"the Other Woman" Trope in Polyamory

Written By Leanne Yau

Have you ever had a friend who got cheated on and instead of blaming their partner, they blamed the other woman? Or maybe they started dating someone who said “all their exes were crazy”, and instead of looking at the common denominator, they assumed all these other women must be the problem?

Well, the same thing happens in polyamory time and time again. I have people coming to me in peer support sessions saying that their metamour is crazy, that they're jealous and insecure. Some of the time, yes the metamours are just being shitty. But most of the time, maybe someone is being crazy because there's someone doing crazy making behaviour.

No one wants to see their partners in a negative light. It's so much easier to blame the person outside your relationship for causing your problems. But often you need to be looking closer to home. In my experience working with over 1000 clients, most metamour problems are actually partner problems so before you blame your partner's partner, look at what your partner is doing first.

The “Other Woman” trope is a popular fictional character trope. Typically a woman that the male lead in a story cheats on the female lead with. The “Other Woman” is viewed as a manipulative evil crazy threat - basically, a villain who is to blame for everything. Even though this is clearly based in misogynistic attitudes towards women and takes the burden of accountability away from cheating men, it remains a popular and powerful idea in our mononormative society. So be careful not to project this trope onto your metamour - and question who REALLY deserves the focus here!

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Leanne Yau
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