grown ass adult, and maybe it makes Meta feel uncomfortable, but guess what? Neither one of you can rub your magic butts and become not in love anymore. That's not how it works.
And you know, that's basically like, ask the partner to step up and take responsibility for that decision. And if they won't, then I think that you know, you got to think about do you want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't take responsibility for their decisions?
And also stop knowing so much about your meta. You don't need to know about their trauma, and what's going on in between them, like, you know way too much. I understand that you said you were moving more parallel, and maybe you were trying to like befriend and up but you know what, even if you're in the most kitchen table of all kitchen table polyamory, a partner should not come to you about the difficulties they have in another relationship.
You are not an objective third party. You are their friend and usually we do go to friends and talk with our friends about our relationship troubles. That is a wonderful thing to do. I totally think that people should do that. But you're not just a friend in this situation. You are not an objective third party. It's not appropriate. And it's not helpful for you to be the crying shoulder or listen to so much detail about what's going on in their relationship.
Especially if it affects you and it clearly is, and especially if your partner is making decisions in their relationships, based off of the emotions of their nesting partner, you don't need to know that information. So stop that. Stop doing that ASAP. Because it is not helping you. It is only fuelling the flames of this resentment. I hope that helps and good luck.