Gravitational wave signals hinted at by recent pulsar timing array (PTA) observations have brought renewed interest to the scenario of metastable cosmic strings. These signals can be naturally explained by cosmic strings with lifetimes on the order of seconds. Such metastable strings are made possible by the presence of monopoles, and the PTA data suggest that the monopole mass scale is remarkably close to the energy scale of the cosmic strings. Previous analyses of gravitational wave signals from metastable strings have generally assumed a large hierarchy between these two scales. However, the observed closeness raises concerns about the validity of such assumptions—particularly regarding string formation, string decay, and the efficiency of gravitational wave emission. In this talk, I will discuss how the near-degeneracy of the monopole and string scales impacts these processes. The discussion will be based on concrete symmetry-breaking patterns that give rise to such scale configurations.