Metamour

Your metamour is the partner of your own partner.

Polyamorous relationships are becoming more and more common in today’s society, and while the ones who practice it claim it’s a great thing, it sure gets tricky keeping track of all the members of your polycule after a while.

Terms such as “metamour” allows polyamorous people to easily describe their relationship with someone.

While your “metamour” is the partner of your partner, you do not have any romantic or sexual relationship with them.

It is simply just your partners boyfriend or girlfriend.

via MEME

The term is a portmanteau of the words “meta-”, a prefix meaning “between”, “after” or “over”, and “amour”, meaning love. It is the love after your love.

It appeared around the beginning of the millenium to define your relationship with a third person that is not a “mistress” or “house-wrecker”, because the relationship does not involve cheating.

The term is used by the polyamorous community, and is regularly mentioned in forums and articles regarding polyamory.

Endless online articles named “How to deal with difficult metamours” are found online, and even a book with the same title written by Page Turner, published in 2019.

After all, many find that just one partner can be a lot, imagine having many.

Though, it is not all challenges! Poly.Land, a media platform for polyamory published an article in 2016 named “Metamours: A Lot Like Sharing A Best Friend”, defining all the positive sides to your partner having a partner.

• Medium – Managing Metamours in Polyamorous Relationships
• Google Books – Dealing with Difficult Metamours – Page Turner
• Poly.Land – Metamours: A Lot Like Sharing a Best Friend