How to Crash and Burn in the Lifestyle

Transcript

Speaker1: In today's episode, we're diving into the wrong reasons to get into the lifestyle. We'll share why swinging is not therapy. A story about the female half of a couple who got pushed into it before she was ready. How manipulation, imbalance, and desperation lead to disaster. And what a solid foundation actually looks like before you start. If you're here to spice things up, great. If you're here to save something that's already sinking listen closely welcome to coming out swinging a raw real look at modern relationships i'm dave arena and i'm victoria arena we've been together nearly 30 years married over 24 and swinging for more than 22 we're starting this podcast now because for too long fear kept us from living authentically from being open about who we are and what our relationship actually looks like. Maybe this is our modern day scarlet letter. But we're here to be both the example and the invitation to help others own their desires and question the scripts we've all been handed. What's broken in today's relationships? Is monogamy even natural for humans? And could the secret to a relationship that doesn't drain your soul be boning other people? This show explores how love, sex, and identity often buckle under the weight of societal expectations, especially monogamy. Subscribe to Coming Out Swinging, the podcast that redefines couple goals straight from the motherfucking OGs. Today we are going to talk about some of the wrong reasons to get into the lifestyle. Well, swinging isn't a band-aid. Right. I think we should start, though, by kind of going over what we feel a solid foundation looks like, or what I guess healthy be look like healthy of a solid foundation go figure right some people some people will be like what right I think that because I also don't want to make it sound like everything has to be completely rosy in your relationship when you start this because that's not always the case i mean i think for us we were i mean we started when we were so young that we and we've we've said this on um earlier episodes we didn't really have that problem we we weren't trying to spice things up we didn't have we didn't have i mean i i guess in a way you could say we were but we weren't we weren't um we weren't fixing anything right but we were freshly married and we didn't have those communication issues so i don't i don't think you i've lightened my stance on this i guess is what i'm saying i used to say like any kind of relationship issues you shouldn't really go into this lifestyle but i feel that if you overall have a healthy loving relationship you don't want to go anywhere else right and maybe looking to leave your right but maybe it's just a lull after as we know, with kids and life and life happens and whatever, communication starts, you know, suffering. Yeah. And maybe there's a lull and maybe you are trying to get a spark back or you're trying to get that communication back. I think it can work in those situations. I agree. I think that as long as the relationship is solid. Now, what we want to get into in this episode is more about what does it look like when it's not healthy? Like if it's a I mean, there's a couple of things we're going to touch on in terms of manipulation and different specific reasons. But what I'm talking about here is it's not going to. Well, you-aid it's not going to fix tell you when i when we say manipulation i would say eight times out of ten it's on the guy side but we have seen women manipulate the situation too so i don't want to just put it on men i have seen women manipulate the situation in this world yeah but even but even before we get into those specific reasons i want to talk about the fact you brought up that it's not a band-aid meaning if your relationship is just shitty yeah like if you're already in a broken room now and why i prefaced with. You're already imploding on different things in your marriage. Right. I don't care if it's money stuff. I don't care if it's. Yeah. You know, that's a good point. It doesn't have to be sexual. Yeah. There's just a lot of stress in your relationship. And then you think you're going to go do this. Good luck. Yeah. It only makes the cracks in the bridge wider. wider for sure so that's why i prefaced it with you could have a healthy relationship that's maybe just going through a lull or and you want to spice things up i think that's fine but i'm talking about like a broken relationship specifically because to be in this lifestyle it's kind of not cheap right yeah to go to these To go to these events and some of it, you've got to buy a membership. You've got to buy the night fee. You've got to buy your alcohol for the night because a lot of them are BYOB.
Speaker2: Sure.
Speaker1: The girl wants to look good. She's going to want to go tanning, get her nails done, get her hair done. You don't want to go looking like a slob.
Speaker2: Right.
Speaker1: You know, so, you know, there's the financial thing about it all. So then the guys guys may be like oh we had so much fun this night maybe we can go the next weekend but then financially you can't kick it up the next weekend to go yeah we've seen that yeah and i but i think your main point is just that no matter what the stress is or or if the relationship is just if you're doing this to fix a broken relationship, good luck. Yeah, it's not happening. Yeah, in fact, it'll accelerate the end, which sometimes is good. Yeah, it's going to put your foot on the gas. We have no qualms about saying that either. Like, hey, if you're in a shitty relationship and this can help you get out of it quicker than, Hey, do it. You're welcome. Right. But yeah, you're not, it's not going to happen. But what I want to talk about is you talked about the manipulation and we have a specific story. Yeah. That's a good example of that. We've had many. Yeah. had many yeah oh yeah i mean i've seen a thousand and one i think this one hits home because it was a great friend yeah she was a friend she's a friend of mine yes still still yes and of course we never name names, um, you know, to protect everybody, but do you want to, well, I think what we met them in the lifestyle. So we did meet them in the world at a club. Yeah. And I can say, you know, I remember, I mean, if you, you want to paint this picture. Door opens a club this girl walks through the door and i mean if you had like the perfect hollywood scene it'd be like smoke was blowing her hair's going through the air she's walking through the door slowly this her picture perfect hot chick walked through the door young like what 20 something at the time and i was like god that girl's just i mean she's adorable like she's and i don't want to be mean or insult the club but the club we were at you just don't see you don't see yeah you didn't see her caliber very yeah yeah she stuck out she had to put together i was i'm always put together but not everybody else in the club is so when you see somebody, your standard, walk through the door and you're like, ooh. Yeah. And she also was... together but not everybody else in the club is so when you see somebody your standard walk through the door and you're like oh yeah and she also was comfortable enough to talk to us well no she was comfortable enough to wear eventually change into the lingerie and the skimpy stuff even out in the bar area yeah so she played that part too where it was like holy shit okay like people all eyes were on her yeah definitely and her boyfriend at the time they were not married they weren't even engaged was our age yes so probably 20 years her senior i would assume somewhere in that neighborhood not that that necessarily matters no but i guess the thing we got from the situation was it was a unique situation what he had on his arm yeah he he peacocked around like that right there were a couple things that struck us as as um i don't want to say odd, but what struck us about the situation was he was a very eager beaver, which we see a lot with newbies, so that's not unusual. But he was very, very eager for stuff to happen. But what was interesting about their dynamic, which was unusual, was that she was allowed to play, and he wasn't. Yeah. And that was because... She wasn't ready to share them. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because she said if they weren't married yet, she felt like maybe once they were married, they could go full into the lifestyle. But because he wasn't fully hers yet, she felt, in terms of marriage, that she wasn't ready to share. Now, all of that on its own is not necessarily a red flag. I think when you combine all the factors, the fact that he was so eager about this and so willing to participate without him being able to play and that may be hypocritical but I'm a guy right so that's like very unusual that the guy would be like okay like I mean even though so here's what's weird about it that's our dynamic. Like we do way more stuff in the moment with single guys and you, then we do with like full swap couples or single guys. Yeah. Well, I always say we because I'm usually participating as well with you, with you. Yeah. Let's just clarify that. But I, we do that way more. We do that way more often. I sit right through him. If I can let her. Well, you always do. If I let her do this, and it wasn't that she needed this. I got to know her very well. He saw a straight lane over into his world where he was gonna have his whatever he wanted yeah so that's what i'm trying to say i'm not saying that the situation was even though it was unusual it wasn't a red flag on its own because we do plenty of or you do plenty of things with single guys as opposed to us being with couples or even single women but and and we we have a a lot of excitement with that and i get off on that right but so i i right so i i can the things he said exactly so i understood where he was coming from that he would be excited about this and that that could be a way in but it was the other stuff you saw like you were saying yeah you saw well first of all you saw a little bit too much eagerness but you also saw the manipulation big time yeah and they had a couple of incidents incidents happen that i thought she had stated her rules with him and he was not even glancing at her rules. Like he was going right beyond those. Um, you know, he had one instance where she said, no, I am not playing with that man. I don't want to play with that man, you know, whatever. And it was a blindfold situation and sure as shit, that's the guy he brought in the room and i tried to interrupt it caused a huge scene because i knew that she didn't want to be with that guy and then he got you know if he with me or whatever and she was like holy crap thank you so much for stopping that you know type of situation um and i really don't want to go too much into that because you know whatever but you know there was that instance well that was a good that was a a real eye-opening one because first of all that is wrong on so many levels and i don't want to get too deep here but like like i mean that's almost bordering on some sort of i mean am i crossing a line by saying that that is bordering on almost sexual assault very much so because yeah she was blindfolded she told her she told him no yes now she obviously agreed to be blindfolded but we had we knew we knew the exact guy she was talking about she was very adamant he knew the exact guy she was talking about so even though she agreed to the blindfold she had said no prior correct and and this guy had a woman so this would have been her man's first interaction with another woman in the club and he he wanted to get with her yeah so if he could keep her blindfolded with this guy who she said no to and he can get a little action from the chick without her knowing without her knowing or when the blindfolds already off and she was into it, or so she thought she would be. Right. So it's, when we say manipulation, it's probably more than that in this specific case. But what we're saying is like, first of all, that's why setting boundaries and rules are so important. so when he did that you and i both realized this dude is not like he doesn't get this at all no he didn't or not let's let's be real he wasn't he wasn't dumb it wasn't like he didn't get it he didn't he was doing this on pleasure exactly and and that's just a big no-no I mean that's a big no-no all the way around and this is an extreme case but you could see where you know this kind of stuff happens even in you know I guess less serious ways as well yeah all the time yeah then, I mean, it just got worse for them from there. I mean, they got engaged. So it, again, you call things early on. And when we say early on, you called this, I mean, this incident that happened with the blindfold was very early on from us meeting them. Yeah. So you knew this right away. You even tried to communicate that. And what ended up unfolding was exactly what you said. Eventually, he did wiggle his way into where, you know, he just knew by if I keep pressing the envelope, if we keep getting comfortable doing this, eventually she's going to, there's going to be a night where things just happen. And what happened with them is they, they almost did opposite of what we did. So when we initially got into the lifestyle, yes, we did meet people online and we did get to know people and go out with people. And then we realized that's not what we were into. We wanted more spontaneous and decided the club atmosphere was more for us because we didn't have to like, you know, script book the night or playbook the night thing. And things were going to be a lot more spontaneous. We didn't have to worry about dating someone. They went the opposite way, decided that, you know, clubs weren't really, you know, know it wasn't club it wasn't just that they were going to start meeting people out meeting couples out yeah and meeting people online after the club situations and you know having people come over to their house and whatever else and so they started getting close with like a couple of different couples and you know he was you know catching feelings for one of the you know he became very enamored with one of the women and one of the couples um she they got and get you know this they end up getting engaged got married you know um she started finding things on his phone and not with just this girl from this couple, but with other women, like from like porn sites and stuff like, um, and even Snapchat and meeting people out full blown cheating and he would, he was trying to, you know, know say it's nothing it's nothing you know it's just stuff we could talk about in the bedroom things like that to her and it was just it was full-blown cheating he was cheating on her people he was cheating on her right but it started with the manipulation of the lifestyle and yeah where the reason why we want to do a whole episode on this and and there's other reasons to to get into it for the wrong reason like they're you know there's oftentimes one partner is more gung-ho than the other and they're dragging the other partner into it i guess it's all kind of the same maybe different sides of the same coin because what we're really saying here is you have to be careful and you have to make sure that you are both on the same page and completely communicating. Now, are we suggesting that it is going to be this dramatic of an example? No. But what we're saying is, what we're saying is, this is like, when we, like you said, this is still a friend to this day, a close friend of yours. Yeah. And unfortunately, she got a sour taste in her mouth on the lifestyle in general, which is totally justified because she looked back on it now, even though you were telling her this whole time, but Hey, this is the way it goes. Right. It wasn't until, you know, now they're divorced. She looked back on it and realized all the manipulation. She realized all the things that weren't really about them doing this together and them getting into this. He had his own agenda and his own reason for pushing into this lifestyle sneaky about it right and it ended up being where it really was just about his needs and that carried over again like you said into the cheating that she noticed that she really respected about us she said i always just respected your guys communication with each other we've never had that yeah she said they never had communication he always swept it under the carpet and that was it and she's like i would have felt more i would have felt better talking about it talking talking it out after even the experience after he never wanted to talk about the experience after we never reconnected right Right. Which is why that's so big for you. I mean, that's the, yeah, they never like said one thing was hot over the other. He took it, kept it to his, under his cuff. And I don't know, whacked off to it himself. I don't know. I don't know. Right. But it was, it was a one-sided it was always for him and him only and he never like experienced it with her and let's clarify in the moment it wasn't like she was a non-willing participant she was willing and she was having there there were experiences that were great for her that were great for her at least i mean i think looking back on it maybe she got soured a bit um because just because of everything that ended up happening but yeah it wasn't like she was being dragged kicking and screaming into this she was a willing participant and and in some ways i think that makes it worse because she thought oh we're doing this together we're getting we're both we're both getting something out of it and then you realize it was only one-sided and there was a whole nother agenda yeah for sure and that's that's the sad part of it but that's you have to be doing it for the right reasons and you have to be on the same page you know so i think i know we're trying to be like cautious because it's, it's such a good one to talk about. It's deeper than I would have liked to gone, but because it's not always like such a, you know what I mean? Like it's sometimes it's just like, you can tell like,
Speaker2: Oh,
Speaker1: this person really isn't as into it as that is the,
Speaker2: you know? Yeah.
Speaker1: And here's the thing. Here's my biggest thing. Fantasies are fantasies. You should not be shamed for a fantasy in a relationship. Right. So your partner comes to you and you're like, dude, I didn't know you were this freaky, you know, or whatever. accept it and talk about it as a couple like don't immediately shame your partner for wanting to talk about these things with you or wanting to be spicy in the bedroom or even if you never act on it. Yes. Even if you never act on it, even if you say, whoa, dude, pump the brakes, I'm not ready for that yet. Or yeah, a good example of that is there was a couple that, you know, again, we, they seem to gravitate toward us in the club, but we had a newbie couple that was there for the first night and they were having some issues in their marriage. They were not having sex at all. She was going through some stuff herself. They weren't communicating. So they went to traditional talk therapy a couple's therapy and they were trying to work it out and this the lifestyle actually got brought up in therapy and they said well you know maybe that's an avenue to try and you could tell right away when we were talking with them that she was never going to do anything especially that night at least which is, which is fine. But they asked us for our advice and we said, well, why don't you just use this as an opportunity to, you know, you're here, use it as an opportunity to, to watch and to see if that sparks anything in your own bedroom. Right. So you go back home and you have a good, you know, maybe that gives you the spark that you need or the channel of open communication. Right. And that brings us full circle to Thank you. home and you have a good you know maybe that gives you the spark that you need or the channel of open communication right and that brings us full circle to where we started the episode where that i think is still healthy i think you have to work through those issues what have you but sometimes marriage has to go to a club to do it but right and you don't ever have to like act on anything but what i'm saying is that i think if you're in a spot where it's like hey we love each other the relationship is good we're just going through something like whether it's sexual or what have you or even confidence for the woman right she might be going through that part of her life where she's just not feeling sexy. Yeah. You know, and she's just not feeling up to par with other women around her or, you know, she may have caught him checking somebody out, you know, whatever. Use that to set to bring that back into your conversation and your, your four walls.
Speaker2: Yeah. Don't include anybody else. And I think what was nice about that conversation too, is like, you could tell she was, you could tell she was very uptight and kind of nervous. Oh yeah. Which, I mean, understandably so. Absolutely. But I think she really calmed down after talking to us because she realized, whoa, you're right.
Speaker1: The pressure's off. We don't have to do anything. We can literally just watch at someone's door or watch in the group room. Watch from a corner of the group room. We don't have to come up to your bed. Take it back home and see if, you know, is this the kind of thing that, you know. We may never step foot in here again. Right right but maybe that's the spark or at least it gets you talking or what have you I think that's still a healthy you know even though your relationship may not be right where you want it to be at that moment it's not a broken relationship a lot of times it's not like you know what we're talking about is like when you are just like like you're just in a shitty situation or with a shitty person like the example we gave of your friend where what that ended up doing is it just he was gonna here's what i'm trying to say he was gonna be a cheater no matter what this just accelerated it it just put the fuel on the fire do you get what and that's the those are the situations you can't get into yeah that's not this lifestyle is not going to fix those situations right so hopefully hopefully those two examples those two stories are kind of one end of the spectrum you know what i mean it's not gonna fix jealousy it's not gonna fix um you know anything it's not even gonna fix if you're just a shitty individual and you're gonna if you're gonna manipulate and cheat yeah you're just gonna be an asshole it's gonna make it worse which it did it magnifies it it magnifies it exactly so you know you just gotta going to blow your shit up right so you just gotta really be careful of like what situation am i? And why am I doing this? And why is my partner suggesting this? Or are we doing this together? And I'm here to tell you, there are women that walked in and I'm like, she is so hot. Is there a jealousy side of me? I don't know if it's actually a jealousy side, but it's a she does. She's going to get all the attention tonight. You know what I mean? Or things like that. That's natural. You are going, that is a natural human nature thing. Of course, my husband's going to look at her. It'd be crazy not to look at her. I'm pointing her out to him. You know what I mean? So jealousy is a, is a natural human instinct. The problem comes if you're doing this because you're trying to make somebody jealous or you're trying to fix something you saw that was a jealousy thing, you know, like that's what we're saying. Like if there's those cracks in those. Or if you're trying to make it to where like, hey, I hope he's going to pay attention to me now if we're into this, where he never, like, I guess what we're saying is, like, even though there could be a hot chick at the club, you never have to worry about me putting my attention elsewhere in terms of, like, our marriage and also me always finding you attractive. Like, you know how I feel about you yeah our marriage is still gonna come first just because you found somebody hot well and i also always feel you're the hottest too so thanks right but what i'm what you're saying is you may not feel that way right but you know i feel that way yes but if you're trying to like do it to be like well maybe he'll start paying attention to me more like you just you're you just have a shitty husband or boyfriend like you know what i mean there's nothing this is just going to accelerate yeah and this is just going to make it it's just going to get you to the end quicker which again is sometimes a good thing like for them it it lasted even longer than it should have but i think this definitely accelerated things to where she saw oh and now she could look back and see all the signs that we were trying to point to lead to like detective skills and yeah when you start getting covering all kinds of crap yeah when you start getting into that you're just like yeah there was no hope for this relationship you just made it yeah it was and i think it's you know we talked about this in other episodes where it's i you have to be careful about things that are veiled right a lot of times people are they're hiding other things through this lifestyle yeah does that make sense yeah they're like with him we always joke that it was almost a way for him to like not that it was a way for him to cheat because that's a different thing but it was almost like them just being in this gave him latitude to like get him do other things yeah i don't know if that even makes sense to people that aren't in this lifestyle but it's like yeah it's he he used that excuse for a lot of stuff and that's what i mean and it's the using like we don't because we because this has been our lifestyle for so long and we take it i don't know maybe taking it serious isn't the right word, but like we, we have the, we feel that it's a great lifestyle when everything is healthy and, and you're doing things the way you should be. I think we take it more to heart when people are using the lifestyle for manipulation or for other agendas, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And that that was this case for sure yeah definitely so you know if you're considering swinging that's one of the big things make sure the communication is there make sure you know strong yeah make sure you know why you're getting into it and if you're not strong go in it with this communication that you're going to be strong You're going to stay a unit and you're in this together and, you know, really, really define that for the two of you. And if you're not sure about that, or you just feel like you're in a sinking ship relationship, non-monogamy is definitely not fixing it definitely not it'll just it'll blow it up which is fine because then you're out again like we said earlier you're welcome we'll see you next time if you're digging this make sure to subscribe leave us a review and follow us on tiktok at dick and date we'd love to help you redefine couple goals through non-monogamy without the mess new episodes every week we'll see you next time