By Intimacy ConAmore
My name is Intimacy ConAmore. I am the Ambassador for PolyDallas Millennium. I am the creator of Polyamorous Freedom to Love. Thank you to my Metamour, Keira of NCSF, for the opportunity to share my story.
Recently I was informed that there was going to be a day to celebrate Metamours, and I was excited to find this out. A Metamour is the title for describing your partners other significant others. I love having and being Metamours, some do not care to have or for being a Metamour. This is my experience with Metamours in my life. Growing up I was loved by my Grandparent’s Metamours and those interactions are memories of joy.
My very own first Metamour and I decided to be friends and teach our cheating Jr. High Captain of the Football Team, Mr. popular boyfriend to be honest. And to this very day, he appreciates my decision to reach out to her and propose that she and I team up on him about his previously dishonest ways and encouraged him to be ethically non-monogamous. I still consider her a friend even though both of our relationships with him ended before freshman year of high school.
My next Metamour relationship was brief and sad. We didn’t get to meet each other until the day of his funeral 23 years ago this coming March, the week of my Sr. Prom. To this day, I know that if I needed her help, she would be there for me and vice versa. This was bittersweet because we knew each other from school but I didn’t really care about who else he was dating when I was with him so we just spoke in general terms about other partners. Recognizing her as a classmate at his funeral and then to have her embrace me and acknowledge me as his fiancé was an act of love that I felt she didn’t have to do but she chose to do. In my mind we both loved him and we were both grieving, to me she was just as important on that day as I was even though she wasn’t engaged or married to him. I have never really believed in the traditional ideas of relationship hierarchy. I give all of my Metamours the same initial opportunity to let me be a good friend to them regardless of how long they have been around or whether they are married to our shared love or even if they are just a new person that has been on just one date.
Then it was some years before I healed enough to have any seriously loving relationships again. My next Metamour changed my life. She hated me from the get go. But our shared partner always chose me when she tried to force him to stop having a relationship with me. It was two decades of hell with her. And recently she reached out and we had a decent conversation. I do not feel like she hated me now. I do not hold her previous choices to mistreat me against her. I have always wanted nothing but the best kinds of love for and from her. But it was a rough thing to deal with for so long, over and over again. I am not unscathed from it. I am happy that I still chose to love her through it all even if she couldn’t accept it.
Recently, I had to make a choice that I have never wanted to make with any of my Metamours and break up with a Metamour. She was the partner to my ex-partner whom I still loved like a sister wife. I called her my child’s other mom. Often times people couldn’t tell which of us was our son’s biological mom. We were so close and happy as friends and co-parents. I choose to love my friends of any capacity for life. Especially my Metamours even after neither of us are in relationships with whomever we originally shared as a mutual love. But this Metamour lost her way to Alcohol Addiction. I had to sever her relationship with myself and our son because her actions toward myself and my son were causing us harm. I am still saddened about this happening last April. It has been surreal celebrating holidays without her presence. I wish the best for her and I left the door open for her to return when she finds her way to a sober life.
Recently, I experienced more love from my Metamours than I ever conceived was possible. I went to Philadelphia for a week to visit a close friend and one of my newer partners of one and a half years. While I was there, we all attended the Polyliving Philadelphia 2019 Conference. During the conference I experienced what I would describe as magical metamourship. I met some Metamours for the first time and they were so warm and loving and truly made me feel like I had known them for years. Others I had met before but never had social one on one time with them. I got lots of one on one moments with so many of them throughout the weekend during the conference. In my mind, I kept thinking, if only that one Metamour that hated me for two decades would have just let us have what my new group of Metamours and I have. I can’t speak highly enough of my personal experiences with all of these Metamours. It was everything and more than most Metamours get to experience.
Reality is that all relationships of whatever type are never perfect, not always happy and fulfilling, but that doesn’t take away from my intentions to be the best Metamour I can be. I want to be a source of empowering love for my Metamours. They are crucial to the love and happiness of my partners. I can never be the everything that any one partner desires, so why wouldn’t I be anything but welcoming to others to help add love to my partners’ lives. I hope that everyone gets to experience Metamour love and friendships the way that I have received and the way that I give. Happy Metamour Day!