I have been married for almost ten years and last year we decided to seek another couple to play with. We were lucky enough to find a great couple who we are both happy with and everyone gets along great. Recently things have come up between my wife and the other husband where they are having deeper emotional feelings and are even contemplating saying that they love each other. This was difficult for me to accept as we are very new to this lifestyle. I am somewhat familiar with the poly life and I actually would be ok turning this into a relationship between the four of us. My problem is that I am having difficulties with jealousy. I really like the other husband and we have become close friends but I get strong anxiety when I think about them being alone together. There was past infidelity before we started swinging that I thought I had dealt with but I think the fears have returned. Any suggestions on how to work through my jealousy would be great.
Going from swingers to poly
- Thread starter Marriedb
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PolyinPractice
New member
Hold on, cowboy. You've only mentioned the relationship developing between your wife and his husband. Totally does NOT obligate the wife to be romantically involved with you, and also it's usually a bad idea to force a quad. Should you and the wife later develop feelings, or you for another woman (be very aware that the other wife could develop feelings for either ONLY your wife/another woman/another man), that's cool. Otherwise, focus on the relationships that exist
Also, your wife should be aware there's a good chance the other woman will put her foot down on this or greatly try to control the relationship.TangleDiamond2
New member
I am in a very similar situation to you. In a quad that started as swinging. We all have developed some feelings. Me and the other husband have expressed that we are in love, and me and the other wife have strong feelings for one another. My husband and the other wife have more of a very passionate sexual thing going. My husband is nervous about really opening the relationship beyond that.
We are brand new to all of this as well.
I really don't get jealous at all but it's plagued each of us at one time or another.
We are brand new to all of this as well.
I really don't get jealous at all but it's plagued each of us at one time or another.
Hold on, cowboy. You've only mentioned the relationship developing between your wife and his husband. Totally does NOT obligate the wife to be romantically involved with you, and also it's usually a bad idea to force a quad. Should you and the wife later develop feelings, or you for another woman (be very aware that the other wife could develop feelings for either ONLY your wife/another woman/another man), that's cool. Otherwise, focus on the relationships that exist
The four of us have a great friendship and we all get together as a group when we can. The wives are great together too and have meet for some alone time together. My wife and the other husband have never had time alone and because of our schedules and they live about an hour away I don't expect that to happen. Their feelings have developed via texting on a daily basis. There is definitely strong sexual chemistry with all four of us but the other wife isn't much of a talker so I haven't been able to develop feelings for her.
I am very new to this and trying to learn and navigate as it is happening. I appreciate any advice you have.
Your scenario sounds just like ours. The other wife isn't much of a talker, she doesn't like to text so I haven't been able to develop that side of things beyond the sexual. My wife and I talk to the husband on an almost daily basis and we have both become very close with him in our own way. How did you handle the jealousy that did come up? The other couple had talked about poly before they had kids so they may be further along with working it into their marriage than we are.
IndieSolo
Active member
You are simply going to have to accept that people are emotional beings and sometimes feelings come up that cannot be held back. If your wife and the husband develop feelings for each other, truly, what is wrong with that? Does she have deep affection and love for any other people in her life, like friends? This would be no different, except that he and his wife also participate in recreational sex with you and your wife.
The main thing to remember is that there is no marriage certificate that means one person owns another, so if you start feeling weird about your wife possibly loving another man with whom she chooses to share her body, then ask yourself why it's so scary or such a threat. It doesn't mean that anything is being taken away from you - since you are not her owner or boss - so, ask yourself what makes you so uneasy. Loving someone else besides you doesn't mean that anything about your current arrangement necessarily has to change. It simply means that your wife has someone in her life whom she trusts and respects, whose company she enjoys and treasures, and with whom she feels good about herself and has a pleasant rapport. Really, is that so bad? Wouldn't you hope she'd be happy for you if you could say you had all those things, too?
The main thing to remember is that there is no marriage certificate that means one person owns another, so if you start feeling weird about your wife possibly loving another man with whom she chooses to share her body, then ask yourself why it's so scary or such a threat. It doesn't mean that anything is being taken away from you - since you are not her owner or boss - so, ask yourself what makes you so uneasy. Loving someone else besides you doesn't mean that anything about your current arrangement necessarily has to change. It simply means that your wife has someone in her life whom she trusts and respects, whose company she enjoys and treasures, and with whom she feels good about herself and has a pleasant rapport. Really, is that so bad? Wouldn't you hope she'd be happy for you if you could say you had all those things, too?
I can see plenty of potential for problems, but of course it may all work out. However, you and the other couple came to this via swinging, which is a different mindset. To me, it would be reasonable to have all of you openly discuss the changing circumstances and how it could work - if at all. If the other wife isn't fully aware or "on-board", it can create problems for all of you and in particular for their marriage.
Your feelings of jealousy are important to figure out, but are secondary (IMO) to the core issue - is the other couple okay with the direction this is going?
We were in a poly relationship early in our relationship. That eventually dissolved very amicably as our secondaries found other people and we also had to move away. We haven't found a similarly attractive poly arrangement since, but have been involved in the swinging community. We've met some very compatible couples, but so far none have developed beyond friendship and casual sex.
Your feelings of jealousy are important to figure out, but are secondary (IMO) to the core issue - is the other couple okay with the direction this is going?
We were in a poly relationship early in our relationship. That eventually dissolved very amicably as our secondaries found other people and we also had to move away. We haven't found a similarly attractive poly arrangement since, but have been involved in the swinging community. We've met some very compatible couples, but so far none have developed beyond friendship and casual sex.
But things do change! Loving someone else is not just like finding a new person to go mini golfing with now and then. Falling in love can create a profound change in one's life, and that will alter the previous relationships(s) in many ways. Potential changes are: crazy NRE, scheduling, being "out" or not, what about the children (if any), how much time to spend texting/IMing/phoning the other, what about overnights/weekend getaways/extended vacations, how much info/gushing about the new person can you stand, possibly (re)learning to sleep alone, having more alone time than you're used to, planning to move in together...
Lots of changes.
IndieSolo
Active member
They can change, but they don't have to.
I did say, "Loving someone else besides you doesn't mean that anything about your current arrangement necessarily has to change." Key word: necessarily. Yes, of course, things could change, but not necessarily. If things are great the way they are, and love enters the picture, why does that automatically mean everything has to shift into something different? A good thing is a good thing, and acknowledging love doesn't mean everyone needs to change it all because of it.
Society teaches us that love means you have to move a relationship in a certain direction, and that if you love someone they should love you and no one else. If they do, it's a threat to what you have, but fuck society's rules. My point is that it's not necessary to do so! It is possible to just enjoy loving and being loved without making it mean that now everyone has to adjust their goals or change schedules or anything like that. The partners of people who love more than one don't have to see it as a threat.
Nothing in the situation has to change, other than accepting that that there is this wonderful feeling of love growing. If someone responds to their own feelings of love toward someone else by wanting certain elements in their lives or living situation to change, that is a choice they are making. It is not part and parcel of the feeling of love, and I think it is detrimental to forget that we make choices and love is just a feeling.
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I find that a naive premise that could only be possible with very casual relationships. In your situation I think you do not have a live in lover, or one you see more than once a week, at that?
But if someone is partnered and used to living with someone and/or spending a lot of time together, and then a new hot lover comes along, who wants to get together a lot, or at least text/IM a lot, and get together as often as possible, things must change. Unless you hold new lover at bay and tell them you'll only see them when your previous lover is out of town or something....
But if someone is partnered and used to living with someone and/or spending a lot of time together, and then a new hot lover comes along, who wants to get together a lot, or at least text/IM a lot, and get together as often as possible, things must change. Unless you hold new lover at bay and tell them you'll only see them when your previous lover is out of town or something....
IndieSolo
Active member
The OP has been swinging for a while with the other couple and there is some distance between them. I don't think any of them falling in love needs to change what they have.
In general, I don't think loving someone means that major changes have to happen, no matter what the situation or configuration. Changes to living situations and agreements come about because we make the changes happen. We either act or react. Love is love and doesn't require such changes. You can call me naïve, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
In general, I don't think loving someone means that major changes have to happen, no matter what the situation or configuration. Changes to living situations and agreements come about because we make the changes happen. We either act or react. Love is love and doesn't require such changes. You can call me naïve, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
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SlowPoly
Active member
I think that kind of illustrates nycyndie's point about society dictating that love has to advance at a certain pace or it's being held back.
I had an incredible amount of NRE (really old/rekindled RE) with Mitch when we got back together after 15 years, but it didn't change how either of us was living, for years at least. When we wanted it to change things, we chose the changes that made sense for where we were at that point, in our lives and in our relationship.
Change doesn't necessarily have to happen. Impatience and expectation might inform choices that create change. But the existence of emotion doesn't imply necessary action.
IndieSolo
Active member
To me, the issue regarding what you wrote is about how well a person manages having multiple relationships, not whether or not someone is in love. Texting, scheduling... that is all logistics.
I am not saying I haven't fallen into the trap of believing that my feelings for someone have to mean... well, something other than the simple fact that I feel some deeper feelings for someone. Of course, I've experienced wanting certain responses and changes after realizing I was in love, or believed that my telling someone I loved them would now make it all different -- violins would play as the sun broke through the clouds and we would float off to happy land. Or something like that. But when I couldn't have the things I fantasized about, I realized it was... just... love, for goodness sakes! And I experience varying degrees of love for so many people, why when it's someone I fuck does it have to have extra meaning? Why does the relationship need to "go somewhere" different from where it is, as if realizing or declaring love means we now have to get on Aggie's "relationship escalator?" I had to remind myself that loving someone doesn't necessitate changes in the parameters of the relationship. I can just love -- and be comfortable or uncomfortable with things not going as society tells me they should. Ultimately, it means my issue is how to deal with unrealistic expectations.
Now, if it is someone I love who is falling in love with someone else, then I'd hope he would get his feet on the ground and be able to see this as I do, or be receptive to discussing it. Nothing has to change just because of love. We all love people in circumstances we wish were different, I am sure.
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Well, of course I do not believe a love relationship needs to go from dating, to weekends, to vacations together and meeting the parents, to living together, to marriage, to kids, to buying a house, retiring together and dying. But certainly most people, when they fall in love, want to spend time together. Quite often, a lot of time. If you're just dating someone, fond of them but no big whoop, once or twice a month or whatever might feel fine. Personally, when I am in love, I want to hang out together a lot. I think this is very common.
Well, you know where I'm coming from, Cindie. Only he's fallen in love with 2 people, a couple, at once, and his love is returned. This is just inevitably causing major changes in OUR relationship. He wants to see them a lot and vice versa, together and separately, and there are only so many hours in the week.
IndieSolo
Active member
The whole point of my initial post in this thread was to reassure the OP not to be so fearful or anxious about his wife having loving feelings toward her lover, the male in a couple they swing with. This is not about me or you - it's about a quad, two couples who don't live very close to each other and have been swinging together. The fact that love, or deeper loving feelings, are developing is scary to the OP and bringing up old anxieties and jealousy he thought he got past long ago.
Projecting your fears and difficulties from your situation onto the OP's may or may not be helpful to them. All I wanted to express was that things don't have to change in their arrangement, and that he could look at it as something not so threatening. If his marriage is secure and stable, he can take comfort in that, and not feel so freaked out that his wife's love is expanding toward someone else. Did not intend this to be an argument about whether or not love can or should change everything in a relationship.
The OP isn't dealing with a new person coming into an established situation and upsetting the apple cart. It's already been an ongoing relationship - it's just that new feelings have come up.
Projecting your fears and difficulties from your situation onto the OP's may or may not be helpful to them. All I wanted to express was that things don't have to change in their arrangement, and that he could look at it as something not so threatening. If his marriage is secure and stable, he can take comfort in that, and not feel so freaked out that his wife's love is expanding toward someone else. Did not intend this to be an argument about whether or not love can or should change everything in a relationship.
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OK, fine. Things don't "have" to change in this quad just because 2 of the partners fell in love. But given the idea that new lovers generally want to spend good chunks of time together, chances are, their desires for that will increase. Even if the OP doesn't want that, even if the lovers see each other as seldom as before, just the desire for more will (probably) still be there, and texting could increase, requests for more frequent dates may well occur. Just saying things don't *have* to change doesn't change the fact that things *probably* will! Work will need to be done.
Lovers in love are a different beast than casual fuck buddies. The OP suggests his wife and the other guy now want one on one dates instead of playing as a foursome every time.
Lovers in love are a different beast than casual fuck buddies. The OP suggests his wife and the other guy now want one on one dates instead of playing as a foursome every time.
Thanks for all of the responses. I have been thinking a lot the past couple days about how this has changed and I have realized that it really hasn't, the feelings were always there but now they're being spoken out loud. We live a good distance from the other couple so my wife and the other husband will not be having alone time, all that happened is they are experiencing the NRE that comes with meeting someone that you're compatible with. I also came to the realization that my jealousy is not toward their love but jealous that I am not experiencing that feeling, I want my own NRE. When we first met them I tried to get to know the other wife but being a mom, kids got in the way. I was talking to the husband last night and said I wanted to get to know his wife more so that maybe we could become closer. We will see where things end up. If it doesn't I may seek someone outside the current group.
TangleDiamond2
New member
Marriedb, I haven't had a chance to respond to you recently but our scenarios are so similar other than we live very close to the other couple. My husband and the other wife, they see each other very often but there are always kids around so they feel like it's more platonic, friendship... But they are building a great base. Lots of texting, sexual talk, and they have a great sexual chemistry... My husband was shutting off his emotional side when they were alone (not during sex though) for fear of the boundaries and what it would mean for our marriage. Since this started as swinging, and evolved.... He sometimes gets stuck on boundaries.
Anyway, the other wife has said she felt slightly jealous of the love/bond between me and the other husband, but only because she wants that from my husband as well. She's happy for us, but wanted more from my husband. So my husband has finally started opening up and is excited to build a real relationship with her now.
We have all come to a place where we know we are no longer a swinging group, but individual relationships and we are learning together how to respect that, and grow. It's pretty amazing actually. I feel very fulfilled and satisfied with how open the dialogue has been and how close we have grown. :