I feel I’m being pushed out by my metamour 😩

Monogamish advice edition #7

In this month’s advice column, our first asker is trying to wrap his head around the idea that his partner could really like him so much if they like someone else.

And our second asker feels like her partner’s other partner is pushing her out (of her own home!) How should she handle this?

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If they truly loved me, wouldn’t they want me to themself?

Dear Monogamish,

I’m seeking some advice about possessiveness and self worth in my relationship. Here’s the problem: Whenever I see my partner with someone else, I immediately doubt my worth in their life.

Likewise, when I connect with someone, a part of me concludes: This must be because my partner isn’t important to me.

This feeling emerges even though we both verbally and actively commit to building security in our relationship.

It is stopping me from being excited about non-monogamy.

How can I be excited, when my partner connecting with someone else MUST mean they are done with me? (Sarcastically)

Is this something you’ve encountered before and do you have any guidance?

It would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Sincerely,

Monogamy Hungover

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Dear Monogamy Hungover,

Interesting dilemma and one I can relate to, especially when I first started dating outside of my primary relationship.

A year and a half into my relationship with Flo, I met Eric, and I fell quite hard in like with him.

And as I was falling for him, something weird kept cropping into my mind.

I kept fantasizing about the idea of him asking me to be monogamous with him. 

Why? Because this would show me how much he truly liked me too. This would mean he liked me so much, that I was just so damn perfect and irresistible that he just had to have me for himself. 

Had he really asked me to do this, I would have never gone along with it, yet somewhere inside of me, I wanted this to happen.

Because it’s the way we were taught the purist strongest love expresses itself.

Through exclusivity.

But the reality of the matter is this: Someone wanting us to be monogamous with them is much less about how special we are and much more about how insecure that other person is.

It’s about how afraid it makes them see us with someone else.

But love and fear are not the same thing. Some people, like guru Osho, for example, argue they are in fact direct opposites.

True love is nto fear, it is wanting the best for our partner. Wanting them to grow spiritually alongside us.

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t really see how wanting them NOT to enjoy the company of other people on their own goddamn time could be an expression of that.

Maybe you know all this logically too. Yet you still feel the way you do.

So my advice to you is this. Be patient with yourself.

“The nervous system is slower than the brain,” someone recently commented on a post of mine.

You and I were heavily indoctrinated in a culture that has a strong belief about love that, no matter how you slice it, just isn’t true.

And the more you can wrap your head around that, the sooner your heart will wrap around it too.

Good luck.

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I feel I’m being pushed out by his other partner.

Dear Monogamish,

I have an issue that I don’t know how to talk to my partner about. 

My partner’s partner can’t bring my partner to her place, so they only hang out in our shared home.

But she puts herself physically between us when she comes to hang out with “both of us.” She also tried to walk into our home without being let in or knocking first. My partner addressed this as an issue thankfully.

My problem is, his partner really has me struggling with feeling like I still have a place with my partner. I know this is a me issue, but I feel he needs to know what kind of headspace I’m in. I don’t know how to express that I feel like I’m being pushed out by his other partner without making it come across as me trying to rain on his parade. Help?

Sincerely,

Pushed Out