Being called out

VA is probably correct.

The first judge didn't care at all, which I am eternally thankful for. Unfortunately, he retired shortly after we filed, and that second judge just didn't like me.

She let the ex get away with all kinds of shit. Had we had that judge first, I believe I never would have gotten custody.

It also depends on the structure of the court. We originally filed in Los Angeles, where the judges make all the decisions. We later moved the case to San Diego, where there is mandatory mediation, and the judge almost always rubber stamps the mediators recommendation.

The mediators were psychology professionals, who usually are more open minded than judges...

"...you know as well as I do - "looking" is acceptable. "doing" is an abomination."

Eh. Although it took some time I could have used elsewhere, there were no consequences I cared about for me and the company installed nanny software so the employees could no longer surf sex sites at work, which my ex agreed to as a fair resolution. But, yes, to your larger point, cheating is commonplace, but swinging is an abomination.

Troopers X in the custody hearings when they got divorced brought up trips to Hedo and naked pictures of him at the beach and he forced her to go there etc. The Judge, who was a woman, asked if the kids were along on the trips. Well of course not, exclaimed the x. The judge looked at the pics and said "nice tan" but she had already shown her crazy side before this last ditch attempt to paint him as a bad father when the kids were begging to stay with him not her so she lost custody.

tbr is one of the only people I've heard of where the court didn't make a big deal out of it. But he's in California. You're near Lynchburg, VA - there are dry counties nearby for cryin' out loud. I used to live in Virginia and I know that area well - 99% chance any judge you're in front of will tell you you're going to hell and they'd lock you up if they could make the laws that would do so.

re: "what the hell his employees were doing on a sex website during the workday"

GGMM, you know as well as I do - "looking" is acceptable. "doing" is an abomination. You could also be cheating on your S.O. with half of the members of the courtroom and that wouldn't matter - but if you did something WITH your S.O.? You're a freak. Because cheating is "normal". Swinging is not.

As with almost everything having to do with family court, the outcome relies almost exclusively on the judge. One may care very much, another not at all.

At our first hearing, she tried to bring up that I was having sex with the babysitter (the "babysitter" was our long term partner). The judge just shrugged and ordered custody to me.

I don't know anything about Virginia family court, so I can't really speak to specifics...

va is correct that courts are unlikely to look kindly upon your variant sexual practices. So, don't go to court if you can help it. That means that rather than immediately find an attorney, you might be better off having mediated conversations with your ex, with mediation done by a sex positive therapist, someone trained in non-violent or other communication modes who is comfortable discussing sexuality, or even an attorney that emphasizes their facility in negotiating over litigating.

I was outted to my ex about two years after I started swinging, so our kids were still pretty young. His first reaction was to threaten a custody battle. Mine was to wonder what the hell his employees were doing on a sex website during the workday. Anyway, I actually have training in collaborative communication, plus I mostly don't respond in kind to anger anyway, so I took the risk and facilitated my own negotiation sessions. De-escalation is important and so is having an a conversation about what harm can be done to children by adult sexual expression that takes place out of their view. That question was the one that stumped my ex and started him back on the road to sanity. Also, I made him deal with his own jealousy as jealousy instead of coding it as concern for the kids. I think we had to spend about three hours over the course of a week, but we worked it out.

Good luck.

I have no doubt that you have a big headache in front of you over it.

In my experience (through friends we've seen go through it) there is nothing you can do to stop your ex's from making you look like terrible in court, and almost all courtrooms will agree that it makes you unfit parents.

I really hope it's not as doom-and-gloom as what I've just said, but I know of very few exceptions to this....

My first thought is that the situation might be worth me paying a couple of hundred dollars to discuss the situation with a local attorney who will have a much better handle on the local legal environment than any of us will.

Curious if anyone has had any similar experience to what we have encountered and any advice. Apparently someone on here or another site has told one of our exes about our lifestyle and created a mess. Custody is being threatened of the children, hints of outting us around town and other things as well. For starters, we do not do anything risque around our kids and keep this lifestyle completely apart from our time with our children, so I don't see where there is much of a case there. We have changed our profile so it is tamer as well. I have tried to assure the ex of all of these precautions that we take, but still seems like we will have a headache ahead of us.