Can You Swing Forever?

The day will come when Kate and I hang up our various lifestyle / ENM / swinger / cuckolding spurs. Neither of us are planning on that ending any time soon. Sure, we’re evolving. Where we are today doesn’t look much like where we were 4–5 years ago, but honestly, what does?

Who’s to say how or when it will end. Will one of us cheat? Will we break up? Will Father Time gently nudge us to the side? Will one of us just be done? The how and when will remain murky until it’s time, what’s not murky is that it will end. Nothing is permanent. Everything ends. At some point, there will be the last Sam & Kate post, Kate will sleep with her last new guy. Clifford The Wonder Dog will die, as will you and I.

Not to be a Debbie Downer (that ship may have already sailed) but it’s a topic worth giving some consideration to. We plan for our deaths; my mom who’s closer to 90 that 80 at this point has had it planned out for years. My sibs and I know where the paperwork is and what her wishes are. It’s life. Again, everything ends, it’s unavoidable.

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 and cuckold spectrums; 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.

The exit from the lifestyle, however that looks, isn’t something that’s talked much about, but maybe it should be.

Whatever flavor of non-monogamous chicanery you find yourself into, I’m betting that it’s gone thru a phase or two (ok, several) where it becomes kind of all consuming. Those phases end. Sometimes with a thud, sometimes not. The energy comes back down out of the stratosphere and life returns to “normal”. We’ve all been there, we’ve all dealt with it.

One of the biggies for us was when we came home from our trip to Puerto Vallarta a couple years back. It was a swinger trip, we spent a week at a villa with somewhere around a dozen other swinger couples. It was a great trip for several reasons; one of our early posts talks a good bit about that trip.

Something that we’ve learned about in our 12 step program is “emotional hangovers”. If you’re a human, you’ve experienced them as well, perhaps with different verbage. It’s the let down from a really positive high energy great to be alive, this fucking ROCKS kind of event. That energy, while amazing, isn’t sustainable. The inevitable crash and subsequent rebound can leave ya feeling dazed and confused, and not dissimilar to what the 12th shot of tequila feels like the next day.

We 100% had that post Puerto Vallarta. This was compounded by some significant disturbance in the force family stuff that bubbled up shortly after the trip. The morning after the night before effect tends to be fairly short lived for most people. A day of ick typically. Emotional hangovers can go on for quite a bit longer, and always have room for more crap to be dumped in. This is how post Puerto Vallarta / Spring of 2023 went for us.

Our sexual energy was very low that spring. Life did what it does, and family stuff sucked up most of our oxygen for months. We canceled a bunch of lifestyle events that spring and year; local-ish hotel reservations, out of state trips. We also dusted ourselves off and continued to march; Kate met James that summer.

Another way the doom and gloom end of the world energy can show up in the lifestyle is the dreaded rejection. We’ve been really fortunate in that our rejection to putting ourselves out there ratio is pretty low. That said, we’ve been shot down, and that always stings for a bit.

In case you’ve missed it, or are reading us for the first time, Kate’s more the extravert and thrives on the flow of energy between herself and other people. I can do that, but typically my tanks capacity is much less than Kate’s is; I’m more on an introvert. We’ve gone thru our fair share of fits and starts along the way getting to the place that works really well for us but makes Sifu crazy.

Point of all this is the ebb and flow of life and the lifestyle just is. There will be high’s, there will be lows. New Relationshp Energy (NRE) and it’s butterflies; the pit of despair a breakup brings. Along the way, we’ve had some less than optimum experieces as well. We’ve been ghosted, we’ve dealt with the over pushy guy, we’ve not recognized people because they’re 6 inches shorter and 50 lbs heavier in reality than as advertised. All the things.

None of these are plot twists to those of us who’ve completed a few laps around the sun.

Kate and I as individuals have made it thru every amazingly wonderful and flat out shitty thing that life has thrown at us. Perhaps gracefully, perhaps coming in hot and bloody, head on fire, ass catching. We’re here. We’ve survived, and continue to survive.

So have you.

Our exit strategy rests in knowing that we have survived, and the process we’ve taken to get thru what life has put in front of us. There have been some significant upheavals for sure. What got us thru those times is the same as what’s gotten us thru every lifestyle situation we’ve faced, good bad or indifferent. We’ve done the work. We’ve communicated. We’ve meditated. We’ve prayed. We’ve held space for each other and ourselves. We’ve been vulnerable and honest.

That stuff isn’t hidden behind safety glass like a fire alarm, only to be used in case of emergency. It’s exercised a thousand times a day in all sorts of ways, it’s how we live. It’s the conversation about getting Clifford to the vet, or which flooring to use, or how either of us feel about a new playmate. It’s each of us inviting the other in and telling them it’s OK, I love you, warts and all, we’ll do it together. It’s not an accident; it started as a choice that’s evolved into a practice which in turn morphed into the way we live.

It’s each of us knowing that we’re whole as people and will survive should something happen to one of us or our relationship.

We’re living our exit strategy.

We’ve been quiet for the last few weeks I suppose. No real rhyme or reason, the words haven’t been there, and I’m disinclined to force it.

Finally, after 14 consecutive Saturdays with rain, a totally dry and sunny Saturday last weekend. Kate was off, but I was on-call; a low key weekend for us. We got Clifford up the mountain for power walks. Blackberries are starting to show up on the mountain, a little more so down in the valley. Kate took a trip to a local farm and came home with piles of amazing looking (and tasting) produce.

I think we’d both say the highlite of the weekend was taking Clifford out for a swim. She LOVES chasing a thrown stick and splashing around in the creek. She had a great time and a couple of sticks were sacrificed to the current, which was new for Cliff.

The other night, I took a selfie of us to share with our kids. It was the two of us, each wearing a beater and shorts (it was like 9 million degrees at Casa Da Sam and Kate earlier this week) sitting with a small coffee table between us as we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. Kate’s my best friend, and I’m hers.

I’m in no hurry for any of this to end.

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

Sam & Kate