Last week for date night, we stayed in and watched a movie with my kids, and a sweet friend Amy and her kids. Special Man brought over a projector, and we ate tacos and cupcakes and laughed and talked. It was a good night. SM had forgotten something at home, so he ran out for a little while, and when he returned he gave me a lovely pair of knitted slippers that CC MADE for me, with her own two little hands. My grandma taught me to crochet when I was ten, but the finesse and mastery of knitting has always eluded me. I knitted a sweater once, but it was a sad,sad sweater. The slippers were a gesture, I think. She wants me to know she’s still there, and wants things to be okay between us.
Metamour relationships are a sticky wicket. There are no rules, no guidelines, no accepted rules of etiquette, when attempting to establish parameters with your love’s other love, or loves. There are so many personalities, and circumstances, and preferences when it comes to navigating these unchartered relationships. CC and I have run the gamut over the last two and a half years. We have gone from active dislike, to an uncomfortable indifference and then to conscious cultivation of a relationship that I think we both felt we had to have. We tried having coffee, just the two of us every few weeks for a while. We had some good conversations, and even a few tears, but soon we swung back to a neutral discomfort that was pretty okay some days, and then very strained on others.
Special Man wants us to be friends, and I understand why. I know that it would be easier on him if CC and I were friendly. Even friends. And, in my fantasy vision of my ideal polyamory, I am comfortable, close to, even affectionate with metamours. Unfortunately this isn’t something you can order off of a menu, and have delivered to your relationship. She and I have different visions. I suppose it’s time for a check in conversation, she and I. She’s asked to go out to coffee in the last few months, and I haven’t wanted to. I made my peace, I figured, with the way things were, and sometimes the status quo gets so comfortable, that anything else feels tremendously hard.
However. The slippers were exactly what was needed. They were knitted, with intention, by a woman, for her husband’s girlfriend. That means something.
Poly Nirvana 
Like you I struggled with my friendship with the wife. I truly wanted all of us to have a bond, to be great friends and do things together as a family. Unfortunately, what I saw in my mind and what it actually was were two different things. So I accepted the fact that trying to be her friend was toxic to me. I will see her as my distant relative that I say hello to everyone once in a while and nothing else. We love a common person and that is our common factor. We are friendly and that’s all that is needed right now. So I can appreciate your blog and how you feel. I love the knitted socks which are very cute and also was a very sweet gesture.