My thoughts on this topic resemble soft and silent snowflakes that land on the grass, having journeyed unseen from the sky above, and melt into the landscape without a solid breath.
In essence, I’ve always had a subtle awareness that there’s an ongoing quiet storm brewing in my mind… of having to weigh up the highs of adventure in the ENM lifestyle, but occasionally paying the price of peace in order to seek it, and to have it.
But I can’t ever quite crystallise my understanding of where I’m going to land, and whether I’ll ever settle.
So…what better way than to indulge in these thoughts and feelings within this blog?
Recently, people in my community have mentioned the topic of various dynamics within the lifestyle and different types of relationships that are formed; ones that have been expected and those that have taken them completely by surprise. They’ve mentioned the confusing feelings that can arise on the path towards finding your tribe or your ‘home’ within ENM, the emotional investment it takes to carve that space out for yourself, the joy we experience and the mistakes we make along the way. For me, I’ve added considerations about what I want and need from this lifestyle…and what I, along with my husband (since he is, of course, both a driver and a passenger on this ride) am willing to do to achieve it.
I think it’s important to say that I don’t necessarily have any answers for you or for me, and actually that’s never been what my blog is about; answers or advice. It’s a reflection…a dance…an exploration of ideas.
Just like the image I’ve chosen for this article, I liken my experience of ENM to an expression of myself in the company of others, and I wonder if you’ll relate somehow, as I explain. Sometimes we’re in the spotlight and we feel vulnerable and on show…or we can feel on top of the world and seen. Sometimes we’re in the darkness and we feel cocooned and protected…or we can feel introverted, hurt and withdrawn. The silk ribbon resembles how we consciously wrap ourselves in fiery, physical scenarios or weave our way through deep, emotional connections. We make tenuous or tight links with people like slack and tension on a rope…and we’re never completely sure if they’ll be strong enough to catch us when we decide to let go.
And that’s how we understand what I mean by hot fucks and head fucks!
Falling into the lifestyle
If you’ve read my previous blog posts, you might remember that the way my husband and I inadvertently entered the lifestyle wasn’t a hugely considered venture! It involved a birthday party, too much alcohol, four long-time friends who had way too much attraction to each other, and a hot tub. Considering I tend to bang on so much about the value of communication, and reflecting on wants, needs and desires to ensure you’re all on the same page (and that you aren’t going to do any lasting damage), it’s quite the surprise that we skipped a thousand steps and went straight for the swinging jugular. To be truthful, we didn’t even know that what we were doing with this other couple for two years was swinging…we only knew that it was fun, hot and free.
And for quite a while, that’s all it was. I don’t remember necessarily needing anything more than that, and I don’t recall having any feelings beyond the friendship we’d always had. I know that looking back, we were incredibly lucky since we totally went against the old adage, which is that:
You make friends out of swingers; never swingers out of friends.
It’s possible that we took a risk with our marriages and with our friendship, because there wasn’t really a time in which we set certain parameters of how we should do this thing, or how we should be. Absolute amateurs! We met every few weeks, had a night of games, drinks and sex, and then went back to our lives. There were some pockets of awkwardness and hurt feelings, linked to the other guy’s jealousy and insecurities, and although it ended organically and kindly, there were some scenes of pure, unadulterated cringe to contend with. However, in general I look back on this time circa 2018-2020 as a gentle, uncomplicated entry into ENM.
But my God, have I become more complicated over time!
Evolution
I can’t really speak for my husband here, because to this day, he is probably the most uncomplicated man I’ve ever known. And that’s not to say he doesn’t have depth; that he doesn’t consider and reflect; that he doesn’t feel as much as others (despite the ongoing jokes that he is the absolute nicest psychopath).
He is intelligent, witty, and insightful. But he and I are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how much we allow emotions and external influences to sway our lives. He will experience a situation, take mild note of an emotional response, and if it’s uncomfortable, he’ll squash it down into a box and throw it over a mental fence. He’ll then claim to forget all of these feelings he once had, but I’ll see them rear their head at a much later date when he has a crisis over the washing machine breaking down.
Me on the other hand… I experience emotions as something akin to the ocean. They’re deep, they’re mysterious; they’re scary; they’re fluid and ever-changing. I can feel so alive, but I can also be drowning.
This difference between us has affected the development of our wants and needs in the ENM lifestyle, because he’s generally happy to go with the flow, enjoy the adventures that we come across, and deal with any negatives when, or if they occur. Whereas I’m incredibly discerning about who I connect with, and especially who I have sex with, and I’ll work tirelessly to avoid mistakes being made wherever possible.
Now, if you’re a single or solo traveller in the lifestyle, all you need to do is take time to periodically reflect on your values, and what will bring you the most fulfilment when experiencing all that ENM has to offer. Sounds simple, right? I know, I know. It can truly be so difficult and lonely when you’re making these decisions without the support of another. And I owe you a separate blog post to explore this in much more depth. However, in terms of what we’re discussing here, you’ll generally have full control over the direction you take and the dynamics/ interactions/ connections you seek.
If you aren’t a lone reveller in the lifestyle, though, you’ll need to sit down and talk seriously with your significant other(s) about what you want and need from the lifestyle, and how you can bridge the gap together about these things, without feeling like one of you is compromising yourself irrevocably.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of what can happen when you don’t follow your gut instinct; when you ignore your values and needs; or if one of you ‘takes one for the team’ (audible gasp):
At best, you might have been physically vulnerable with somebody that you later realise you shouldn’t have… and you’ll have to spend time resisting a Round 2, avoiding eye contact as you hunt for your pants on the floor, and wondering how the chuff you can convince the taxi to arrive yesterday so that you can go home and eat an entire tube of Pringles while watching Friends reruns.
At worst, you might throw yourself into a situation in which you’ll have been emotionally and/or physically vulnerable to a significant degree, and you might end up really fucking hurt. With lasting effect.
This isn’t to scaremonger, I promise.
We ALL make mistakes. Some of them are avoidable and some of them can never be predicted. I, on more than one occasion, have ended up fighting with myself over some of the choices I’ve made when navigating something as new, exhilarating, terrifying and nuanced as Ethical Non-Monogamy. I’ve stared at many a ceiling and wondered how to heal myself from some of the hurt I’ve either put myself forward for, or that I never even thought to consider in the first place.
Most of us today, who are finding our way through relationship dynamics that deviate from the social norm, were never given a role model growing up; a manual for something beyond the nuclear family or hetero-presenting monogamous marriage; a window through which we could take even a tiny peek at a different future than the one laid out before us by society or generational expectations.
So we are going to make mistakes.
But keeping your eyes wide-open, remaining committed to not abandoning yourself, and using mistakes as experiential fuel to change; to adapt; to form new ways forward is the key to personal and relational evolution.
So now that we are all presumably totally perfect, evolved beings with a degree in ENM, let’s stir it up with some talk on the beautiful and tumultuous unpredictability of dynamics and relationships in the lifestyle.
Dynamics
I won’t spend time listing all of the possible dynamics within ENM because I’m sure that you could spend a revelatory evening Googling it…or chances are you’ve come across a pretty wide range along the way. But I will explain some of my (and my husband’s) experiences with our chosen dynamic in the lifestyle, the different types of relationships this has led to, and the general hot and ‘head-fucky’ surprises along the way!
To the untrained eye, it might look like my bisexuality popped up like a serendipitous meet-cute at a party, where it was greeted like a long-forgotten friend who had unexpectedly returned from a nostalgic, but very distant past. It was almost as though I’d been straight for most of my life, but having thrown myself into a few sexy adventures with other couples after entering the ENM lifestyle, I’d decided that actually, women were the best thing ever.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
I am not straight, and have never been straight. Yes, sexuality can be fluid and it can evolve… some of us know more or less from birth, and some of us come to discover it much later. Looking back, there were always signs within me that I was bisexual, but I didn’t allow myself to recognise it or embrace it properly until I’d begun to regularly connect with women physically in my thirties.
There were hilarious/ borderline-offensive/ stereotypical signs such as:
- me insisting on wearing chunky ‘boy boots’ with dresses growing up;
- climbing trees and resisting anything ‘girly’;
- never being able to sit properly on a chair;
- owning a poster of two lesbians kissing throughout adolescence;
- thinking that everyone looked at girls and wanted to kiss them a bit;
- being asked out by various gay and bisexual teenagers even though I told them I was straight and being met with a raised eyebrow.
And then there were the hidden signs of absolute suppression, such as:
- hearing my Mum’s opinions about how women were completely untrustworthy throughout childhood;
- always feeling like something very deep and important was missing;
- experiencing bouts of depression or unfulfillment in my twenties;
- wondering what it would be like to be held, kissed and seen by a woman, even though I never permitted myself to really sit with that.
So suffice to say, that opportunities to explore my bisexuality are a HUGE part of our dynamic choices within the ENM lifestyle. Together, my husband and I choose to mainly connect with other couples in which the woman is bisexual (rather than straight, or ‘bi-playful’), or with single/ solo bisexual women, because exploring women is an incredibly significant part of me being able to embrace a large part of my identity.
For what it’s worth, I don’t have anything against ‘bi-playful’ or ‘bi-curious’ labels- I think this can be a fantastic way for women to explore and to reflect on their sexuality and desires. However, it’s a personal choice for me to protect myself from being in an emotionally-risky situation where bisexuality might be seen as a commodity or ‘show’ for men, rather than a genuine connection with me. I am not, and will never be, interested in a sexual situation in which the other woman is only interested in me because ‘it will be hot for others to watch.’
For people who enjoy this, I hear you and I celebrate you, of course! But it’s not for me.
Perhaps there is a more articulate way of explaining this, but it’s an appropriate example of my acceptance of other dynamics, whilst being unapologetically protective of myself when deciding my wants and needs.
Exploring threesomes and foursomes with my husband is an additional bonus because it’s filled with love, fun, compersion and freedom, and it ultimately brings us closer together…but there are also evolving elements of our dynamic in which I seek to experience female connections (emotional and physical) beyond the presence of my husband. And he has been eternally supportive of that. So I do see women alone, and as a separate venture from our usual threesome/ foursome dynamic… which has quite honestly been transformative for me.
Does it hurt my heart somewhat that I was so suppressed and unaware of my sexuality that I never got to experience a relationship with a woman before I got married? Yes. I feel pain for the child and teenager in me that didn’t even feel like it was an option. But I’m ever-grateful that I came to recognise this in myself eventually, and that I have the love and support of my partner when healing bits of that wound now.
On a lighter note, I’d also very much like it on record that an equally significant part of ENM for me, is also to enjoy the wonderful men I have come across in the lifestyle! I am every bit as excited and passionate when it comes to experiencing connections with men…they don’t call me non-monogamous and bisexual for nothin’.
Relationships
I’ll happily delve into the point of this section immediately:
Some of the friendships and the relationships that you will develop in the ENM lifestyle will be amongst the deepest, most honest, genuine and accepting connections with other human beings, that you will ever have the privilege to form in your lifetime.
There is something so truly magical about not having to censor yourself during interactions with fellow ENM people; something that I wasn’t even consciously aware of with vanilla relationships and friendships before. I’m not saying that ‘vanilla’ connections are less valuable or that they have less depth than the ones we form in the lifestyle. I have a deep love for many of the relationships I have cultivated in my life outside of ENM, and some of these people know me incredibly well; I wouldn’t give them up for anything and I owe them lots for shaping me over time.
However. There is a little je ne sais quoi about conversations and eye-opening moments that you can share with ENM-ers, that is just almost impossible to replicate in the vanilla world.
With ENM friends, you can be sipping a peppermint tea discussing world events, and then the conversation will slip seamlessly into discussing your sexual fantasies because the subject of the NHS reminded you of how you’d like to try a Grey’s Anatomy style sex scene….. or you can phone a close ENM friend to lament about how you made your clit go numb after going too hard on your Womanizer, trying to get a third or fourth orgasm in within 6 mins…and have they ever done that, and what should you do?
Once, we had a threesome until around 3am, and by 9am, we had somehow found ourselves at a friend’s Holy Communion. I was shaking random church-goers’ hands at the painfully awkward ‘Shake and Sing’ section of the service (who thought to make people do this?) wondering at what point I was going to burst into flames…but was saved by a message from an ENM friend pinging on my phone:
“Sooooo….. how was your night? winky emoji”.
You just. don’t. get. that with many vanilla friendships.
I personally like to overshare with my friends so I am lucky enough to have some vanilla friendships who know the real me (not many, but they exist)…but wouldn’t the world be a better place if everybody could be their complete and whole selves with the people they chose to reveal it to?!
And talking of being our whole and complete selves: I could never get away with finishing this section without mentioning one relationship in particular that my husband and I have developed with another couple in the lifestyle. I aim to reflect on it, not only because I know they’ll read it and it will be from my heart…but also because I know that many of my readers will nod with a smile and understand completely about the type of friendship I’m talking about…and because for those of you who haven’t yet found a friendship like this and deeply yearn for it, I want you to see that there is hope; whether you are a fellow ENM-er or not.
Our virtual paths crossed with this couple 15 months ago in the lead up to a lifestyle community event, and we met in person for the first time about a year ago. In the grand scheme of life, this is a tiny fraction of time: 12 months; 4 seasons; countless laughs; and a few tears. We’ve seen each other in all of our colours- the sunshine yellow of happiness when we meet; the pink of pride for each other’s success; the deep fuchsia of our first kisses; the painful blue when we’ve crossed a boundary; the green of envy; the hesitant grey-scale of no guarantees and the vibrant orange of wanting to live in the moment with them.
And whatever happens, with the future tending to take care of itself no matter what we desire in the present, we’ll always be grateful for being able to live in these times, when connections like this are, and will hopefully continue to be, possible.
Conflict and Resolution
For a long time, I’ve been able to accept and embrace the idea that if ENM is going to be part of my marriage and my life, then it will take a lot of commitment to making it work. But it occurred to me recently in a moment of midnight clarity, to question whether all of the adventure and connection I have experienced (and want to experience in the future) is worth the frequent lack of peace that I feel.
Because I do not feel peaceful.
I feel excited. I feel afraid. I feel like taking risks. I feel like I need safety. I need opportunities and change. I want things to stay the same. I need to feel alive. But I don’t want to feel hurt. I need something good enough to miss it when it’s not here. But I don’t want it to be missing. I need to know if I’m doing the right thing and what the future holds. But I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
It’s a war. It’s Hot Fucks and Head Fucks.
But I’ll be damned if I don’t keep fighting for this messy, beautiful thing called life.
Beyond the Pineapple 
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