It Went Really Well

“That’s my mom…..that’s not my stepdad.” — Megan

“That wasn’t on my bingo card for today.” — Rachel

“Like pineapple stuff?” — Ben

“Will I have to meet any of your partners?” — Nicole

Above are our kids reactions as we told them (or they found out) that we’re non-monogamous.

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 in 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.

As of this writing, Kate and I are out to our families for the most part. All of our kids know, most of our siblings know or will the next time we speak. We passed on mentioning it to my mom when we visited last weekend. She’s closer to 90 than 80, and it didn’t seem particularly skillful to broach it with her then. That time may yet come.

Before we get too far into this, here’s an introduction to our kids, in age order:

Ben is my son and the oldest of the 4. He’s a fairly straight laced guy who wears the uniform and lives out west. It was him I saw Foo Fighters with a few weeks ago. He’s married and has a 1 year old daughter.

Megan is Kate’s oldest and lives the closest to us. We see her and her two boys multiple times a week. She’s decidedly similar to Kate, and has had some challenges in the past. Of her Kate says, “ya plant a potato, ya get a potato”.

Nicole is Kates younger daughter. She’s a professional in the medical field and has her mom’s love of things woo woo. She lives about an hour away and was the star of the big wedding that happened a couple months ago. Her and Ben are our “uptight” kids, and were our concern coming out.

My daughter Rachel, at 28, is the youngest of our blended family. She also wears the uniform and currently lives in Nevada. It was her Kate and I went to Italy to visit (we talk about that adventure in the International Swinging post) She’s the kid we were least concerned about coming out to, the one we figured would ask questions. She’s married and has 2 boys under the age of 3.

It seems that “coming out” with kids is the big ENM thing; loosely parallel with members of the LBGTQ+ community coming out to their parents….I think.

I’d guess this is as much a coming of age thing as anything else. People’s sexual orientations seem to be in focus earlier in life; teen’s and 20’s. People who are ENM seem to get there later in life. Your mileage may vary here; we’ve seen very young people in ENM spaces, and there’s no age limit on coming out of the closet.

There were two main factors that drove us coming out. First, we were beginning to feel deceptive, and didn’t want that to continue. Initially, the little white lies (typically of omission) didn’t bother us. That’s changed. We each feel that for us to be authentic with ourselves, we need to be that way with those closest to us.

The second main reason was to get in front of it. Our kids finding out about our lifestyle choices and decisions from someone other than us seems pretty shitty. We’re aware of nothing to indicate that this is on the horizon, but increasingly our being ENM is out in the open. Be it a dinner with several couples or Kate on the back of someone’s motorcycle, our ENM life is more public facing now. We wanted the conversation to be on our terms, for them to hear it from us.

Along these lines, Megan has actually been in contact with one of our ENM friends. Chris, the local-ish guy we met thanks to this blog does some career coaching. He and Megan have spoken along these (carreer coaching) lines. She’s aware of our connection with Chris.

The ENM part of our life together had reached the point where it intersected with the non-ENM part of our lives. Put another way, we decided it was time to stop living two lives.

Coming out wasn’t a decision we came to lightly. In typical us fashion, we talked at decent length while working out the decision. Conversations in the car, over morning coffee, sitting on the front porch, and on the phone. We had a pretty good idea of how it would be received by each of the kids, and there were no real surprises. Well, no surprises for Kate and I at least.

We both knew it was what we wanted to do, but weren’t all the way sure it was the right thing. “When in doubt, don’t” is a piece of sage wisdom that’s been beyond useful to each of us over the years. It’s a guideline more than something hard and fast. It’s always been a good reminder to check our motivations. Also, of course, there was a fear element we had to work thru.

Megan, in many ways, has a special status among the kids. A good bit of this stems from the fact she lives less that a mile from Casa Da Sam & Kate, in the house Kate grew up in. We see Megan and her kids all the time. When in an earlier post I referenced soccer games and wrestling matches, it was her boys being involved in them.

Her and her kids have lived with us in the not too distant past, for about 6 months. She’s dealt with a lifetime worth of problems over the last couple years, and is a survivor for sure. She has her mom’s empathy and connection to humanity, among other things.

It was me that told Megan that her mom and I aren’t monogamous. To be fair, I thought she knew….🤦🏻 “You know we’re swingers, right?” I blurted out at what I thought was an appropriate moment in an appropriate conversation. Kate’s banshee scream response of “FUCK SAM!!!!!!” made it instantly clear that perhaps I had committed a faux pas…. Interestingly, that was also Kate’s exact response when, while on bent knee, I proposed to her.

As it happenes, Megan’s the kid best equipped to find out like this. And, she did know something was up. She had seen pics of a topless Kate from our Puerto Vallarta trip. Megan saw the pics of this event while we were still in Mexico on an iPad of Kates.

Kate, in this series of pics, was on the receiving end of some shabari rope work, and I wasn’t doing the tying. “That’s my mom……that’s not my stepdad”. That last sentence is your reminder to be very very careful with your Apple ID and which devices have access to your photo library. Megan did mention the pics to her sister, so, it wasn’t a complete shock to the system when Kate told Nicole.

Speaking of Nicole, the reaction her and Ben had was awesome. Kate and I were worried about those two, and while neither were thrilled per say, they were at least curious and far from damning. I don’t know that non monogamy will be a frequent topic of conversation with them, but we’re confidant that if either have questions or concerns, they’ll bring them up.

Kate told Nicole on the phone the other morning. Similar to how it went with Rachel, the time was just right. We knew that Nicole suspected our chicanery, so the big reveal wasn’t a huge surprise for her. She seemed to take it in stride, and moved on to the next topic.

Which brings us to the kid we thought would be the most curious, Rachel. Like the other 3, her response was pretty much in line with what he had thought, and hoped, it would be. I told her via FaceTime while I was out visiting her brother a few weeks back.

That trip, to visit Ben, drove the timing of our coming out. With him, I felt it needed to be a face to face conversation; those happen at best twice a year at this point. When, after having dropped Ben off at work for the day, Rachel FaceTime’d me, I knew the time was right to talk with her.

After a brief flash of shock on her face, she smoothly shifted to a sideways grin as she delivered the bingo card line. She has indeed been the most curious, and has asked some really good questions. It’s already a part of our relationship; she LOL’d at a pic of Kate holding up a baby sized pineapple costume. If we were to suspect one of the four has at least discussed ENM with their spouse, Kate and I would both go with Rachel.

The talk with Ben was a bit on the awkward side. He’s been dealing with a very full life plate lately, and the right time for the talk didn’t present itself while I was out there. We finally talked on the drive to the airport. It registered with him, but it’s decidedly on the back burner for now, I’m sure we’ll talk more about it at some point.

All in all, I don’t think our coming out could have been smoother. Sure, there’s no telling what tomorrow will bring, but so far so good. I don’t know that I’d recommend it as a blanket thing for everyone, everyone’s situation and circumstance is different, but it’s certainly worthy of serious thought.

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

Sam & Kate