Loving your swinging partner?

[Amanda69]

My swing partner is my husband...the person who satisfies my many needs is my husband...the rest are just fun extras...toys to enhance what is already a great sexual and love relationship. This is how we view swinging and what seems to be a popular view of our swinging friends.

[EvilMJ]

Originally Posted by Amanda69

My swing partner is my husband...the person who satisfies my many needs is my husband...the rest are just fun extras...toys to enhance what is already a great sexual and love relationship. This is how we view swinging and what seems to be a popular view of our swinging friends.

\

Exactly how we feel as well. We got into this for fun, a chance to meet and have fun with people like us, go to parties, dances, get out and have a good time. We are not into it for any sort of relationship, I personally don't have time for that. My love is reserved for my family alone.

I don't think there is any problem with other people getting involved in polyamours relationships, if that is their choosing. I think we all have a right to find our own happiness.

[willyoats]

I hardly ever would swing witih a partner that I did not have a considerable liking for. As someone said earlier in this thread, screwing someone you don't really care much about is no different from masturbating. Certainly anyone I had sex with more than once was someone I cared about and really liked.

Only once did I fall in love with a partner. My wife (of 43 years) knew from the first moment I met the new woman that I would go gaga! My wife believes that it is possible to love more than one woman at a time, and now 9 years after I met the other woman, I am still very much in love with both. It caused no problems with my marriage because my wife knows my "core values" (her words) and does not feel that our relationship is threatened by the other woman.

So, it is possible if you have a great marriage to a wonderful and undestanding and secure woman.

[Better Half]

I think that there are degrees of affection that can be had among swing partners. If allowed to develop, love could certainly enter into the picture. Speaking for myself, I have to like my potential swing partner above and beyond the physical attraction. However, I love my hubby. If my relationship with my husband was lacking in something that a swing partner provided above and beyond the sexual/friendship aspect then the ground would be ripe for love to enter the picture.

As humans, we naturally graviate towards people that can meet our needs, whatever they may be physical or emotional. So.....what is the moral of this posting, make sure that you communicate your needs to your spouse, whatever they may be, then you will not need someone else to meet them. That way swinging can remain what it usually meant to be, 'fun with friends' (or aquaintances, or strangers, or whatever the couple wants it to be).

Better Half

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by Better Half

I think that there are degrees of affection that can be had among swing partners. If allowed to develop, love could certainly enter into the picture. Speaking for myself, I have to like my potential swing partner above and beyond the physical attraction. However, I love my hubby. If my relationship with my husband was lacking in something that a swing partner provided above and beyond the sexual/friendship aspect then the ground would be ripe for love to enter the picture.

As humans, we naturally graviate towards people that can meet our needs, whatever they may be physical or emotional. So.....what is the moral of this posting, make sure that you communicate your needs to your spouse, whatever they may be, then you will not need someone else to meet them. That way swinging can remain what it usually meant to be, 'fun with friends' (or aquaintances, or strangers, or whatever the couple wants it to be).

Better Half

I don't see where the word "need" fits here, nor it is required to "lack something" inside your marriage to develop feelings towards other people.

I'd say this would be stretching the question a little bit for my taste.

Take the question "why people swing?".

I am pretty sure you already heard or read someone claim it is because there's a lack of something inside the marriage, there's a void that need to be fulfilled, that swingers are problematic couples who engage in swinging in a pale and futile attemtp to overcome their marital problems, that they should be trying to "face their problems" instead of running away from them by means of feeding their lust.

Now, you know for sure that's BS, such an argument is way off grounds, it's leaded by perjudice, and it is missleading.

Well, I am sorry, but I have to tell you, you just did the same. You pegged "love" with "needs" in a way that other people doesn't (as happens to us), thus you jumped into conclude, if someone love someone else but his/her wife, it "necesarily" comes from some lack inside the relationship, thus, it'd be advisable for those people to "face their problems" instead of runninc away from them by means of a placeholder for love.

Now, if you can understand why some people missunderstand swingers, you could understand this is a matter of lack of understanding of the polyamoral relationship and it meanings.

As I see this, we, as humans, develop feelings towards a lot of people around us along our life: our family, our friends, our spouses. In order to reasure some bonds we may require from other people to claim their feelings toward us are stronger than the ones they have towards other people, and we do those claims as to reasure eachother. In fact, not all the people around us ask us for such a reasurance: your family doesn't need it, they know... your firends wouldn't be as disrespectfull as to challenge the reasurance you gave to your spouse, and the only one demmanding such a reasurance ends up being your spouse. So, it's ok to do things this way.

But what if your best friends ask you to tell him/her, that he or she is the one you love the most, even more than your spouse? What if you're challenged to define why and how you love each one of the people you have around you? Think of this as an excercise, and tell me it'd be easy to choose (and that you're not being "politically right" about this).

In the other hand, if you want to talk about "needs", I'd say it's a romantic archetype to suppose you'll find or found someone able to fulfill ALL your needs, and even if you were lucky enough as to find him/her... doesn't she or he deserve a rest, from time to time, from the permanent effort of fulfilling them? It doesn't sound a little selfish to ask the one you love to fulfill all your needs, all the time, without a break? So, even if the loved one were able to fulfill all your needs, giving him/her a rest by looking to fulfill some of those needs somewhere else, this have to mean your loved one "is failing"? That you're rejecting your loved one ability to fulfill them? That there is a "problem" inside your marriage?

Now, I can understand our culture lead us to answer questions like these in one way or another, and even that for some of us those questions may be treatening, but this doesn't mean ALL of us have problems with these questions, and even if hard to answer, that some of us could be willing to explore, enjoy, and learn about our feelings as much as we explore, enjoy, and learn about our sexuality by means of swinging.

[WesternSwing]

Very eloquently said, Sereneiders. Thank you.

Mr. WS

[Pepper & Drew]

don't see where the word "need" fits here, nor it is required to "lack something" inside your marriage to develop feelings towards other people.

I'd say this would be stretching the question a little bit for my taste.

Take the question "why people swing?".

I am pretty sure you already heard or read someone claim it is because there's a lack of something inside the marriage, there's a void that need to be fulfilled, that swingers are problematic couples who engage in swinging in a pale and futile attemtp to overcome their marital problems, that they should be trying to "face their problems" instead of running away from them by means of feeding their lust.

Now, you know for sure that's BS, such an argument is way off grounds, it's leaded by perjudice, and it is missleading.

Well, I am sorry, but I have to tell you, you just did the same. You pegged "love" with "needs" in a way that other people doesn't (as happens to us), thus you jumped into conclude, if someone love someone else but his/her wife, it "necesarily" comes from some lack inside the relationship, thus, it'd be advisable for those people to "face their problems" instead of runninc away from them by means of a placeholder for love.

I agree, Sereneiders. I always find it surprising when swingers use their own view to determine what is ok or not ok for other people, only to be shocked when other people do the same thing to them. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Pepper

[sereneiders]

It's interesting to point out how the discussion evolved.

The OP asked if someone of us ever fallen in love with a swinger partner, and how we dealt with this.

Not all of us have the experience: most swingers would avoid this sort of feelings to evolve and would stop meeting such a partner before ever having to face an scenario like this one.

The ones who actually had it answered. Some may say it's an avoidable thing, that hey had a pretty nasty experience they don't want to repeat, and advice against them. Some others said they were able to deal with those experiences, even that they enjoyed them. The later made up the majority of the members answering this question, which doesn't mean we're the majority of the population... it just prove there's a lot of people without this experience, most of them because they preventivelly avoid it.

So far, it is OK, but then, this supposed majority of unwanted or unexpected answers become threatening for some of us, so we start advocating against developing feelings, but not from the actual experience but from our prejudices.

Following this logic, the vast majority of the population aren't swingers, thus when they face a board whose majority of members are swingers, they should be here advocating against swinging.

This reminds me of the grafitty: "Eat shit. Quirzillongs of flyes shouldn't be wrong". Ok, I agree, advocating against poliamorous relationships doesn't correlato to advocationg to eat shit, but it's the only example at hand. I just would like the advocators against poliamorous relationships to make open questions to the people who actually had the experience as to understand what's going on, at least BEFORE advocating.

By discussing this, no one (I guess and hope) will try to convince them to engage in polyamorous relationships, the same way swingers wouldn't try to convince vanilla people into swinging just because of satisfying their curiosity and discussing what's going on in the lifestyle.

Because of this I believe it'd be nice to have a dedicated area for this topic in the board. This way, everywhere else we, as swingers, would be able to keep being conservative and advice against developing feelings to the newcomers, but also would have a place where to discuss the subject without needing to take a position.

[usis]

Hello There,
We had posted in another thread but always felt our situation was more for a Poly discussion. And we are looking to explore the 2, 3, 4 way Polyamorous Lifestyle and how it relates to swinging. Maybe one could look at us as leaning more toward the "Polyamorous" way of life and yes that is the way we are tending toward and want in our lives...Some of you talk about "allowing" youself to fall In Love with someone. T'ain't that simple, people, when the chemistry is there it just happens and you are listening to someone who has been and is still very much, in Deep Love with her husband of nearly 40 yrs. and almost that for the others in this discussion, whom are also deeply in Love...YES! Plus we are all very committed to our families, children and Grandchildren, in other words just average hopefully sane people, whom are dealing with the extraordinary.

What happened was, in a new swinging relationship, The Husband, will call him "F" in the other Party and myself found ourselves slammed right from the very first attempt. His wife (A) and I seemed to hit it off so well, (not Bi, btw) we were great friends from the start. AND continue to be. Like sisters, that neither of us had. Our spouses, did see an emotional connection and we agreed it was better at the time not to persue the Physical. Which was hard but dealt with. As time passed we all chatted and became good friends, there was a really exciting fun aspect to the relationship and Hubby wanted me to be happy so along the way, we started a physical relationship, with them. Wrong you say, but it happened nonetheless. By this time F & I are very much in Love and were long before the Physical. And the thing is, we did realize it wasn't just an infatuation, but a true "Second In Command" relationship...not a sharing, but an extension. ...And as He explained, a new well-spring of Love, that you never new existed, More than enough there for everybody. Like when you have one child, you think you couldn't love more. Then the next one comes along and doesn't replace the first one, but you love each one equally. An extension of Love that already exists. And more Footprints in our Hearts. But having said that, we always know who is First In Command! And who must come first. Because that is only right and fair. There are many years between us, all of us.

We all have persued other swing partners as well. But the fact remains we are very deeply in Love, as "second in command", not to replace our spouses. And it is a true committment that will never end...And we live apart yes.
So now you are reading that this is a 1 sided affair and yes some of you will call us cheaters, nevertheless, our spouses pretty much know we have a very special, relationship. We have decided not to persue the Physical part of our relationship, and just stay friends and as of this writing are great friends socially. Sooo do we deserve to Love and Be so Loved by someone, Be so happy, for the second time in our lives, in the second half of our lives, without threatening our Primary partners? The best that we can hope for is that our spouses who are good friends, In time will come to accept us as being in Love, knowing "that" Love is deep and committal for life, and accept the Polyamorous aspect of the relationship. and not be threatened because neither of us is going anywhere. That will truly be a beautiful Day.

We are not asking for advice, because "we know we will always Love each other, yes always" and we were intrigued with "Willyoats" post, discussing the Core relationship and the fact 9 years later he is still very much in love with Both. Neither one of us are finding anything lacking in our Primary relationships. And the valid point that was made concerning what vanillas think of the swinging Population, and say there must be something missing for them to do that. And some of the swingers go absolutely nutty about those who fall in love...(and yes we realize exactly what most of you are driving at regarding it, ) or who even want to like, and have a nice relationship with those they swing with. I for one ( as was also spoken about in another post,) have to like the person and find some meaningful connection to the person i am having sex with OR that intimate time will not be very satisfying and also not fair to the other person involved. And yes we know that the a good majority are only in swinging for Casual, recreational sex, and run far and fast away from anything that might be deemed emotional. We are all different people looking for different things in life and what works for some just cannot be made to be forced upon all. Any comments?
Regards,
-Usis 1 (female viewpoint)

[usis]

Hi everyone.
We’re not sure whether we fit any of the standard definitions of either swinging or poly… sometimes we feel that we fall through the cracks. “We” are two halves of two swinging couples, and we are in love. We are in love with each other, but – and we stress this – we remain very much in love with, and committed to, our primary partners, those wonderful people who have been the centre of our lives for so many years (and who will remain so).In an ideal swingers world, we would have enjoyed good ‘recreational’ sex and kept our emotions out of it. In an ideal poly world (at least as we would like it) all four of us would have been bitten by the ‘love bug’. But in the real world it doesn’t always work out that way. So two of us are amorous, and feel we fit the poly mould, while our spouses are, and likely will remain, ‘just friends’.
Just a bit of history here…We are all late arrivals to the lifestyle, and of similar backgrounds: two very stable (we thought, anyway), 50-plus, committed, loving, married-forever couples looking to enhance already great relationships. Nothing ‘missing’ as touched upon in posts above, nothing broken that needed fixing: already happy and just looking for a little ‘more’…
Well, we got more than we ever anticipated. We clicked in preliminary letter exchanges and msn chats.. clicked even more in a ‘get-acquainted’ meeting at a club, and then, when it came time for the ‘take it to the next level’ meeting, the two of us were clicking so intensely that our spouses said, “Whoa, let’s back away, this is beyond ‘recreational’ and we’re feeling threatened.” So we backed away from the intimacy. The physical side of the relationship went on the back burner.
Now, we are sure a lot of the pure swingers will say, we should have all gone our separate ways at that point, let it cool. In fact, this might have happened except that our spouses enjoyed the 4-way friendship part so much, and encouraged this to grow. And it blossomed. Without being intimate, we visited, dined together, bragged about grandkids, consoled one another through family emergencies, exchanged modest Christmas gifts and had hilarious msn chats (we’re an hour apart). We vacationed together. In short, we did - and still do - all the wonderful things vanilla friends do. As the friendship deepened, so did the emotional bond between the two of us. If it was infatuation originally (as many would argue) it developed into genuine love, an emotional commitment that is NOT going to go away.
For a few months, we were swinging friends who would play with others but not among ourselves. Then the time came that our spouses felt we were sufficiently ‘under control’ that we could finally add physical intimacy to the relationship. For us, it was ecstasy; for them it was nerve-wracking. It was way beyond neutral, recreational sex, and nobody was kidding anybody otherwise. So after a few delicious interludes, the friendship went vanilla again, and remains so to this point.
So, what are we? Is there a definition? Two of us are in love. We are all good friends. And we are again swingers, but not among ourselves.
To answer some other obvious questions: Do they know about our love affair? They know there is a great deal of emotional attachment. The word “love” is not used. Way too stressful for them, way too threatening. Are we dishonest? Are we deceitful? Probably yes, although to a degree it is deception by mutual consent. They know, but don’t want to know, sort of thing. And we fear total honesty. We fear the two of us being ordered to stay apart, and fear a beautiful friendship being torn apart.
Yet we would love to be totally honest.. to try to explain the poly concept, that you can love a second person, without loving the first person less. That they will always, always, be first in our hearts, our primary partners, our First-In-Command. They feel threatened, and we probably would be too, if the situation were reversed. How do we convince them that we love them every bit as much. – probably more – than we did when this all started a year ago? That they do not need to be threatened, as we are not going anywhere.
We are not ashamed of our love. We dispute the swingers’ mantra that it’s okay to stick your dick in any available pussy, but not okay to love. We do regret that our love for each other causes anxiety to the others whom we love. For that anxiety, we ask forgiveness. For the fact that we are less than honest, we ask forgiveness.
For our love, however, we do not ask for forgiveness. We ask for acceptance.
Regards,
Usis 2 (Male Viewpoint)

[Mike and Jan]

Usis,

What a beautiful relationship!

You've found what I would love for my loving wife and I to find some day!

[sereneiders]

Originally Posted by usis

We are not ashamed of our love. We dispute the swingers’ mantra that it’s okay to stick your dick in any available pussy, but not okay to love. We do regret that our love for each other causes anxiety to the others whom we love. For that anxiety, we ask forgiveness. For the fact that we are less than honest, we ask forgiveness.
For our love, however, we do not ask for forgiveness. We ask for acceptance.

I cannot recall if I told this in this thread, or in another discussion regarding polyamory (and, until I learn how to post in a millon words or less, I am not up to re-read my own posts ).

I think this is the cultural thing, we're not supposed to express affection or love towards each other. In the other hand, when someone felt loved, he/she may feel in debt, because somehow we tie up love with reciprocity.

And it's interesting to notice that most religions encourages people to love each other, while in the other hand, and even when we may be religious and interact with religous people, we're forced to follow the forces driving our world as to be "succesfull" people.

You can ba in the street and hear someone yell hatefull words to someone else because of some silly incident, however, if someone dare to yell an unknown guy "I love you", every head will turn to take a look, suspecting he/she just lost a screw.

And it reaches the point where you end up appologizing for your right to avoid appologizing for loving someone else.

As Spock would say: "Fascinating".

[intuition897]

Originally Posted by usis

We dispute the swingers’ mantra that it’s okay to stick your dick in any available pussy, but not okay to love.

Don't know whose mantra that is, but it's not mine. No one is disputing the validity or value of a poly lifestyle. But you can't tell me that it's the "best" way, just because it is what you choose. My husband and I mutually agreed that we did not want to get emotionally involved with others because it would require too much energy to maintain two such relationships as what we have with each other. I would rather pour all my energy into loving one man the way he deserves to be loved. Part of that love is allowing him to develop other relationships if he so desires. He has said the same of me. But we just find that it is not something we are interested in, so we fit the swinger's profile instead.

We are currently not even swinging (life's too busy), but when we were and when we do, it is by no means as cold and harsh as the dick+pussy attitude you described. We need to at least like our partners as people, otherwise, we have no interest in them sexually. We all four simply agree to recognize and respect the emotional boundaries of our respective relationships. It's a matter of choosing to not cross those boundaries, not being unable to due to fear or insecurity.

[usis]

Intuition897;
Sorry, but we did not infer that it's the "Best" way. Surrender Just telling our situation...Ummm...In the time that all 4 of us have been involved in swinging...I think "we have found" that most of our acquaintances "not all" mind you, are just out for a Recreational Fuck..which certainly is fine, for some. We (female here) when starting out, started with the normal newbie "Rules" that were broken.

The history is such that my Hubby knows from experience several years ago, (No affair was ever consumated) that there can be Love for "more than One". And he wanted to avoid that pain...and that is "his" thinking...But he also knows that (maybe because of my upbringing,who knows,) that I had to "like" (or at least be able to have a decent conversation with) someone in order to have sex with them. So I suppose that put me at risk... He doesn't really have to, but if he does, the experience is certainly more satisfying.

I love my husband very deeply, but I also Love Usis2 the same as well, One primary, one secondary, but would mourn them both, the same as I would mourn "each" of my children and Grandchildren. It is not a case of splitting all my energy between them. They all deserve the same LOVE from my overflowing "wellspring".. What works for you is great...we would never try to dispute that...

I have had the experience of "cold & harsh" and I don't like it. But "we" don't mean to lump all swingers in that category. And apologize if it came across that way.

Soooo try as you might, sometimes one "cannot" choose to cross or not cross the emotional boundary. Neither of us went out looking to "Fall In Love" For lack of a better phrase, "it just happened" and what we are explaining is the response to the question that the OP posed.

Our situation is a "relationship in Progress" and yet to be totally defined. And we are interested in the experience of others who may have experienced something similar. We are all great friends , which is very important to us, and Usis2 and I will remain forever deeply in Love, whether, we ever become "Lovers" again or not. And yes, it Is a "complicated" situation at best. soapbox

Oh and Mike & Jan, thank you for the comment, and Sereneiders, you seem to have a seem to have an understanding.
Regards,
U1&2

[Woodpecker]

I have never fallen in love with a swinging partner. I love sex but I don't want any more romantic relationships. One at a time is enough for me. I've had a few male swinging partners try to date me but I've turned them down and we stopped seeing each other. Love and swinging don't mix in my book unless you're talking about the partner you arrived with.

Ann