Nor is She Mine….

How many pairs of shoes do you own? Do you still use your very first toothbrush? Do you even remember your very first toothbrush? If you’re a pet person, have you had one or many in your life? How about now? How many different containers will you use for a beverage this week? Cars? Houses? Bath towels? Purses? Backpacks? I could go on and on and on. How many of the things that make our lives complete do we only have one of?

Why then is it such a radical act to have more than one person as a life or sex partner?

I don’t have the same mailman I did growing up. I couldn’t count how many barbers I’ve been too. I’m a fairly simple guy and it takes me about 3 seconds to count off one hand for the number of lawyers I’ve used for different things. I’ve had more than one 12 step sponsor, and sponsored more than one person. But I’m supposed to have, find, marry, and live 3/4 or more of my life with the one true love who is my everything and oh, by the way, I’m that for her as well.

This isn’t an attempt to shitpost monogomy. If that’s your jam, please, go bravely forth and do good things.

(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 a 12 step group; 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.)

There’s this one pic of Kate giving a lover of her’s a blowjob that will probably go down in history as the sexiest pic ever. She’s naked and on her knees, looking up at the camera with a come hither innocence and slutty as the day is long look all rolled into one. He may have taken the pic; I wasn’t even in the same county at the time, but she was looking at me. Should our paths cross, ask and you’ll probably get to see it. Push her belly button too.

Anyway….Kate is talking with a new friend, they’re in hardcore NRE and having a great time getting to know each-other. The topic of oral sex came up, Kate made some smartass remark or another to him, and I suggested she send him that pic. I’m a good wingman. Am I a bad husband? A bad partner to Kate? Could it be that I’m loving her?

Kate and I are different people with different life experiences. We were raised in different states with different prospectives on life. We’re also both Gen Xer’s who survived being kids in the 70’s. Kate is a woman, I’m a man. She has 2 daughters, I have a son and a daughter. I left home for the military when I graduated high school, she left home and moved in with her first husband a couple miles away. I’ve been a vagabond my whole life, she grew up got married, had kids and lived life with people she went to kindergarten with. We’re each rockers and partners who at some point in the journey needed to get sober.

It’s clear as a bell that we can each relate and identify with each-other; we can scratch some of each-others inches for sure. Why it’s not equally clear that we can’t possibly scratch all of the others itches at this point boggles my mind.

I’m more on the introverted side, I have a handful of trusted people that are inside my circle. Kate’s circle is vast and she’s much more complex than I am. She’ll have a friend call say the insurance company and pretend to be her if there’s some sort of conflict to be dealt with. She’ll (all 5’3 115 lbs of her) get right the hell in your grill if you’ve done family or friend wrong. Both those have softened over the years, tho momma bear is still a force to be reckoned with. Kate thinks farts are hilarious and few things are as reliable a laugh generator. She refuses to fart in front of me.

I’m comfortable with the call to the insurance company, tho I’ll probably procrastinate it for a while. I’m slower to papa bear mode but when I get there, I stay there longer than Kate. I’m a guy closer to 60 than 50, do the math on the fart thing.

I’m fully capable of having sex for its own sake. So is Kate, but that’s not her preference. Well, unless it’s an orgy / group play thing, like the party we’re going to tomorrow night….Kate is very quick to connect with someone at a much deeper and more intimate level than me. She has much more of a need for that connection than I do. With her its equal parts giving and receiving connection. I’m more reserved. I can interact and be friendly with just about anyone, but am very slow to go past surface level.

Michael is guy we’ve mentioned before in here. He’s someone that we’ve had a threesome with, and Kate has spent the night solo with him. We’re planning a get together for hopefully the middle of June. We had been talking and texting for a a month or two prior to our first face to face meet; he’s not exactly local, and the logistics are a bit more involved. When our paths crossed for the first time we played, went out to eat, and came back to the hotel for round two.

Michael is much more like Kate than I am. He has the same need for connection give and take with partners that Kate does. Despite havin a GREAT night sexually for sure, my take away memory wasn’t from the bedroom. It’s of Kate and Michael each sitting criss cross applesauce facing each other on the couch.

They hit it off instantly that night and talked and talked and talked….with some fucking thrown in for good measure. Point being that the two of them, sitting on that couch, gave freely to each other in a way that nourished their souls. Why should this bother me? What is lost by her and a lover having a moment like that?

How many relationships have died thru divorce for no other reason than it’s just basically impossible for one person to be everything for another? When we very first got together, I did for Kate (and her for me) what Michael did that night. I can’t give her that anymore; our relationship has a great breadth and depth, it’s comfortable and its home. Kate connecting that way with Michael, or whoever, is like travel for her. Travel is enriching; so is Kate connecting with other people.

Last weekend, my daughter and her family were in for a visit. Her husband is a great guy, he’s an outstanding partner to my daughter, and father to my grandchildren. While they were here, my mom, who’s closer to 90 than 80, came in (with my sister) for a picnic. Looking at my mom and my son in law, who are about on polar ends of whatever spectrum you choose, I saw how time can create ridigity in multiple ways.

My mom is a child of WWII. She probably still has her copy of Emily Post’s Etiquitte tucked away somewhere. She’s a life long believer in if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything. People of her generation (what is the generation between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers called???) or any generation who reach this amount of time on the planet have their own sense of rigidity. It’s mixed and softened for sure by their children and grandchildren.

My son in law has the rigidity that I had 25–30 years ago. He sees black and white, binary, good and evil. Clear cut easy choices that make sense to a younger man with an even younger family to take care of. As is should be. I’d wager that in 15 or 20 years he will have changed a good bit as well.

Those of us who are privileged enough to live in a westernized first world country are living longer, and over the course of that span, exposed to many more things. For me, I know that I’m in probably my 5th or 6th stage of life. My thinking and the ways I view the world have little in common today with who I was at 18 or 30. I’d suspect that’s true of most of us who time has gifted the wisdom that is born from decades of lived experience. The energy and illusion driven by the misguided confidence of a younger man has been replaced by a more nuanced understanding of what matters and is truly important.

Another factor that can’t be overlooked is the times we live in are supportive of a more open understanding of sex and relationships. Kate and I, being in the stage of life we’re in, really are in the sweet spot for this.

Scoring points and stroking my ego aren’t as important to me today. I’d much rather be the reason Kate can say yes to situations, than be the reason she says no.

Thanks for reading!!!! Be kind to yourself and others!!

Sam & Kate