Metamour's Day:

Valentine’s Day times 2; 14+14, February 28, has been declared Metamour’s Day, and it seems to be being taken up by the community in earnest this year. There’s a lovely Tivka Wolf comic at the end of this post that explains that math. Everyone who has practiced polyamory for a long time has had good and bad relationships and moments with their metamours; so I’d like to share a story of a great metamour relationship I once had to mark the day.

It’s the early 2010s, I’m living with my then-fiancé in a one-bedroom apartment in a big city. We’ve tried out closing our relationship upon our engagement and decided that monogamy doesn’t make sense for us, but the open commitment of a marriage does. I’m in another serious relationship; he’s dating around.

We meet Kate at a party through mutual friends. She and I realize we’re both trying to find the discipline to write more, and decide to be accountability buddies. We hang out at least one afternoon a week, using my living room as a coworking space and then laughing over a tv show with dinner. They’d flirted at parties, and started going for coffee or drinks, and eventually my friend became my metamour and they’d go for dates on the nights I worked, and my fiancé would try to come home early to join us for an episode of Doctor Who and dinner after our writing sessions.

The wedding date got closer; she helped me organize tables of friends and decided whether she’d like to be a part of the ceremony or not. She chose not to be, officially, but helped both of us write our vows before all was said and done.

My relationship with him is over, and we’ve both moved out of that city, but we still talk to each other sometimes. Metamour started at, and gave way to, friend.