Lost interest

New to the board, but my wife and I had both been into the lifestyle over a decade ago.

I posted a similar post on a marriage board and it went... not well. I did receive some feedback from one member on there, that I've also been looking into, but wanted some feedback here, if anyone has some.

When we met, we were young and full of excitement and energy. She was also the curious type, while I was the eager-to-please type. I had thought about experimenting with the lifestyle with my previous girlfriend, but that was not going to happen, so when my wife said she was interested, I was all on board.

Now, I am not the jealous type and any degree of jealousy I had, I'd use to take notes, learn from and then use while we were alone. During the few years in our early relationship and first couple years of marriage, 100% of the attention was on her. That wasn't by choice, but simply because... let's face it, most guys are a lot more eager than ladies!

I was still fine with it and we had fun together. In all but 1 case, the partners were all friends we had made outside of this relationship, but it never impacted our friendship outside of this, or had any ill effects on mine with my wife.

My wife, though... is the jealous type, as I discovered. When the one-in-a-thousand chance happened that a female showed interest in both of us, the second she saw the interest switch in my direction, everything came to a screeching halt.

My wife quit the lifestyle. She quit "partying", drinking, having any sort of "fun" whatsoever, basically. I don't want to paint my wife in a bad light though, I love her and wanted to be with her forever, so I didn't put up an argument. She is an otherwise supportive person and we've now been together for over 20 years, raising a family together.

I am now understanding what a mid life crisis is all about, however. I don't fear getting old, but i do fear missing out on the things I put off for the past 20 years, fearful that I may be too old to really enjoy them to their fullest if I wait around any longer. This decision that took place 15 years ago, is one of those things...

Meanwhile, my wife has hinted to wanting to try it again, but I think her attempts were thwarted when the one person said that she wasn't "his type"; which I don't think she was used to hearing and may have been rather jarring for her. She hinted at some form of polyamory with a good friend she had met, but then I realized she just wanted to be good friends and any other interest had faded in that regard.

Has anyone been in this type of situation and found a way to get their partner reengaged with swinging?

The LifeStyle works best for people who have strong relationships with each other, and are looking for additional excitement. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear you are in this category. Any foray into swinging quite possibly lead to disappointment and perhaps damage to your primary relationship.

If you don't have a rock solid relationship that has an excess of trust, love and communication, things will probably not go very well. Swinging is a magnifying glass: if the relationship is already great, it will make it more exciting, more entertaining, more everything. If the relationship is...lacking, it will make the cracks and weaknesses larger, easier to see. Swinging will not 'save' a relationship but usually it will speed the process up. Work on the relationship first, THEN (and only then) see if you both want to return.

I don't want to give the impression that our relationship is lacking. After 20 years, neither of us are going anywhere!

As another post mentioned though, one huge factor that's played into this, was my wife's newfound religion. Even though she's not practicing anymore, when she did "find God" her attitude across the board changed... without me.

She has since, shown some interest in possibly continuing where we left off, but those moments seem fleeting and then disappear again.

Has anyone else been in a situation where their partner decided to stop cold-turkey? Have they managed to continue the lifestyle after that at some point in the future?

Then talk with her, tell her how you feel. If you can't communicate with each other about anything and EVERYTHING, that may be part of the problem.