Age differences and metamour relations

I met the other two partners of the guy I am dating and they seemed a little frosty to me. It could be for any number of reasons (including that I am just paranoid), but he is 8 years older than I am (and I have never dated anyone more than 2 years older than I am until now) and they are closer in age to him than I am. It occurred to me that maybe they were surprised by my age, or that perhaps the age difference felt even more perceptible because I have a baby face and a bubbly personality.

Do any of you have experience having a metamour who is a different age than you are? Is there tension? Awkwardness? Or is it not even noticeable?

Does anyone have multiple partners who are of different ages? Do your partners have a hard time getting along or finding anything to talk about?
 
Boy is 41 while Hubby is 31. I'm 29. We all relate fine.
 
While I don't have any metas, per se, I have two partners who are considerably older than I am. Like you, MsEmotional, I also look (and act) younger than my age. People regularly tell me I can pass for being in my 30s, so the age gap is quite "visible" in you want to put it that way.

Jester is 10 years older than me (he'll be 60 this year)... and Boho is 7 years older. They were fwbs before I got together with Jester, at which time he ended the sexual relationship with Boho. (She and I did not get together romantically for 1-2 years after this although we were all mutual friends.)

Initially, I sensed some animosity/paranoia from her, which could partially be due to my age (or more specifically the age difference between Jester and I). Boho is older and also a naturally taller/bigger build than I am. I think in some ways she believed Jester had "traded her in for a younger model" in stereotypical, superficial guy fashion, though I am not "young" by most people's standards. Part of her negativity was also due to never having felt like the "pretty girl". I know this, because she has admitted it to me on more than one occasion.

Of course, I was still in my 40s at the time, while J was in his late 50s. It's the biggest age difference I've ever experienced with a partner (although I'd make out with a couple of guys in their 30s when I was still in my teens/early 20s but that doesn't count for the purposes of this discussion.) My children are also considerably younger than the children of both my partners, although they're all technically adults now.

In the past, I'd generally stuck to my own age-group, though this was more just the way things turned out, than by design. The youngest long-term partner I've had was only 6 months younger than me, and the oldest (until my current partners) was three years older.

Anyway, as the relationship/s have developed, it has become a non issue. Boho is now my co-primary partner and best friend. At our age/s (50s) there is very little difference in maturity level after all, despite the numbers.
 
Meta is 15 years older. We don't relate well for a number of reasons. The age difference does add to the weird dynamics in that she reminds me of my mom sometimes, which makes it harder to react appropriately.
 
Meta is 15 years older. We don't relate well for a number of reasons. The age difference does add to the weird dynamics in that she reminds me of my mom sometimes, which makes it harder to react appropriately.

I have this same age gap and dynamic with my partner's ex-wife. She's not my meta as they're no longer in a relationship. But she wishes they were and they live in the same condo complex, so it can be awkward.
 
So Pink!Girl and HipsterBoy were late 30’s to my (at the time) 32 or so and there were some weird dynamics there - both us being in slightly different life stages and in her having issues with me being younger / thinner / etc. Glad that’s done.

Weirdly, my husband’s partner and I have the same split in age - she just turned 30 - but I don’t think we have that dynamic, in fact in a lot of ways she acts older than I so I forget she’s as young as she is sometimes.

Artist’s partner’s other partner is really young - mid 20’s - which mostly just makes ArtistWife really self conscious.
 
The biggest age gap I have right now is with Noon, who is about 10 years younger than I am. Usually that much of a difference would bother me, but he comes across as more life-experienced and sometimes more mature than I, so I tend to forget there's actually that much of a difference.

My boyfriend is 6 years older than I am, which I think contributes to my sometimes feeling young and immature with him (though that's also partly due to the stage I was at in my journey of dealing with PTSD and other mental illness when he and I first met).

As for issues with metamours arising from the age differences, there aren't any I'm aware of. I haven't met any metamours I have in the relationship with Noon, and my metamours with my boyfriend fall within a fairly wide range of ages so everyone just kind of accepts who everyone else is. And Hubby and my boyfriend both seem, as far as I can tell, to follow the philosophy of "If everyone's legal and consenting, age doesn't matter that much." Though I admit when my boyfriend had a partner who was considerably younger than either of us, I did have an issue--but my issue was with *him*, not her, because I sometimes have a hard time not seeing inherent power imbalances and potential abuse in relationships with considerable age differences. (She and I did have issues with each other, but for reasons that had zero to do with the age difference.)
 
My metamour is about five years younger than me. Doesn't seem to be a problem. My partner (our hinge) is about his age. Also not a problem.
 
My husband is 11 years older than pip and I am 8 years older than pip.
I can easily pass for her age and we act pretty similar on maturity. The only problems that we have encountered with the age difference is more maturity and the fact that she is single with no children. But we all get along pretty well and can talk about pretty much anything.
 
I was married to someone 3 years younger. Had a relationship with someone my age. Dated someone around 15 years younger. Had a bdsm partner about 15 years younger. This was all at the same time.

My wife mostly dated younger guys. In our brand of poly we didn't interact with our metas.

The person I dated was monogamous so there were no metas.

The person my age was married. He was extremely jealous so there was no interaction.

I met one of my play partner's partners. I guess he was her age. He was a little full of himself. He didn't seem too bothered by me. Looking back, he probably knew our relationship wouldn't progress beyond play partners.

My personal philosophy is that all this meeting metas just creates unnecessary drama. Some people seem to thrive on it though.
 
I gave up on meeting metas a few years ago after being dragged into drama on more than one occasion. Them being older or younger didn't make any difference, their love of drama did. Everything is much easier for me now I have no knowledge of who is coming and going in anyone else's life.
I can see it being different if you or your meta's live with your mutual partner, but otherwise...
 
My personal philosophy is that all this meeting metas just creates unnecessary drama. Some people seem to thrive on it though.


I gave up on meeting metas a few years ago after being dragged into drama on more than one occasion. Them being older or younger didn't make any difference, their love of drama did. Everything is much easier for me now I have no knowledge of who is coming and going in anyone else's life.
I can see it being different if you or your meta's live with your mutual partner, but otherwise...

Interesting! I wonder if this is a regional thing. My sister recently visited and commented that people in my area (the Midwest) seem to be more oriented toward kitchen-table poly whereas her friends on the East Coast are more of the mindset that all their relationships exist in isolation.

It would be supremely weird to me to not ever meet metamours. Like, if my boyfriend didn't ever meet my husband? Would he hang out with me and my kids but never meet their father? I feel like Glasses would feel really uncomfortable with some person he's never met hanging out with his kids all the time. And we'd have to go so far out of our way to orchestrate a situation where they didn't meet, that would feel bizarre too.

Oddly enough, the only two metamours that I ever had issues with were the ones I *didn't* meet. Banana and Giraffe probably wouldn't have had issues with me (or would have at least hesitated before putting up ultimatums to prevent me from sleeping with him) if they had met me in person and realized how non-threatening I am.

In this particular scenario, I met Whiskers's partners sooner than I probably would have expected. And it did feel a little odd, since we were at a huge festival and it didn't seem necessary that we go out of our way to run into each other. But I was also happy to do it, since it was an easy and quick way for me to gain context about his life and meet all the people he talks about.

It probably had nothing to do with my age and they were only uncomfortable with me because he probably hadn't talked much about me and they weren't sure what was going on. I only thought of the age thing because I am not used to being the "young one."
 
I've seen it as more of an age thing. You young people seem to be more into it. But there is a difference between meeting and hanging out. I have no problem with a brief meeting.
 
I couldn’t relate much with my former meta Ashley. She was 26 to my 35, had no kids to me and Nick having 4. She was a bit clingy, needing to be in constant contact with him, and wanting to play video games and have sex the whole time they had time together. Whereas I’m much more independent, having gone through Nick’s multiple military deployments and then raising these kiddos, some who have special needs, so I don’t always have the time to be all over Nick 24/7. Plus I’d usually rather spend time with him going to do different things. I think Nick liked her more at the time, since she made him feel so needed, but even through the fuzzy pink stupids he would comment to me how exhausted he was by it and would say he was glad I had other things going on. I don’t know if that was age, or just differences in personality and life stages tho.
 
Just wanted to update that I hung out with Whiskers and his wife today and there was no weirdness or coolness at all. I was probably just imagining it because the situation in which we first met was awkward in general.
 
Do any of you have experience having a metamour who is a different age than you are? Is there tension? Awkwardness? Or is it not even noticeable?

Sure glad to see you feel better about things.

We have decades age difference between me and the wife, me and the mistress, and the wife and mistress. Nobody cares. Things are just the way they are supposed to be.

And everyone meets. That doesn't mean they have to be best friends but they are open partners in the enterprise. We can't speak to how others do it.
 
It would be supremely weird to me to not ever meet metamours. Like, if my boyfriend didn't ever meet my husband? Would he hang out with me and my kids but never meet their father? I feel like Glasses would feel really uncomfortable with some person he's never met hanging out with his kids all the time. And we'd have to go so far out of our way to orchestrate a situation where they didn't meet, that would feel bizarre too.

Different strokes... I can't understand *wanting* to meet metamours. I'm in a relationship with my partner, not with their other partners. I'm fine knowing they exist, but meeting them is far from my preference.

I also, to be honest, don't understand the reasoning behind having a partner hang out with the kids, at least on a regular basis. I mean, I legitimately don't understand. Again, if I'm dating someone, I'm dating them, not their kids. If someone's dating me, they're dating me, not my kids. My kids are adults now and out of the house anyway, but even when they still lived with me, they weren't involved in my dates generally. When I was seeing S2 a few years ago, we took his kids and Country to visit a local historical village once; and both Alt and Country have been to a couple-few events at my boyfriend's house over the past few years since we got together. But generally, if I'm having a date with a partner, I'm having a date with a partner, and I want the focus to be on *us*, not kids or metamours. Even when I was single, my kids only met three of the people I dated, and one of those was Hubby; the other two had expressed interest in marriage.

Hubby has only met three of the guys I've dated since poly started, and he met one of them the same night I did, before there was any indication that things would develop into a relationship. I was in a relationship with Facets for eight or nine months, and Hubby never met him. (Facets did meet my boyfriend, though.) The guys I'm involved with right now, I see no reason for them to meet Hubby, and he prefers not meeting people in general so he's fine with it.

I feel like this post sounds like I'm arguing or judging other people's choices about how they poly, and that isn't my intention. There are just a lot of things about some other people's way of doing poly that don't make sense to me, but then again, I suspect a lot of things about how I prefer to do it wouldn't make sense to others. (For that matter, quite a number of things about how I do poly don't make sense to my boyfriend...)
 
Even when I was a single mom 20 years ago and monogamously dating, I had the rule no one I was dating met my child/ren until I was sure I was going to keep them in my life. Usually around 6 months into our relationship.

I didn't want my child to get deeply attached to someone only to have them ripped out of their life. Or vice versa.

Dating is about getting to know someone on an intimate level early on. Plus the stats on molestation by parental acquaintances is frightening.
 
I also, to be honest, don't understand the reasoning behind having a partner hang out with the kids, at least on a regular basis. I mean, I legitimately don't understand. Again, if I'm dating someone, I'm dating them, not their kids. If someone's dating me, they're dating me, not my kids. My kids are adults now and out of the house anyway, but even when they still lived with me, they weren't involved in my dates generally. When I was seeing S2 a few years ago, we took his kids and Country to visit a local historical village once; and both Alt and Country have been to a couple-few events at my boyfriend's house over the past few years since we got together. But generally, if I'm having a date with a partner, I'm having a date with a partner, and I want the focus to be on *us*, not kids or metamours.

I somewhat agree with you on dating, BUT, there's a point in a relationship at which I _like_ my partners to be more entangled with my life, and at that point I _can't_ exclude my son, without shortchanging everyone involved. Like, _dating_, sure, when you're just doing dinner/activities/sex and seeing how compatible you are, of course I don't get my kids involved with that. But the reality is my son is young, I can't be *away* forever so if I want more than 3-4 hours a week with someone, they have to be chill with me having a kid and spending time with said kid. And my son _adores_ my partner - he's a chill adult who is patient with constant demands for video games, long past when I get annoyed (mostly because he doesn't have to deal with them allllll the time).

It's a line between "dating as formal activities" and "relationship as part of one's life" that I've noticed in your writing you very much don't cross, but I prefer to. Different strokes...
 
I feel like this post sounds like I'm arguing or judging other people's choices about how they poly,

Not really. People like different things and you are not criticizing them, but articulating your own preferences.

I have sat with the two girls chirping like birds together, with me being the third wheel. But I have also had sparks fly once.

So it can depend on the people.
 
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