I often feel like people who live fairly normative romantic lives place their social relationships…
Browsing: relationships
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I’m approaching the end of my first year in the Lifestyle and have lately been thinking about what I’ve learned along the way.
I have to confess that my motivation for giving this a try was purely physical. I’m a single, 40+ woman with the sex drive of a teenage boy. I just wasn’t getting laid often enough. I’d like to be able to say that’s changed, but frequency – or rather infrequency – has been one of my greatest disappointments about the Lifestyle.
The question is: Do I sit her down and have a little chat about the situation? Something like, “You know that Julian is my boyfriend and Hanne is daddy’s girlfriend. I want to tell you that this is unusual – most people who are married don’t also have a boyfriend or girlfriend. They only have their husband or wife. Most of your friends and their families would think it was strange. You might want to be cautious when mentioning it to them.”
Some readers may wonder: Why polyamory? Well, for us, this came from the understanding that we do not control the other person’s sexuality. We are very sexual creatures and we are attracted to whomever we happen to be attracted to. We were comfortable in our sexuality and our relationship, and through much discussion we came to an understanding that physical intimacy does not constitute infidelity. Deception is infidelity, but what Ally and I do is right out in front of each other. Full disclosure.
There are times in the Lifestyle when we are certain of things. Our choices and decisions are solid and we know what we need and want in any given moment. But, we also run into moments where we are uncertain. Times when we don’t know what to do and we depend on our partners to help us figure things out. But there are some things we can only count on ourselves for. One of them is knowing what we want and need in our relationships and if we are settling in the process.
The issue of hall passes has come up a lot lately. When I played with…
We live in a digital world filled with handy, on-the-go devices such as personal computers, smart phones and iPads. Because of these devices social media has exploded and given people all over the world an opportunity to meet people they may never have met by conventional means and to explore areas of their lives in the safety of anonymity that they could never explore under the close scrunity of the people they know in the real world.
Polyamorous relationships are notorious for not making it past the three year mark.. and many polyamorous relationships fall much shorter than even that. For a long time, that knowledge was a source of frustration for me. Yet another reason why polyamory is a less ‘valid’ relationship style, right? However, maybe it’s not a bug in the system. Maybe it’s a feature.
As I think about the person that I’ve been, the person that I am, and…