543 - My Metamour Refuses to Meet Me: Listener Q&A

Today we’re tackling another question from one of our Supercast subscribers. We’ll be discussing the following question:

Hi all! I have been dating a partner for a little over a year, and about 6 months ago we began making the shift from monogamy to polyamory. Things have gone very well overall (in part thanks to you all!), and I have started dating another person who is in a similar situation of making the shift from monogamy to polyamory. This new partner of mine has been dating her other partner for about 8 months, and I am happy that my partner has her other partner. However, my metamour does not want to meet me. Furthermore, my metamour and I go to the same gym, and our common partner has asked me not to say hi to my metamour should I see them there, as it makes them uncomfortable. 

Upon further conversation, this common partner confided in me that my metamour has built resentment toward me because of missteps of our common partner in learning to be an effective hinge. It causes me stress to think that, not only does my metamour not want to meet me, but seems to have an unjust negative view of me.

I have communicated to my partner that I think a meeting between us metamours could be beneficial, but it's something my metamour is still not open to. I know research points to positive metamour relationships as being a potentially important factor in maintaining healthy polyamourous relationships. My question to you all is, can anything be done on my end to maintain a healthy relationship without meeting my metamour? I have asked our common partner to tell me some of the things she values about my metamour and their relationship in an effort not to build resentment back towards them, but I'm wondering if you have any additional advice as we navigate this new situation.

Thank you for your help!

Metamour meaning well in Minneapolis

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Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are going to do a deep dive into answering a listener question. That question is what to do when a metamour just doesn't want to meet you. We'll get into some more details about that and also look at some research relevant to it in this episode. Stick around for that. If you're interested in learning about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. It's also available on audiobook now.

Emily: Just a quick disclaimer before we get started here, we have spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication, but we're not mind readers. Our advice is based solely on the limited information we have. Please take what we say with a grain of salt. Every situation is unique. We encourage you to use your own judgment and seek professional help if needed. Ultimately, you are the only true expert in your own life, and feelings and your decisions are your own. This question has been edited for time and clarity.

Dedeker: Okay, here is our listener question. My metamour doesn't want to meet me. We've started to build resentment toward one another. Hi, all. I've been dating a partner for a little over a year, and about six months ago we began making the shift from monogamy to polyamory. Things have gone very well overall in part, thanks to you all. We'll take so much credit for your relationship successes. We'll take all the credit.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Love it.

Dedeker: I've started dating another person who is in a similar situation of making the shift from monogamy to polyamory. This new partner of mine has been dating her other partner for about eight months. I'm happy that my partner has her other partner. However, my metamour does not want to meet me. Furthermore, my metamour and I go to the same gym and our common partner has asked me not to say hi to my metamour should I see them there as it makes them uncomfortable.

Upon further conversation, this partner confided in me that my metamour has built resentment toward me because of missteps of our common partner in learning to be an effective hinge. It causes me stress to think that not only does my metamour not want to meet me, but seems to have an unjust negative view of me. I've communicated to my partner that I think a meeting between us metamours could be beneficial, but it's something my metamour is still not open to.

I know research points to positive metamour relationships as being a potentially important factor in maintaining healthy polyamorous relationships. My question to you all is, can anything be done on my end to maintain a healthy relationship without meeting my metamour? I've asked our common partner to tell me some of the things she values about my metamour and their relationship in an effort to not build resentment back towards them. I'm wondering if you have any additional advice as we navigate this new situation. Thank you for your help. That was sent in by a metamour meaning well in Minneapolis.

Emily: I was just there. Great .

Jase: Nice.

Dedeker: Did a metamour give you the cold shoulder when you were there?

Emily: Not there, no, but--

Jase: Okay. Good clarification, yes.

Dedeker: It's not a Minneapolis specific problem is what we've ruled out.

Emily: Not that I know of. I can imagine that this is a problem for a lot of people in a lot of different places.

Dedeker: Yes.

Jase: Yes.

Emily: I do think this is definitely something that happens in the beginnings of opening up a relationship or transitioning from monogamy to non-monogamy or getting into a relationship with somebody who is monogamous, and you tell them, "Actually, I have another partner. It's okay that we see each other, but just so you're aware, you're essentially engaging in non-monogamy if you choose to engage with me in some sort of relationship."

That that can cause a lot of tension, that can be really challenging. I definitely have been in a scenario where I am the more experienced partner, and my partner, who is less experienced, may have relationships with other people who don't really necessarily know much about non-monogamy as well. That creates some potential tensions there. It can be definitely challenging.

Jase: Yes, there's a lot of different dynamics that can come with that. I think what's interesting about this question is that everybody's new. It's, what, six months ago for the question-asker. It says that this new partner has been dating her other partner for about eight months, and that they're new to it I guess. We don't know how new, but, yes, that's definitely adds to the challenge because you're more likely to make little missteps. It sounds like there's been some of that.

Then also there's that whole like, this is a new relationship to a person that I've never had to think about before. I have no guideposts or no role models of what's normal, what's acceptable, what's unreasonable. Yes, I have definitely seen this so many times, some variation on this.

Dedeker: Yes. I'm trying to think back to my very early days of non-monogamy. I feel like even though I read all the books, I read Ethical Slut.

Emily: You wrote a book or two.

Dedeker: Well, that wasn't at the point. I wasn't there yet.

Jase: .

Dedeker: I wasn't there yet when I was reading the book.

Jase: We're back in time.

Dedeker: Back in time. Way back in time. Even though the Ethical Slut, at least from what I recall, is fairly pro metamours meeting, crossing paths, fairly pro kitchen table, I read that, but even then was still like, well, I'm not going to do that.

Emily: Oh, really?

Dedeker: Yes. I was like, I have no interest in that whatsoever. I'm like, sure, maybe some people practice non-monogamy this way. I don't think that's for me. I'm more interested in dating multiple people, and this whole issue of metamours, I don't really want to deal with. I didn't even think about it in the early days. I was in this mode where I'm like, I'm just focused on one thing, I'm just focused on what I can get out of this combined with, I have not been presented with any models for how to deal with a relationship like this, as in like a metamour relationship.

Literally, most of the models that are shown to us is, if your two lovers get together, that's just a disaster, either a hilarious disaster or a really dramatic disaster. I really was not motivated at all towards trying to actually meet my metamours in the early days.

Emily: I think, Dedeker, you might've been the first real true metamour that I met. I'm trying to remember, and Jase, perhaps you can correct me if I'm wrong there, but I think the very first person that you kind of went on a date with, Jase, I met that person, but you didn't really date for that long. It wasn't particularly I guess long lasting or meaningful, but Dedeker obviously was and is.

Dedeker: Here we are.

Jase: She's still here. Can't get rid of her.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: Now that I think about it, you may have been my first maybe healthy intentional metamor meeting if I recall correctly.

Emily: See, everyone, this is why it's important, okay?

Dedeker: If you want your own podcast–

Jase: Yeah, yeah.

Emily: You can't get out of a relationship for 11, 12 years, and here we are.

Dedeker: I haven't talked about this a lot on the show or with the two of you, but I had some pretty toxic early metamour relationships. Again, born out of just no one really knows what they're doing, and everyone's just, I don't know, a little misguided. I dated someone for a while who would introduce me to his other partners but only in situations where it was a weapon.

Emily: God, what does that mean?

Dedeker: If he was on the rocks with a partner--

Emily: He would use you as the weapon.

Dedeker: Yes. This is stuff I didn't even put together till years later like, man, that was fucked up, years later.

Emily: Wow.

Jase: Yes, you're not even aware at the time.

Dedeker: I wasn't even aware at the time. Yes, he would be on the rocks with somebody, and without telling them, he would bring me to an event where they were basically-

Emily: Awkward.

Dedeker: -without warning them, he would roll up with this other lady that he's dating.

Jase: To show them he's got other options.

Dedeker: Yes.

Emily: Oh, that doesn't sound very ethical at all.

Jase: That's messed up. Yes.

Dedeker: He was really messed up and some really messed up things happened. As in I saw some really messed up reactions to that, as you can understand.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Absolutely, yes. It's like the worst possible way to introduce a metamour.

Dedeker: Oh, no, seriously. If you think about it, it further dis-incentivized me for a few more years away from thinking this is a good relationship to be in because most of my experiences were people are very unhappy with not only the arrangement but often very directly unhappy with me.

Jase: Yeah.

Dedeker: Bad, bad times. Then after that period, my first real metamour as in my partner was also having an emotional, entangled relationship. That was also complicated because this woman was much more monogamous-leaning. Emily got all the deets later.

Emily: Well, this person was also my metamour for a while.

Dedeker: That's true. Yes.

Jase: It’s true, yes.

Dedeker: Our shared hinge partner, again, like the question-asker is talking about was not doing a good job managing the communication.

Jase: That was not me, by the way-

Dedeker: That was not Jase.

Jase: -for the listeners at home.

Emily: No, no, it was not.

Dedeker: Yes. Our shared hinge partner was--

Emily: Jase was great.

Dedeker: -was telling all this--

Jase: I made my mistakes too, but I was not this particular guy.

Dedeker: I was telling all these lies of omission and all these concessions for this person. Yes, resentment built up very quickly. I will say, I do think one of the mistakes that I made, which is a classic mistake, is that I projected a lot of-- I think I blamed this metamour for a lot of problems that were actually a hinge problem, which we've talked about in other episodes.

Jase: We'll probably talk about more on this episode.

Dedeker: Yes. Probably.

Emily: It's just that metamour saying something that our shared partner had said to her about me that was dunking on me.

Dedeker: Oh, no.

Emily: Yes, it was really--

Dedeker: What did she say? Are you comfortable sharing?

Emily: I don't actually remember the content of it.

Dedeker: Oh, no. Oh, you just remember it was a dunk.

Emily: It was clearly-- Yes, it was definitely a dunk. She was basically dissing me, but it was a diss that he had said to her about me.

Jase: That she then said to you.

Emily: Correct. While he was sitting there.

Dedeker: Oh my God.

Emily: It was bad, y'all. It was bad.

Dedeker: It was so terrible you blocked it from your memory.

Emily: I don't remember what it was, but it was just the fact that it had happened in that way. Don't do that, everyone.

Jase: Not a good tip.

Emily: A, don't say shitty things about your partner to your other partner, but B, if you are going to, then, as the metamour, don't weaponize that.

Dedeker: Don’t keep repeating it.

Emily: Don't repeat it while the partner is right there. That's insane.

Dedeker: Well, saying all this is really making me appreciate my relationship with you, Emily, because I do think that was very healing because it was served as-

Emily: Likewise.

Dedeker: -this first reminder of, oh, actually this could be a really good form of relationship with somebody.

Emily: 100%.

Dedeker: As I'm saying all this out loud, I'm like, wow, that was a bad track record of metamour relationships.

Jase: A lot of bad history.

Dedeker: That could have had me off this whole meta thing for the rest of my polyamory career.

Emily: I think since then, also, it laid the groundwork for future metamour relationships as well. I'm not sure if all of yours have been great, but I think that a lot of mine have been really good. Not that I've done it nearly as long as you have. Getting back into it, I do think, though, that if you have a sense of this can be a really meaningful relationship, that can enhance your life as opposed to detract from it, that that allows you to, even if things are a little scary, go into a first-time meeting being like, "Hey, I just want to recognize the human in you, you recognize the human in me, and let's have a mutual understanding here."

Jase: I know I've said this before, but I always love to use the metaphor of in-laws when we're talking about metamours, because I still think that's the closest proxy that we have where it's a relationship that you have with someone else just through who your partner is. Like your sisters and brothers-in-law or your mother-in-law, father-in-law, these are people that you didn't choose to have a relationship with them, but by being with your partner, you have peripherally gained this relationship with them, and that they can run the gamut.

I think that at least people can wrap their heads around this idea that, yes, sometimes you'll have a brother-in-law that you just hate, and you just think is a jerk, and you don't get along. Sometimes you have one that you get along really well with, and they become a really close friend. I'd say most of the time, it's just neutral, cordial, yes, we see each other at family events, and it's not a big deal.

It's not a relationship I think about a ton. I think that sets a really good example for what a metamour relationship can be and maybe a way to categorize it for, especially when you're just starting out, and I haven't had this relationship before. I don't know mentally, emotionally where to put this relationship. Then I think that also the metaphor can be used as a way to give yourself some landmarks for what's normal behavior and what's maybe getting into weird, sketchy behavior.

If we go to this, yes, imagine that you started dating somebody, and something happened early on in your relationship that they relayed to their sister that made you look bad or that the sister interpreted that way. You could end up with that similar triangulated thing where now your relationship with your sister-in-law is poisoned a little bit or is starting off on the wrong foot because of some miscommunication involving your hinge that wasn't directly from you at all.

Dedeker: Your partner told their sister a dunk on you, and then the sister repeated the dunk back to you, and then it's just, we've really poisoned the well.

Jase: In that situation, I could see that sister being like, "I don't really want to meet this person." Like, "I don't know, man, you got to earn that first. You've only been doing them a little while, whatever, I don't want to meet them yet." I think that that's, it sucks, but it's reasonable. Obviously, when we say sister-in-law, we're implying marriage, but I mean more like the concept of that relationship. Maybe just the siblings or parents of someone you're dating. Maybe that's a way to think about it, not necessarily in law.

Then there's the part of this question that while Dedeker was reading it, if you watched the video version, you may have seen Emily and I both make faces. The part where they say, "Furthermore, my metamour and I go to the same gym and our common partner has asked me not to say hi to my metamour should I see them there as it makes them uncomfortable." To me, that's like, if you imagine that with an in-law or a sibling of someone you're dating, if they're like, "Hey, you go to the same gym as my sister, but if you see her do not say hi to her." That feels weird.

That's the part where Emily and I both made a face of that crossed the line into like, this is entering some territory that's a bit weird. It isn't just, Oh, we're not comfortable. We're not sure what to do, but it's like taking the whole triangulation problem and almost reinforcing that even harder. What I mean by that, the triangulation problem is when I don't ever communicate directly with this person. Instead, it all has to go through this intermediary, which is that shared partner.

That's just not a good way of communication. It's a shitty burden to put on that hinge partner. Often they put it on themselves, though. We've all been there. We've all done it. This is almost saying like, "It has to stay that way." It's not just I'm doing that because that's how everyone wants to communicate, but it's like I'm imposing this restriction to keep it that way. I don't think the partner is doing this on purpose necessarily to make themselves be this go between, but that's what they're creating, and that's something that we've pretty universally seen go badly.

Dedeker: I want to talk about this research that the person cites. However, before we get into that, Jase, have you ever had a situation where a metamour just refuses to meet with you?

Jase: I actually have had relatively good luck with that part of metamours. I think usually the curiosity has worn out, even if people are new to it. I'm dating someone, and they date someone who's brand new to non-monogamy, I think the curiosity of them has generally won out.

Dedeker: They're curious about you?

Jase: Or how does this whole thing work? Because I think that I was a little bit lucky in the sense that people I dated very early on when I was the newbie tended to have partners who had been doing it longer and they'd been doing it longer. On their side was more of that, "This is a normal thing. Whether we meet or not, fine. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it." Then as time went on, when I dated people who were newer to it or they were dating people newer to it because I was the more experienced, established one, it was this like, yes, this doesn't have to be a big deal. We can meet each other. It's okay. I do remember the one time, though, that Emily dated a guy-- that you're going to say.

Emily: Yes. No, there was one time when this guy that I had slept with in San Diego, and then he came up to hang out just for an evening.

Jase: This was really early in our opening up.

Emily: It was really early, but you went over to see Dedeker that night. It was--

Jase: Not too early.

Emily: It was not too early, but pretty early. Yes, he was definitely like, "I don't want to meet him. I don't want to meet him," but then Jase had to come back to get some clothes or something that he forgot.

Jase: Yes, this guy sat out in his car waiting until you told him that I had already left to go to Dedeker's.

Emily: He met you anyways.

Jase: Right. Then I got to the car, and realized like, oh, shoot, I forgot something and had to come back in, and there he was.

Dedeker: Hold on. This guy's sitting in the car waiting for the go ahead from Emily. Then the minute that Emily's like, yes, Jase just headed out, this guy booked it into your apartment in the time it took Jase to walk to the car and realize that he forgot something?

Jase: I saw him at the front door, so he wasn't inside yet.

Dedeker: He wasn't inside Emily.

Emily: Correct.

Jase: He wasn't inside Emily.

Emily: Not yet.

Jase: I came back to pick up whatever it was that I'd forgotten and said hi to him. We shook hands or whatever. I was like, "Oh, hey, good to meet you. I'm Jase." I didn't know that he'd been hiding from me. That might have changed my impression a little bit.

Emily: I can understand.

Dedeker: Would you hide in the bushes and be like, boo?

Jase: I went, and did my thing and said bye and left, and then, Emily, you told me that after that happened, that he was really like--

Emily: He was like, "Oh, that's fine." I'm like, "Yes. He's great. Chill out." It's going to be all right.

Jase: He's like, "Oh, that wasn't weird at all. That was totally normal."

Emily: He was like, "That was totally fine." I'm like, "That's how it's done, sir." Then he got married pretty soon after that. Not again, but-

Jase: Boy.

Emily: -that was his-

Jase: Unrelated to the metamour part of the story.

Emily: -small amount of non-monogamy and having to deal with metamours and stuff was good.

Dedeker: I just remembered another story. Sorry. Now we're on a roll.

Emily: Oh, gosh.

Dedeker: I want to tell the story.

Jase: Okay. Do it.

Emily: All right.

Dedeker: This was a little further along in the non-monogamy journey. My partner I was living with at the time, Brad, he had newly started dating a woman. Big surprise, he's dating a woman who's pretty monogamous.

Emily: Like he does.

Dedeker: Like does, or he did anyway, not down with the whole non-monogamy thing, having a hard time wrapping her brain around it. I'm set up in this situation with a metamour again. We planned, this is the situation is, I'm at our house, and I'm hanging out with my other partner, Jake. We were going to hang out, and then we were going to head out for a date. In the meantime, Brad was out with this woman, let's call her Theresa.

He was like, "I'm going to bring her back home, and maybe we can organize it and communicate ahead of time that it's like these two couples will be like ship's passing," which I think is actually not a bad strategy for a first metamour meeting. Low pressure, five minutes, this whole situation with the guy hiding from you unintentionally.

Jase: Quick hello, move on.

Dedeker: A quick hello, see if-- whatever. No one is forced to hang out or be sociable or whatever. We also thought like, we can coordinate the ship's passing in the night meeting, plus maybe if you, Dedeker, are there with your other partner, maybe that takes some of the pressure off that--

Jase: The meeting.

Dedeker: -this new woman doesn't feel like she's jockeying for my partner's attention. Maybe that'll make it feel a little bit more balanced. Great, I ran this by Jake. He was in. You totally get it, "Sure, let's go." Jake and I are hanging out at the apartment, and then Brad walks in and brings in this new person, Theresa. It's immediately clear that she is so uncomfortable and so pissed off, also at the same time.

Emily: Oh God, really?

Dedeker: So uncomfortable, so pissed off.

Emily: Pissed off?

Dedeker: Jake and I were sitting-

Jase: She had to see you.

Dedeker: -hanging in the kitchen, chatting, and all four of us trying to have conversation, and talking about music, and for some reason, the topic of Kissed by a Rose by Seal came up. For some reason-

Emily: Like it does.

Dedeker: -me and Jake and Brad-

Jase: It happens. Yes.

Dedeker: -were able to joke and talk about it, and this woman is not having it. She is visibly getting more upset.

Jase: She hates Seal.

Emily: How can you hate Seal?

Dedeker: I'm like, "I need to go to the bathroom." Then Brad is like, "Cool. Hey, Theresa, you want to go see the rooftop? The rooftop is pretty cool." It’s really big. He whisks her away to the rooftop. I go to the bathroom, I come back, and then as Jake and I are leaving, Jake's like, "You left me in there to just talk about Seal. You left me in that situation."

Emily: I understand now that that wasn't maybe the wisest.

Dedeker: It's funny because I always think about that-

Emily: It's so funny.

Dedeker: -whenever Kissed by a Rose–.

Jase: Wow.

Emily: I love it. How could you not?

Dedeker: Anyway, yet another not great. I would not recommend a situation like that if not everybody's on board. With that--

Jase: We don't know what happened on their side. Maybe they had a fight right before that.

Emily: Oh, maybe.

Dedeker: I don't know. I think if I recall getting the context, it had been maybe a little bit heated before that, because again, I think this person still was not super jazzed about the idea of non-monogamy or of meeting a metamour. To be fair, it is like she wasn't excited about that situation. That same night it all imploded. Anyway, would not recommend. With that, let's take a quick break, and when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about research. We're going to talk about like what's actually actionable here. What could you do in this situation to maintain a healthy metamour relationship with someone who doesn't want to talk to you? This person knows how to write a question to Multiamory because they mentioned research, which of course were perked up by my little ears.

Emily: Love that.

Dedeker: I looked into what this research is, and I don't know if this is the specific study they're referring to, but is probably one of the more recent studies on this topic done by Sharon Flicker, who has been on the show before, called Your Happiness Is My Happiness: Predicting Positive Feelings for a Partner's Consensual Extra-Dyadic Intimate Relations. That's the long-term for metamour. Consensual extra-dyadic intimate relations.

Emily: Extra-dyadic.

Dedeker: This was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2024. If people want to go back to Episode 386, we interviewed both Dr. Marie Thouin and Dr. Flicker on our episode titled, Compersion, Is It Really Necessary? This study was a cross-sectional survey with 255 participants recruited from online communities that were focused on polyamory and consensual non-monogamy. They used this specific compersion scale questionnaire to assess three subtypes of compersion.

Type number one, positive feelings toward a partner's metamour. Type number two, excitement about a partner forming new intimate connections. Type number three, sexual arousal related to thinking about one's partner and metamour together. Their key finding in the study was, "Those who liked their metamour, felt close to them, and who knew more about their partner's relationship with the metamour experienced higher compersion. These findings also applied to a subtype of compersion that manifests as sexual interest in their partner's relationship with their metamour."

Jase: Fascinating.

Dedeker: I suppose this supports the stuff that we tend to say on this show; is in most situations, not every situation, but in most situations, if you naturally like this person, or if you actually feel intimately close to them, whether that's emotionally intimate or sexually intimate, but also the more you know about the relationship they have with your partner, the more likely you are to experience sensations of joy or excitement around this relationship.

That's why I think we tend to encourage people, if it's appropriate, meet your metamour. You don't got to be best friends. You don't have to become lovers, like with in-laws, that you don't have to make it the most intimate relationship you've ever had. If you can find a way, I think way back in the Ethical Slut, they called it, "falling in like." Making the effort to fall in like with your metamour, then that's probably going to make things go a little bit easier for you. How do you do that when someone won't talk to you is the issue.

Emily: Good question.

Jase: Boy, something that I think is worth discussing a little bit with this, too, is we've talked before in the past, and I think we even talked about it on this episode with Marie Thouin back in the day, that you don't have to be best friends or be close. That, falling in like, it could even just be like falling in not dislike and fear of just--

Emily: Neutrality, like you often say.

Jase: Which is fine. Yes. Neutrality, like the in-law thing.

Emily: I was going to ask you, Jase, maybe with the exception of a couple metamours, Jake for example, I don't know how many of your metamours you've actually gotten really buddy-buddy with, a couple you've had not great relationships with, but even others that you tended to have more of a neutral time with them. I'm not sure.

Jase: I've spent the whole variety. I have been doing this for-

Dedeker: You've had quite a cornucopia at this point of experience.

Jase: -13 years or something. There's Brad, who was the bad metamour, and also, we were all still learning at the time, so I don't think any of us were the best at figuring out all of that, because that was early on.

Dedeker: Sure.

Jase: I've had a fair number that were more just neutral of like, "Okay, hey, you, good to meet you." That's it. We didn't really stay in touch. We didn't text each other or chat or whatever. I've had some where we'll be buds occasionally for a specific occasion. It's our shared partner's birthday, oh, let's coordinate on the party for that, or something. I've had a few also where I've been quite close and have had my own relationship outside through our shared partner of just like, "Let's go hang out. Let's go get a drink." Or like, "I'm going to this discussion group. Do you want to come with me to that? Let's do things together." It's really been the whole range.

I will say, though, that I do think it's interesting in this compersion research that they did breaking compersion into these three separate parts is just that they don't all have to go together. I have personally never felt any sexual arousal about my metamour being with a partner, regardless of gender or anything like that. It's always been just this neutral. Sometimes threatened, especially earlier on. That's never been a part for me, and yet I've had really positive metamour relationships because of that. I just want to clarify.

Dedeker: I need to press on that, though, because I've had group sex with you. Even in that situation, no sexual arousal?

Jase: I did with-- That was me. I was involved in all of that. I'm saying thinking about a partner with someone else.

Dedeker: Sure. You're talking about the absence, of thinking about your partner with-- Okay. Sure.

Jase: Honestly, I think it'd be cool to feel that. I just don't, and I never have. I think that's fine. It doesn't mean I don't have compersion. It doesn't mean I'm not happy for my partners, or I'm excited for them to have relationships, but it is this. I just want to clarify for the listener, if you're like, "God, that seems like way too far to ask, I can barely meet this person, much less you want me to be sexually excited about that?" I'm like, "No. That's not a requirement at all." I do want to clarify that, take that pressure off of just feeling neutral of like, "Okay. Cool. My partner is happy. I'm happy. Sure. Cool."

Emily: I do want to pivot slightly to this quote that really got me as you were reading through it, Dedeker. "Upon further conversation, this common partner confided in me that my metamour has built resentment toward me because of missteps or common partner in learning to be an effective hinge. It causes me stress to think that not only does my metamour not want to meet me, but seems to have an unjust negative view of me."

Now, to me, that's the fault of the common partner. That is the fault of the hinge that all of this happened. I'm not exactly sure what to do about it, but I do think that some healing or some understanding needs to happen from the hinge on both sides of the aisle here. Not only with the person who is writing in the question, but potentially with this metamour as well, because some stuff clearly happened that is outside of the control of the person who is writing in the question. That seems to be the fault of that common partner.

Something that the two of you talked to me about a lot is that while sometimes it feels nice to say, "Oh, the metamour is the one who is in the wrong here," actually, the person that you should be focused on is your partner, and what it is that the two of you can be doing in order to make the relationship better, not anything that that other person is doing, essentially. I think that that's something to at least look at here, and to hopefully try to repair, because I think it starts with that core relationship, and the relationship that that person has with their two partners.

Dedeker: Yes, it seems like a situation where it's very important to have an understanding of what can I actually do as an individual, what actually belongs to me? What belongs to this metamour, and what belongs to our shared partner as far as fixing. For instance, as far as the stuff that you can do, I think about things like any way that you can directly communicate, even if it is not reciprocated. It could be if you know their birthday is coming up, it could be writing a nice note and just writing whatever is honest, where it might be just like, "Hey, happy new year. Let's start off on a new foot this year," or it can be like, "Happy birthday. I wish you well. I hope that you're doing well."

It doesn't even have to be that intense, or you can take the approach of like-- I just think what's important here is for this person to be able to do and communicate what they feel is the most important to communicate, and then step back and have compassionate distance because what you don't want to have happen is over functioning for the hinge's sake, which I see happen all the time. This is something that I tend to see happen more in women, specifically of this sense of, "I really need to make sure that this metamour relationship is good.

I really need to make sure this person likes me. I'm going to make up for all of my hinge partner's mistakes and missteps and neglect sometimes. I'm just going to really overreach and really try to make sure that this works." This way, it's really tricky to figure out sometimes of where you stand and what actually belongs to the hinge partner. I think that any work you can do. Maybe it could be journaling to really get a sense of what do you actually wish this person knew about you and where you stand that you think would create the greatest good. Find a way to communicate that directly without any expectation of how it's going to be received or what you're going to get back, and then step back and stay in your lane. That's my take. I feel like I see faces of disagreement on Jase.

Jase: Yes, multiple faces of disagreement.

Dedeker: Give me your face of disagreement.

Emily: I liked it, but go for it, Jase.

Jase: I'm not disagreeing in general. It's more that I think where my mind goes to in terms of where to put your energy and effort first is more on your relationship with the hinge, with this common partner, because to me, this feels like that's the relationship you have control over, or not control over, but that you have influence in. I feel like sometimes if we let ourselves worry too much about what we think someone might think about us, that we have no way of really knowing because we don't have any direct communication with them. It's like we could end up doing something like reaching out, which to them feels like, "Wow, now they're like threatening me and moving in on my turf or being weird."

Dedeker: Yes, sure. I totally get that, but Jase, the gym, the gym, Jase. What do you do about the gym?

Jase: What do you do about the gym? That's why I think that the place to start here is because Emily brought up this point that there's been some damage done by the hinge partner here in that relationship. They've seemed to have admitted it of like, "Yes, I made some missteps, and that's what's caused this person to start from a place of dislike with you." I think it's good that they have admitted that, but I think there's also something to having more conversations with them about, "Do you see how maybe you trying to be the one in between us and controlling our relationship this way is not helping, that it's actually just making this worse?"

You're both new. Having some of these conversations and figuring this out, I do think is important because with the gym, I think the idea of knowing that somebody is there and seeing them and willfully ignoring them, not speaking to them, not because you two hate each other, not because you have some principled reason for it, but just because your shared partner said, "Don't because they don't want to meet you." That to me feels super yucky and weird, and feels like it would just makes things worse.

Dedeker: Then what do you recommend then, though?

Jase: Well, my hope would be to talk to your partner to be like, "That's not reasonable, actually. If this person, I meet them, and they tell me to fuck off, then, sure, I can respect them telling me that. I hope that they don't, and I hope that you can help us in repairing whatever missteps happened with you that I don't have any ill will towards this person. I hope that they know that. I don't need to be best friends, but I would like to be able to say hi to this person and not feel like we're having to hide from each other or be hidden from each other."

My hope would be you'd have that conversation, and yes, it might not be easy. Everyone's new. It's a little harder, everything's scarier, but that they would go, " Yes, that does make sense. You're right," and that you can work together on it. Then you have your second problem to deal with, which is the metamour, because you don't have control over that. You don't know how they're going to react, but at least you've tried to remove some of the triangulation that's happening.

I just keep coming back to I feel like that's the important part, because otherwise, what do you do? You either ignore them or you do talk to them, and then your partner is pissed off that you talked to them, and they told you not to.

Dedeker: What you're suggesting is, yes, go to your partner and explain, like, "I'm not comfortable with this. I'm going to say hi to this person, and if they are the one who wants to tell me direct to my face to not talk to me, I can respect that, but I'm not going to do this triangulation thing anymore." Your partner hopefully is like, "Okay, yes, great. Totally understand that." Then you go to the gym the next day, and you do what? You say, hi?

Emily: Can I say, and maybe this is silly, but I'd be interested in writing them a note, and just maybe they have a locker. Just put it in the locker-

Dedeker: Slide it into their locker.

Emily: -in the locker gym. You're still not saying hi to them, but you're saying hi to them.

Jase: Most gyms don't really work that way. That feels weird to me. I wouldn't advise that.

Dedeker: I don't mind the note. It doesn't have to be a big old letter.

Jase: How would you deliver the note?

Emily: I guess you would have to go up to the person and be like, "Listen, I'm really sorry that things are so tense between us. This is an invitation to potentially have a talk, just you and me, so that we can get off on a better foot than we're currently on. I have no ill will towards you whatsoever. I wanted you to hear that from me. I really would just like to get to a place where we could at least be cordial to one another, because we have somebody in our life that is shared that we care about. To me, I don't want to feel weird about somebody that my partner cares deeply about, and I would love if the same were extended to me." That, to me, is it. Thank you.

Jase: Beautiful. No, that was a great speech. That was like a movie final--

Dedeker: Everyone in the gym is crying and should be dropping their weights.

Emily: They're like, "What is going on?" Everyone's like, "Say yes, say yes." No, but, but truly, some of the best times in non-monogamy that I've had have been in community with multiple partners together at a party or at a gathering. You just can look around and be like, "This is a group of people that I care about, and nobody's weird. Everybody's just being chill-"

Jase: Or everybody's weird.

Emily: Well, or everybody's weird, but nobody is acting like they don't like each other. Everybody is acting as though this is a great time, and we all care about each other. That is the highest pinnacle of what non-monogamy is to me. To not be able to go through that, because of some miscommunication, and maybe you'll never get there, but if you can get towards that place in some way, that would be really nice.

Dedeker: I think the important piece, though, is that if it's not a triumphant romantic ending of a movie, and your metamour spits in your face, and is like, "How dare you speak to me? I'm not interested."

Emily: You tried at least.

Dedeker: Exactly. It's like, you have to know I stood my ground, I said my piece, and then don't overfunction, and then keep trying to poke at it, then it's in God's hands. Actually, it's not in God's hands. It's like in your hinge's hands, kind of.

Emily: That's telling, I think, about their decisions as well, about who they're choosing to align with. We did an episode recently on agreements with self. I think often you have to figure out, does my version of non-monogamy look like my partner's version of non-monogamy? Is my partner okay with there being bad blood between metamours, there being the potential that, oh, this person just doesn't ever want to talk to me?

I understand that gets a little messy, and that you don't want to say like, "Oh, I don't want to date this person because their metamour never wants to meet me," but I don't know, I think you have to look at a global perspective of what is it that I want to have in my life, and what is it that I don't? If this is a constant burden, then maybe there's a misalignment there about the type of relationships the two of you want to be in.

Dedeker: Sure.

Jase: I think that goes along with why, in my mind, it keeps coming back to your relationship with this partner of that's the thing that I think needs to get fixed here. That's the part that, in all of this, feels yucky, and I'm not blaming anyone for this. I don't mean to say your partner sounds yucky. I just mean the situation that's happened here. This idea that they're triangulating so much to this degree of forbidding contact between you.

Even if they say that's coming from the other person, that's where it gets into the territory that feels weird. Which is why my mind goes to rather than focusing on, I need to make communication with this metamour, focus on the relationship that I do have, and let's have that conversation to get some clarity about this, and that this is stepping into a territory of them controlling your relationship with this person that just doesn't line up with our values and healthy relationships and things like that.

You wouldn't put restrictions on who they can date, so they shouldn't put restrictions on who you can talk to. That's just weird. That just feels wrong. I think that's why I keep coming back to focusing on that relationship first, but if we go back to the question they asked at the end here is, my question to you all is, can anything be done on my end to maintain a healthy relationship without meeting my metamour? They mentioned asking the common partner to share things that she values about the metamour, so that I don't build resentment back toward them.

Wow. Kudos to you. I think you're really doing a lot of work on your side. I think that's great that you're conscious of that. What do you two think? Is there more that this person could or should be doing to maintain this healthy relationship without getting to meet the person, or is it the work should really be on either? If I truly can't meet this person, they don't want to speak to me, and now I know that for sure of that I've just got to find a way to be okay with that and know that it's their loss, and that's not something that I've done wrong or some failure on my part.

Is there something else there? Because I'm not coming up with anything. I feel like it's more don't let this person bother you. Find ways to be comfortable. Yes, this sucks. Hopefully, it's just because they're new to this, and they don't understand how this could go. We've all been there, but you got to let it go. You can't keep chasing this thing or letting it haunt you, or talk to your shared partner and be like, "No, let's solve this." I will say one thing, and that is when I had a very trying metamour relationship with Brad, who we talked about earlier in the episode-

Emily: Oh, Brad.

Jase: -that I would sometimes do meta meditation, or love and kindness meditations where usually you'd start on someone who's easy to love, which for me was my puppy at the time, Freddy.

Dedeker: Aw.

Jase: You start on something that's very easy, and then you gradually start thinking about people a little bit further and further removed from you, and then, offering that same love and openness to them. Then I would work my way up to finding what version of that I could find to offer to this metamour who was being really actively, aggressively mean in my relationship. It was an extreme case, but I did find that was helpful to feel like I'm doing my part to keep my side of the street clean as much as I can, but I would just encourage you not to take responsibility for trying to single-handedly, one-sidedly maintain a relationship that you don't actually have.

Emily: Very true.

Dedeker: I think that's a good note to end on. Metamour meaning well in Minneapolis, do some extra reps for us in the gym.

Jase: Oh, at the gym.

Dedeker: Yes.

Jase: Yes, just work it out-

Dedeker: Work it out.

Jase: -and it does help. I did a lot of that at that time, too. I really worked out a lot of--

Emily: You were like, I was in great shape. Actually, yes. I felt like all of us-- I was doing yoga five days a week, and that was therapeutic. That was just for the therapeutic element. It was a time to be alive.

Dedeker: All right, everybody. Our question that's going to be on our Instagram stories this week, what's your first move when making a connection with a meta?

Jase: Do you put a note in their locker at the gym? Do they have a locker at the gym? Maybe write them a poem. Sing them a song.

Dedeker: Yes.

Emily: Oh, I like that.

Dedeker: Give them some flowers.

Emily: That's good.

Jase: Please don't do that.

Dedeker: Send them a meme.

Jase: That'd be super weird. That would be a really weird way to start that relationship.