Does Everyone Do It? We Sure Do!!

I wish I had a fly on the wall pic of Kate and I the first time we went to a swinger club.

The club was TJ’s, which is located somewhere between the Middle of No Where, and East Bumblefuck, PA. The closest major (-ish) city is Harrisburg. TJ’s a fairly well known club in the northeast US, we’ve been several times over the years.

One of my favorite lifestyle nights happened at TJ’s. It was a 70’s theme night, I did my best Denny Terrio (shout out to the Dance Fever crowd) impression, Kate was a vision as a Go-Go dancer. Clifford the Wonder Dog played a role in the evening as well, it definitely had a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas vibe….another story for another time.

By way of an introduction if you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I 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 (or two) and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met at a 12 step 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 would like to contact us.

Back to our first time. Given we weren’t sure what to expect, we way overdressed for sure. We sat at a table for 90 minutes or so, not moving, and desperately trying not to be noticed. Kate, wearing the dress she was wearing, made that impossible. Neither of us were able to relax, our heads were in overdrive trying to process what was going on, as well as being terrified that someone we knew would see us. Kate was more relaxed about it, as she is most things, but neither of us had the comfort we’d have down the road a bit. We both were on the overthinking hamster wheel that night.

One thing that did burn thru was the observation that this was a very zero fucks given crowd. The vibe was sexual and chill at the same time. Everyone was tolerant and accepting of the environment and the people in it. At one point, there was a rather large man making sweet love to the stripper pole, wearing tightie whities, a cowboy hat and boots. He was living his best life and no one bothered him.

Overthinking is defined by Google as when your thoughts and worries circle in an endless loop. (IE a hamspter on a wheel) Instead of preparing you for next steps, overthinking usually leads to inaction because it causes you to become overwhelmed by fear. Overthinking can be a symptom of depression, anxiety, and other mental health condition.

Speaking of “other mental health conditions”, overthinking is actually addressed in the vast majority of 12 step rooms you’ll walk into. There will typically be some piece of paper sized framed slogans in the room. Among these is “think, think, think”; this slogan is traditionally displayed upside down. The meaning being don’t think.

For newcomers, thinking is discouraged. May sound goofy, but the last thing someone who’s separating from the bottle needs to be doing is thinking about how bad shit is right then and there. Your problems are acutely magnified at this point. For me, the one coping mechanism I had was found at the bottom of a bottle of Evan Williams. Being given permission to not think was a God send.

The upside down slogan has deeper meaning for longer term sober people. It’s a constant reminder that as a class, we 12 step folks are chronic overthinkers. Our brains can (and frequently do) run away from us. Put another way, our mental hamster on a wheel is Godzilla sized.

I tend to be more of an overthinker than Kate. I’m not sure if this is a fundamental difference between the sexes, or just our personalities, perhaps a bit of both. I do know that meditation has reduced the size of our mental Godzilla. I did a good bit of journaling when I first got sober, that’s a blessing and a curse at this point. It’s an adventure for me to go back and read entries from the first few months. I was batshit fucking crazy.

It turns out that there’s no shortage of things for folks in the ENM world to overthink about. We’ve been around long enough, and talked to enough people to realize that this is pretty close to a universal thing with ENM people and couples. Similar to getting sober, this tends to be more pronounced early on, and evolves with time.

One of my bigger overthinking episodes stemmed from Kate and her now boyfriend James getting together.

The CliffsNotes version of the story goes like this. We met at a swinger house party, Kate took a shine to James, and asked him to play. James in turn took a shine to Kate. That was a year ago this month; they get together every few weeks or so at this point.

When James reached out the morning after the party and expressed an interest in pursuing a relationship with Kate, there were two things that added fuel to my overthinking fire. First, he also reached out to our friend Ellie (who was at the party along with us) and hit on her as well. Second, he mentioned in his message to us that he and his wife were polyamorous.

At that point in our journey, swinging and hotwifing was as far as we had gone. The added connection that the word polyamorous implied was at once thrilling and terrifying to me, Kate to a lesser extent. I got it in my head that James and his wife were exactly what he said, and that we were going to need to up our game to keep up. This spin cycle started in my brain when I first read the message, and instantly ramped up to 50,000 RPM.

Before much conversation with James about what exactly he was looking for, I had Kate and him together no more than 3X a week, with a list of requirements that would make a Fortune 500 litigator happy.

Kate, wrapped up as she was in NRE, added fuel to the fire.

The cycle was eventually broken by calm rational conversation between Kate and I. Along the way was a trauma releasing dinner with James and his wife. That was a watershed moment for me, and a story that I’ll share over a cheeseburger some time with ya.

Where that conversation lead me was to a place I’ve ended up before when overthinking; letting it go.

Turned out that Kate’s relationship with James wasn’t a problem to be solved, it was a path to be taken.

For me, overthinking stems to chiefly come from a place of control. A place of wanting to order the pieces of the puzzle in the way I want them to be laid out. Overthinking is me trying to be the actor, the director, the stage manager, and the playwright all at the same time (Props to Bill W). Overthinking is me trying to run the show, while at the same time trying to fit everything into my conception of the rules and structures around whatever it is I’m overthinking about. I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and I’m sure I’ll continue to do it.

Awareness that I’m overthinking is huge, that awareness comes about when I realize I’m doing the last paragraph. I’m trying to squeeze life into a ball, when the way thru is the exact opposite; letting it go, letting it be. The difference between a clenched and open fist.

Overthinking isn’t only a me thing in our relationship, Kate can spin with the best of us.

Earlier on in our swinging days, a couple years before we met James, and maybe 18 months after our debut at TJ’s, we spent the night in a hotel with another couple.

We met Lisa and Andy a couple weeks prior to that night at a house party. The 4 of us, and a couple of other folks had a great time in the playrooms at the party; we agreed to meet again.

Lisa is a bit younger than us, and possesses a decidedly killer body. Like Kate, she’s very Bi; the two of them playing together was truly a sight to see.

We’ve written in the past about Kate’s uneven experience with husbands in the lifestyle, something I suspect most female swingers can relate to. (It’s fair to say at this point her preference is for solo or single guys) This night, Kate and Andy were on one bed, Lisa and myself on another in the room. They finished a good bit before Lisa and myself did, and her and I were making no bones about the good time we were having.

Lisa’s looks, and the sex we had together 5 feet away conspired to send Kate off on a jealousy and I’m not good enough fueled overthinking bender. She slept half the night in the car, blaming that on Andy’s snoring. (We shared a room with them to keep the costs down. Don’t ever do this, it’s a horrible idea.) Kate spun about this for a few days before coming clean and we had a conversation about it.

Same as my spin out with her and James, Kate’s way thru was letting go, and letting it be a path instead of a problem.

Neither of us is spinning about much today, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Speaking of today…August has been more or less nonstop for us in all areas of life. We have the night to ourselves tonight and are enjoying it. We went to our favorite BBQ place for dinner, then, luxury of luxuries, took a snuggled up nap in the guest room; wrapped in a blanket as the cool air rolled down the mountain, definitely mid August bliss.

Tomorrow will bring a road trip to visit with my mom, before that, back to date night!!!

Thank you for reading!!! Be kind to yourself and others!!!

Sam & Kate