Episode 95: The Lifestyle IS Real Life

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 long-time 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 Mrsrs jones and we want to welcome you to episode 95 of the we got a thing podcast the lifestyle is real life and i put the emphasis on is versus real that's right lifestyle is real life and uh hopefully that emphasis will help when we get to that part of the podcast it may not be a very fun episode well geez honey just tell him to turn it off right now okay but it's real it is real well i'm drinking gin so it can't be all that bad. Well, it'll get better then as the night goes on. I need to drink faster, huh? Yeah.

But before we share some not-too-good personal news that we'll talk more about later, a couple of announcements. First of all, our new We Got a Thing community members website is now live and congratulations to that and thank the lord that it is done i know i've been working on that for a while you have been so it really does give us a better way to communicate with our community and have all of our events posted and all kinds of good information about our organized now more organized. Yeah. How about that? I like that.

We also have we announced last month we still have a few slots left that our Midwest regional event that's scheduled for the end of April.

If you're interested in that you can send me an email mrjones at we got a thing dot com and I'd be happy to send you some information do you have the dates on off the top of your head for people yes it's april 22nd through the 24th oh okay so they still have almost a month yes in indianapolis so if you're interested send us some information um our on the other hand though we have another event coming up this spring and i think it's already sold out too late for that one yeah atlanta is sold out but keep an eye out because we will be these will be popping up all across the country yeah and what about any do you want to get any home improvement updates off your chest i haven't had enough gin yet.

Oh. They've made some pretty good progress in the past few days. Yeah, we have drywall. We have people showing up every day now. Yeah. It's amazing what happens when you start withholding money. If you're not going to do the work, we're not going to give you any more money yet.

Well, you kind of went off on the inspector too i did yeah i did well no i walked out on him before i said something i would regret and do you know how i knew that you walked out because you walked in the door when i walked back in the house yeah but you know how i knew you were done because i was watching on the camera oh you were yeah I was like oh geez I'm not going out there until she's done because I could tell what I thought you had just pulled up I could tell by your your spine had stiffened up and you were barking I could tell you and they were looking down at the ground and I said yeah I think I'm just gonna wait until she's done she wouldn't about oh my gosh it's ridiculous yeah so the sexy sultry mrs jones has uh you did your more than your teacher voice on that day it was your upset yeah scorned woman oh my gosh like we were practically getting failed because a nail had been nailed and wrong i mean it was stupid stuff yeah dumb.

He was reinventing the wheel at this point. Yep. And he was the idiot that approved the plans to begin with. So whatever. Oh, here I go. Sorry. I'll drink more gin. Anyway, we hope that maybe not by our next podcast, but by two podcasts from now, we'll be in our facility, in our new room. Yeah. Now, the outside is lovely. Oh, have landscaping now we have a new fence we have a driveway a new driveway a new patio um yeah the painter's been here and has been working on the paint yeah yeah i actually got the grill out of um the garage for the first time since december first time I had had Mr.

Jones' steak since 2021. I mean, spring is sprung and, well, actually not. It is not. It's going to be like 19 degrees tonight. Well, okay. It's the end of March. We'll just say that. So hopefully by the end. Oh, and what happens on April 4th? Oh, our hot tub is being delivered. We're going to get our swinger card back. Yes, we are. Yes. We already have the electrician lined up to come out April 5th. So we can be legit again. I know. And our next door neighbor, I told him we were getting a hot tub put in. And he said, oh, you guys put your clothes on? Or do you go in the hot tub naked?

No, he asked you that question. He asked me that question. And I said, well well i'm going to give you a little bit of a warning since you can see the hot tub from your house is i don't usually wear clothes so look over at your own risk and to my surprise he said yeah we used to have one and i never wore my bathing suit in there either so all right it's like i got a free pass i don't have to worry about it. Yeah, I hope so. That's going to be interesting the first time that happens.

One more big tease before we move on, and that is we have a new and exciting group and a feature coming to our community next month that I wish I could tell you about, but we will tell you more about it next month. Oh, you're ridiculous. I know. It's really exciting. What a master manipulator.

Well, are you excited about it next month oh you're ridiculous i know it's really exciting what a master manipulator well are you excited about it yes okay but we're sworn to secrecy until next month if i could tell you i would yeah but i had the pinkies where i wouldn't right so keeping up with the joneses we have been a couple places yeah we went we went to a house party like go figure we did when's the last time we've been to a house party it's been i can't remember it's pre covid yes and our friends uh ams and cat from the two hot wives podcast they hosted a lifestyle party at their house and they're not too far from us, about an hour.

Yeah. And we were fortunate enough to be invited, and we had a great time. It was an amazing party. And they have a party house. Yeah, they have a party house. Their house is gorgeous. It's just so thoughtfully planned.

I mean, they build it build it from scratch and you could tell like they put a lot of thought and smarts into it oh yeah and um and they're amazing hosts like the party was very well organized and their guest list was top notch we met some really cool people and reconnected with people yeah we ran into some people that we've known for a while too yeah so it was really really fun yeah they had some out of town guests that we got to meet for the first time and some special out of town guests that we got to reconnect with yeah so it was a good time it was a lot of fun so thank you guys for inviting us and we hope that we behaved appropriately so that we'll get invited back again.

Although we kind of left a little bit early when everyone started breaking for the playroom since we had a long drive. Yeah, we were unsure of our calendar and we didn't plan to stay up there. So we had to drive home. Yeah. But anyway, it was a great party. It's nice to get back out and get back into circulation again with parties popping up now that COVID has died off. I know. You know what? I don't know if this is good or bad, but I'm kind of, I maybe probably don't care. I don't think I thought of COVID once at the party. I didn't either.

I think I'm getting to the point now where I'm not wigged out with being around people anymore. Hallelujah. I know. was a disney based what was it it was sexy dirty disney dirty disney yeah i was tinkerbell you were tinkerbell peter pan i got a complaint about tinkerbell too why i came downstairs the other day and there's like glitter all over oh my god i know you what did you and you ironed something because there's glitter all over the ironing board. I know. That's my ironing board. All my little like fairy wing things had to be ironed. And it was like ironing saran wrap.

So I had the iron all the way on the coolest setting and it was still grabbing as I was trying to get the wrinkles out of my amazon costume you had it on suck the glitter off the costume setting clearly clearly and i had taken it outside and shaken the snot out of it before i brought it in to iron it because i knew all the glitter was falling off of it and still it was a hot mess so you were sexy tinkerbell and i was an older version of peter pan I was even older than the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan No, Peter Pan doesn't grow up honey you were fine yeah i mean i was acting like a kid and it was comfortable it was a comfortable costume you got to wear leggings i didn't have to wear a mask yeah yeah no wig you just wore that dorky green hat that pointed out you look just like him there was an imposter there yeah that's true yeah there was a jessica rabbit there yes you totally could have done that i know i didn't realize that that was disney but i think didn't somebody say that that company was bought by disney it was a technicality yeah i mean i already had that costume and it only has sequins and no glitter like i know i wouldn't have had to have ironed anything i know okay next time anyway we had a really good time so thank you ladies and their husbands for inviting us we had a really good time um we did take a trip to florida yes we did because we in transition.

We're on a quest. What's our quest? To find out where we want to go grow up. Oh, yeah. Not grow old, but grow up. So we went to visit. I have a sister that lives near the Gulf Coast of Florida. So we went to visit them, and then we started looking for property down there i think we found something yep so we may be at least um joining you folks in florida at least for a few months out of the year you do realize that there's a name for that right snowbird yeah i know like no i'm not no we're not going to be snowbirds we're going to go go during all seasons. Okay. I don't like going down there.

I don't want to miss an entire season up here. I just want to be able to escape. I do. Well, I want to be able to escape like January or February. But I also want to go down in like May and September also. Oh, yeah. To get some of the warmer weather. Yeah, for sure. It won't be anytime soon. No, it's probably going to be at least a couple years out. But since we can work from anywhere. Wait, we have to finish paying for these. All right.

for sure it won't be anytime soon no it's probably going to be at least a couple years out but since we can work from anywhere wait we have to finish paying for these oh yeah these renovations before you can even think about buying anything else oh yeah we're not going to sell this and like we need to actually like live here when it's not a construction zone because i kind of hate this place because it's never been nice it's always been under construction i know. But I'm not going to leave our bar top. That's my baby. I know. I know. We have a beautiful bar top coming.

We're doing a live edge maple bar top. And they found us just the right piece of wood. And it's going to be so beautiful. Yep. If they ever finish. If they ever finish. If ever finish if they ever finish yeah oh and you know what else we did this weekend and we're still married what how many things people that have listened to us for a couple years know how many things 137 so we had 137 things hanging on our wall at our old house that mr j Jones pulled down when we moved last year. Yeah. And they've been in storage because we've just been in flux. Like we've, yeah.

Anyway, so we're finally to the point where it either comes out of storage or it goes to Goodwill. Or to our daughter's house. Or to our daughter's house.

So we pulled all 137 things out of storage spread all over our house which is kind of a wreck because the whole back of the house is sealed off being renovated but we did it and we hung most of the things and we're still married i don't think we fought once no i mean i had resigned myself to the fact that i was going to have to do this and fight through the drywall and the plaster in this house right i think it's so bad i think it's one of those things that it's so bad that you can't bark at each other because the drywall is just it's not drywall it's plaster and there's like this weird mesh behind it and every time you tap on it you hear things go they tinkle down behind the drywall it's just crazy so we managed to get everything up and we didn't rip it there's only one small hole in the wall in the living room but the the metal thing that i hung up over it blocks it so we'll have to patch that when we move someday whatever yeah so that's done and we're almost rid of our storage facility so that's that's another graduation moment that's coming up yeah so that's what's going on with the joneses yes when we come back we are going to get into real life, real life, because the lifestyle is real life.

Welcome back to segment two. The lifestyle is real life. And I and I think that we're going to like totally refute the line that everybody throws out there. Yeah. And that line is what? Well, you know, you always say, oh, well, you know, I want to get in the lifestyle, but you know, real life gets in the way. And you know, we don't have time because real life gets in the way of our lifestyle activities. Real life gets in the way of this and real life gets in the way of that. Right. Or we're going to take a break because real life is occurring and we may come back to the lifestyle. Right.

But real life is in the way. Right. Real life has occurred. And we are here to tell you tonight that we believe that real life belongs in the lifestyle. Right. Right. It's an intersection that it just turns into a merge. Yeah. Right. Ooh, I kind of like that. The lifestyle turns into a merge. Yes. Write that down. I'll give you credit for that. So what do we mean by that?

We have had, not just in our community, but in our listenershiphip so we've heard from people through email and also from our own friends that um when you go through real life stuff lifestyle friends are unbelievably supportive and yes and present yes and there and take action on whatever needs to be done. And we have found this in, we have had friends who have been outed and who have reached out in our community and shared that information and gotten some support.

People sharing stories about how they made it through through that and people really struggling when their families and their parents and their kids find out you know it's it's a difficult situation oh a difficult situation and we know oh you're so silly yeah it's kind of the end of the world when it's happening also i mean there have been community members and friends who have lost you know immediate family members tragically and and our community and and our lifestyle friends and and this community in general has stepped right up and been there yeah right on the front lines um amazingly and these are people that hardly know each other right well i mean i have to say we got a taste of that when we had been in the lifestyle just a few months yeah um we had a family emergency occur um right before we were leaving for our second trip to desire and um we had this was back in the day before zoom i guess there's like I'm sorry.

I'm in the day before Zoom. I guess there's like pre-Zoom and post-Zoom. This was pre-podcast. Yeah, it was even pre-podcast for us. We were brand new. But we had found a Facebook group of people going to Desire that same week.

and we have been pretty active in that facebook group i think there were what maybe 10 or 12 couples yeah um in this facebook group and we had never met anybody in person um but we were all just kind of getting to know each other because we were all going to be going and and um that as we were walking out the door to go we got a phone call and and that we had to cancel our trip and deal with real life. Right. And it was pretty awful. So, you know, I sent a Facebook message to one of the couples that just the first person I could think of and said, we're not going to be there.

We just had something happen. And anyway, the reason I'm sharing this is because these are people we had never met in person. Never Zoomed with. Never even Zoomed with. Didn't, you know, only knew what they look like through still pictures. And they were so supportive of us. You know, they checked in. They were in the happiest place on earth.

And they checked in consistently throughout the week to make sure we were doing okay and is there anything that we could you know do to help and they took up a group picture of them toasting us yeah saying wish you were here and just sending love and hugs and like it's crazy and and we were so new we're like this is weird like these people don't know us it was a good weird but like this is weird these people don't know us why are they why are they taking time out of their vacation to even think about us yeah you know no harm no foul we didn't go well not only that but based on what we were dealing with they were stepping in and saying hey have you thought about doing this or if you need some support i know somebody who can help you do this yes so it wasn't just lip service they they were proactively saying we can help if you need this we can help here's my personal cell phone number yeah you know call me at the resort you know and we'll have and this was before we had many friends before the podcast before the community before anything and I think we were taken a little bit aback when that happened yeah Thank you.

many friends before the podcast before the community before anything and i think we were taken a little bit aback when that happened yeah um but anyway that that was one thing that one of the couples we're like super close friends with to this day right and you know these are people like i said we had never met them before and it was a it was a whole nother year before we got to meet them in person right and it was just amazing yeah yeah we've also heard stories from friends who have are recovering from or who have recovered from abusive relationships and shared that out and and gotten an ear and some support um also what's really interesting is there's been a lot of professional networking that has happened in our community and in the lifestyle in general.

We know people who have gotten business or jobs or employment or clients or all kinds of professional support from just networking with people in the lifestyle. Right. A couple we met last last year all of a sudden they ended up relocating it's because they had networked with somebody else that they had met and they got a whole new job and ended up moving yeah so and then lastly another thing is that you know there have been friends of friends of ours who have been dealing with serious illnesses or health issues and shared that out.

And again, a very real life thing that instead of closing off the lifestyle and going in your cocoon or going back to your monogamous friends only or your family, they reach out and embrace the lifestyle community. And so part of what we want to talk about tonight is that we are dealing with a real-life issue right now, and that's why we're podcasting about this. Yes. So back in fall of 2020, is this 2022? Yeah. Yes. Back in the fall of 2021, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. So just to give you a brief story, I was, many of you know, I was taking hormone replacement therapy.

And as a part of that regimen, I had my blood tested about once every eight weeks. And a blood test came back with a PSA number that had jumped quite a bit. So I went to my urologist. They did some more blood work. They did the good old digital exam. Decided that we needed to do an MRI, and then after that, a biopsy. So after a bone scan, I mean, after all of the testing and all the second opinions and talking to surgeons and radiologists, oncologists, and... So we got the diagnosis, like like right after New Year's. I think it was like January 3rd.

Yeah, did the biopsy in middle of December, got the diagnosis in January. It's, you know, it's a, I guess in the grand scheme of things, we've caught it very early and the prognosis is very positive. It hasn't spread anywhere. so that's the important thing. No, no, it hasn't spread as far as we can tell. And so we've opted to have it removed. Yep. And so what is today? Today is April? March. Oh, it's March. I keep wishing March away. Today is March 28th. So two weeks from today. Two weeks from today. Actually, I'll be having surgery.

So if you're listening to this after April 11th, I'm already done and I'm fine. I'm healing well. Before then, yeah, that's where I will be on April 11th. And there's a couple of reasons why we're sharing this. First of all, we want to promote proactively managing your health. Yes.

You know, because the urologist told me, you know, if you would have waited or if this was a year or two from now, we would be having a completely different conversation than we're having now yes so we want to sorry guys but i'm giving your wives permissions to nag you to go get your psa checked and you know ironically we we had a friend a long time ago that got prostate cancer and at that time i'm like honey you need to go to the doctor and get your psa checked and you're like whatever because i mean this was a long time ago i would say 10 or 15 years ago and you know you just totally I don't know.

to go to the doctor and get your PSA checked. And you're like, whatever. Cause I mean, this was a long time ago, I would say 10 or 15 years ago. And you know, you just totally dismissed me. And I was just the nagging wife.

So, um, one of the questions that we asked the urologist during one of our meetings, um, throughout this whole process is should we be kicking ourselves because you were doing testosterone replacement therapy or should we be thankful that you were getting your blood tested every eight weeks and he kind of laughed and he said well he said testosterone is an accelerant for prostate cancer cells that it does feed them so in a way that was bad but he said usually men don't detect prostate cancer if they're not getting their PSA checked regularly they don't detect prostate cancer until they have symptoms and he said and if you're having symptoms a lot of times that means that it's spread so he said at the end of the day you should be thankful that you were getting your blood tested because that's what threw up the first flag he said it was beneficial more for the latter than the former but and i don't want to get into the whole test results thing but one of 12 biopsy samples came back with a number that was alarming and that's what they base all their it trumps everything yeah so anyway the other reason that we're sharing this is because this is real um obviously that this is going to impact my sex life our sex life um i'm going to have to recover from this there are potential side effects from that um that i'm i'm already my Kegel exercises to try to strengthen my pelvic floor.

Um, but you know, again, the prognosis is, um, in the grand scheme of things, I'm young, um, forgetting this and I'm in good health and, you know, we expect the full recovery, but we wanted to share this because there are probably those of you out there who have been through this or may go through this and we're just going to share as we continue on through recovery um you know how i'm doing and how i'm recovering from that yeah but my husband's a pollyanna and i'm a worrywart so i'm not pollyanna i i thought we we asked very good, and I'm a worrywart. No, I'm not Pollyanna.

I thought we asked very good. Oh, and so speaking of friends, we have friends in our community who are physicians who we were able to talk to. It was so comforting. And, you know, when you have things like this happen and you know people that are professionals in whatever field it is with, you know, with whatever crisis you're dealing with. Just to have somebody to go to, to be a sounding board. Like our friends that are the medical professionals didn't tell us what to do. They told us what questions to ask. Yeah, and that's the key. And that's really, like, Mr.

Jones and I haven't really been exposed to cancer which is very fortunate i mean your mom did have um some cancer cells on yeah but she's 20 something years older than right right and they caught it really early and it wasn't nobody was like too alarmed by it and they got it all so it was really not a big deal in the scheme of big deals right um so this is the first time you and i have had to kind of learn about the process yeah and the options and yeah it's been a lot yeah um the other thing that we wanted to mention here now tying this back to real life is we did not find this information out and quit our podcast we did not find this information out and shut down our community we did not find this information out and withdraw from the lifestyle obviously we told family first you know then we shared it with some very very close Long time, lifetime friends, then we shared it with some very, very close, long-time, lifetime friends.

And then we shared it with some lifestyle couples that we're extremely close with. So, you know, our close lifestyle friends were among the first to know that we felt like we wanted to share this with.

And then outside of that, we shared shared it with our community and now we're sharing it with you all so you know we're oh and we've already recorded a podcast for next month just in case we got one in the bank we got one in the bank so we're not there's no way that we would ever think about like taking a break from the lifestyle because of this real life issue and i can't tell you yes yes we have a podcast and we have a following but we've received and you received a lot of support like in the ladies group because yeah you know you i'm the one that with the with the cancer but you're the one on the other side worrying about it and going along with me as my partner which is a completely Thank you.

You know, I'm the one with the cancer, but you're the one on the other side worrying about it and going along with me as my partner, which is a completely different set of emotions that you're dealing with. It's pretty awful. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, I just want you to stay alive. That's the goal. Yeah. Right. And everything else we can fix or accommodate.

Yes um it's just it's just it's a lot to take in and when you're the partner of somebody going through this you know your your main objective and and i don't i don't know i guess i want to be sexist i don't know because like moms are moms i i just think we have umbilical cords and and they never go away and i think when something like this happens i mean i'm not your mom but but i'm your wife and and i go into that mode like the protective mode and the um figuring out i'm going to take care of you mode and and making sure you have everything you need mode and and sometimes we women forget to take care of ourselves when this happens.

And I've had, that's where my lifestyle girlfriends have really come into play. You know, they're like, give yourself some grace here. You're scared too. It's not your body, but it's your partner. Right. And it's been lovely having them reach out. And I know that they won't stop reaching out.

It's, it's your partner right and um it's been it's been lovely having them reach out and i know that they won't stop reaching out it's it's you know this is a long-term relationship that we've developed with people yes right so enough about that um but but in the grand scheme of things where that leads us in this episode is that when we first got into the lifestyle we thought the lifestyle was like a far-off fantasy about having some sexy fun and that you and I would talk about it for a while and we explored the idea and that and we wrapped our we tried to wrap our minds around what it would be like to have sex with other people so initially before we were in the lifestyle that was the that was the expectation it was just about this thing that we were going to do that's kind of risque and and naughty and fun period and that's all right right but then um and i think that's where most people start i mean it's it's so taboo it's even difficult to talk about with your partner at first right because you're afraid that you're going to alienate yourself right um and we and we also thought that you know the people that do this lifestyle stuff they're a little bit freaky they're not like us they're they're a little bit freaky you know i was thinking about that saturday night when we were at the house party because everybody was dressed up um there were beds strategically placed around the house so you could have fun you know wherever the wherever the mood would strike you.

I mean, not everywhere, but you know, there were definitely lots of opportunities and I, and it was just kind of one of those surreal things, right? Everybody's in costume and kind of makes you like come out of your shell. And, and I'm thinking, you know, this is what people think the lifestyle is about. And it certainly is about that. And it's fun and you need that. That's energy. And it forces you out of your comfort zone and to put on a Peter Pan costume, right? And, and it forces you to meet new people because, you know, you don't want to go there and be the wallflower.

You've got to reach out and try to chit chat with everybody. But there's just so much more than that. That's your initial perception. It's just going to be like this. I'm going to go to this party and I'm going to find a couple and I'm going to go fuck them on this bed over here. And maybe you do that.

But then if you just happen to stumble upon the right couple at that party they could become your lifelong friends yeah also people think that at the beginning that they'll never mix their real life with this little hobby of the lifestyle like that we're going to keep this totally segregated that these people shall never mix with those people right because we don't want those two things it's oil and and vinegar. They are not going to mix. That's the initial thought a lot of people have.

And they think, how can we stay hidden or stay on the fringe of this without actually getting in the middle of it? In other words, we're going to stand on the periphery of this. We're going to stand on the edge. We're going to put our toes in it every once in a while, but not too close that we become like those people.

and then we're going to stand on the edge we're going to put our toes in it every once in a while but not too close that we become like those people and then we're going to hop back out and still be amongst our regular friends and our church friends and everyone we're going to keep these things totally separate and we're just going to step in and step out yep that that's the idea that's in the beginning however a little bit later on we get into this and others get into this and they say wait a minute these people aren't so freaky they're not so weird they seem kind of like us yeah and there's a little bit of a realization there that this may be a little bit different than you thought.

We might even share our real first names with them. Oh, my gosh. How many people do I know by three different names?

You know, their initial fake first names, and then they have their profile names, and then we get like figure out their real first names after a while i got an email from a gentleman this week who was looking for advice because they went to desire and they were just like they were going to be on the fringe they were just going to do their own thing then they ended up meeting this couple and they had a great time together but there was this one couple but they didn't share their real names and now they're feeling guilty about it so he said what am i supposed to do and i said well just do like you're doing with me just tell them you're new you were afraid but we really connected with you guys and our first real names are bob and carol i mean right you just have to come out with it um so you get you start to get a little bit more comfortable and then you start to trust people.

And as a matter of fact, some people are just like us. They have the same kind of relationships we do. They have the same kind of jobs we do. They have kids, they're active in the community.

And then maybe you think, Hmm, could we actually be friends with these freaky people uh yeah yeah for sure and we start to think that way um but we still need to keep them walled off we can be friends with them every once in a while but we'll just wall that part of it off and never mix these two i'm telling you what most of our friends in the lifestyle i swear that they are like smarter than me like more in me, like I am in awe of the people we meet.

And it doesn't have to be like, I don't know, like, we meet people in the medical field and the counseling field and the, you know, financial field and law enforcement field, military field, like, it's everywhere. And these people are so, like, successful. And you know why they're so successful? I've got it figured out. Oh, yeah? You really want to know? Tell everyone. Because they're so, like, open-minded. I think people in the lifestyle know how to look outside of themselves. And I think that applies in more ways than one.

but I think people in the lifestyle know how to look outside of themselves. And I think that applies in more ways than one. But I think when you can like see somebody else's perspective or see the big picture, maybe that's it. Is it that we can see the big picture and put sex in its place?

Yeah, I think open-mindedness has a lot to do with it i just think that you know that's what makes you successful yeah instead of living in tunnel vision in fear because don't we sometimes live in tunnel vision because we're afraid we are and then as we're as we're evolving through this journey we get less afraid we get our tunnel vision the scales start to fall off of our eyes yeah like you're saying and then what happens is our our lifestyle friends know us better than our family and friends because i can say anything i feel like that's exactly right i do not have to like filter that's right anything i can i can be mrs jones unfiltered that's right and i can just dump my all my shit on them and they take that right and they help me figure it out not only that you can dump it on them i'm not the only soul dumpy i know ain't it great i know then we realize you know what i think i'd like to introduce some of our lifestyle friends to our family or i think their kids and our kids would get along great um we've taken lifestyle friends to meet my family.

Yes. At all levels. Our kids, our siblings, and my parents. We have friends who their lifestyle friends ended up hiring their son. Yes, that's true.

You know, like it's just all kind of irrelevant right at some level you get to this point where it's irrelevant how you know these people or how you connect with these people yeah and then we found ourselves traveling across the country to see some of these friends that we've met yeah you know who would imagine like before when we had next door neighbor friends and we had church friends and we had you know parents of our kids friends now who would have ever imagined you buy a ticket airplane for the weekend and go away for the weekend to meet meet friends that's stupid but that's what we do that's what we found ourselves doing and they know all the intricate details of of our lives they know about everything that's happened with us and the and you know why they know not because we tell them but because they ask yeah people want to know right what is it about you tell me about your career tell me about your family yeah you know tell me what's going on and let me share with you what's going on.

Well, you know, we have local friends that live here in our town. And, like, we need to do this more regularly. Like, we've kind of developed this, like, Sunday night tradition where we get together and we just meet for drinks, like, after dinner. You know, because we do our Sunday night family dinners. Right.

But we can usually bug out by, 8 or 8 30 right and you know just to get together and just do like a brain dump of whatever's going on with no filter yeah it's so refreshing to be able to do that it is and and you know they've had some crap going on too and it's just so nice to be there you know we're so close we can just say um where do you want to meet yeah yeah and and then you know they can just like get it all out right and then we can get it all out right i love that yeah and they reach out to us just to check on us even when everything is fine yeah you know people from across the country will say hey thinking about you guys hope you're doing well and send us a picture we're out to dinner and we're just thinking about you i mean our monogamous friends some of our really really close friends do that but not a lot of them so it's just it's it's so nice just to know that hey people are thinking about us that that's really cool yeah what's wrong with these people i know and we get to look at this really sexy picture of this couple sitting at a bar and we know they they're thinking about us.

Yeah. It's so nice. Too bad there's like 2,000 miles between us. I know, I know, and three time zones, or two time zones. Then we realized that we're spending less time with some of our monogamous friends. Not all of them, but some of them. We had to do a little bit of a correction on that a couple years ago. I think we had strayed a little too far away from our vanilla friends. And I think COVID helped us kind of rebalance that and get it back to where it should be. But yeah, you're right. At some point, and we talked about this a long time.

I remember doing an episode on this a long time ago because we were talking about concentric circles, which I thought was really hot, because you were talking math. Oh, brother. I know.

But, you know, your concentric circles, you have to pick and choose, because we all only have 24 hours in the day, and we only have so much emotional energy to expend on others, right um so you you have to be selective yeah but i feel drawn when when i just feel kind of raw and i just i just need to be myself i think i'm more drawn to my lifestyle friends yeah because i don't have to have a filter well and there's some lifelong monogamous friends that fall into that category too because I don't know.

I don't have to have a filter well and there's some lifelong monogamous friends that fall into that category too because because we've told them what we do yeah and they still love us just the same yeah so there are a handful of people that we are extremely close with that we've known for 30 or 40 or more years. Shush. As a matter of fact, I owe one of them an apology. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I was recently, I went on a trip with some of my guy friends and a couple, this gentleman I've known since the second grade. That's a long damn time.

Yeah, I told him about our podcast several years ago and I saw him again a couple of months ago and he said, my wife has a complaint. She doesn't like the term vanilla. Oh, I remember you telling me that. Yeah. And I said, well, we've, we've corrected our ways.

I understand that we either say non-lifestyle friends or we say monogamous friends now because i understand how that could be taken but then what did you tell him that your favorite flavor of ice cream is yeah vanilla and i said well tell your wife my favorite flavor is vanilla but this apology is for you and i know we never just we never really imagine that non-lifestyle people our friends would be listening to us they do though yeah they do yeah so um and then finally what we realized is that real life happens and our real friends are there for us period whether that's family lifelong friends monogamous friends lifestyle.

I think those adjectives are unnecessary. They're friends. Yes, they're true friends. Yes. Yeah, that's the only adjective you need, true friends. Right. And I honestly think at the end of the day, it seems like when I'm in crisis mode, like I just said a few minutes ago, lifestyle friends are true friends, and they don't mind getting dirty. They'll get emotionally dirty with you. Right. Well, here's what we've noticed.

When something happens in real life, whether it's with us or with other people, lifestyle friends and real friends don't just ask what they can do for you they just do it yeah they just do something yeah and you know i don't i don't mean to discredit people who say just let me know what i can what i need to do but our lifestyle friends simply do okay this is going to be me being judgy i hope people don't think i'm like a karen or anything but like when when things get serious and there's an actual crisis sometimes i feel like some of my friends and i'm not going to use the word vanilla i just some of my friends will um kind of freeze because i think they think oh my god how's this going to impact me like what's in it for me or what is this going to demand of me right i because i think sometimes people you know get tunnel vision right where i think my lifestyle girlfriends excel is that i think because we've learned to think outside of the box to even be in this arena to begin with i think when when there's a crisis i don't think we're so self-absorbed we think more okay what's the plan of action what can i do you know because we we do things differently anyway we think differently and and we think more about how our actions affect others yeah at least if you're you know doing the lifestyle the way we do it right right um and i Um, and I don't know, I could probably be insulted for making that kind of harsh separation, but, but I really think that there's something about that.

Well, I think before, before you go all in on that, I would like to say that we have some close friends who are, are monogamous friends who have already told you where they're going to be when I go into the hospital. Oh, yeah, I know. So it's not just lifestyle. And more lifestyle friends are like that, but we also have regular monogamous friends who are like that as well. But what is consistent is what you said, the open-mindedness. So whether they're lifestyle or non-lifestyle, they're open-minded and non-judgmental. That's the key common denominator. Yes. Oh, you're talking math again.

So I would agree that non-judgmental and open-mindedness are so liberating to be around because you don't have to worry about what you're sharing or what you're saying. People might not understand it. They might not even agree with it, but they're not going to run away. They're going to stand there and sit there and listen to you. And they're going to be there for you because they care about you.

And yeah, so, and there's, and really in conclusion, that's a, that's a, I mean, you've pretty much summed it all up right there but and in my mind there's no separation between the lifestyle and real life anymore we've we've told so many of our non-lifestyle friends and family what we do and we're so integrated into the lifestyle, that of this is now our life it's they're all mixed together right and there's no more if i think back to where we started from in the beginning when we wanted to keep all this separate that's unimaginable now i and i and i feel so much richer as a person and, with what I'm going through, I've never been on this end of it.

Yeah. I mean, I've always been health and never been in a hospital in my life. You know, I didn't even know how to fill out the forms when I went to the doctor's office. So I, you know, I've never been on the receiving end of it. So I'm really enjoying. I mean, I don't want to be in this position, but it's nice to just have people that care about you enough to reach out to you and say, how are you? And this is what we're going to do. So there's no separation for that, between that for me.

But, you know, the key to success is finding your tribe wherever that tribe lies right you know you you need and when you're new you're like how in the hell am i supposed to find this yeah and that's a great question right that doesn't really have an easy answer right um it just takes time yeah to to find your people yeah perseverance that's right right i mean like like you and i we we went to events and clubs and you know resorts and parties and we we tried to find all different kinds of things at first yeah so that we could find the place that we felt the most comfortable and find the people that we connected with the most well and it's taken now eight eight years yeah right it doesn't happen overnight um we can't take a break from the lifestyle there's no taking a break from the lifestyle with whatever we're going through you all are a part of this this is this is not a chore for us to do it's not something that oh my gosh yes we have to do a podcast or you know oh we have to run this community or we have to be available for these people that's not that's that never comes into play it's because okay so let me say this because i think people already know this about me um but i'm finding it now that i'm in crisis mode because again like the worst thing that's ever happened to Mr.

Jones before this is when our girls were like in elementary and middle school, he decided he was going to chop down this tree in the front yard. I wish there was YouTube back then because I would have been a, I would have gone viral. You would have. It would have been classic to see. He's on a ladder. Okay.

Now he's on a ladder in our front yard i was in my 20s with a chainsaw now does anybody know where this is headed so sure enough he chops down the top of the tree and it kicks back and whacks him right in the forehead knocks him off the ladder now he still has all of his limbs because he knew to throw the chainsaw and he knew to put our girls on the front porch and not let them come near him i didn't throw the chainsaw oh you didn't it just fell no i as a matter of fact i was so graceful i leapt from the ladder i kept the chainsaw in my hand because i knew as soon as i let my other hand off of it this the chain was like 30 years ago this is a myth now i landed and then i sat down and then and then i reached up and touched my forehead and there was blood all over the place and then our daughter was freaking out and i went to get stitches so when our when our older daughter ran in the house and she's like mom dad's hurt and and our older daughter was our cool cucumber so when she ran in the house yelling dad's hurt i'm trying to figure out which limb he had just lost because i knew he was out there with a chainsaw i could hear it so yeah so anyway he had to get a couple of stitches eight stitches a few it was eight so anyway that is the worst thing that's ever happened to mr jones before now so this is like i'm a little bit out of my comfort zone and i also have it it's been um very apparent that i'm still an introvert because when this kind of stuff happens i just really want to like crawl in my closet and suck my thumb and my lifestyle girlfriends are not letting me do that so thank you ladies don't let me do that because i want to do it and you can't let me so yeah yeah okay that's that's awesome um you know the other thing i think that's been the underlying kind of in the back of people's minds during this podcast is sexy fun is secondary to the meaningful relationships we've talked about this before about being social swingers but when real life hits you learn you know the sexy fun is sexy fun and i'm not discounting that at all no but you know i does that does that bring you closer to somebody i think so yeah yes it does yeah because you've you've made yourself vulnerable to that person so that you could have sex with them right yes so then as long as that goes well which you know sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't but i mean that really has a bearing on all of it right Sure.

So, you know, the people that we sometimes it doesn't. But, I mean, that really has a bearing on all of it, right? Sure. So, you know, the people that we stay connected with, we have really been vulnerable with in the bedroom. Yes. So, therefore, that just adds another layer to the dimensions of our friendship. So I'm going to make a commitment to you and to all those ladies.

I am going to strive to get full functionality back yeah i hope so yeah but but again like you know i have this stupid retirement spreadsheet that everybody makes fun of me for but you know my spreadsheet goes till 95 so yeah and and i think what people maybe misconstrue when they say they're going to take a break from the lifestyle and may and maybe i'm being too hard on people i've said this before but we can stop having sex with people but they will always be friends they will always be there for us and we will always be there for them right i mean honestly we're gonna have to take a little bit of a break from the lifestyle as far as if you think no if you think about the lifestyle in that in that outside way of thinking where you think the lifestyle is about sex like um no i thought you know we're it's gonna take you a little while to get back on the horse babe and i and i'm not discounting your Superman abilities.

No, I thought you were going to say we're going to have to take a break from having sex. But the doctor already told me that my physical therapy rehabilitation can begin as soon as I come home from the hospital. Okay. So I'm going to hold the little bell in my hand, but when I ring it, it's not for you to bring me something to eat. It's for you to come, like, give me a blowjob. You want me to wear a fucking French maid costume, don't you? Oh, that would help. That would help. Oh, my God. Okay, girlfriends, this is what you're going to need to help me with. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Please. Please.

This physical rehab, this rehab I'm going to have to go through. It's it's gonna be grueling i need all the help i can get ladies oh my gosh uh so anyway these relationships are genuine and they're real and and this brings us back to full circle and And when we say the lifestyle is real life, this is who we are for other people. This is who they are for us. And I feel so much more confident and supported and good about this because we're able to share it with people. Right.

And we're able to be honest with people and put it out there and i'm not ashamed to accept the support i i like i said i've never been in this situation before but you know i'm kind of digging it i'm i don't i'm sorry that has to be under the circumstances but i appreciate i appreciate the appreciate the, you know, people reaching out. It makes me, you know, feel like, you know what, people are thinking about me. And I think that's what it's all about. When you're going through something, you tend to feel, you can tend to feel very lonely. Yeah.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, and as our friend Andy says, when she has her meetings with the ceiling. Yeah.

yeah you know in the middle of the night and you start to feel sorry for yourself and you start to feel a little depressed and you start and i mean look i'm like dude i just ran a half marathon last week i i've never been sick in my life this is stupid that's wrong i did i this can't happen to me yeah you know so as i'm trying to accept all of this um and and understand what it what it really means it's kind of makes me mad because that's why i take care of myself so i don't have to go through this stuff but when you ran by mile 11 i busted out crying and our friends that we were with it.

Like, that's so not fair yeah i did kind of surprise myself i know yeah we didn't even talk about that we just went away and had a blast last weekend in virginia beach we ran with very good monogamous friends who know we're in the lifestyle who are open-minded and still love us anyway and and i ran with him i ran side by side with him and and i'm convinced if i would have been by myself running i probably would have been a lot might slower yeah but um we started and i told him that we were running too fast and he didn't slow down and then at about mile five i, I said, I think I need to slow down.

And he said, okay. And then I didn't slow down. And then by mile nine, I'm like, what the heck? I don't think I need to slow down. So, yeah. Yeah. So it's the, the, what's the word, you know, the difference between knowing that you have cancer, but being out and running a half marathon and doing halfway decent at it. It's just hard to believe. Because I have no symptoms. I feel fine. Yeah. And I'm going to be fine. Yeah, I know. Yep.

So, there's no taking a break from the lifestyle nope it's just part of who we are and when we come back I know we have I think we have at least one snapshot it's ridiculous to share but yeah we're going to share it it's silly we'll be right back hey welcome back to snapshots are you gonna eat that cherry oh you can have it here oh thank you it's a luxardo sherry folks like this is his favorite and i like him too so that just shows you how much I love him. Thank you. Now who's going to talk? You're chewing. I guess I'll talk. We only have one snapshot to share. No, we have a combined snapshot.

A combined snapshot to share. Okay, so we do these things called knotty stockings every December. And it's the Christmas gifts that, in case you haven't heard us talk about them before, they're the Christmas gifts that you don't want to unwrap in front of your children or your parents. So we do knotty stockings with all of our little knotty gifts somewhere around Christmas. so this year for our Naughty Stockings, I bought, it's an item called Love is Art. So I guess I'm doing a little advertisement for them.

So the way I guess I can explain it is it's a canvas that you get that's like, I don't know, what is it? Like maybe four by six. It's about the size of a twister mat. Yeah. With no dots on it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a canvas that you get that's like i don't know what is it like maybe four by six about the size of a twister mat yeah with no dots on it yeah yeah it's kind of like playing twister with body paint so you order this canvas with a drop cloth and like you can get you know one or two or three different colors of paint that go with it and the the whole idea is that you squirt this body paint on this canvas that you've put on the floor. Over a drop cloth. Over a drop cloth, this huge drop cloth. And then you have sex on it.

And as you're having sex on this mural, you're smearing the paint around and you're creating art.

you're you're as you're having sex you're creating art so i got mr jones one of these for christmas in his naughty stocking yeah so we just got around to using it we did the first coat yeah so i bought three different colors of paint i bought like black silver metallic silver metallic gold and my idea because you can put all three colors down at once and then just have sex once and then they all smear together and you get this mural but i want to do a three part yeah a three part mural where we had we did black first and that was missionary right and ladies if you want to know what size your ass really is, just do this.

Because I'm like, oh, my God, my butt looks so big on that mural. No, but I was sliding your butt. Oh, you were? Well, it was missionary. So, of course, I'm sliding your butt. All right. So, my butt's really not that big? No. Because it looks really big on this mural. But you can see where my hands were. Yes. And you can see where my, from my knees to my ankles were. And you can see where my feet were. Yeah. Because my feet were planted on it, on the very other edge of it. Right. So then we're going to do, I don't know, what other positions did we say we're going to do? You need to be on top.

I need to be on the bottom ones. Yeah. So I guess we'll do. And then we're going to do doggy style. So, yeah, we'll do cowgirl or reverse cowgirl with one of the colors and then doggy with the third color. And then you take it and put it in a... You stretch it, put it in a frame. You get the canvas stretchers, yeah. And then hang it. Yeah. Yeah. And then you hang it on your wall and everybody just thinks it's a piece of modern art. And they don't know how the modern art was created. Only you guys know.

Well, here's the thing about me that not a lot of people know is I don't really like being dirty. No, he doesn't. Like, seriously. Like, he doesn't like to have dirty hands. I'm convinced that this is why I rarely get sick, because I wash my hands.

I'm not a germaphobe no but i just don't like to have like when i go outside and pick up the newspaper and take the dog out and i have news ink on my hand or i go outside and pick up a piece of lumber or whatever i come back in and wash my hands we do we go through a lot of soap yeah and so i just so that the the part of which mrs jones described the sexy part. My snapshot is when you're done. And we had strategically placed this right outside. We're in our bedroom, but we're on the floor. Well, you have to be on the floor. Exactly. And then we got up and like you had... They give you booties.

So, they give you little disposable booties to wear. Trying to put these hospital booties on and waddle into the shower without dripping paint all over the bathroom floor. So I'm worried about getting paint on the floor and the carpet and getting in trouble by you or having it drip off of certain parts of my body because there's other body fluid mixed in with this paint too. And then we get into the shower just laughing at each other because, you know, you can't see your back. So you had it like in your armpits and on your back of your triceps and you couldn't see it. So I was washing you.

And I think it took a couple of days.

Well, that was supposed to be part of the sexy fun is that you get to wash each other no we were laughing and then i was so afraid because like y'all know we have like a brand new shower and i was so afraid that it was going to like stain the grout in the shower but actually the the paint washed right off like it was it was pretty impressive although like it's winter time and i do have dry skin and i did have like black paint like in my elbows crevices yeah where your elbows get dry that was nasty but um no the worst thing that happened while we were having sex is as soon well at first like i don't think mr jones really wanted to do it because we got it all situated and he's like well let's just get this over with and there was like no foreplay and like your dick was hard i don't even know how you got your dick hard because you were dreading it and and i was like um excuse me but i need a little bit of warm-up first so we got in the bed and we were playing around and you, we got each other ready to go.

Well, you used a sex toy. Yeah, I used a sex toy myself. And I think I gave you a blowjob. And you were playing with me too. So we were having fun beforehand. But then you're like, oh, my God, we got to get this over with. So then we get down on the floor and we squirt the paint all over the canvas. And I laid down.

And when I laid down, I had to put my hand down to like support myself and then we realized we needed lube and i had had i knew that we were going to need lube so i had put the lube like right next to the canvas so the lube was handy but both of my hands had black paint on And I needed to put lube on your dick. Yeah, I had a black dick. And you were like, no! That was the BBC. No, I didn't want you to touch my hand because it was going to go inside of you. I know. So that was why I picked up the lube. And you were like, no, because then I couldn't have put it on your dick.

And then you put the black paint in my vagina that was not gonna work things that you never think you're gonna have to think about having sex so you have to plan that out you got to leave one hand free and clean so uh yeah so so stay tuned because we have two more coats to do yes and then maybe we'll send out a picture of the... We need to do this before your surgery. Yeah. So we can get it over with. Oh, okay. And then we can have it framed. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That'll give you something to aspire to as you're recovering. Right. Like you're ever going to want to do that again.

The other side story about this, and some of you have already know this, but our friends jay and k from the that couple next door podcast this is where we learned about we learned about this from them and a few years ago they described and i and i wish i should have looked up the podcast episode i'm sorry but if you email them they'll tell you they did this a years ago. And it was hilarious because they described it somewhat like we did. And they had sex and they got up and they went in the shower.

And when they came back, they realized that their dog had walked into the middle of painting, number one. And then number two, took a shit in the middle of their painting so so jay i want to let you know lessons learned we kept our dog in the crate yeah we put her in the crate in the crate while we were on the blanket so that that wouldn't happen to us so that's right if you have a chance you need to go listen to jay describe their love canvas that's And if you have a dog, you need to go listen to J&K describe their love canvas. That's right.

And if you have a dog and you ever do this, shut the door. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, that was quite the snapshot. We got two more coats to do. So before we close, we've talked a lot about our community. We can't help it tonight because they've really given us a lot of support. And it's simply amazing. So if you want to join our We Got A Thing community, you can visit our website at wegotathing.com. And please, if you want to email us, you can reach me at mrjones at wegotathing.com. Or me at mrsjones at wegotathing.com.

You can visit our website at wegotathing.com, W-E-G-O-T-T-A-T-H-I-N-G.com, and you can contact us there. You can also find out about our community. You can listen to our podcast. You can read our Medium articles, and you can find out all kinds of interesting lifestyle content on our website. And my cocktail recipes. And your cocktail recipes. One of them as I just finished. That's a final say. And you ate my cherry. I did. Thank you. You can find us on Twitter at We Got a Thing. And we also have a presence on Pinterest and DDN, which is Double Date Nation, and SDC and Cassidy.

So thanks for listening. We are Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and we got a thing. What's your thing? We'll see you next time.