Episode 110: An Origin Story- Chris and Nancy

Transcript

This podcast contains explicit language and content and is for mature audiences only. Hey you teenagers out there, if you're under 18, this show is more for your parents. So now that you have that mental picture stuck in your head, put some music on and get back to doing your homework. We are a longtime married couple who's decided to chronicle our personal adventures and share our sex positive discussions as we navigate our way through the swinging lifestyle. Care to join us?

hello everyone i'm mr jones and i'm mrs jones and we want to welcome you to episode 110 of the we got a thing podcast another origin story yeah yeah we're going to introduce you to a couple of our friends tonight yes chris and nancy and they have local friends i know we have some very interesting local friends yeah we do they're an awesome couple we met them maybe a year or two ago it's almost two years now yeah because we met them when we did that pub crawl oh right and it was your birthday weekend yeah it was their hometown actually they have a really fascinating story so I'm not going to ruin it but it's very unique very unique Thank you.

It was your birthday weekend. Yeah, it was their hometown, actually. Yeah. They have a really fascinating story, so I'm not going to ruin it. Yeah. But it's very unique. Very unique. And we recorded this a while back, and we're happy to be able to introduce you to them tonight and for you to hear their story.

And for those of you who haven't, I think this is only our second origin story yeah our true a true origin yeah so what we're going to do as we move forward uh with our podcast is is we're going to venture away from our normal format every once in a while and we're going to have another couple on to tell their story yeah yeah we don't really have any kind of a pattern in place yet. Um, and I don't know if we ever will have one, like when something happens, it's interesting, you know, we'll, we'll definitely do an episode around that.

But then at the same time, as we keep meeting these amazing people with these incredible stories on how they got into the lifestyle and how they've connected over the years, we're definitely going to take advantage of that and share that with y'all. Yes. And for September, we do have a topic in mind. And so next month is going to be a normal format podcast. Yes.

However, we will be podcasting from our new home in florida yeah talk about keeping up with the joneses i cannot keep up with the joneses we have been packing for weeks now but it's been good because like what do you mean by good well to me it's been good because i'm i'm a very structured person is that the polite way to describe me yeah but you're also very emotional I don't know.

me it's been good because i'm i'm a very structured person is that the polite way to describe me yeah but you're also very emotional when it comes to moving because well i'll get to that in a minute and you're the one that usually says that no like when we moved here during covid yeah i had just taken on a new client and like the timing could have not been worse. Like we, we had just moved our daughter into her home and she had our grandbaby and like the timing was horrific. And we just, we paid movers to pack and move us.

And there was stuff everywhere and the boxes weren't labeled well, like they did a good job.

Nothing got broken, broken nothing got lost but there were boxes everywhere and it was chaos for forever to contrast that i'm very methodically packing like every weekend we kind of have a new like topic of what we're of what we're packing and i'm like really organizing everything and we're d you know we're getting rid of more crap which makes you happy you'd throw it all away if you could no no no no that's your side of the story my side of the story is you have you have three choices to make it goes to goodwill it goes to the landfill or it gets moved to Florida. Well, right. I know.

But those choices need to be moved thoughtfully. Yeah. But every time we got to a place and I said, okay, which one is this? You would start telling a story. We'd be going through things and you'd say, oh, well, I think we might. And I said, I don't need a story. I just need you to tell me, is it going to, cause I don't care that you can take whatever you want to, but I don't need to hear a story because then I have to decipher it. I just want to know which sticker does it get? Baby, I do my best thinking out loud and you just happen to be victim of that. I'm sorry.

Like I have to like noodle through this. I have this like I have this pitcher and bowl that I have on our old sideboard. And I don't really like it. It's not really my style, but I have it displayed. It's going to go to Florida and it's going to go in the attic there and it's going to stay there till we croak. And then our kids are going to go through it and they're going to put it in their attic because it doesn't match their stuff until they croak. And then at some point in time, it's going to disintegrate. I know. It's not the artifact itself. It's the memory that's attached to it. Exactly.

You have those memories, whether you have the artifact or not. Well, I made a sacrifice because my grandfather had a banjo. He played the banjo. And somehow it ended up with me. I don't play the banjo. I never saw him play the banjo. So it had no sentimental value. I know it was his and he was very special to me. But I don't want to keep the banjo just because it was his. So I gave it to someone who is going to display it and play it. Right. And she really wanted it.

so i don't have to have that kind of stuff because i have the memory of the person right and we we have gotten rid of most of our stuff babe we could we could talk about this ad nauseum i know sorry sorry but y'all know like everybody's had this conversation it's emotional well and like last weekend we started pulling stuff off the walls that you know that we're gonna pack up you know what's emotional the house is starting to look like unloved you know it's emotional making sure we take all of our booze with us i know and we're not even gonna have room for all that we're gonna have whatever yeah well so we're not selling our house right away so we're gonna be splitting our time, sort of, I know.

And we're not even going to have room for all that. We're going to have- Oh, whatever. Yeah. Well, so we're not selling our house right away. So we're going to be splitting our time, sort of, kind of. Yeah, I doubt it. For the next six months, at least. I doubt it. So when we leave here in two weeks, it's not even two weeks. Anyway, so the movers are coming in two weeks. We're going to be moving in early September.

Our September podcast will be recorded from our new home in florida yes and then we'll probably be in a much better headspace then yes hopefully how do you think the acoustics are going to be there i'm a little concerned no we're going to be fine i'm not going to worry about there's no carpet in the house i know we'll we'll be fine all right y'all have to be the judge of that so we've been doing a goodbye tour like we've um you know we've we've gone out with family we've gone out with friends we've gone out with um our lifestyle friends because we're in our community we're we're a big part of the mid-atlantic group well we're joining the florida group now i know it's exciting we're gonna get to meet new friends so we uh we we went to um we went to richmond and and did a farewell thing a going away party and that was born out of a lifestyle date we had had like three weeks before that yeah we went there and sat in some sort of a thing called a yurt i didn't know what a yurt was i thought it was a teepee it's a it's an igloo teepee for the summertime and i had an air conditioner in it it was awesome yeah so it was at a winery right in the middle of the city it really wasn't a winery well they called it a winery um they it was an event space they had some of their own wine yeah but it was an event they had beer and they had cocktails great cocktails pizza and then they had these yurts outside with air conditioners in it and we had our private server who served us and then there was a concert outside wait wait can we back up to the server oh yeah you had a crush on the server uh he was adorable like you probably had a crush on him he was probably a third of your age i'm giving him the middle finger right now can y'all hear that like he i know how old he was he was 22 so he was legal okay because i asked him he was a college student and he had tons of personality he was gorgeous tons of personality he was the like the most thoughtful like put together 22 year old I've ever met yeah and he was like funny and oh did I say he was gorgeous I think I might have said three or four times yes anyway so we requested him when we went down to do our party yeah so when we were down there our friend said um that our local music artist that we like so much was going to be back there and it was going to be down there in three weeks and we're like oh my gosh we got to come see her one more time so i I have probably more of a crush on her than you did the server.

That is undeniable yeah yeah she's very talented and she's a local she's slightly older than 22 well she is older but anyway we we have been making the rounds and trying to say goodbye to everybody and yeah i mean we'll back occasionally, but I really think once we get down there, we're not going to want to come back. It's going to be hard because we went down there last month to check on our house. Yeah. And we, I think we had a party just about every night we were down there. I know. I know. I don't know if we're going to survive. I don't know if we're going to survive that.

There is something to do all the time. But my favorite part of when we went down in July, like we flew down early, early Friday morning because we had an appointment with our builder at like 11 o'clock in the morning. So we did that. And like, I let my clients know that I was going to be traveling that day and that I wasn't really available. So I had one little thing to do the whole day, took care of that. And then we have friends down there and they kind of got their work done before lunch as well. So we all went to the pool in the afternoon and we got to the pool and it wasn't too crowded.

And we found some chairs like under some palapas where there was nice shade. And right next to us, there was this lady sitting in the shade in a swimsuit with her laptop. So I walked up to her and I'm like, is this your office? And she was like, best office ever. And I forgot to mention that when we got to the pool, there was live music. It wasn't very good, but it was. No. The first day he was good. Yeah.

It was the second day that wasn't so good no there was like a guy playing guitar and singing like right at the edge of the pool she's sitting there working there's bar service right there she was in the shade and she's like bar service live music and screaming fast wi-fi what's not to like and she was attractive too yeah and i'm like oh my god i never even thought about working at the pool this this is going to be my life but we were staying with our lifestyle friends down there and the four of us were in the pool and you and our female friend were a little over served i lose my volume control when i drink so i said we're all going to be outed like a week or two after we live there because you two.

If we haven't been already. Oh, well, what the heck? Yeah, I tend to lose my volume control.

Yeah, and we're picking up on a little bit of undertone of, you know, there's definitely people down there that have the vibe um before we introduce you to chris and nancy um next month next month we are going to announce our desire dates for 2024 and we do as we mentioned last month we do have promo codes um and they are uh 15 wgt for our listeners so if you want to book a trip to desire you need to do it before october 31st 2023 in order for that discount to work yes if you're in you have to go through our website i think for that you have to go through our website yeah and um we're we're going to announce our 2024 dates to you all next month if you want to join our community or if you're in our community we have a larger discount inside the community and so we've already announced the dates within the community we expect both events to sell out and we're really excited about going back to Grand Miche's in 2024 and also Desire Pearl a couple of times in 2024.

Yes. And I'm excited that we can actually like be making plans and not have to worry about when our house is done. I know that's going to be such, such a like pleasant existence. So if any of you have questions about that, if you'll email me at Mrjones at we got a thing.com, I'll be happy to, to send you that code again and to give you the details. Okay. Well, welcome back to segment two. We are going to get into our origin story with Chris and Nancy B. Their origin story. Oh, well, yes. We're going to have them share it with us. So I guess I'm claiming ownership. Yes.

And fortunately, these guys live within commuting distance. So we were able to have them come to the studio. Yeah. Instead of doing remote. That's right. This is way more fun. Yeah. And we've been trying to get this on the calendar for a long time. I'm glad we finally made it happen. So are we ready? We're ready. Okay. We have no script here. So we're just going to say Chris and Nancy, welcome. And why don't you just start with introducing yourselves and each other and then we'll just go from there. Okay.

Okay thanks for having us yeah thank you uh we're i'm nancy this is chris yeah and um let's see we met when we were 25 years old and see i'm doing the math 25 i know that was 30 years ago it's like half a lifetime We met when we were on vacation in New Orleans. And we've had a great run. We've got two kids and live in the East Coast area. Wait, you were both in New Orleans on vacation or one of you was? Separate vacations. We were both on vacation. Separate vacations. Separate vacations. Yeah. We had friends in common at Jazz Fest and we met there.

So did you like get her to, did you have beads and you were trying to get her to earn the beads? I was actually living in Colorado. That's Mardi Gras. We were down for Jazz Fest, and it was the last Saturday night when I met her. And I remember walking up into the apartment, and we were going to a friend of a friend's house for a party. And so before going to Tipitina's and getting probably totally trashed. So we walked up into this friend's house and I see these three women, these gorgeous women. And I took one look at Nancy and I basically like fell in love with her right there.

Yeah, it was, it was pretty incredible. So the kind of story begins there, I think. Yeah. So we dated long distance for a year, and then we started living together and living our lives, and we got married. So how did you go from dating long distance to living together? How did that transition work? How far apart were you? Pretty far. He was Midwest, and I was East Coast. Oh, okay. Yeah. We visited each other. We talked on the phone. This was back in the old ages. So this was before the internet. So you had to use the dial. Early 90s. There were, like, letters and phone calls. Rotary phones.

A lot of letters. Yes. So I said, you can come stay with me for the summer, but you can't live here. Because I was still very young. And then he ended up staying anyway and we lived together and then we were married and um yeah I mean long distance is not easy but it was it helped us to establish some communication yeah you know um so fast forward we um yeah we had our lives and our jobs and our kids and it was was like I was a CEO, workaholic, raising a family, both two incomes. It was a crazy life that we lived, but we were very fortunate. Sounds like typical Americana. Typical, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we ran businesses together. I was in a different business. She was in a different business, raising kids. It was a lot to do, you know? Yeah, so that sounds kind of normal so far. It's very normal, right? Very normal, yes. So in fall of 2019, we'd been married for 23 years. I did the math right. And I went to my 30-year college reunion. And when I came home, we got into a little fight. Did you go by yourself to the reunion? No, I went with all my girlfriends. We went, we used to go back to... Chris wasn't with you. He was not with us. Okay. Right. Okay.

So I went to the college reunion and had a wonderful time and I was gone for an extended time because there was a wedding and other things that we did while I was away. And when I got home and we got into this fight, I thought, oh, you know, life is bigger than and i just started spiraling down we had just become empty nesters and i had sold my businesses and like we were menopause oh yeah menopause midlife crisis it was the whole the whole shebang the perfect storm a lot of big rocks and i i didn't even know what to say i said i don't know what's happening but need a few weeks.

And I'm not having sex with you during these weeks. I just needed some time. And so this is so she she was out to lunch and she gives me a ring and she says, why don't you come over to the restaurant? Let's talk. So I get there and she's clearly upset. And, you know, I was like, what's going on? And she said, you know, I, I don't know how to tell you this. I don't know what's happening, but I, I don't know if it's a middle, like midlife crisis or what it is, but I don't know if I want to be married anymore. And I don't know if I love you anymore. And I was really sad.

Like I just looked at her and I was like, I just felt really bad.

Now, did you sense any sense any like did it really surprise you that not that she said it but had you kind of felt distant at all before no i mean we're you know we're we get along really well it's funny we're opposites very much but we are well matched i don't know if that makes any sense yeah so i think i was um shocked but not surprised right okay at what she said okay okay that makes sense right so anyway for the most part i looked at her and i said look i love you very much and i love our kids i love everything that we've made and and you know everything that's happened in our lives but it sounds like um there may not be a future uh or no you said if there's a place in your life for me in the future yeah i said i'm not sure it sounds like i'm not sure that there's going to be a place for me in your life going forward and i said i fully support you and know, let me know what you want to do.

So, yeah, that was pretty adult response. Yeah. Well, you know, when you see someone who you love and you've cared for and been with for so long, that's crying and she's upset and you just, you know, you don't want her to feel that way.

You know, you want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem well chris let me tell you let me take over this is what i would have sent what do you mean you don't know what's going on what do you mean by that there was a lot of that first i think he's going right forward to the mature conversation but there was a lot of a lot of like what are you talking about and i didn't know what i was talking about and i'm like i don't even know why i'm feeling all these feelings but it was uh it was like an overwhelming instinct that i had to pull away but nancy it sounds like it wasn't one particular event it was something that just kind of happened over a period of time right and the bottom line is i had completely lost myself in my work and in my well see that that was gonna be my next question is and we have a lot of friends especially well lifestyle friends and non-lifestyle friends who you're busy with careers yeah you're having kids you're providing for them you're making more money you're living the american dream you're doing everything that you're supposed to do and then all of a sudden you realize it's just going to be the two of you again.

And do I, is this the same person that I met 20 or 30 some years ago? Right. Was there some sort of a fear of like starting over and trying to find that person? Or was, was it just, you just didn't know? I think it was more about, not less about him and more about me in the sense that I, um, like when I say I lost myself, like I didn't know what I wanted to do. I'd never lived alone. Like I never, um, we had issues in our relationship. We had issues in our sex life. Um, it was like, I just felt like, well, wouldn't it be better if we were happy with other people?

Like like i loved him and he loved me but we just felt like our marriage had maybe hit the expiration date or something and like course yeah and so we felt we started conscious uncoupling and um because we still really cared about each other but we just felt like this was a path that we had to go on and um there were a lot of tears it wasn't like an easy quick thing but you know we it was sad it was sad we were really sad because we knew um you know we were very unsure about the future but um it was funny because through this whole thing we were really going through this together and when we look back on it it's like we we decided to dissolve kind of like we thought we were dissolving our marriage we didn't know so we went out to um uh charlottesville through the dogs in the trunk or the sorry in the back seat the dogs in the back seat went to one of those sweet hotels and um we went out to dinner and we started talking about how to consciously uncouple.

And we started talking about and reminiscing about our marriage and our dating before we got married and how happy we were. And then, you know, we just were stunned at what we thought was, and my sister put it really well. She said, I think your marriage just expired. And it was like this light bulb went off. And it was just so eloquently put that it really struck a chord with me and made a lot of sense. Because when you're married for a long time, and you've known each other for before you were married, there's a settling in there.

And when you don't know about the future and there's a whole lot of um you know you're just not sure i don't know i don't know where i'm going with this but it's it was just very um it was enlightening where you kind of step back and you think more about yourself and the other person and what it is that you need to go forward because maybe you're not going to continue on you know it was we had always done everything together yeah so i was like well if we're going to be separated we should do this together so how do you do that like i need your help yeah and um so we kind of came up with a plan and it was cars it was coming into the holidays and the whole this was thanksgiving so it took us until january to actually live separately we didn't tell the kids we didn't tell our parents until right around christmas so that was a part of the conversation like okay if we're gonna first of all did you have did you come to a decision that okay we are going to end our marriage well no well what we did was we you um nancy's really fantastic in this but she wrote up a separation agreement and we both talked it over and decided what was going to be in there.

And we made sure that there was something in there where we could, you know, have and date people and have other experiences with other people outside of the marriage. So that's when we started really understanding what this all meant.

But we didn say we were ending our marriage we thought we were ending our marriage but we weren't going to go straight to the divorce court we're going to give it a year we said give it a year much like we did separate in the beginning yeah and we said let's you know the evil in colorado she lives in virginia let's see if we can get through the you know the year long long distance relationship and so unknowingly we did the same thing yeah but first we went on vacation we did in cancun we had a we had a vacation planned for it was just the two of you it was just the two of us and we were like well we know how to have good time together let's just go and so we had two beds and like we were like telling people at the bar we were separated we were drunk and like having a good time.

And we, well, we know how to have a good time together. Let's just go. And so we had two beds and we were telling people at the bar we were separated and we were drunk and having a good time. And we still knew how to relate to each other and have a good time. Oh, that's awesome. And while we were on vacation, I took pictures of him for his Tinder profile. And so we were just very sort of open about this is our separation. Go and find yourself. Feel free to have sex with other people. Like, do whatever feels right and check back in. And figure out what it is that you want.

So what did you tell yourself? It sounds to me like you were, like, not that you weren't friends to begin with, because obviously if you were life partners, you had been friends.

But it sounds like were transitioning back into let's be friends you know because you were hanging out together and you were supporting each other oh yeah you know because like if you had a guy friend you would totally help him set up set up his tinder profile of course yeah and i even said to him i'm like my ideal outcome would be you find a person that makes you happy i find a person that makes me happy, and then all four of us will be friends. It seemed ridiculous. I was like, wow, that's prophetic. But we'll get to that part in a minute. Maybe it's part of a soap opera. Yeah, right.

So what did you tell your friends and family and children? Oh, we, you know, that after all these, you know, decades of being together, we had just sort of hit the end of the road and that we were deciding together to take this step and consciously uncouple. And it was really hard to share that. And how old were your kids at that time? College age. Oh, OK. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, it was not easy.

We laugh about it a lot but we we it was really a difficult time you know for us so after the holidays and we after telling everybody i moved out in january and i got an apartment and i lived alone for the first time in my life and um really had sort of a goal of like getting back to myself, meaning like sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, like do what I want to do. Nobody's telling me what to do or suggesting I do something different or whatever. And I also had a goal of learning how to orgasm and I had never really masturbated in our marriage because he wanted sex all the time.

there was no room for that and I had this sort of goal but in the beginning I thought I don't want this was not about sex like we didn't separate because of sex but I was like you go do your sex thing like I'm good like I don't want anyone touching me I'm I'm just I'm so drained I just wanted to be alone but then after a little time of being alone I was like my libido came knocking and was like remember me yeah I'll see to be alone. But then after a little time of being alone, I was like, my libido came knocking and was like, remember me?

So that's when I was like, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to figure this out. Orgasms were elusive throughout my whole life. I, you know, I grew up in a information desert, like all of us, you know, from learning about stuff like that. So, um, I literally, that was like my project was like to figure out how to orgasm and like get back to myself that way.

And because we would argue about sex a lot and, um, he mismatched libidos and, you know, I was sort of doing the marital, you know, obligation, sex and, you know, so um yeah so i did i found myself i figured it all out and i got excited and it was like time to date time to take the show on the road when you figured it out you figured it out just by myself yeah like did you find that there were toys out there like how like what did your discovery your awakening look like? You threw everything out. I threw all the sex toys from our marriage out. Like, when I was moving, I'm like, not using that.

Talk about a clean slate. Yeah, right. So I threw them all out, and then I bought all new fresh ones. But I didn't really know what to buy. Yeah. But I bought a book called How to Orgasm in Four Acts. And it was by Betty Dodson, which is like the old pioneer of women's sexuality. And I followed her like little four acts and got the things that she recommended. And it worked. Oh, wow. And I was like, oh, my gosh, where is this book been, you know? Yeah, right. So, yeah. So, I got it all figured out. And then I was ready to take my show on the road.

so I, my friends encouraged me to create my own Tinder profile, and yeah, so that's, so then I started dating, which is not really dating, it was having sex with people that I met on Tinder, and the first guy that I had sex with on Tinder, we call call him number one it's like our reference to him number one was it an enm relationship and i had so many things i had to google on tinder i was i we hadn't dated in 30 years i'm like i don't know yeah i didn't know what was what so all these acronyms and um so i didn't know what enm ethically non-monogamous was but and then i'm like i sure you're not a cheater like i was just questioning him like all this right and i i got what he was saying and i really liked him and we had sex and it was great and then as soon as he left i thought all the shame came in and like oh what oh my gosh you know i mean but then i was like but when can I do that again like that was really fun like you know and um so that was the end of February of 2020 and by the time COVID hit so I had three partners before COVID hit and Chris had two partners before COVID hit and then COVID and the kids came home from college and like all the world shut down so that i was like oh no i was like shaking my fist at the world so at this point in time you're still legally married right we are legally married we are separated so what so now what what's going on in your side of the world oh so while she was doing her whole thing, which, strangely enough, she was living where we live now.

So very close to, you know, like 15 minutes away. Right.

So I was going up and down, traveling up and down 95 in the Northeast and going snowboarding and visiting friends and finding people on Tinder and just dating dating so it was really a lot of fun and um met some snow bunnies but no one in the ethically non-monogamous space i was definitely always more of a guy who just was probably going to wind up more in a more monogamy uh-huh not sure why i think it was just because maybe the way i was brought up but never really saw any of that maybe a little bit on tinder but didn't understand it um but yeah i was kind of having my own fun and just you know i think we were in touch every now and then i mean we would date every now and then we'd go see a live concert you know in dc um i think we went out somewhere else besides mexico but you know we were in touch it was funny we were still very much um in contact okay so were you telling each other about your number one and your number not at the time yeah this was a big we weren't we weren't sharing like oh last night i went out no it was more of like very vague sounding like you know yes i'm out there you're you know i don't know very vague stuff because we weren't really ready to talk in depth about that that yet well you weren't i wasn't ready you didn't you weren't ready okay but you also didn't share but in late march um we started talking about this and you finally said to me what would you know what do you think if i think if I would have told you that, you know, I've already, this has happened and, you know, and I was like, thank God.

And she was like, what do you mean? You're not mad. And I said, no, I'm definitely not mad. Why would I be mad? I was ashamed. And I was like, I wanted to have sex with all the people I had sex with, but I was still going off the socialization and everything that I was brought up with. So I was like, I was embarrassed to tell him that I really liked having sex, but I was, yeah. Well, what I thought was just fantastic was that she found something with someone that she couldn't find with me.

And I really thought that that was fantastic because she didn't think she could find it with me and she went out and found it for herself and i think that was just very fantastic because she was on her own journey like this was you know about what she needed to find if it was out there to find and it wasn't really about you it was about nancy well that's exactly right selfiscovering through all of this time. Because like you said, you were brought up, we were all brought up in a certain culture and society, and you had the guilt and the shame. That had nothing to do with Chris. That's right.

You didn't know that at the time. It may have contributed to how you were not enjoying sex at the time. But the fact that you're making this discovery, you're hearing her talk about that. So it sounds like to you that was you were happy for her. But it seems like it would be a relief to me to know that, oh, my gosh, you're working through all of this stuff. So it wasn't it wasn't me who couldn't provide that to you.

It was what you're learning about yourself and kind of what you're deconstructing and going through right and so i also shared with him about the enm and i said so this number one was enm did you know normal people do that i was like wait a minute this is normal people do that we'd heard about you can have this much fun we heard about swinging but we didn't really know that normal people did this so it was kind of like we didn't know that was an option like the menu was never provided like the you should exactly you could be non-monogamous as an option and uh so we had a lot of conversation so we had a lot of conversations about that and then um so he says to me well it's covid and you know we could be covid fuck buddies and i'm like i don't know i mean that she was very apprehensive yeah and finally i said okay fine but only if we do it my way and i have a new way of having sex now so i invited him over to the apartment because the kids were at home at the Yeah.

And he came to the apartment, which became like our little sex hut or whatever. I don't know what you want to call it. You were calling it the love shack. The love shack. Oh, I love it. That's perfect. And it was probably like more neutral territory for you because if you went back home. Yeah, home always brings up.

That would make you emotionally or mentally like fall back into like the old mindset maybe i don't know especially like the marital bed and everything yeah right right so yeah so he came over and i was like just so you know this first time is all about me well she sent me a map she sent me a map of her body this woman is the most organized woman in the world.

She me a map and i am very grateful i still have the map but you i don't need it anymore but i want to make clear what you're saying is that she's giving you instructions yes and directions yes that she probably had not done before not because you didn't think about because you didn't know yourself it was all brand new right and you had never had that guidance before so you get this map do you have like it was it a picture was it illustrated no it was written words oh i still have it it's a so then yeah and the first time we kissed it was like fireworks it had been a long time so we when we finally were like physically back together we had fireworks we were crying we were, it was like fireworks.

It had been a long time. So we, when we finally were like physically back together, we had fireworks, we were crying, we were laughing. It was like a whole experience of joining again. And so then, and we had really good sex together and then we decided, okay, let's work on our relationship.

So we found this 30 day, like it was called the sacred sexuality and we were like we agree because we've been to sex therapy we've been to marital therapy we've been to all kinds of therapy we're like we don't need therapy we need to do this ourselves so we we decided for this 30-day online thing we would go it was an hour a day for 30 days we would watch these seminar things and then we would discuss it and take notes and for 30 days that's kind of how we recreated our connection together not just sexually but you know everything about our relationship it would create a lot of new conversations and um so this woman basically interviewed a separate sexual therapist every day for 30 days for an hour and they were everywhere all over the map.

And it was just amazing that the viewpoints that you can get and the things that you think about through the experiences that they've had and the people that they've treated really hit so many, points with me and with Nancy that we really started to talk about all the stuff we never talked about in our first marriage, in what we call our 1.0 marriage. It was absolutely incredible. It changed everything.

But if you think about it, what do you always tell your children what do you tell your employees you tell people um that you need to you need more than one experience you need a broad range of experience you need to balance this but when we but it comes to sex we are taught get married and it's one person for the for the rest of your life where else would that benefit you without an instruction book without a map well no manual and that's the point I'm trying to make is that you had Nancy you didn't know your map yourself until you did the self discovery and it wasn't for lack of trying just so you know yeah i just didn't i'd ask my i used to query all my friends how do you know if you had an orgasm you know what does it feel like what do you and everybody had different answers and it turns out that it's just a little different for me so it was like maybe i was maybe i wasn't but i wasn't quite getting the right the process the process.

So it's frustrating to have the keys and not knowing how to turn the motor on. Yeah. Okay, so then you're starting to reconnect sexually. So during this 30 days thing, I'm guessing you're having sex during these 30 days, right? Yeah.

Yeah, not not like all the time we were trying to be careful because we felt like we we didn't want to just jump into bed or jump back into our marriage we really felt like we had to put some effort into this and um um and just having that quality time of talking and being authentic with our work i mean really even from the very beginning when we decided to separate we finally started saying things it was like using your inside thoughts outside you know the intimacy started to come intimacy which is not sexual intimacy but the relational relational intimacy had started and so being authentic and using the real thoughts that were in your head uh being able to able to communicate openly.

Even though you were together so long, thought you were good communicators, but really this opened your eyes to a new level of communication. Yeah. So during those 30 days, and with your experience with E&M, was there somebody in that 30-day period that talked about open relationships or non-monogamy? Yes, a lot of the people on the 30 days were talking about open relationships, polyamory, you know, swinging. And were they talking about it from the point of this is what this is, or were they saying you might want to try this to fix your relationship?

it was very informational and then they they would be examples and real life it was more general from what i remember very general it was never anything like oh they weren't pushing anything on you no definitely not it was just more just a a broadening of your understanding about sex and sexuality and and it's like this is a whole new facet of relationships if you didn't know about it yeah so now that this validate what your number one had had shared with you about because at first you were a little bit leery of you know i just didn't know you were lying right but when you heard people talking about this was this just like a reinforcement that yeah you know maybe this is it's like a real thing and real normal people do this yeah so yeah so eventually we decided that we would stay married but we only we agreed we would only stay married if we could still have sex with other people because we just had so much fun we both had so much fun doing that okay wait that's what we decided okay so you decided you you had to stay married how did that conversation happen because i imagine that it took a lot of guts and a lot of willpower and a lot of determination to pull apart yes and now to make the decision for each of you to make the decision to reconnect there had to have been some oh my gosh if I just easily go back together are we going to have to pull back apart again you know was there a was there still a question in your mind about when you decided to stay married or was it still more of a testing sort of a phase I would say we went through about two months of sort of discussion about it yeah and it sounds like a short time but with covid and every you know we were together like constantly and talking every day and it just seemed like the right thing it was much easier to come back together and feel confident about it than it was the leaving was like a lifetime of you know yeah it was challenge but it was pretty but getting back together was, I don't know if it was easier, but it was, the path seemed a lot clearer.

Um, and I think because we, you know, it's, it's easy to say that you went through 30 days of therapy on zoom. That's one thing, right?

Cause that's basically what we were doing, but we were just spending time together finally and being really open with each other and right and just being super transparent and really connecting with each other and that's really what in many ways the lifestyle has really done for us is it's it's really made us so much more grounded and because we you know we talk about so many more things and and how it relates to us yeah so it's a and what we've discovered it's the lifestyle is like a means to an end for us it's not about sex with other people even though that a lot of people can't get beyond the fact that that's what it's about because it's shocking right but it really opens up all of these new avenues of conversation and communication that yes that otherwise you would not have had so when you self-discovery yeah and for you yeah right and then for your partner too yeah it's also just being i think for us it's like being super honest about what your desires are what your interests there are and then allowing your partner too yeah it's also just being i think for us it's like being super honest about what your desires are what your interests are and then allowing your partner to do that so that they're happy and and to do it together and yeah it was just incredible a more authentic way of living so chris right yeah nancy has this self-discovery and she creates this map yeah did you have any kind of a personal realization about your own particular sexual needs or desires or the way that you had sex or was is it mostly just you learning about nancy so i think for me i was thinking about this the other night trying to fall asleep which i didn't get a lot of sleep last night but um i was thinking that her journey was much different than mine i think hers was a little bit more physical um Thank you.

a lot of sleep last night but um i was thinking that her journey was much different than mine i think hers was a little bit more physical um whereas mine was a lot more cerebral so you know i'd just taken a trip up north with her and seen a friend and she happens to be someone who is in the social working network and she's amazing and she really helped me get through what I think it was that helped me reconnect with Nancy like I didn't have a problem reconnecting with her but what I tried to really figure out was what's the bigger meaning behind all of this and and how do I fit into all of it and so she gave me a few books to read and it was just mind-blowing really We'll see you going to be going forward?

So to me, when I read these books, I was really blown away, um, and understanding, uh, how you can be in the world. I don't know if that makes any sense. The power of now is the book, and you really just realize that you're just nothing in the universe, that you can have this amazing experience, and it's, and I'm not coming across quite right, but it's, to me, it expanded my mind and got me out of a mainstream thought. I didn't have a problem with, you know, Nancy having sex with other people, me having sex with other people, or whatever.

It was more like, this really is something that's okay to do. Like, in my mind, I had a problem, like, with mainstream society knocking up against the thoughts of what I was going to start doing with my wife oh i totally get the way that you think because it sounds like to me that when you started to experience this it was more what does this mean like yeah what does this mean to me what does this mean to us really what why is this happening you're you're asking bigger questions i'm. I mean, I'm not in, in my life, but like, that's the way I see the world. Like, how do I fit into the world?

And that is why I needed to ask this question. And it really just expanded my mind. And it was just an incredible thing. Okay. Yeah. So we, so then you decide you want to stay married. Yeah. Okay.

So from that point in was this still in 2020 was this covet or was this may of 2020 so you're you're a few months we're still in lockdown we're still in lockdown the kids are home from college uh so at what point in time uh did the lifestyle itself take more of a centralized focus how did how did that happen so august and when did okay a few months later we decided the kids were going to be home until the end of august and then we were sending them back to their college towns to do zoom school we're like you can be back you should go back to your college towns because you don't want to be here.

So we figured the summer we would spend on our relationship and just being together and solidifying that we have, we're married, we are still married, we're happy married, before we got into any kind of relationships with other people. So as soon as they went back to school, we were like, okay, bye. And we set up our profiles online. Wait. Cassidy. Yeah. Okay, but how did you even know about Cassidy? That's where I'm going. We started listening to you guys and Richard and Lauren. Room 77. Okay, so you went to Google. Podcasts. We went to Google and we found podcasts.

Oh, so you specifically looked for... Well, we had heard about Desire. Wait, let's pause for a second. So we went on to Google to learn more about E&M. Okay. Because that was basically our only thread that we understood. Right, right. And from E&M, we found a lot of information online about podcasting, about desire. We found desire through that chain. And I think we also found swing on Playboy through that. So we were doing our full-on research.

So we spent between May and August, because the kids were home, we spent all time just like on computers researching and talking and and kind of getting ready for this phase and um and we thought we found your podcast and um several others and we just started i don't know delving in talking about it and like we were ready by the time like september came around we were like we just jumped in with both feet it was still kind of covid time so we you know then we were because at first i thought well we'll just go to all the clubs in the in the you know resorts and all this stuff but in the end we just did dates you know and how we met people and um so is that so that's how you engaged with the lifestyle was getting on cassidy or dating sites and then yeah connecting with people that was the first thing okay yes okay and we made so many good friends that we're still friends with um somehow when our profile was new like we were on with all the newbies like with all the other people that were new i don't know maybe it's just a small world but we were connecting with a whole bunch of people um in our area and we're still friends with most of them a lot of them because when you get into the lifestyle at you know all together you're okay you're linked well okay we've we've known you guys for a while now you've been in our community for a while but and we just got to spend some time with you at Grand Meechee's from the outside looking in you guys are pros at this well we dove into the deep end can i tell you in august of 2020 we literally just held hands and like went right off the diving board yeah well because remember we so we had all these years of marriage but then we were like having sex as singles while we were separated yeah and then so it was like okay we want more of that so then but we started doing it together well we also decided i should go back one step we had when we decided to stay married we agreed that we each had one loose end that we wanted to resolve after the lockdown and that we would give each other one loose end person that we would engage with and kind of see that to the end because each of these people were they were monogamous people so we knew that it wouldn't go forward it was just like we wanted to kind of feel that feeling and have sex with those people so we gave each other a pass for one person each a specific people i mean and so we did that in the that was also part of our entry to the lifestyle was experiencing time with each of those people right and then everything after that we agreed would be together so we're only doing this as a couple we wouldn't see any past partners it was only so with these two people did you have a conversation with them at all about yes oh yeah okay so hey you're full disclosure you're my past okay full disclosure both were so they knew it wasn't going to go anywhere emotionally right it was just friendship and absolutely okay yeah absolutely my person was someone i'd known for many many years decades and um we had been reconnecting and he was going through a separation but um so i knew it when no matter what was happening i was not choosing him as my life partner i was choosing chris as my life partner but i still wanted to experience a little mini relationship with this person yeah so that i could feel like i got over it and i had i wanted to feel completely in my marriage like not just like oh i wish i had that one time with that one person or you know i wanted to kind of you were able to put closure on put closure on it right good way to put it and he had a person that he had met while he was dating um who hadn't had a chance to have a physical relationship with yet with with covid and so that was his person and we're still friends with both of these people by the way yeah i mean we just saw um all of them in the last 10 days like they are literally part of our like and still very vanilla on the other side yeah they're they're all vanilla but they're very like wow this is incredible they understood our situation yeah it was very um open in terms of like what chris and i were going through and um they came with eyes wide open to be with us so if i'm in their shoes i'm like i have struck gold here you mean it's it's like the seinfeld episode where where you can we can have sex but you're going to get up and go to your own house.

There's not going to be any emotional commitment here. This is too good to be true. I know. I mean, we both had really awesome experiences. It was very healthy. Just amazing separate experiences. They were beyond the moon. Yeah, I was happy for Chris. happy for me yeah um and so were you guys to the point where you could talk talk about it with each other yes oh yeah oh yeah absolutely yeah so at this point in time now you're you're telling your kids and your family it's starting to get like pretty solid that you're going to stay married yeah in may of 2020 we announced back the reverse. Okay.

So then, so then, um, how, where are you in the lifestyle now? Like, what is your thing? How, how do you engage with other people? Um, what does it mean to your relationship? Just like where you are right now, what is the lifestyle? Where is that in your life? Well, let's see. Um, I think where we are is we're, you know, I think we might be a little bit more, I don't know. We try not to overthink things. Let's put it this way. I don't know how else, how would you, how would you put it? I'll describe it. So I would say, yes, we jumped in with both feet.

We were like, we were in like a six person orgy, like within a month of like starting to have sex with other people. So we, but we also had good, we had bad experiences along with the good experiences. So a lot of the journey was about figuring out what kind of sex do we want to have? We don't just want, it's not just sex that we wanted to have an experience with other people that was fulfilling to us as individuals, but also together.

Um, we spent a good year and a half, probably just doing couples and full swapping or sometimes soft, soft swapping, uh, with other people, um, always looking for that four way connection. And then it was about, um, was it two years ago that we, it was a year ago. I was a year ago. Okay. COVID times. I don't know what year it is. Anyway, so about a year ago. So then it was more like two years we did just dating, you know, together and four-way connections. And then about a year ago, we were at an event in Palm Springs, a lifestyle event.

And someone asked me, I was making out with this guy in the pool. That was fine. Like, it wasn't, you know. All good stories start that way.

And he asked me, do you play separately and i'm like i don't know i'm like chris do we play separately and we thought about it and we i told him no we don't play separately um and that was that with that person and then chris and i just started talking more and more after that because we had seen a lot of people in the lifestyle turn from the four-way thing to oh we play separately or they have you know other types of connections yeah and we decided it was not an easy conversation because we both had feelings about it but we eventually talked it through and decided you know yeah we we realized we had different play styles and he had certain experiences he wanted to experience that i wasn't into also the elusive four-way connection was just sometimes hard right and um so we now play separately and together depending on who we meet and the separate thing is more of like who comes into our orbit if there's somebody that interests us and it's all full disclosure we talk about it Yes, we're very open with each other.

We've had, oh, we've got to tell them about the 55 thing. Yeah, tell us about the 55 thing. Do you mean when we turned 53? Oh, 53, yes. Sorry. So when we turned 53, right when we got into the lifestyle, I said, Nancy, you know, we have always been people with goals.

So we need some goals in the lifestyle so i said we just turned 53 let's each have five threesomes in the next year so of course nancy being as gorgeous as she is you know within a month and a half has you know it wasn't a month and a half it was a little bit longer okay so it was it was several several male single males to join us right so me let's just say i'm still working to get to the top of the mountain yeah so we did threesomes for a while that was like one thing that's fun because you know you tip your toes into all this stuff and you're like you know how does it feel how you know, how was it?

Like, let's talk about it. It's pretty amazing. You know, we have said before, I don't know if we've said this explicitly, but I think it comes across in our message that, and there are other people who have experienced this too, the lifestyle will magnify the relationship that you have. If that is an unhealthy relationship or a damaged relationship, that's going to be magnified. If you have a solid relationship, fundamentally you're connected, it's going to enhance that. And so the implication in saying that is that you shouldn't try the lifestyle to fix your marriage. Right. Right.

I know that you guys did not consciously choose to try the lifestyle to fix your marriage. So talk about, there's a difference in what you all went through. Yours was more of an exploration that ended in the lifestyle rather than saying, well, we've tried everything else. Why don't we just have sex with other people to see if that works? Right.

I mean, how we found the lifestyle was, I mean, it was seven different curves and turns and, you know, and it just, we happened it was really pretty incredible and we were having separate experiences so and sometimes we say why didn't we find this like 10 years ago you know we had better bodies and everything but you know if he had asked me while we were still in our marriage oh would it be okay if we were like open and had sex with other people i don't it would not have gone well no it would not right i had so many like there were relationship issues i had a fear of abandonment but you already had um yeah you had insecurities about sex anyway right so having chris at that point in time right ask that would have been disastrous that's right because i'm gonna keep saying this because you you were so adult about it and because you you two talked about and chris you said go try that yeah yeah the the maturity um you know i'm not sure that i have that level of maturity i mean to be able to say to somebody who you've been with that for that long of a period of time you know what i hear you and i think And I think that would be good for you.

I mean, that's, I'm sorry, but that's just weird. I mean, that's like, isn't it like totally opposite? Of course. It wasn't his first reaction. It really wasn't. Well, no, but I mean, he got there. He got there, yeah. Right, yeah. Right. I mean, I have a saying now that everybody needs a sabbatical at least every 20 years. I like the sabbatical. Yeah, that's actually really profound. And that's really what saved our relationship was the sabbatical. But when I moved out of the house, I thought, I will never sleep here again. Those were your last words.

We were on our master bed, and you said, I will never sleep in this bed again. And I was like, and no one's asking you to. But that wasn't also true. I mean in the end it wasn't true but it was true in the moment and so we thought for sure this was this was the end and we were just gonna go on our separate ways but the sabbatical like I was listening to another podcast today not a lifestyle podcast but they were talking about you can't evolve unless you're alone because the thoughts of other people and the presence of other people I'll see you're alone.

Because the thoughts of other people and the presence of other people takes away from your self-thought. And it's so true because we were just discussing that today. You need focus. It was like I needed to live alone. I needed to be a part. Well, you were codependent at that point in time. That's true.

That's a very good point yeah yeah and so being independent that's right and being in a place where chris for good better or worse wasn't a part of that it was all on you then to figure that out so as as people okay so you guys have um been in the so that was a year ago so really the past year you've been uh fully committed to each other no it was three years ago that was three years ago yeah right since 2020 but you've been in like in the lifestyle for a while now um where do you see it um in the future like um you know where do you see the how does the lifestyle fit into to where you're headed well i think we love the you know desire and we love um just warm i mean the first thing that we really love is being exhibitionist hey we figured that out outdoor like and we just listened to your first uh podcast coming here and we were like, when we heard you guys saying that, you know, you're outside at Desire and having a lot of fun there.

You never had sex in your room. We were like, that's like us. That's so us. We never have sex in the room. We get the cheapest room. Yeah. As long as it has a balcony. Right. Yeah, that's right.

So now we really, we've made such good friendships in the lifestyle we it's it's so different than vanilla relationships I don't know how to describe it but it's just it's amazing and we consider ourselves collectors so there'll be people that we have had sex with that we don't want to have sex with anymore but we're still friends yeah or maybe we want to have sex with someday but they're not ready or something is off um we people all throughout our lifestyle experience we are still in touch with almost everybody because it is like it you know it's a connective experience and when we go to desire or any other place like that we we never have expectations it's only it's all about flirting and kissing for us so it's like if we can flirt and kiss like for me that is just that's everything yeah if obviously if it turns into more than that's fun too but i'm looking for that chemistry that connection i'm you know we finally figured out our sexual play styles or who draws you to them right so we're only, we're not looking for just sex.

It's like we want that connective sex. And so that's the elusive thing that we're always looking for. But in the meantime, we just flirt and kiss everybody. Yeah. We just have fun. And we get COVID when we go all the time. Yeah. Been there, done that. So one of the things that we find attractive in other couples is how they relate to each other. And this is a podcast, so it's not visual, but we've known you all for a while. And you're sitting here in our podcast studio and you haven't stopped touching each other since you came in here.

There's a, there's an energy that you two have together and it's palpable. Uh, and so going back to, even though you, you've kind of shared a little bit of your story with us in the past as, and I'm a people watcher.

So as I'm watching you all, um, at Grand Meechee's and you're always smiling and you're always together and you, you're just such a good time that energy is what other people are drawn to i think in the lifestyle and whatever so regardless of your these origin stories are so fascinating because nobody has the same pathway yeah that's so true i mean people listen to us for a hundred and something episodes and can fall into the trap of we have to do this like the joneses do it um but when we hear other people's stories we realize no our story is valid it's unique but it's one story yeah it's one story um so anyway we we appreciate you guys um sharing um you know that it's i don't know that there's anybody else out there that would have a story that's the same as yours it's a doozy right it is it is a doozy uh but but i think though i i we appreciate and i don't want to so as we close like i i'm imagining that um if if i were to see you and and i'm a new couple and if if i had this impression like when as i'm observing you like oh they got their shit together they've been together for a long time they're having fun look at them they enjoy being together that really um covers I don't know.

oh they got their shit together they've been together for a long time they're having fun look at them they enjoy being together that really um covers over what you just kind of went through underneath you never know what it disguises the hard work that went into getting you where you are right now yeah so okay we call it marriage 2.0 well i have a tattoo she even has a tattoo right between well and it's funny that you say that because joe and barb marriage 2.0 I have a tattoo she even has a tattoo and it's funny that you say that because Joe and Barb were 2.0 so a lot of people use that term as a restart and what did you just say you said I don't know you said something that I was going to hard work yeah been good.

Hard work. They put in the hard work. Yeah, they put in the hard work. So it's, you know, I think we can kind of get into this idea that we are in a disposable society. And that we can throw things away or dispose of them or discard them.

And it's almost like marriages, if you look at the numbers are a part of that so it's just really encouraging to hear you all you could have done that you know i'm i'm i feel so lucky every day like most days i totally pinch myself that not that we're just together like you know back together but that we get to lead this life every day it's just incredible i mean we are so lucky and very fortunate yeah and even though you didn't get in it earlier because people ask us that too they say don't you wish you would have gotten into this then and we like i don't think we would have been ready for it no we couldn't have done it no yeah that's for sure, you know, sometimes marriages need to be disposed of because that foundation isn't there.

Clearly, your foundation was there. You just had individual stuff that you needed to get settled. That's right. You know, within each of you individually. And then that allows you, I think, to be more open. But, yeah, you're right.

you're right I mean I think about you know especially couples like us and well and everybody worked at home during COVID you know for the most part and you never like have time to yourself that's right and then you just keep burying it and burying it and I'll deal with it later and I'll deal with it later until all of a sudden you just can't sustain that kind of way of of like ignoring yourself so i'm curious good for good for you to have the courage to to be able to verbalize that yeah because i think some women don't do that right no they just end up thank god shells of themselves yes yeah and i'm curious like okay if i'm your son or daughter or a parent or friend and now you're back together yeah how much of this story are you like okay wait a minute why are you guys back together now like how much of what you just shared with us and in our community do you how do you share that with other people to say well they're crazy because i don't know why they got back together well i mean we have a vanilla version of that story it's not involving sex with other people but it's still that we took the time apart we had the sabbatical we found ourselves we put in the work did therapy meditation all the things and became fully functioning individuals again but see what you just described is the answer to the question you because the lifestyle is not necessarily the answer it's everything that you just said it's yeah okay this is valuable we want to take the time to understand each other we want to we're committed to this we want to we're we want to put in the work to do this all of those things are they have nothing to do with the lifestyle that's right it's true just that your sexuality happened to be a part of your story which led to the lifestyle yeah but you all had the same fundamental um goals and the and the same fundamentals that you believed in uh in a relationship that kept you um together long enough so that you could figure this shit out good good for you guys yeah thank you not many people do right right exactly it would have been so much easier right right just give up throw it in yeah and and you know what you um i have to be honest with you so i think it was the last night we were at grand mitche's and we were having dinner at uh what's the what's the the salo we were at salo mrs jones and i were having dinner with another couple and there was this table at the other end of the restaurant which was so freaking loud it was us yucking it up.

That was us. And I looked down there and I said, and instantly, like, I went from being irritated to like, look at them. They're having so much fun down there. It was like our crew down there. Chris and Nancy were right in the middle of it. Wait a minute, we had microphones just like now. No, we didn't. So any closing thoughts? Anything that, you know, we appreciate you sharing your story. I'm sure that a lot of people are going to find it heartwarming and probably encouraging as well. So thank you for sharing.

Is there anything that you want to share before before we close well i just i just want to maybe give hope to some people that are struggling in their marriage or sexuality or anything um some people tell us we should have a master class or something because of the story and um i don't know i just feel good about putting the story out there so other people can maybe take a piece of it and um yeah just keep listening to yourself and keep your ears open especially from the people that you love because you know you need to keep on your path but like you also need to keep with people that you know are right for you.

And, you know, when I met her, I knew she was my person. Like, I just knew it. So, and could have gone off the rails, but it really didn't. We were very lucky. Yeah. And we realized that there were, it's a strange path, but it was the only path that brought us back together. So, it is what it is. Yeah. And we're just trying to have fun. And we're in that phase of life where we just are in the fuck it phase. I know. Just looking for fun. I know. Don't take anything too seriously, including yourselves. Exactly. Yeah. Well put. That's very good advice. Yeah. I think we can end on that.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Yeah, that's right. Fuck it. What is that shirt you have? Or somebody said you don't have any more fucks to give. I give i know yeah don't have any more fucks to give yeah wish we could have discovered that a little earlier in life but i think that part of it at least anyway but um chris and nancy thank you very much for making the being patient with us and making the trek all the way down here to sit with us thank you guys so And We're glad that you're our friends. Thank you so much. We're happy to be your friends. We love you guys. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Well, welcome back. We hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris and nancy you know the one thing that i kept thinking of is that um we've said so many times that the lifestyle is a magnifying glass into your relationship yeah and we've also said quite flippantly that you shouldn't try the lifestyle as a way to save your marriage, but that's really not what they did. You know, they didn't even know the lifestyle existed when they started exploring. Right. And it really helped. So in this case, it was really interesting to hear how everything that they learned about each other.

Well, first of all, I can't get over the fact that they were both so adult-like through this whole thing. I mean, I know we don't get all the details, but to be able to think about this, to be able to give each other space and the way that they took their time and they didn't make any rash decisions and they kind of worked through it and it gave them time to do a little exploration. Well, what they learned about themselves is what like I admire so much because so many times, um, and I, and I don't want to generalize, but I'm totally going to generalize.

So many times women, we think that we have to fit into this mold because we're trying to be career people, but then we have all of this mom guilt all the time. And that always is supposed to take precedence over everything. And then sometimes that just ends up taking precedence over your relationship with your partner. And, you know, that certainly isn't the way it was intended to be. And here they were about to become another statistic. Yeah.

And through this amazing story and their communication skills and the fact that they were such good friends to begin with, I think had a lot to do with it. Because so many people get to the point in life where your kids are getting older, they're in high school, or they're leaving home, and then you have a choice to make. You're either going to focus on each other again, or you're going to continue to just focus on outward things and not your relationship.

And it was very heartening to hear hear their story about even though it was tough for them and you know what they went through you know isn't isn't something that you would you would prescribe but but the separation brought them closer and uh it it was just really an interesting story and i'm glad that it has a happy ending well i think it just magnifies the the need to like you know be best friends with your partner you know that that's really what what brought them through this yeah what was their friendship and then you know once they they had the time you know especially nancy she had that time for that self-discovery then you know i think she saw herself in a different light which allowed her to portray her put to portray herself in a different light and then and then chris saw her you know it's kind of like they rediscovered each other and saw facets that were there all along yeah but maybe just weren't like prominent and if you see them together and i wish sometimes podcasts were were more video than visual because watching them as we were all sitting together they never there wasn't a particular there wasn't any time at all where they one of them wasn't touching the other one yeah and so you could just feel it you could just feel their friendship and their relationship and the awesome connection that they have now and they are really um every time they tell that story or at least when they told it to us you could see that they were reliving it yeah you know in the moment yeah they don't take it lightly that's for sure no you know i think they they probably realize the the magnitude of what they Thank you.

they were reliving it yeah you know in the moment yeah they don't take it lightly that's for sure no you know i think they they probably realize the the magnitude of what they could have lost yeah so good for them yeah we want to thank you guys for sharing your story and and also remind everyone else one of the reasons we're doing these origin stories is because you don't have to do it like the joneses do it yeah i I mean, everybody has a different relationship, a different story, a different dynamic, different life circumstances. And there's not a cookie cutter blueprint for doing this.

And that's what I'm learning. The more people that we meet and the more stories that we hear, they're simply amazing how people have found each other or rediscovered each other in this case. Yeah. Well, we just met a couple today at a winery that we connected with them a few years ago. And then life had happened to both of us. And we just managed to reconnect recently.

And just the four of us got together in a winery today and the story that they've been through yeah like you just don't know right what people's stories are and their backgrounds and and how they end up in the lifestyle and and what what draws them to it and draws them to each other and i think what and we were talking about with them today is that we've learned not to take each other for granted and we don't take our relationship for granted. All of the connections and the friendships that we've made in the lifestyle are just treasured relationships and friendships.

And I think that's what real life teaches you is you can't take this for granted. We worked so hard and then we stumbled through this and we've gotten to this place where, where we have these friends and we don't take it for granted. And it's so good to hear other people tell similar stories about how they're connecting with people. Yeah. So the lifestyle is not all about key parties. No, not at all. The longer we're in it, it's just amazing that the depth of the friendships that we have established. So we hope you wish us luck that we are going to survive.

Speaking of marriages, that our marriage survives the next few weeks. This is going to be easy. I'm going to cry. Let's just say that right now. We have to to go through this every time so we got to our winery today and this is like our favorite winery we've been going there for like almost 20 years and we pull in and and Mr.

Jones is like well take a look at the mountains it's the last time you're gonna see them and I immediately got misty I'm like don't do that let me just enjoy myself today and then we left every we were pulling out of the parking lot and i'm driving by all the grapevines and i'm like so this is the so we got one two three four this will be the fifth move for us since we've been married yeah every single time you get emotional and you cry when we leave and then you get to the new house i hope this doesn't happen this time i don't think it's gonna happen you get to the new house and we and we go to emotional and you cry when we leave and then you get to the new house.

I hope this doesn't happen this time. I don't think it's going to happen. You get to the new house and we go to bed and you say, why did we do this? I can't believe I don't want to live here. Why did we spend this much money? And it's the same thing every time. It won't be that way. I'm going to really, really miss this town and this house.

Obviously, we've put our blood, sweat and tears in this house for sure um but we're not permanently leaving it we're gonna come back to it okay at least for a while but no i am so excited about moving like every time we've been down there like we've we've gone down every two months during the construction process yeah and every time we get down there i just don't want to come home it's so beautiful down there anyway we'd be happy if you would email me if you want to email me my email address is mr jones m-r-j-o-n-e-s at we got a thing.com w-e-g-o-t-t-a-t-h-i-n-g.com good lord i couldn't do that i know or you can email mrs jones at mrs jones at wegotathing.com thank you if you're interested in our community i won't spell our website because it's the same it's wegotathing.com we'd we'd be happy to host you in our community we We've got a lot of exciting things going on there, which we'll talk about in the future.

You can find us on Twitter or whatever Twitter's called now. Is it called X now? X, yes. Yeah. More on that later. Yes. Anyway, we hope that you enjoyed the story. Thank you for listening. We are Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and we got a thing. What's your thing? We'll see you next time.