I learned about Life On The Swingset in my research after starting to talk to Old Flame and before I brought the topic of an open relationship up with Mr. Scarlet. Old Flame had brought up some point or other about kreplits. I was like, “what the fuck is a kreplit?” Off to Urban Dictionary to get a basic definition. Googling kreplit brings up the Life On the Swingset website related to a blog post on the topic (The Big Poly Secret – The Kreplit Famine). This in turn led to reading a lot more blog posts. At this point I think I’ve read most of the prior blog posts on here.
At first things with Old Flame were really hot. Maybe that’s how everyone looks at things when they discover the joys of sexting. Maybe it was just NRE. But after a while that was insufficient. I wanted more than just letters across the screen of my phone at completely random and sometimes impractical times. So I told Old Flame I wanted to talk to him on the phone.
“That’s rather intimate, don’t you think?” was his response.
In retrospect that should have been a red flag (warning #1 screwed up definitions of intimacy). I mean he kept telling me he had wanted me since we were teens and that he still wanted to get together and that letting me go was a mistake (note: he was the one that had ditched me), how much he regretted things back then, and blah, blah, blah. Oh, and for me to send him nudie pics. But, I decided that maybe I just wasn’t with it with the 2010’s way of doing things. Anyway, he did eventually agree to set up a time to talk.
We talked on the phone which was very awkward. What do you talk about with a former lover but not quite boyfriend who you haven’t seen in almost twenty years, when both of you are married, and only one of you is in an open relationship? Eventually he asked if I had told Mr. Scarlet about us. I told him that I had but that he was not on board and I wasn’t sure he ever would be.
After several more texting conversations where Old Flame alternated between asking me to cheat on my husband and then saying he could never condone someone cheating on their spouse (warning #2 –waffling hypocrisy).
Eventually I got agreement from Mr. Scarlet that I could meet Old Flame for coffee. We live a few hours away so a date and time was planned for this as well as a story to tell the kid who was with us as we were going to a family event later in the evening. The day arrived and we drove to Big City. Then right before we were supposed to meet Old Flame texted that something had come up and he needed to be late. Hey! No problem! I can show how understanding (read naïve) I am. So the family and I went to kill a few hours shopping. Then another text saying he is going to be unable to make it but is really sorry and he hoped I understand (warning #3 being stood up).
But apparently I am a glutton for punishment. So we rescheduled and made another trip to Big City. Mr. Scarlet and kiddo went to a movie while I waited at a bar for Old Flame. I was fully expecting to be stood up again so I was actually surprised when he showed up. But seeing him was like the prior 18 years hadn’t happened and the level of feeling was the same as the day I’d last seen him, right before he shipped out for boot camp. How do you catch up for 18 years? In truth, you can’t. But I tried to catch up as much as possible, while Old Flame just wanted to try and kiss me or convince me to join him in his car. Despite a touch that was electric, I resisted the urge to go have sex with him in the parking lot right then and there because I knew Mr. Scarlet was not yet on board with that idea. Before I knew it the evening of talking and flirting was coming to an end because I had to leave to go meet the family for post movie ice cream.
The texting continued during are deliberations as discussed in prior blog posts as well as through our first few fun and fruitful trips to the swing club. However it seemed the texts changed. They were much less frequent and the response was much more delayed from Old Flame. I am of the school that thinks you send a text and wait, as though it is a conversation, until the other person responds. Sometimes, I’d wait impatiently and after a day or two of nothing then I’d send another one which may or may not get a response. Seriously, this was starting to be a lot more effort and a lot less fun. I went from thinking the lyrics “Bruises” by Train applied to considering that perhaps Gotye’s “Someone I Used to Know” was more relevant.
Then Mr. Scarlet had to go out of town for work. Since I had lived up to my end of the bargain, I wanted to visit Old Flame. I knew he still wasn’t ok with me having intercourse with Old Flame without him there so I told him I wouldn’t and I didn’t. But I did go see Old Flame. And during the course of my visit it became incredibly clear why this was a dead end to what I was seeking.
First during the conversation, Old Flame told me how he didn’t have the ability to feel empathy. Now I don’t know much about psychology or how that is actually possible. I guess it is some kind of autism type thing. In any event, I do appreciate him for being honest enough to be up front about it. But at the end of the day here was the actual reason, he’d kept hurting me over the years and it was clear it wasn’t going to change. How do you not hurt someone if you can’t put yourself in their shoes? I guess I feel better to know that isn’t his intent and that maybe he can’t help it but the result to me is the same.
Then and this really sealed the deal, he told me about one of his prior girlfriends. He said that she broke up with him because she needed too many kreplits. Then he emphasized that he had had the kreplits to give her, but he chose not to do so. It dawned on me that with the texting that the same thing was happening to me. Now maybe this is Old Flame’s abuse of the kreplit idea. However, the idea of a loved one needing kreplits, or anything really for that matter, that you have and have the ability to give and willfully choose to withhold is really unfathomable to me. It seems manipulative and in a lot of ways a form of abuse. As we kissed, he agreed to a threesome at a future date. Then I drove away, but I already knew that was the end of any poly aspirations with Old Flame. I’m not willing to subject myself to that as someone else’s secondary. I’m not sure I’m willing to just swinger play either. It would be far easier and more fun to have NSA sex with someone with no history or baggage between us.
