Love Thy Neighbor (And Thy Metamour)

What Christianity can teach us about dealing with the ups and the downs of our relationships with our partner's partner(s).

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Daniel ended a long-term relationship with a partner, let’s call her S, at the beginning of 2023. Nothing dramatic happened; they just both had different sorts of expectations. The thing was, I loved this partner. She was my favorite metamour (a “metamour” is your partner’s partner) ever. Around six to eight weeks after they broke up, I contacted her. I told her I wanted to meet and missed her, and even my kids had asked about her. I’d given her space and time to cool down and hadn’t talked to her for that period.

She was surprised to hear that I wanted to reestablish a connection. However, I have BPD (abandonment issues), rejection-sensitive dysphoria as part of my ADHD and a history of being canceled by people who wanted to take me in bad faith. But, while she’d been dating Daniel, I’d avoided getting “too close” to her. Why? I was afraid that my outspokenness and dumb mistakes had personally caused Daniel’s previous breakups, and I wanted him to have a successful relationship. I also vowed never again to date the same person as Daniel due to the aforementioned “getting canceled and having my entire family get abandoned by people who claimed they would never do that to my children” thing.

So, S wanted to meet first and talk things out. I struggle with conflict these days (unless it’s online because I’m a coward), so I was scared, but what happened was actually quite remarkable.