More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (61 page)

BENEFITS OF METAMOURS

The summer before we wrote this book, Eve was in a serious bicycle accident that left her hospitalized for several days and disabled for weeks. At the time Peter was living out of town, getting job experience in a new field while caring for his disabled mother. He happened to be in town when the accident happened, and he spent the weekend in the hospital with Eve, periodically stepping outside to call her other partners with updates. Two days after the accident, he had to head back to the town he was working in. Eve's girlfriend, Paloma, came to the hospital that evening and wheeled her in her wheelchair down the street for a sushi dinner, then brought her back to the hospital room and stayed to cuddle. Later that night, Franklin arrived from Portland. He brought Eve home the next day and provided her with round-the-clock care for another week. In a crisis, everyone pitched in where they were needed and as they were able.

This kind of teamwork—or at least the possibility of it—is one of the things that makes polyamory stand out from other forms of non-monogamy. When they are going well, metamour relationships enrich the lives of everyone in a romantic network. Many people, in fact, see metamour connections as a prime benefit of polyamory. Metamours bring our partners joy, helping them learn and grow in ways they might otherwise not. They provide an extra source of support and strength for our partners, and sometimes for us. They can help negotiate solutions to problems we may not have found an answer for on our own.

Another of polyamory's invented words is
compersion.
This refers to the happy feeling many people experience in seeing their partners take joy from another relationship. Some people use the word
frubbly
to describe this feeling (as a noun:
frubble
). Different people experience it differently: for some it's just a warm glow, while for others, it can be almost as euphoric as being in love. And some people don't experience it at all. It's normal to experience compersion, and it's awesome if you do, but it's also normal never to experience it. Not experiencing it doesn't mean you're broken, or that you can't still benefit from having metamours in your life.

EVE'S STORY
I travel—a lot—and sometimes my travel schedule conflicts with important dates for Peter. A couple of years ago, there was a week when he needed support and I was not able to be there. As we were negotiating our calendars, that weekend was a sticking point. The solution we arrived at, in conjunction with Clio, was for Clio to plan a longer visit for that week. Another time, a few years ago, Peter was in crisis and I was out of town visiting my mother. I called Gwen and offered to pay her costs to take Peter on a nice date, to help him have some downtime.

The ability to make these sorts of arrangements is among the many reasons I love having metamours. (I've jokingly said that it's like having someone you can always rely on to feed the cat.)

I remember the first time I felt compersion. Peter had just been to visit Clio, about three months into their relationship, and she posted a picture on her blog of the two of them. He had an incredibly serene, blissful smile on his face. It was the first time in years I could remember seeing him so happy. I felt a rush that was nearly euphoric—it took me quite by surprise. I'd imagined compersion as a warm, happy feeling but one that was more cerebral—not a visceral, physical emotion like lust or love or rage, which this was for me.

For nearly four years Peter had two other partners, Clio and Gwen. The three of us called ourselves "Team Peter." I loved the idea that we were all on the same team to support (and enjoy) this amazing person we all loved.

The two of us love that we're not the only people who love and support our partners. We love that they have other people to bring joy into their life, and we're immensely grateful for the opportunities our metamours have provided the people we love to grow and change. We adore watching their relationships unfold.

When metamours like or even love each other, it's a wonderful thing for everyone. We've both experienced that blissful place of spending time with two or more of our lovers—or one of them and another of theirs—all of us just enjoying each other's company. That's a good ideal to hope for and even work for, but there can be a trap: We've also seen a craving for that ideal badly fuck up what could have otherwise been some pretty decent situations. If you begin to prize that ideal over the actual needs and personalities of the people involved, you are violating our ethical axiom 1: the people in the relationship are more important than the relationship.

APPROACHES TO METAMOUR RELATIONSHIPS

As you might expect, relationships between metamours are diverse, but they tend to fall into a few broad categories: compartmentalized, networked and polyfamily.

Compartmentalized relationships
are treated as very separate. Metamours know of each other, at least in general terms, but don't have any particular relationship with each other beyond dating the same person. Many free-agent and solo poly people have relationships that are largely compartmentalized. This does not mean that the metamours are
required
to be distant. One nice thing about poly is it allows you to meet other cool people, so even in fairly compartmentalized relationship styles, close cross-friendships sometimes form. There's just no requirement for this to happen. Of course, even in compartmentalized relationships, it's very helpful for everyone to be
friendly
toward one another, even when they are not friends.

Networked relationships
are those where metamours enjoy meeting one another and generally get along. Members of the network may plan group outings or events, or a person might invite some or all of her partners to social functions. The people who share a partner set out to build friendships with one another. As you might expect, this doesn't always work out as hoped. Sometimes, despite the best intentions, two people don't get along. People in networked relationships, though, tend to
make an effort
to share friendship. Interconnected networks of friends and lovers who enjoy spending time together are sometimes called "polycules," a play on the poly use of the word
molecule.

Polyfamily
is the word some people use for a network in which the people regard each other, or are expected to regard each other, as "family." A polyfamily is a bit like the Hollywood stereotype of an Italian family: If you marry one person, you're marrying into the whole crowd. All the people who share a common partner are expected to have close ties with one another.

Polyfamilies can happen organically, when the people a person dates happen to quite like one another. Or they can be prescriptive, where there's a stated expectation that dating one person means being part of the family—or in extreme cases, even dating and having sex with that person's other partners. In the prescriptive sense, the polyfamily ideal can seem like a way to short-circuit problems with jealousy, time division or fear of abandonment. Unfortunately, it's hard to mandate that two people must be close to one another just because they fancy the same person. Prescriptive polyfamilies tend to have coercion hiding in their closets, either because they make access to a critical intimate relationship reliant on having a specified relationship with others, or because they make access to the "family" support network contingent on continuing a romantic relationship. In extreme cases, they can dictate "You must be intimate with this person or you will be kicked out of the family completely."

In one way, metamours
are
like the family you grew up in: They are people in your life whom you did not choose. And in that sense, it often
is
useful to think of polycules as being like real families. Not everyone may like each other, but even at worst, you need to be able to sit down to dinner together, smile and make polite conversation at least a couple of times a year.

MEETING METAMOURS

As we discussed in chapter 16, there's no single optimal strategy for when or how (or even if you should) meet your partners' other partners. Ask a dozen poly folks their approach to meeting metamours, and you'll likely get two dozen answers. Some people compartmentalize, not requiring (or necessarily even asking) that their partners meet. Other people have policies that they won't date anyone who hasn't already met all their existing partners. Some polyfamilies require that the "family" vet a potential partner before a relationship begins.

We've seen no policy that clearly gives better results than any other; people's needs and situations are too varied. (For example, Franklin has partners in three countries on two continents. If he were to try to introduce a prospective partner to all his existing partners, the airfare alone would be eye-watering.) That said, some approaches can create problems. When a person
refuses
to meet any of her partner's other partners, for instance, this can point to trouble. Often such a refusal is rooted in insecurity or a desire to pretend the other people don't exist. And it's difficult to build strong relationships when the people involved are in denial about their structure.

When someone has multiple partners who aren't also partnered with each other, she has a certain responsibility to help introduce them—though it is by no means her responsibility alone. We talked about this responsibility quite a bit in chapter 16 (see "
Introducing your partners
").

Unless two new metamours already know each other, say because they're part of the same social set (as is common in small poly communities), it's preferable for the pivot to take the initiative in introducing her partners to each other. This is good etiquette to avoid potentially awkward situations, as we've discussed. However, it's certainly acceptable for someone to reach out himself to a new metamour (ideally with the knowledge of the pivot). Either partner is free to do this, of course, but it is especially nice when the established partner reaches out to the newer partner. The established partner is in a more powerful position, and a gesture of welcome to a new metamour—who may be feeling some trepidation about being accepted—can really contribute to putting the newcomer at ease.

Expectation management is key to helping a relationship with a metamour get off to a strong start. Don't expect that because you're both into the same person, the two of you will feel some kind of instant bond. Don't expect immediate intimacy, don't expect to just "get" each other right away, and don't expect instant "family." Your shared partner likes you both because you're
different
, after all, and those differences might make you click, or they may make you feel alien to each other. Accept whatever happens. When meeting any new person, you're best to meet without agenda or expectation.

METAMOURS AND CONSENT

As we hope you have internalized by now, good relationships are always consensual. Part of consent means that people have a fundamental right to choose the level of involvement and intimacy they want with
anyone
, and to revoke consent to intimacy at any time, in any moment.

Many people in poly relationships attempt to solve problems or minimize potential conflict by specifying in advance what role a partner's new partner will play with respect to existing relationships. Sometimes this means requiring that any new partners "add to" or "complement" existing relationships (though what it means to "add to" the relationship is often left nebulous). Other people require that their metamours have certain relationships with them, sometimes up to and including sex.

We are skeptical of such requirements. At best, they treat people as need-fulfillment machines; at worst, they prescribe coercive relationships that make unreasonable demands of intimacy. Some people say, "She can always turn us down, so our requirements are not coercive," but we don't consider this a valid defense. When someone requires you to have an intimate relationship with both of them as the cost of allowing a relationship with one, they've set the stage for coercion. Even if you
want
both relationships at first, what if you change your mind? Requiring both to
continue
as a price for you keeping the one you want, as it grows deeper and more important, builds in a punishment for revoking consent. That's coercion, with creepy overtones of a cult in the making.

When we try to use a relationship with a new partner as a balm to soothe our own fear or jealousy, we are, in effect, using
them
. Treating a relationship as a tool for dealing with our own fears is a covert way of treating people as things. Expecting metamours always to enjoy each other's company—or to screen potential partners based on how well they fit into an existing network—can also create a pocket veto, discussed in chapter 12. We've seen situations where someone who felt threatened by the idea of her partner having other lovers simply found fault with anyone her partner was considering. "I'm just protecting you. You haven't met anyone who meets my standards!" are words we've actually heard. More than once.