If you’ve read about polyamory and ethical non-monogamy, you’ve likely come across the term metamour. But what exactly is a metamour? Simply put, a metamour is your partner’s partner or your lover’s lover. The term comes from the Latin words for beyond (“meta”) and love (“amor”), according to Ready for Polyamory.
In practice, the relationship between someone and their metamour can take all kinds of forms. You may be friends with your metamour, acquaintances, or simply know of their existence but not have any interaction with them. If you practice kitchen table polyamory, you may find yourself sharing a cup of coffee on a weekend morning with your metamour while you read the newspaper along with your shared partner. You may see them occasionally, have their number stored in your phone for emergencies, or follow them on social media. Or you may simply know their name and keep the details to a minimum. You can be friends of varying degrees with your metamour, but you don’t have to be.
Since a metamour is the partner of your partner, how they relate to each other, as well as what rules around open relationships you’ve established, could play a role in your own interactions with your metamour.
According to the website Poly Land, it’s actually the fact of having metamours that’s responsible for making “the daily existence of polyamory” something that feels difference in practice from monogamy. Specifically, “Metamour relations are a form of improv — sometimes hilarious, sometimes awkward, sometimes painful, sometimes glorious. But never dull.” Poly Land has a quiz you can take to explore how you might get along with a metamour, as well as posts about what to do if you don’t like your metamour and dealing with difficult metamours.
At Polyamory Today, Rachael Hope writes about the benefits and challenges of having a metamour:
The advantages of having people who share your affection for a mutual partner can be pretty amazing. From the potential for mindblowing sexual adventures to built in babysitting swaps to having someone to ask for advice about your mutual partner to collaborating on a surprise for that person, benefits abound.
Hope writes that benefits can include extra support when dealing with the partner you and your metamour have in common as well as experiencing compersion, happiness when your partner is with another of their partners (often called the opposite of jealousy). Challenges of dealing with metamours, according to Hope, include not understanding your partner’s choices and wanting to intervene in their relationship with your metamour. Specifically, Hope writes, “When your partner has a metamour you find unappealing, it’s sometimes difficult to reconcile the fact that they are super into someone who seems so different from the way you are.”
The site Solo Poly also delves into some aspects of what having a metamour can look like:
Simply by existing, metamours affect the amount of available time and attention. They’re part of the overall emotional climate and interpersonal dynamic. They sometimes click well with each other, or not, but as with any adult relationships generally things work better if metamours can communicate and get along well enough to address issues before they fester into crises. Metamours also can be a resource for various kinds of support — they’re not just a “cost,” they’re a potential benefit as well.
If you are having issues with your metamour or simply knowing details about your metamour’s life, you’re not alone. Questions about how to handle this type of relationship can be confusing. In a question to the site Non-Monogamy Help, a person wrote in troubled by some potential red flags they’d seen regarding behavior by their partner’s metamour. Lola Phoenix wrote in response, “You are allowed to say to your partner that you don’t want to hear details about what goes on in this relationship.”
The site Curious Fox answers many commonly asked questions about metamours, including how to deal with jealousy of your metamour, writing, “Feelings of jealousy and insecurity are normal in non-monogamous relationships, and in order to address them, it’s important to take the shame out of it. Confronting these feelings is uncomfortable, but tackling them head on can strengthen your relationships.”
More polyamory and relationship terms to know: