How Kate and I Come Back to Each Other

I call our driveway the “Batcave”.

Casa Da Sam and Kate has an oddball setup. I’ve mentioned before that our house is small, kind of a glorified bungalow with a second floor. The property it sits on is L shaped, and loosely terraced towards the bottom of a mountain slope. This makes mowing a pain in the ass; it’s 3 separate areas that make a rider mower impractical.

The entrance to the Batcave / driveway is on a street that’s different from our mailing address. Try explaining that one to UPS or Amazon. Additionally, the house doesn’t jump out at you from the street the driveway is on. It’s not uncommon at all for first time visitors to miss it.

The Batcave is probably 75 yards or so long and lined with fir trees, it 100% earns its nickname. This means the driveway is a perpetual mess and it’s a constant battle to keep it looking somewhat non wild. Flip side is I’ve yet to have to shovel it during the winter, the trees keep snowfall to a minimum.

Clifford the Wonder Dog and myself have a ritual when Kate gets home after I do; it’s absolutely a reconnecting ritual. First, I’ll ask Clifford “where’s Mommy?” which instantly launches her (I know this is running the risk of a Grand Jury getting impaneled, but yes, Clifford is a girl) into Border Collie crazy energy zoomie mode. She sets the loud environment alarm off on my watch. I open the back door, the back door being how we get to the driveway, and off she roars, on the quest for Mommy.

Clifford sits and waits for Mommy’s arrival. I pepper her with a “who is it?” or two as Kate comes into view. Tail is at helicopter speed and she never fails to dog stress yawn. Kate pulls in, and once she’s in park I tell Clifford to break. She goes tearing off to the driver’s side to get her reward; an excited “Cliffffooord!!!” in Kates sweet voice. Of course, she half jumps into the car and it’s generalized pandemonium for a few moments.

Yet another reason we don’t deserve dogs. Speaking of canines, and this is totally of topic, I’ve learned to use dogs as a barometer for how my headspace is. If I get short or pissy with Clifford, that’s a pretty good indicator that I’m the problem and I need to look at myself. Sure, if the reason I’m pissy has to do with a torn up trash can, that’s a little bit different than if she’s just underfoot.

Here’s the skip over it if you already know us / introduction to us paragraph. Kate and I (Sam) are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous spectrum; Kate has a boyfriend and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in an AA meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you like to contact us.

Reconnecting isn’t just for dogs, it’s quite the people thing as well; all the more so if sex with other’s is involved.

Like most things lifestyle related with Kate and I, we don’t have any hard and fast rules with reconnecting. I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that there’s more than one way we interact sexually with other people. It’s a decidedly different thing reconnecting while on the same bed with another couple than it is after a solo night out.

We’ve learned through experience what works and what doesn’t work for us. That said, we stay open minded and are willing to learn from each situation as it happens. Our Biggest Issue in the Lifestyle post gets into how challenging reconnecting can be. What worked for us in that situation, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, was talking it thru.

Rarely do we settle on a plan or resolution or answer in a single conversation. It’s an ebb and a flow. Sometimes, like with the referenced post, there was some shitshow drama to work thru. Sometimes not. Regardless of the initial issue, taking time and letting it breathe has always been the way thru for us. It takes the time it needs, be it a couple days or a couple months. This allows cooler heads to prevail, and often times wisdom from unexpected places will pop up. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor are solid lifestyle relationships.

It’s a delicate thing when other couples are involved, and easy to make a mess of. With other couples, we’re each connected at varying levels with different people. It’s difficult to bordering on impossible to get a 4-way connection where everyone is on the same page and pace. Kate may be having a less than stellar experience, while my world is being rocked. She and her partner may be finished a good while before my partner and I. Balancing that different energy, while sharing space with other naked people who have their own headspace, is challenging.

What we strive for in the 4 of us naked on the bed moments is to get some type of physical contact and engagement between the two of us. Intentionality is a thing. It would be awkward to forego the other couple, but in that shared space being intentional about making sure that Kate and I acknowledge each other is important. Nothing wrong with a hug or asking how she’s doing. We try to keep everything in the moment and going with the 4-way flow that’s going on.

Reclaiming, as opposed to reconnecting, is a word that’s tossed around in the cuckolding and Hotwifing worlds. I’m not a fan of that. The implication being that a husband has a claim of some type on his wife that he needs to reestablish after she fucks someone else. I can see how some folks could feel like that, and I’m not against it in any way. I find it to be too possessive of Kate for my liking. If you’re in this space and are happy with reclaiming, Bob’s your Uncle, go bravely forth and do good things.

Kate going off and fucking other people is an us thing. It’s probably difficult to understand that for some, but it’s true. Chalk it up as an “if you know, you know” thing. I get compersiony good vibes and her Hotwifing has always been additive to our relationship. When she’s out with another guy, be it an overnight or an hour or so during the day, I’m rarely hardcore horny in the moment. Occasionally, if everyone is feeling it, she’ll send a pic or two, but it’s not all that common.

Some view having sex immediately with your returning wife as a must do part of the reconnecting or reclaiming process. Again, if that’s your jam, go for it. Sometimes Kate and I do, sometimes we don’t. Instant sex when our paths cross isn’t something that I have any expectation of. We’ll typically have sex at some point over the next day, the energy is up after all. Sometimes Kate will give a bit of a play by play and talk about the night before. We go with where the energy in the moment takes us.

There are times where she’ll get home, and 10 minutes later we’re out the door going to a soccer game or wrestling match. There are times we walk in (of course, Clifford and I meet her in the Batcave) and we make a beeline for the bed and fuck like banshees. Life is too fluid to try to force anything at any specific time.

What is fairly common, particularly after an overnight, is we’ll make a point to do something that’s just the two of us; kind of a date night. It doesn’t need to be a big production, going out for a good meal is very common.

Circling back to each other and reconnecting is a very important part of our process, and keeps us at the center.

Thank you for reading, please be kind to yourself and others!!!

Sam & Kate