Metamour in pain... can I help?

C

ClockworkDragon

New member
So my metamour and my husband came out to her mother last night. It... did not go well. Her mother has, to put it bluntly, flipped her shit. She's been calling her daughter names, whipping the whole "you're going to hell" thing, even calling family so they'll dogpile as well. Mind you, the mother likes my husband, but said she refuses to approve unless my husband divorces me (so it's better, apparently, to break up a family than to have a loving, open relationship between adults. That makes sense.)

Now she's even threatening to move out. (Metamour owns the house, mom lives with her.)

Is there some resource I can give her to help her understand all this? Deal with it? I don't, as a general rule, get involved in my husband's relationships, but I like this girl, and she definitely doesn't deserve this abuse.

Oh, the joys of southern baptist families.

And now, of course, my husband is feeling guilty and terrible about it, but the two of them are cloyingly in love... it's not like they can turn that off!
 
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I don't have any advice to offer, but I'm sorry you, your husband, and your metamour are dealing with this. I don't get her mother's point of view either, about it apparently being better to break up your marriage than to have a consensual open situation, but that's typical monogamous thinking from what I've seen...And it really sucks that she's turning the rest of the family against her metamour.

I hope that your metamour is able to get things resolved. It's good that she has you and your husband supporting her.
 
Hi ClockworkDragon,

Time is probably your friend. Give your metamour's mother about a year, and she'll probably calm down. Don't know if she'll ever accept the situation, but at least she'll stop flipping her shit.

The good thing about coming out is that you don't have to hide and pretend anymore. The bad thing about coming out is ... well, self-evident in this case. Sorry this is happening. There is no known cure.

The best you can do is offer a sympathetic ear and shoulder. Your metamour is going to have to go through a grieving process. She's probably going to lose part (all?) of her blood relatives because of this.

It's too bad people have to be so negative and judgmental.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I am sorry your friend is going through this...

It is amazing how unchristlike some Christians can be.
 
That's what kills me, Dagferi. This person, objecting on religious, moral grounds, is effectively verbally abusing her daughter because of the situation. How is that better than just shutting your damn trap and letting your grown mother of two children daughter live her own life?

I don't get it. I could never say to my children the things she's said to her daughter in the past 24 hours.
 
OP,

The fact that you are loving and supportive will do wonders, trust me. I would do anything to have had the support your metamour has now....
 
Clockwork Dragon, I'm sorry that your metamour's mother reacted so badly. If Xicot and I manage to stay together through opening, I can envision part of my extended family reacting this way.

Not sure that it helps, but I am guessing there is a *lot* going on within the mother besides the anger and the threats about hell that you are able to see:

- grief and fear over the difficulties your metamour might face as a poly person (with total obliviousness to the fact that she herself is compounding those difficulties)

- fear that your metamour can't possibly get all the time, attention, and love that she needs from a partner whom she shares

- horror (and maybe surprise?) that your metamour's beliefs and ethics are so different from her own, maybe compounded by a sense that she has failed to pass on the beliefs and ethics that she holds dear

- a sense of loss, at thinking of some of the experiences she expected to share with your metamour and now imagines she won't (e.g., being able to legally celebrate her daughter's marriage to a person she loves)

If my gut is correct in telling me that there is more than anger going on here, then I think Kevin is right. Given some time seeing that her daughter is happy, that the sky is not falling, and that her concerns are unfounded, the mother will mellow out.

Good luck to all of you.
 
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