Loving your swinging partner?

[Chicup]

While being poly/semi-poly could be great, I think this thread may well be a 'turn off' thread for new swingers.

It seems one of the big fears of swingers is having their spouse fall inlove with their swing partner. For us, and I think most swingers, we have seperated the 'love' from sex. Casual sex is just that, casual, the emotional attachment/guilt issue has been removed from the equation and that needs to be stressed.

One of the best parts of swinging, at least for us, was finding out that our relationship was not based on a foundation of sex, we love each other more than ever because of this.

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Chicup

While being poly/semi-poly could be great, I think this thread may well be a 'turn off' thread for new swingers.

It seems one of the big fears of swingers is having their spouse fall inlove with their swing partner. For us, and I think most swingers, we have seperated the 'love' from sex. Casual sex is just that, casual, the emotional attachment/guilt issue has been removed from the equation and that needs to be stressed.

One of the best parts of swinging, at least for us, was finding out that our relationship was not based on a foundation of sex, we love each other more than ever because of this.

I agree with you.

The fact is, feelings are involved, and we have to learn to deal with them, either by means of rules preventing them to develop, or by means of analyzing those feelings to understand and isolate the threats we fear.

Some singers, like myself, are poly-friendly (and as WesternSwing said, some poly aren't swinger-friendly). It's just another flavor of swinging, as there are swingers who kiss partners and swingers wuo doesn't.

Now, if you believe we shouldn't discuss this flavor here, I'd have to ask you where we'd supposed to do it, and moreover, which other flavors that don't fit your tastes shouldn't be discussed here as well.

Anyway, as far as I know, it isn't the forum purpose to advocate for swinging nor to make propaganda, but to discuss the swingers issues. This IS a swinger issue, those new swingers will have to choose how to deal with feelings. For those not wanting to deny the feelings, or those who actually believe it isn't that easy to avoid them, not finding our "poly-friendly" oppinions in the forum, bot only the "poly-unfriendly" oppinions, would do more harm that good (unless you actually want them to NOT swing based on those fears just to minimize the chance of bumping against them in a bed).

In any case, I find your posts very consistent: for some topics you dislike the idea of discussing in deep, and I wonder if this isn't because you have your own structures that you are confortable with and you don't want anyone to challenge them. I can even correlate this post with other discussions we had before, and it is interensting the way you advocate for letting us be lead by our fears and the stereotypes instead of broaden our sight to be able to understand before reaching to a conclussion.

You have your own recipe on how to deal with the "feelings" issue, it is enough for you and it is ok. But then you believe that it should be enough for everyone around, that "new swingers" wouldn't be able to deal with the issue in any other ways than yours, that if the poly idea is a "turn off" for you, it must be a "turn off" for others as well. Even the words you choose, a "turn off", equalize rejection with indiference (i.e., for some the feelings development could be just something unwanted without leading them to rejection of swinging because of the risk), so you end up purposing me to shut up and keep the new swingers in the dark about othe ways to deal with feelings.

I don't remember who's the member whose signature say something like "fears are the illness, knowledge is the cure".

Let's avoid "protecting" new swingers by hidding information. Let's give them more credit, after all they're adults as well, and who knows? They may be even brighter than us two and some of them could give us a better insight for those things that we suppose to "know better" than them.

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by sereneiders

Now, if you believe we shouldn't discuss this flavor here, I'd have to ask you where we'd supposed to do it, and moreover, which other flavors that don't fit your tastes shouldn't be discussed here as well.

Not a lot of time to get into this right now, being I'm at work, but just a quick note would be you assume a bit to much into the motivation of my posting. It wasn't that you shouldn't discuss it, in fact its a good discussion, but that new people reading this shouldn't assume that most swingers are open to a poly relationship, or that it is a common development in swinging. We have 100's of lurkers, and really only a handful of active posters. I think this gives a somewhat skewed version of what swinging is/can be.

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Chicup

Not a lot of time to get into this right now, being I'm at work, but just a quick note would be you assume a bit to much into the motivation of my posting. It wasn't that you shouldn't discuss it, in fact its a good discussion, but that new people reading this shouldn't assume that most swingers are open to a poly relationship, or that it is a common development in swinging. We have 100's of lurkers, and really only a handful of active posters. I think this gives a somewhat skewed version of what swinging is/can be.

Ok. I agree, this may confuse someone on what's swinging about, so:

For the record:

SWINGING DOESN'T IMPLY A POLYAMORAL RELATIONSHIP.

Most swingers doesn't want to get emotionally involved with their playmates, and this is the norm among swingers.

Very few swingers would allow to get emotionally involved with their partners, and some of those very few would even pursue this. However, since they're aware that this isn't the norm, they would AVOID getting emotionally involved with other swingers who stick to the norm.



Now, you'd agree with me the later sentence deserve to be there. Those swingers who are poly-friendly wouldn't pursuit to get emotionally involved with non poly-friendly swingers, the same way that swingers wouldn't purstuit to get into the bed of vanilla marriages. Thinking the opposite, in both cases, would be a prejudice.

In any case, the 100's of lurkers around the board may get to read some posts where the odds of swinging bring to surface. If they were up to stick to the first thing they read, then it's very likely that swinging isn't for them anyway. Otherwise the forum administrators should have to add clarifying posts in every thread, "for the record". The fact is, the lurker who's really curious about swinging would have to gather a lot of information before making up his/her mind, and the forum have plenty of oppinions posted as for them to understand what's swinging about, and they have the chance to post a question asking us to clarify their doubts.

I am not a swinging advocator. I already said "swinging isn't for you" in many lurkers' posts. Lurkers deserve to get to know all and every issue more experienced swingers have, and if they're curious about swinging, they have a lot of homework to do. Let's them do it.

[DBL D]

Originally Posted by WesternSwing

We were married for six years before we started swinging. I didn't have the conservative upbringing she did and thus I've always had a very liberal ideal of sex. Over the six years Mrs. WS became more and more daring and open and started to shed allot of that conservative guilt that her mother had openly placed on her about her body and sex. So when the time came that we decided to take the plunge it was more growth for her. It was kind of the natural progression I guess. It got to the point where she wanted to expirement with her bi-side. The experiences I've related above weren't even on the radar scope at the time, but happened.

She still fights with some guilt every now and then, but for the most part has really put most of it behind her. I'm glad. Everything she is doing, and has done, is wonderful. I have relished and rejoiced in her growth as a whole woman.

Mr. WS

Thank you Mr. WS, but what I was asking was how long it took after you started swinging before she became comfortable with the idea?

I'm not intending to hijack the thread but I think the problems are somehow related to each other. I don't mean that I expect Fem D to have to fall in love with someone in order to really feel comfortable with them, just as I wouldn't say that I couldn't do a one night stand. I just like it more when I know that the lady really likes how I treated her and wants to see me again. I just say that if you want to see someone in particular again that indicates a level of feelings. Not love...but strong desire. We all know how many different ways there are to love a person(s), and now we all know there are even more ways to do it! (after we have swung for a bit.) I just don't see a problem with being into another couple.


There have ben a few couples who have contacted us who admit that they are looking for a LTR...to me that means that feelings will develop. We say that we want to become friends with couples. We have found out just what that means to different couples. The bottom line is that if you aren't comfortable with any of it you shouldn't do it. I don't think that this should scare away beginners. It tells them what to expect and how to deal with it when it happens. You can find all kinds of swinger/polys out there. It still doesn't meant that you are a match just because of the similarity of that in your profile.

Male D

[Mike and Jan]

Man! We humans sure have a difficult time the the 'love' word!

I equate love to be that devotion and committment to someone. The feeling you also have for kids or even pets.

But, when we meet someone that turns us on and then also like them as a person we sometimes think we love them.

We can unjoy someone's company, enjoy tremendously having a sexual relationship with them, and even enjoy a long time intimacy without loving them.

I'm the type who doesn't like to have sex with someone I don't know at all. Been there, done that, and didn't find it anymore rewarding than masturbating.

And for swinging partners the folks you really know will make it less likely for anyone to feel threatened or jealous. You know the other couple has a great relationship and respect it. They know you do too and respect yours. But you know that there's an attraction for each other's spouses too and can enjoy it.

You like this other spouse. You enjoy being with them, flirting, touching, and making love. But you don't want to live the rest of your life with them as man and wife. You're making love, not in love.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by sereneiders

I believe we bump against a "naming convention" here. We all develop feelings towards the people we have around, but from what I've seen amnong swingers (and not only in this board), the word "love" it's what seems to be forbidden and not the feelings themselves.

Hi sereneiders, I disagree that it's just the "L word" that's avoided by many swingers and not the feelings, themselves. Many of us just do not want the emotional attachments beyond being buddies with other couples. We want the romantic/emotional attachment to be reserved for our mates, only. We have physical sex with others just for fun, recreationally. It's just a shared activity, like vanilla friend's shared activities. Many people, including women, can separate love and sex with no problem. I feel that this should be respected by those who DO like the love feelings with their swing partners and prefer that.

Originally Posted by sereneiders

We have this couple we use to play with, they become great friends of us besides the sex. They have this aproach where they dislike feelings involved, while we're open to explore our feelings as well. Some time ago I was talking with the female half of them about our friendship, and I told her "I know this may freak you out, but guys, we love you two". She gave me her histation look and I told her "well... we're great friends, some of us may not want to have sex anymore but I would like to have you as vanilla friends anyway, so the sex, even when great, is accesory, we both trust you two, and I cannot figure out a reason for our friendship to break appart, since whatever may happen, we all feel confident enough as to talk about it. I know the word love is freaking, but please, explain to me why it wouldn't fit".

If they don't want to share emotional attachments outside of their relationship, shouldn't you respect their wishes? People who feel like this can become friends with other couples on an ongoing basis, but still not want this level of attachment and "love".

You're "open to explore your feelings" in your relationship, you said. That's great, but it seems like if you impose that on a couple who doesn't want to do that, it's not fair to them. To me, it would be about the same as trying to cross some other boundary they may have, and they have both agreed between themselves that they don't go there.

Just my thoughts.

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Tybee Swing

Hi sereneiders, I disagree that it's just the "L word" that's avoided by many swingers and not the feelings, themselves. Many of us just do not want the emotional attachments beyond being buddies with other couples. We want the romantic/emotional attachment to be reserved for our mates, only. We have physical sex with others just for fun, recreationally. It's just a shared activity, like vanilla friend's shared activities. Many people, including women, can separate love and sex with no problem. I feel that this should be respected by those who DO like the love feelings with their swing partners and prefer that.

It seems to me that either you got this the wrong way, or I failed to properly express my toughts (perhaps because of the language barrier, since English isn't my own language and some times I have a hard time to express some ideas).

What I am saying is, besides that for you it's not desirable to develop feelings, it is something that MAY happen anyway, because feelings are beyond our control. At most, you'd develop rules and pay attention to warning signs to trigger those rules, as to stop the ball and prevent those feelings to further evolve.

And of course, this is less likely to happen if you share just one night (semething that we do, too), that if you keep seeing your playmates, thus increasing the chances of develop feelings.

Even for those who separate sex from love (and indeed, I believe that those are two unrelated things), they require a minimal degree of attraction, of "chemics", before having sex with someone. The way you feature such an attraction, and what constitutes such a "minimal degree" changes from person to person.

The point is, that attraction is constituted by feelings as well. But we're not skilled enough to talk about feelings as to tell appart the sutile differences those feelings may have in every case, because we lack a vocabulary to express ourselves, we're forced to choose from a few words to NAME those feelings, in a discrete scale going from "no feelings" at one end, and "love" at the other. And since those feelings are way more close to the "no feelings" end than to the "love" end, we end up saying "we have no feelings", or at most, attempting to NAME them with the "chemics" euphemism.

Now, if you agree with me so far, and since (as you said) what constitutes such a minimal degree of atraction varies from person to person, there are cases where the minimal is "shifted" in a linear scale: some people require "friendship" feelings (somewhere in between the "no feelings" and "love"), some require "intimacy"... and those words are the ones turning the linear scale into a discrete one. In the other hand, in everyone scale the distance between two points, let say "friendship" and "love", also varies. For some it's shorther, for others it's longer. Moreover, what may consitute "friendship" from one guy, couldn't be "friendship" for another.

Ultimately we require to develop a minimal set of feelings, and some of us require to prevent those feelings to evolve, thus holding them below a threshold in this scale, and we're barelly able (if able at all) to draw the lines and put the numbers on them for the ruler we're trying to use.

So when we prettend to be too strict about all of this, I believe we're fooling ourselves, and it seems to me we do this in an attempt to preserve ourselves from the incertainity the lack of vocabulary give to us: we say communication is the key factor as to be able to succesfully swing, so when we're lead into a topic where the language limitation renders us useless to properly communicate, we choose to become conservative, if not to deny the whole problem existence.

It's not merely the "L word" as it if were a forbidden one, I said "naming convention" because, as opposed as it happens to sex related terms, we lack of a convention to clearly talk about our feelings. This includes, but it isn't limited to, the "L word".

In any case, being aware of this doesn't mean I am "praying" my truth to every swinger couple we bump into. The fact is, we accept this and try to respect the scale they have the best we do to help them preserve their relationship (as all of us are supposed to do with any limit we express). I only talk about this when it fits, as it happens here. My wife wouldn't even try: she's more skeptic and she would say the whole discussion is pointless and prone to being get the wrong way (and so far, she seems to be right).

Originally Posted by Tybee Swing

If they don't want to share emotional attachments outside of their relationship, shouldn't you respect their wishes? People who feel like this can become friends with other couples on an ongoing basis, but still not want this level of attachment and "love".

You're "open to explore your feelings" in your relationship, you said. That's great, but it seems like if you impose that on a couple who doesn't want to do that, it's not fair to them. To me, it would be about the same as trying to cross some other boundary they may have, and they have both agreed between themselves that they don't go there.

Just my thoughts.

Wait a moment! I didn't imposed anything to anyone! I just talked about my feelings with them... and they didn't run away!

Let's rewind the tape here. This couple was one of the couples we learned the most of what we know about the lifestyle. They know us since we approaced the lifestyle, and we ask them a lot of questions before chosing to give this a try. They were the ones who adviced us to avoid developing feelings, and even by then, we were aware that the whole thing wasn't "clear enough" for us (which later on evolved into out "naming convention" theory ).

Our relationship evolved naturally into a frienship: we didn't pursued this, nor required this frienship to have sex with them (we don't even remember the name of most of the people we had sex with). In fact, by the time we had sex with them, we didn't imagine the relationship would evolve this far. It just happened.

We developed enough confidence as to openly discuss many aspects of the lifestyle and of our personal lives and feelings. In this context, this subject bring up again as a chat topic, we explained our point of view to them, and one time I talked about my feelings towards them as to provide an example of what I meant.

In any case, we're not asking for "reciprocity", but this is because we feel that, besides the words, the reciprocity we expect from the friendship is already there. In any case, this isn't different than what happens inside our marriage: we don't ask "reciprocity" from each other, we just enjoy what each one have to offer to the other, and we found out over and over the reciprocity is already there.

In our marriage, we're EXTREMELLY respectfull towards each other feelings, limits, privacy, time, and so on, we don't need, nor ask for, our spouse permission to do something, because we know where the limits are, and we know and are up to talk, learn and forgive is some of us make a mistake (since we agree in this viewpoint, any mistake is, by definition, a shared mistake: the mistake from one of us, and the mistake from the other when not making explicit beforehand the expectations). We're aware that we're deemed by the language to commit flaws with the words, and we care more about the actions, what people does along history besides what they actually say, and our history is full of actions fulfilling enough as to prove us about each other good will.

The only we do is to stick to the same attitude towards the people we have around us. If their actions prove us they care about us, they deserve the feelings we develop towards them. And our reciprocity comes from our actions: once knowing what may harm someone, we'd do our best to avoid doing it. We don't care to much to define our feelings, nor to compare them agains the feelings we have towards other people, including our spouse, mostly beacuse it'd be a pointless waste of time. It's just that we're convinced that the question "who you love the most, daddy or mommy?" is not a valid question (much like a Gödel's incompleteness theorem).

This is what happens in this case: as for them, besides all the theoretical discussions, they appreciate us for our actions and for our respectfull attitude. I told what I told just because I was sure it was ok to be told, if I were not sure, I wouldn't open my mouth.

So your claim that I am trying to "impose" something to this couple is way off grounds here.

I wouldn't even dare to "impose" anything to my own wife, not even those things that I am supposed to have "the right" to impose to her, as to suppose I'd do this to someone else.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by sereneiders

So your claim that I am trying to "impose" something to this couple is way off grounds here.

I'll explain what I saw in that post that made me feel that your statements may have been an imposition:

"They have this aproach where they dislike feelings involved" - they had shared with you this boundary they had, so you knew how they felt about it.

"Some time ago I was talking with the female half of them about our friendship, and I told her "I know this may freak you out, but guys, we love you two". She gave me her histation look.." -- I'm pretty sure that's hesitation, right? She was taken aback? Uncomfortable?

And part of what you told her was -- "I know the word love is freaking, but please, explain to me why it wouldn't fit". That sounded a bit argumentative, as if you were trying to convince her that the love feelings should be acceptable, and she should have to answer to you why not.

That's all. I'm not really claiming anything, because I don't know your whole relationship, I only know what was typed. I was relating to how I would feel in that situation, if we had friends that had a different set of standards on the emotional attachment issue, and even after knowing ours, the husband still was promoting their view. I might feel that our wishes were being disrespected or brushed off. If the other couple wouldn't accept our particular brand of swinging and withhold their feelings, we might be prone to break it off with them.

I'm not arguing with you about your right to have feelings. Just sharing how many of us might feel in the same circumstances. Peace.

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Tybee Swing

I'll explain what I saw in that post that made me feel that your statements may have been an imposition:

"They have this aproach where they dislike feelings involved" - they had shared with you this boundary they had, so you knew how they felt about it.

"Some time ago I was talking with the female half of them about our friendship, and I told her "I know this may freak you out, but guys, we love you two". She gave me her histation look.." -- I'm pretty sure that's hesitation, right? She was taken aback? Uncomfortable?

And part of what you told her was -- "I know the word love is freaking, but please, explain to me why it wouldn't fit". That sounded a bit argumentative, as if you were trying to convince her that the love feelings should be acceptable, and she should have to answer to you why not.

That's all. I'm not really claiming anything, because I don't know your whole relationship, I only know what was typed. I was relating to how I would feel in that situation, if we had friends that had a different set of standards on the emotional attachment issue, and even after knowing ours, the husband still was promoting their view. I might feel that our wishes were being disrespected or brushed off. If the other couple wouldn't accept our particular brand of swinging and withhold their feelings, we might be prone to break it off with them.

I'm not arguing with you about your right to have feelings. Just sharing how many of us might feel in the same circumstances. Peace.

Ok. I see your point. The question would be, at which point talking about a subject, discussing a point of view, become an imposition.

I agree, I was argumentative, as I am being argumentative here. If I am asked to know what I think or believe, or if someone challenge it, I will expose it and be argumentative, because it's the way we discuss.

Let's suppose I was having sex with this woman and wispered "i love you" in her ear, and THEN, that I said what I said. In this scenario I would be the first one saying I am being "argumentative" to impose my point of view.

But this didn't happen, nor it will happen. I just was argumentative with people who like to discuss about lifestyle issues and are themselves as argumentative as I am to show they point of view. I didn't break any rule, nor a request from them to avoid discussing the subject. This could be just my belief, but the fact is, none of them felt I break a rule nor that I passed over any limit when telling this. Moreover, they asked to know and understand our position with all of this, I mean questions like "how can you have a girlfriend, develop feelings and avoid this being disrupting for you two?", so the topic was fit.

Do you believe I shouldn't talk about something like this, just because by just talking about this someone would feel pushed? If so, then you'd agree with Chicup, I shouldn't even bring the subject here.

About the precise wording I used, I'll ask you to bare in mind that English isn't my born language. In your born language you're able to make a lot of second readings over a sentence, and to pick the way to say something to ensure there are second readings that will be understood (you know the same thing can be told in different ways, let say, being carefull about something or being careless). I can do the same in Spanish, but not in English. I cannot translate to English what I said the same way I said it in Spanish, just because I am unaware of certain second readings like the ones you're doing here in English. I am pretty sure that you found out something from what I wrote that leads you reasonabily to conclude my intentions, but I am unaware of those things you found until someone tells me.

[JnC05]

the love that we have for our swinging partners is such a diffrent kind of love although we lust for them. it could never compare to the love we have for one another... the love within our hearts. but i do see its quite common to have stong feelings for a swing partner. its quite simple when you reflect on the situation... the things that you shared, the time that you had. you will most def have a special bond with that person and it is quite alright to offer them a piece of your heart.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by sereneiders

The question would be, at which point talking about a subject, discussing a point of view, become an imposition.

Do you believe I shouldn't talk about something like this, just because by just talking about this someone would feel pushed?

I'll explain how I would feel if I were in a similiar situation. If my husband and I met a couple, and in the early stages of talking a lot about all of our likes and dislikes with them (as we all do) we discovered this difference between our styles, we'd express to them what our feelings are so that they would know what line not to cross. This is the time to talk about and "debate" all the differences. They would know this difference, so that they could choose to respect our boundaries, or if they didn't want that boundary, they could choose to not be involved with us and find somebody more suited to their taste.

So, if after quite some time of being together, everybody knowing the others' feelings, and then they decided to promote their love agenda after all that time of knowing how we feel, then I would feel pushed, because we had talked about this early on and they knew where we stood. We weren't open for negotiation, and we weren't looking to be persuaded otherwise.

I'm not saying that's how your couple felt, just sharing how we'd feel.

It's like any other boundary a couple may have. I'll use anal for example, because many couples, as a preference (not insecurity), choose not to engage in anal with swing partners. Maybe they think anal is very intimate and personal, and they don't want to share that particular act with others. If they state this up front, and then much later into a relationship with a couple the other couple starts saying that "we're open to anal", and "give me a reason why not", and arguing their case for anal with me, that's an imposition. They already knew where we stood. We were clear.

Likewise, many couples don't want to share love/attachment/romantic feelings with others, not out of insecurity, but because they think it's very intimate and personal, and don't want to share that particular aspect with others. I feel it should be respected, just like any other preference they may have.

I'm not saying that love feelings, or polyamory, are wrong. It's very right for some people. I know some people in these relationships who are very happy. Those people find each other, all are in agreement, and that's great.

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Tybee Swing

I'll explain how I would feel if I were in a similiar situation. If my husband and I met a couple, and in the early stages of talking a lot about all of our likes and dislikes with them (as we all do) we discovered this difference between our styles, we'd express to them what our feelings are so that they would know what line not to cross. This is the time to talk about and "debate" all the differences. They would know this difference, so that they could choose to respect our boundaries, or if they didn't want that boundary, they could choose to not be involved with us and find somebody more suited to their taste.

So, if after quite some time of being together, everybody knowing the others' feelings, and then they decided to promote their love agenda after all that time of knowing how we feel, then I would feel pushed, because we had talked about this early on and they knew where we stood. We weren't open for negotiation, and we weren't looking to be persuaded otherwise.

I'm not saying that's how your couple felt, just sharing how we'd feel.

I understand this. Now, I'd like you to understand that we wouldn't have the same conversations we had with them, with you two, because in your case it is a hard limit.

In the other hand, the outcome of the conversation we had with them isn't one that changed the way we relate with each other. I't isn't that I said "do you see my point?", and once they said "yes", I took adventages to "redefine" our relationship as a polyamoral one or supposed I earned the right to behave in a different way because of this.

We discussed this because THEY wanted after knewing we had a polyamoral relationship. They asked to know where we were standing as a couple as to be able to be open to the feelings, they were granted the right to oppinate on things pertaining to our marriage relationship, as to be able to have this discussion, and the more important, it was just a theoretical discussion, much like the one we're having here. Besides this, the friendship among the four of us evolved, and I correlated our feelings as friends to show them our point of view. And anything changes since that: we keep being friends, from time to time we have sex, they have sex with other people and we do the same.

I don't know if you'd be up to have this sort of relationship, I mean, where you may have a small talk by phone with the other couple husband without your husband being there nor even being aware you had it, where you can go out shoping witht the other couple wife, your husband hang out with the other guy to take a look at potential partners profiles for one or both the couples, or the other husband can call you to ask you if everithing is fine between you two just because he had the impression that something happend between you two. Then if YOU KNEW beforehand the other couple was up to a poly relationship (not with you two, but with other people), if you talk with them because you've seen them have a polyamoral relationship and since you care about them, YOU start discussing the subject as to understand them (and to understand where you're standing for this people, how they see you, and if this could be geopardizing the limits you stated before), and the other couple talks about this, and provide you an example (the same I gave), this hardly could be seen as "being pushed" nor talked into "a polyamoral relationship".

If you forget about swinging, this is the typical vanilla friendship relationship between two couples, just that we talk swinging as we could be talking tennis. And it isn't something where we're togheter all day long. We talk with them two or three times a week, see eachother one way or another a couple of times a month, have sex perhaps once every two or three months. It'd hardly qualify as a "polyamoral relationship", and even more, it isn't a polyamoral relationship for us, compared against, let say, practically living under the same roof with a girlfriend for almost a year, sleeping the three of us in the same bed every night, as happend to us, which for me qualifies as a poly relationship.

BTW, this girlfriend had played with us and other swingers, but it wasn't "required", it happend that we played with other people without her, and that she played with other people without us, so we didn't even imposed our polyamoral relationship with this girlfriend to other swingers, most of them wasn't even aware of it, nor about us being "poly-friendly". We're not going around claiming we're "poly friendly" between swingers, the same way we're not going around claiming we're swingers between vanilla people. If someone asks, we'd ponder and eventually tell them.

So, I am pretty sure that if we meet a couple like yours, something like this wouldn't ever happen.

Somehow I feel I am deffending myself. This seems to me much like the situation where a swinger couple is being caught by the vanilla people around them, and they were having to explain why they swing, while being told that they're a threat to vanillas because they may try to fuck them, that the sole fact of talking about swinging could be seen as being pushy with the vanilla people. Here, I am explaining a swinger that I am poly-friendly after "being caught", explaining why we're poly-friendly, while being told that we're a threat to swingers because we may want them to fall in love, that the sole fact of talking about poly could be seen as being pushy with the swingers.

Now, you're swinger. Would you purstuit a vanilla couple to swing with them? If they know you're swingers and tells you "swinging isn't for us", but ask you questions about swinging, would you start pursuing them because of this?

It is the same for us, and we deserve the same credit from swingers regarding to our poly-frienship lifestyle as we all do as swingers from vanilla people.

[Mike and Jan]

There are so many types of love.

Love of one's spouse..., (total emotional and intimate love)

Love of children and pets..., (devotion and protection)

Love of friends..., (total mutual trust and helpfulness)

Why can't there be love for a regular swinging partner (s)? After all, who besides your spouse fills so many needs?

[KittKatt]

Originally Posted by JohnUK1

My partner felt she loved her swinging partner. He was the 1st guy she was with apart from me. On reflection she feels it was just lust and admits she does like the guy a lot. I don't mind that, and would expect that.

Have any of you ever fallen in love with your swinging friends or has your partner? Or even felt mildly in love? And if so, how has that affected your feelings towards them/relationship with him/her?

Just wondering if falling in love is a big no-no in swinging.

John

Hi John,

To answer your question , "has anyone ever fallen in love with their swinging partner"

Yes, I did....I recently confronted this man about my feelings, he too was my first swinging experiance, with my spouse. Unfortunately, the man wasn't and isn't ready for steady sex or love in his life, he is a very complex person.

Here's the deal, I still and will always love my husband, what we have is "our" love.......I could never love another the exact same for no one is the exact same person as he. I do believe that we are soulmates. However what I felt for this man was and is "love" , not just a close friendship love, but a souls meeting love, to the point of I was bed ridden for a few days after finding out that we had misunderstood his wants from this relationship.......

Which as stated reines into polyamory .....meaning "loving more"


Your next question ...did it affect our relationship with this person or our spouse? No....I am married to "my" soulmate (at least one of them) , so he fully understands me and what we have discussed.....to the point that he agreed for this outting of my feelings, and the possiblity of a more solid relationship to develop. We aren't afraid or feel threatened by one or the other or us both to fall in "love" with someone else....in the monogomous world ...YES this would usually mean Divorce....but for us, like I said......I can never love someone like I do my spouse, nor will I ever love someone like I did this other man or any man from my past for that matter.

We are still very close to this other man, distantly for now, because I need the space to finish mourning "my loss", but that's me, and everyone is differant.

For us...the more the marrier
We will most likely continue to "swing", but now we aren't "restricted" to just recreational sex, or friendships only. But open to the possibilty of extending our family, our loves, and our lives

I hope that helped, and good luck to ya'

xoxoxo C