How important is it to get along with your metamour(s)?

[KC43]

Reverie, I don't have anything to add to the questions about metamours (I don't have any), but on the subject of "learning to human"...

I completely relate. Growing up, I couldn't make heads or tails out of the way most of my peers behaved. I couldn't understand why, when I copied their behaviors because they appeared to behave in socially acceptable ways, I received negative reactions while my peers received positive ones for the same behaviors. I still struggle to make sense of it all; I've been fortunate in that through much of my life, I've managed to have at least one friend who's willing to "translate" for me.

Country, who's diagnosed with Asperger's, has the same difficulties. Like me, she's learned through observation and with help from friends, though she also received help at school for a few years. (I'm not diagnosed; my doctors and therapists couldn't agree on whether I had Aspie traits or whether the trauma I grew up with and the resulting PTSD impacted my social and behavioral skills to the point of mimicking Asperger's, so they told me I was best off not seeking a diagnosis. Six of one, half dozen of the other...)

One of my difficulties is that I constantly overanalyze other people's actions and behaviors toward me, which it sounds like you do as well. To counteract that, I've learned to remind myself that I can't control other people, and that if someone has a problem with me but chooses not to approach me about it, it's THEIR problem, NOT mine.

Since it seems you've had ongoing issues with your metamour, maybe that's something you could try? Every time you start analyzing something she's said or done, just say to yourself, "I do not control her. If she has a problem she doesn't tell me about, it's HER problem. I don't have to solve other people's problems."

If you're anything like me, you could send yourself completely into a spiral trying to guess what you're doing wrong and how to fix it, when the reality is, there might not be anything you need to fix.

 

[Reverie]

I wonder if it isn't working out just fine to him as it is.

Oh, I don't doubt that; when I talked to him about it recently, he compared the idea of my ending our otherwise great relationship because the nature of the overall dynamic between the three of us isn't working for me to "dying of a hangnail." That is the actual metaphor he used. So, obviously, he sees it as a very minor thing that doesn't require much attention being put forth toward it. There's definitely a bit of head-up-ass going on there to fail to recognize that another person's needs might be huge TO THEM, even if they're not to anyone else.

 

[PinkPig]

Wow. It does sound like an issue on Rider's part. On the question of how important it is to get along with your metamour, I think it depends on the person. Blue & I have the same style. Our preference is that his metamours have an amicable relationship. We're also both open to living communally if the opportunity ever presents itself.

When he & I started dating, he was involved with two other women, one local & one LDR. I never met the LDR because they saw each other sporadically and it ended early in our relationship. The local woman & I were amicable acquaintances prior to my relationship with Blue. Unfortunately, that ended when we started dating. Crazy town ensued. I mean, serious crazy town (fb stalking, name calling, etc.) At first, I tried to work things out with her. Then, I just tried to completely avoid her. It finally reached a head. I told Blue I thought we should stop dating. He told me he'd already decided to end it with her because it obviously wasn't working. She wanted a monogamous relationship with Blue. He saw his LDR gf so infrequently that she was able to ignore it and pretend they were exclusive until I entered the picture. Blue loved her but acknowledged that their relationship styles weren't compatible. She's since been dx with some mental health issues so that likely contributed.

I really don't see anything inherently wrong with your metamour's approach. Nor is there anything wrong with yours. You just want different things and maybe aren't compatible as metamours. Because Rider likely cares for both of you, he wants to keep you both and is avoiding making difficult decisions. That leaves you to define the minimum you can live with and adjust your life accordingly. Loving someone doesn't always mean we get to be together. Sometimes we're just not compatible no matter how much we love one another. In that instance, the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and the other person is to set them free and love them from a distance.

 

[Reverie]

You just want different things and maybe aren't compatible as metamours. Because Rider likely cares for both of you, he wants to keep you both and is avoiding making difficult decisions. That leaves you to define the minimum you can live with and adjust your life accordingly. Loving someone doesn't always mean we get to be together.

Yep. Exactly. The difference is that I'm willing to do the hard part, and he isn't. It's gonna suck, and I'm putting it off a little while for a reason, but as a result of this recent soul-searching, I am absolutely committed to doing it.

 

[GalaGirl]

When I talked to him about it recently, he compared the idea of my ending our otherwise great relationship because the nature of the overall dynamic between the three of us isn't working for me to "dying of a hangnail." That is the actual metaphor he used.

You are free to say "no longer willing to participate" at any time. You are allowed to end it because the overall dynamic isn't working for you.

Part of that is from HIS behavior in co-creating this situation with all the floppy hinge business. But he's not keen to own it, and rather it be your shortcomings than his. Like you are unable to appreciate "great relationship he offers" because you nitpick everything.

Cannot say I am surprised that he just flips it to someone else. Hello, spin doctor. He's good at it too.

I am really glad you have decided this is not for you and plan to end it.

Galagirl

 

[Reverie]

Part of that is from HIS behavior in co-creating this situation with all the floppy hinge business. But he's not keen to own it, and rather it be your shortcomings than his. Like you are unable to appreciate "great relationship he offers" because you nitpick everything.

Cannot say I am surprised that he just flips it to someone else. Hello, spin doctor. He's good at it too.

Well, the thing about it is that I don't think that he is AT ALL doing this on purpose. I know him pretty well, and he really is best described as "guileless." He can be kind of clueless and naïve, and I don't think that he's PURPOSEFULLY manipulating or spinning. He just has his head up his ass and truly doesn't understand how something can be a big deal if it's not a big deal to HIM.

I've dated really cunning, sly, plan-three-steps-ahead manipulators before, the types that will try to make you feel completely insane for feeling the way that you feel. And there was always a different quality to them, something that would get my spidey-senses going. He's not like that at all. He's...more bumbling and...I can't think of the good other word..."self-absorbed" isn't quite right, because he is VERY caring once he really sees something, but maybe oblivious to the point of being obtuse?

Over the course of our relationship, I've worked with him on that, and he's a LOT better about it than he was a year ago. He has expressed gratitude for my helping him, and I believe he was sincere. And I'd be willing to continue to work with him on that if the situation were less difficult. His shortcoming makes him suck at poly right now, and it would be less taxing if I got along better with my metamour, but I don't. So, yup, choosing to walk away from the current situation.

 

[GalaGirl]

You know best -- you are the one there.

It just comes off like he is totally fine with it all and he thinks you are messed up for not being fine with it all.


Galagirl

 

[Reverie]

KC43, I missed your post at first.

I still struggle to make sense of it all; I've been fortunate in that through much of my life, I've managed to have at least one friend who's willing to "translate" for me.

Oona has been that person for me. I met her when I was recently 18, and she's been helping me figure people out for almost half my life now. When she met me, I was that weird girl who sat in the corner and didn't say anything, but who still ended up in social situations and friend-groups because boys liked me. She's helped me SO MUCH over the course of my life that most people will never understand.

One of my difficulties is that I constantly overanalyze other people's actions and behaviors toward me, which it sounds like you do as well.

Yep, I definitely do this. I don't know if it's related to the Aspie stuff directly, or from trying to "decode" people to tell if bullying is about to come my way, as it often did when I was young, or what. I have a probably not-totally-healthy level of desire to be liked, and I am always trying to put my best foot forward and to scrutinize to gauge whether I am succeeding. I do need to realize that I can't control that, and that some people are going to dislike me for reasons to do with their own issues, not anything that I have done. One of the best quotes I ever heard is "it's not your business what other people think of you" and I try to live by it, but it's hard to overcome those deep-rooted tendencies. I am better about it than I once was. I've also heard that with increased age comes decreased giving a shit.

 

[WhatHappened]

...his other partner didn't want to know anything about me, let alone meet me. ....

...I started bringing up wanting to finally meet my metamour...it took a few months for him to properly bring it up to her....When he finally asked her, she said she doesn't want to know anything about me.

...Ray told me about their conversation. I was really sad and felt like a second class citizen. My metamour had also met some of his friends whereas I had never met any. I felt like this decision of hers (which he obliged) was affecting the possibility of me ever integrating into his life properly.

Just some thoughts from the other side of the fence, not a criticism at all.

There were reasons I was initially uncomfortable getting together with XBF's wife, none of which had to do with her, though I'd met her before I knew they were poly, and liked her. While I was trying to adjust to this new situation, she did a few things that left me feeling pushed not only to be BFFs, but that it must be her way. That didn't help.

When I didn't move fast enough (or so it appears to me), she began to make things difficult for he and I to have anything like a normal relationship. That only made me less willing to have dinner with her.

I never met a single one of his friends, though he met many of mine. I was left feeling that she was the gatekeeper, and I would do things her way, or be cut out from most of his life. On the other side of the fence, I, too, ended up feeling like a second class citizen.

Look, Reverie, she doesn't want to conduct her relationship the way you wish she would. She doesn't want to do poly the way you do. All within her rights to do it the way it fits for her. There is no poly rulebook that says metamours have to be friends, or even polite to each other. ... She's already agreed not to avoid you and to be in the same place as you without getting in a huff. You can't dictate to your bf how his other gf needs to behave with him or with you. Let her be.

This is what I'm left feeling about XBF's wife. That I was going to be punished if I didn't do poly her way.

 

[Reverie]

For those who were curious as to updates on this topic, here are some excerpts from my blog that are related:

From 03-12-2015 (http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showpost.php?p=291750&postcount=130)

I came to discover that a sense of welcoming and community in my greater polyships is a need that I have to feel comfortable in this lifestyle, and it's a need that currently isn't being met in the situation I'm in. My efforts to squeak by at a bare minimum, hoping for change, have left me feeling stressed, depleted, and more obsessive and negative than I'd normally be, since these heretofore unrecognized needs weren't being met. The bottom line is that I probably should have stuck to my guns when it came to the question of breaking up with Rider a few weeks back, and even though things have been actually REALLY GOOD between the two of us since then, the overall situation is still untenable for me and causes me to spiral off into crazytown at the least provocation.

Therefore, at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will be ending things. It won't be super-super-soon, because in order to maintain the best-friendship that pre-dated the relationship, I want to time it for minimal disruption of music plans, plans for us to visit with our other lovers (I with Jake and Moss; he with Kelly), etc. (Unless something goes totally off the rails; if there's a big debacle of some sort, I imagine I'll end things sooner.) I'm still enjoying my time with him, with a sense of bittersweetness. He's still showing me the ropes (literally, haha!) on some neat kinky stuff, and I'm still thoroughly enjoying our sex life, his companionship, our creative endeavors, etc.

I had a brief conversation with him about how I feel, a) because I'm no good at keeping secrets from him, b) because I wanted to let him decide if he wants to continue in this eventually expiring capacity, and c) so that when I do decide it's time to pull the plug completely, it doesn't come flying at him from the clear blue sky when things have otherwise seemed great. I certainly neither want to shock him out of his shoes or to do a slow freeze-out. He emphatically did want to continue dating until my carefully chosen plug-pulling point; I just needed to be up front with him about the fact that the current configuration is not a forever thing, so that we can both start planning our lives accordingly. So now, we can just enjoy our remaining time in relative peace.

I can relax and pay zero attention to what's going on with him and Claire, because I will soon not be involved in the situation anymore, whatever comes of it. We can just hang out, with no more conversations about the future. We can make music, fool around, etc., and get used to the idea of being just friends again, without planning our lives together as lovers. It will just be what it is. He is almost certainly harboring a hope that I will spontaneously change my mind, but he knows exactly what it will take to actually change it, and he didn't volunteer to do that thing, so I am just resting easy in my knowledge that *I* am being completely above-board and have laid all my cards on the table, and *he* is making the choices he's making, for better or worse, as a grown person who is responsible for himself. WHEN I don't change my mind, he can't say I wasn't honest with him.

From 03-19-2015 (http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showpost.php?p=292130&postcount=134)

As we got all cuddly and ready for sleep, and I was trying to remember what all plans we had made for this weekend (drawing a blank on Friday), Rider started talking to me about Claire. I'd made a point of not asking about her, and he hadn't brought the topic up since he and I had had our talk about how this situation has a limited lifespan. He said that he wasn't originally going to say anything about it to me, but it feels better to talk to me about things, so I said OK, and listened.

He said that she had messaged him because she'd thought she'd hear from him after the weekend, since the event she'd been working weekends was finally over. She'd figured he'd want to make plans for next weekend, and when she hadn't heard from him, and since things had been weird lately (citing them not having sex on her birthday), she wanted to know if they needed to have "a talk" and so he was planning on talking to her the next day (today). Sticking to my non-involvement policy, I just told him that I trust him to do whatever it is that he needs to do to make himself happy, and for the time being, we left it there and went to sleep.

This morning, I saw the event on Facebook that was our forgotten Friday plan, so I messaged him about it. He said he didn't know how his talk with Claire would go tonight, and that he might need to make plans with her for Friday. I told him sure—his time is his own, and he can do with it what he wants—but that I would miss him, since I've been with Jake so many of the past few days, and we're both going to be out of town (with Kelly and Moss, respectively) for most of the next week. But I can go to the event by myself, if need be. I told him that since I didn't know (and wasn't asking) how he WANTED his conversation with Claire to go, I'd just remain open and flexible about the whole thing, and he could tell me about Friday when he knows.

He then asked permission to tell me how he feels about the whole thing, so again, I listened. To paraphrase:

He is on the fence about whether he just wants to end things with her. He has two opposing columns:

A) Their soft break gave him a chance to have some mental space to realize that he and she are ultimately growing in different directions. He actually really enjoyed his time apart from her, because it meant he was not suffering scheduling push-pull, and because it meant that our time (his and mine) got to be more frequent and unstructured, which was pleasant for him. He is beginning to feel like she is more a part of his past than of his present.

B) If they break up, she will not want to be his friend, and because he loves her, he will miss seeing her sometimes. He does not want to feel like a bad guy for breaking up with her despite her complying with his initial requested compromises. He fears that a breakup may be rash, because there is a chance that the disconnect that he feels from her has more to do with a lack of time spent than with any actual flaw in their relationship.

So, he's going to spend the day soul-searching AGAIN about what to do, and if he DOES decide to break up with her, he has asked me to be around to console him tonight, which, of course, I am willing to do. I feel calm about the whole thing. Having drawn my own boundaries around what I will tolerate from the situation, and it having an ending point (I have decided on mid-May, since that's when we're going to be done with all of our plans; I am not making new plans past that point), whether he stays with her or not is not the determining factor for whether there will be drama in MY life.

He was looking to me for some kind of guidance or feedback on the situation, and I told him that I think that ruminating on his ethical dilemmas and on his own WANTS and NEEDS is the tool that he needs to make this decision on his own. After all, he already knows which direction I am biased in at this point, and that I am not an impartial judge. He knows what kind of feedback he would hear from me, but I am not going to push him into making a decision. I've made mine. Now he needs to make his.

For today, I'm going to get work done, drink coffee with chocolate soy milk, chat with Oona after her haircut, and pet my animals. And if Rider comes over crying later, I'm going to comfort him.

And then the entirety of this one from today.

 

[kdt26417]

Well, it seems that things have worked out for the best. I'm thinking Claire would be happier with a partner who didn't have so many friends? or at least who had a lot more privacy boundaries around each person.

 

[GreenAcres]

I know it's been a bumpy ride for you recently, and I am glad to read that it looks like you'll get a bit of a break from the stress. I am sorry for Rider's hurt, which I know he must be feeling, and for Claire's; but, it sounds like everyone has discovered more about themselves and what their needs and desires in a relationship. Hopefully, Claire will find someone with boundaries closer to what is comfortable for her.

 

[Inyourendo]

Sounds like her attempt to be civil to you in public was a day late and a dollar short.

 

[Reverie]

Yeah, I think this is better for everyone involved. And Rider was sad for like a day and a half, but it must have been the right decision, because he seems more relieved than anything at this point. I wish Claire only the best; she's young and I'm sure she'll find someone better suited to her. As for myself, I feel like a ten-ton weight has been lifted off of me. Seeing that Rider finally found the strength to make a solid decision and do what needed to be done, and knowing that I no longer have to end my relationship, I am happier than I have been in...wow...longer than I can remember.

 

[kdt26417]

It's good that Rider stepped up to the plate.

 

[GalaGirl]

Glad things changed.

Also glad you are all doing better for it.

Galagirl

 

[Inyourendo]

Yeah, I think this is better for everyone involved. And Rider was sad for like a day and a half, but it must have been the right decision, because he seems more relieved than anything at thisthat point. I wish Claire only the best; she's young and I'm sure she'll find someone better suited to her. As for myself, I feel like a ten-ton weight has been lifted off of me. Seeing that Rider finally found the strength to make a solid decision and do what needed to be done, and knowing that I no longer have to end my relationship, I am happier than I have been in...wow...longer than I can remember.

Yeah sounded like he was going to lose you or her, if he didn't dump her you'd dump him. It makes sense that he'd choose you considering you are also romantically involved with his best friend. even if he chose her the issue would still be there that he'd be hanging out with his best friend and you would be there and Claire still wouldn't be able to attend if she planned on avoiding you.

 

[KarmaAuditor]

Sticking up for each other

I am inclined to agree with Inyourendo. This sounds like he didn't care about your feelings in this and he should have stood up for you and told her what you ment to him. Instead he allowed this manipulation to occur. He obviously showed exactly how dedicated he was. Hope she remembers what happened to you when he moves on to leave her for the next cowgirl.

 

[Inyourendo]

I am inclined to agree with Inyourendo. This sounds like he didn't care about your feelings in this and he should have stood up for you and told her what you ment to him. Instead he allowed this manipulation to occur. He obviously showed exactly how dedicated he was. Hope she remembers what happened to you when he moves on to leave her for the next cowgirl.

I think you have the wrong thread, the OP here is not Claire

 

[Reverie]

It makes sense that he'd choose you considering you are also romantically involved with his best friend. even if he chose her the issue would still be there that he'd be hanging out with his best friend and you would be there and Claire still wouldn't be able to attend if she planned on avoiding you.

The dynamic wasn't QUITE like that, but I do see your point. I'm pretty sure that if things ended with Rider, they would have ended with Sam as well. My connection to Sam is kind of an...offshoot?...of my connection with Rider. There is a real connection there, for sure, but since the two of them have been best friends for 20 years, I think that Sam would find it too strange to continue on with me if I ended things with Rider. The way he acts is...like he wants me and is happy to have my attention, but he will always be entirely deferent to Rider and hyper-vigilant of Rider's feelings. And I can't say I blame him. I think I'd be the same way in that situation, if it were my best friend.

I am inclined to agree with Inyourendo. This sounds like he didn't care about your feelings in this and he should have stood up for you and told her what you ment to him. Instead he allowed this manipulation to occur. He obviously showed exactly how dedicated he was. Hope she remembers what happened to you when he moves on to leave her for the next cowgirl.

I'm not sure what you mean here, since the two of them had a mutual breakup, and he stayed with me (i.e., they have ALREADY left each other). I don't think she was ever trying to cowgirl him; they just had incompatible styles of poly (to each other, and hers to mine as well), and it caused quite a bit of friction over the past year. I really hope she finds someone(s) who will be more compatible with her; I never wished her ill, and I don't hope for any sort of comeuppance for her for the way that things went over the past year, even if it caused me a fair bit of strife. Incompatibility is what it is, and that doesn't make her the "bad guy" for some sort of nasty fate to be wished upon. I think that this was the most logical and peaceful resolution for all.