A Surprise to be Sure, But a Welcome One
Kate is a semi-retired hair stylist. She owned a shop for 25 years and had a thriving business; she survived and thrived thru both the Great Recession and Covid. She keeps a few clients today and does house calls. Yes, house calls. Some folks come to Casa Da Sam and Kate as well. Additionally, Kate is the official family stylist.
Megan, our local kid who lives with her two sons a mile or so away, gets her hair done a couple times a year.
She was over recently for her semiannual tune up, just her, the boys were with her ex. I tend to give her and Kate space and drift upstairs with a guitar or an iPad. I’ll poke my head in every now and then, I’m not exiled or whatever. As I came down the stairs to say hi and get a water, Megan was getting her hair foiled (girls, you know what this is).
Now, I’m used to seeing women with their hair being foiled, but it always cracks me up a bit inside. Especially with Megan. She has a thick head of curly hair that she struggles to control; there’s no control while it’s being foiled.
I walk into the kitchen, and Megan opened the door to what would turn out to be one of the all time great conversations. Her opening was to say that she saw the “reality” show “Couple to Thruple” and asked if we were familiar with it. We were, and had a pretty good idea where this was going to go…..
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.
Kate and I came out as ENM to our kids a couple months ago. Between Kate and I we have 4; 3 daughters and a son. The oldest is 35, youngest is 28. All are either married, or have been; 3 of the 4 have kids of their own.
Our reasons for doing so were two-fold; we were tired of living a lie with the kids, and we wanted them to hear about us from us.
Living a lie may be a bit overstated, but it’s certainly in the ballpark. That our relationship is ENM is as much a core of Kate and I as our sobriety is; it felt wrong for the people most important to us to not know. The second reason seems self-explanatory.
The initial responses from all 4 kids were varying degrees of support mixed with the existential dread of having your parents talk about anything remotely resembling their sex lives.
Kate and I have rolled with our share of punches since we’ve been together. Each of the kids have seen us deal with big heavy life and death stuff in very skillful ways. They’ve also seen us both be somewhat less than skillful in other situations in previous marriages. They see the connection that Kate and I have, how we communicate with each other, and how we both speak to our better angels consistently. Put simply, they know we’re good together and bring out the best in each other.
What’s happened over the interceding 8 weeks or so has been pretty doggone cool.
Each of the kids, and I’m not sure that they’re all aware of it, has opened up to Kate and I about some very real and vulnerable stuff. Some has been subtle, more of a tide coming gradually in, some has been as subtle as a bowling ball to the crotch. Kate and I are closer today with each kid than we were before we came out, and all of those relationships were already solid.
It’s reliable and predictable; honesty and vulnerability beget honesty and vulnerability. If there’s a center pillar of the relationship Kate and I share, that’s it.
Nicole and Ben have been the subtle ones. They’re each opened up to one or both or us about some heavy-duty stuff. Taking about the relationship they have with their other parent AKA our ex’s. Head’s butting between their spouses and their other parent. Struggles in their own marriages. Will they have kids? Do they want to have kids?
Rachel is maybe the most comfortable with our being ENM, and she wears it loosely. She’s got two kids under the age of three; she doesn’t have time to stress about our chicanery. It’s light and we joke about it.
Before we get back to Megan, we need to set the table a bit.
Early in our relationship, it became clear that Kate had patterns of behavior. This wasn’t a plot twist, but she ended up seeing it in a new light for the first time. She always had to have a just in case guy, or someone on the side she would keep him on the back burner in case the main relationship failed. This was always an in shade relationship.
This was a lifelong pattern for Kate that came home to roost the morning after she got back from her first trip to Mexico. We talk about this a bit in our getting uncomfortable post. (Linked at the bottom of this)
This led to Kate going to a sex and relationship focused 12-step program that deals specifically with these kinds of issues. Fast forward a few years, and Megan needed the same program.
This program has no abstinence requirement; some do. That’s just a nonstarter for Kate. Instead, this program focuses on behavior and what an individual’s acceptable bottom line is with respect to that behavior. Kate’s bottom line is not lying / cheating, and no secret keeping.
To say Megan has been on an adventurous path with sex and sexuality over the past few years is an understatement. Her and Kate are very similar in a lot of ways, a good many of those way’s we’ve written about in here. Megan found herself at a crossroads some time back and had to make some hard decisions quickly. She followed Kate and I into the 12 step world.
She’s blessed (and cursed) with a brain that functions at an exceptionally high level; she’s fucking smart. She’s at the age where it’s working at peak efficiency and performance.
Megan has seen Kate and I at bad breath distance for months on end. Her and her boys lived with us for 6 of the last 24 months. She knows that as a couple we’re on solid ground, and that each of us has solid sobriety.
Over time, (Megan was the first kid to know we’re ENM; she’s been in the loop for more than a year) Megan started to become concerned about Kate and how being ENM works with being sober, in both programs. Was her mom substituting one addiction (sex) for another (booze). Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll indeed…..
Megan came into the conversation prepared, she had an idea of where she wanted to go, and she was prepared to hear what we said. Kate and I each were more out there with her than we really wanted to prior to this conversation. We were (and are) willing to talk with any of the kids about anything; this was the deepest so far.
Among the questions that Megan asked were: Do you guys see people separately? Do you (Kate) like women? How do you meet people?
Kate really put herself out there, her coming out as bi to her daughters wasn’t something she wanted to do, but had long since decided if asked, she wouldn’t lie about it. Getting into the Hotwife arena didn’t seem to be a fan favorite of her’s either.
The flow of the conversation wasn’t focused on what we do, rather how we do it. None of us wanted to get more than PG-13 with specifics. How do we keep our headspace right? How do we do this sober? Given our dynamic is heavily focused on Kate, she asked if I play and have a girlfriend. How is it fair Kate “gets” to do what she wants and I don’t?
That was an interesting part of the conversation. The two of them share an empathy and longing for human connection that for Kate manifests sexually in part. Megan isn’t there yet. She sees her track record similar to how Kate did early in her recovery journey; that the promiscuity was a side effect of the boozing and drugging. It was a years long process for Kate to wrap her head around herself, her relationship with monogamy and her sexuality. It will be interesting to circle back to this with Megan in a few years.
The uncomfortable part for me was conveying to her how I feel about Kate playing solo and being a Hotwife. Explaining how I lean to the submissive side sexually and how that relates to Kate seeing other people solo wasn’t on my bingo card for sure. That said, it was good to talk about our dynamic and plant the word compersion in her brain.
We talked for the better part of 45 minutes. All three of us put more out on the table than we thought we would. ENM can be a LOT to absorb, particularly as it relates to your parents, and their sobriety. Kate and I are both confident that she found the answers she was looking for.
Eventually the timer went off on Megan’s color (yes, she was foiled the whole time) and that put a close to this conversation.
Megan and Kate have a wonderful relationship, as do her and I; this conversation drew all of us closer and strengthened the bonds between us. Kate and I have done mountains of work with ENM, Megan is just starting to see the big picture for the first time. Being monogamous is perfectly wonderful if that’s how you’re wired, non monogamy, when practiced openly and ethically is just as wonderful.
Thanks for reading!!! Be kind to yourself and others,
Sam & Kate
PS….If you’ve made it this far, please take a moment and clap (once, or up to 50 times) for this post. It’s feedback for Kate and me, (comments and highlites are always welcome too!) and helps push the story up algorithmically. Thanks!!!
Double bonus points if you got the subtitle without Googling it…..
Sam and Kate 
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