A Bump in the Road – A Swinger Party Goes Bad

It had been a long time since I had cried, but I was crying then. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I drove Anne and I home from our first swinger party. Not exactly the state I had expected to be leaving in.

Our first swinger experience was just a week ago. So, we weren’t really sure about the party. We decided on one basic thing. Ask the other person before anything happens. A few hours into the party Anne had been receiving a lot of attention, which isn’t surprising. So a man asks her if she wants to “make out.” Anne asks me, “Can I go in the other room and make out with him?” At the time we were standing in the kitchen, I was a bit hesitant but I said, “Sure.” After all, what is the big deal if she goes in the living room and makes out with this guy?

I continued to chat with the people we were talking to as Anne leaves the room. A few minutes later it sounds exciting in the living room. I follow the crowd that way. As I scan the room I don’t see Anne anywhere. Now I am a little concerned, but she can take care of herself. I continue to chat and whatnot. Then someone says, “Where did your wife go?” That was it. I needed to find her and I needed to find her now. It was a three level house. So, I went downstairs first. Nope, nothing there but coats and shoes. Then I headed back all the way up to the bed room. Nope, nothing there but a naked guy on top of someone on the bed. Not knowing what to do or where she was I went to look at the sex toys on display. Only then did I realize that the naked man was on top of Anne. He is starting to go down on her and she looks at me and mouths something. In shock I simply gave her the come here hand gesture and said, “We need to talk.”

Anne and I escaped to the bathroom. We started to talk and I basically turned into an emotional train wreck. I was one hundred percent not okay. I was upset, but it wasn’t focused at Anne or the guy. Anne had basically, in my mind, taken the one rule we had, ask each other before anything happens, and ignored it. Three major things stand out as crossing the line we agreed to when I said she could make out with him. One, upstairs to the fuck room was most definitely not the other room. Two, he was totally naked. Where the hell did his clothes go? Three, her underwear was off. In my perfect world, she would have stopped and questioned what was going on at those three places. Instead, she seemingly completely and utterly disregarded the agreement. In my mind, it ceased being the other room when they went to the room people go to fuck in. It ceased being making out when he got himself totally naked and again then when he removed her panties. They were so far past the line we had agreed on I was in shock.

As we are talking in the bathroom the man knocked, stuck his head in and apologized. I assured him he had done nothing wrong. I still felt like an ass, but when you are the on who is throwing the flag on the field I suppose that is to be expected. I kept running it through my head. What would have happened had I not walked in the room right then? Anne assured me she would have stopped him, but how can I take her word at that having already in my eyes broken our agreement. I wanted to believe her with all of my heart. After a long while in the bathroom we decided to make our exit from the party. A good call as I had been on the verge of crying for a while now.

As soon as the car door shut it hit me like a truck. We drove home in silence as I steered the car down the road through the tear blurred vision. We talked for a long while that night. It is the next morning as I write this and I sit here and wonder. I wonder, is this all worth it? I wonder, is it time to take the next exit off the road to Swingtown? After all, the relationship between Anne and I takes precedence over everything else, always. She won’t disagree. I know she will be saddened but she will agree if it is what I need to do for us. I wonder, am I overreacting? She didn’t do anything we haven’t done before, but still my trust, the very base of our relationship, has been rattled utterly and completely. I don’t want it to break and bring the whole thing down like a house of cards. I am totally lost. I have no idea what to do or how to proceed. I never expected it to be this hard. I didn’t expect it to be an easy journey, but this… this might be more than I can handle.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Welch/100000808626684 Brian Welch

    A broken trust is not easy to recover from. Trust me—it’s taken Dawn and I ten years, and we are still working on it. What I did was far worse, however, and we weren’t addressing the problem for nine of those years, so I don’t expect it will take you as long as that. :) You climbed up on the swing set because you had a solid relationship, and that’s what you need to fall back on.

    There are some lights in the darkness. Let me see if I can point them out…

    1. You were absolutely right in pulling the hand brake. This tells me that your boundaries are strong. Dawn still wonders if she could throw a flag on the field to stop play that makes her uncomfortable. In fact, she feels guilty if she feels like she “gets in the way” of me having experiences with others, even if those experiences make her feel intensely uncomfortable and afraid. We’re working on both stretching and strengthening her boundaries; you seem to have them firmly in place and working well.

    2. You were mature and responsible about your feelings. You didn’t take it out on your wife or the man, but realized it was something you had to deal with personally. Despite the broken trust, you still demonstrate a willingness to have a conversation about what went wrong. Anyone who has the presence of mind to avoid that is on solid ground. You cried… so what? You get to express your feelings in the way that you feel is most appropriate for the situation. You did not attack or project your feelings on anyone else. You owned your emotions, and that’s something you should be proud of. You are ahead of the curve.

    Communicating is an important part of the healing process. Both of you need to be able to bring your feelings to the table and express them in a way that does not attack; you must also be respectful and non-judgemental of the other’s feelings. Try to identify what caused your reaction, and what you can both do about it. To rebuild trust you must want to trust her, making yourself vulnerable in the process. She must be willing to accept restrictions on her behavior as you rebuild this trust. Dawn and I have taken these steps, and every moment I let her know that she has me for reassurance, love, and support. I welcome her feelings of insecurity; they are my chance to prove that I will not hurt her.

    What you should take from this experience is the importance of being specific, and defining terms before you engage in activities. What is sex? What is making out? Where is the “other room”? What steps and levels of activity will you require check-in to ensure that everyone is comfortable? In the meantime, of course, there is no shame in stepping down off the swing set. Your relationship is vulnerable right now, and shoving off before it’s seaworthy will only bring disaster. There are many more storms in the sea.

    Abandoning the ocean of swinging entirely over a relatively small leak, however, might be overkill. My advice would be to put swinging on hold until you’ve established a working trust, and answered some of those specifics that you both need to know in order to be comfortable and safe while playing. Ironically, you probably won’t be able to completely believe in that trust until it is put to a test—until you jump back on the swing set and see your efforts in action.

    Yes, I realize this may be old news to both of you—but humor me; I enjoy reminding myself how important trust is in a relationship, whether one is on or off the swing set. :) I do hope things are better for you now. You are both very brave (far braver than Dawn and I) for even attempting this journey, and you have been given the opportunity to reach an understanding about each other and forge an even stronger relationship. Use it to enrich your lives and make it as fun as it can be.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Welch/100000808626684 Brian Welch

      I just realized that I wrote nearly as much as you did in your article, Jack. I apologize in advance for the wordiness. :)

  • http://iveylane.blogspot.com/ Ivey Lane

    I agree with the previous commenter. First yes, take the exit, refocus on yourselves, and get back on solid ground. As a very wise person said to us when we started this journey, “Swinging can light a fire; it can also burn the house down.” Be careful.

    Swinging brings more than a sense of sexual adventure and becoming less jealous, it also requires real emotional and mental strength and that is where I believe your wife let you down. From the way you described the events, it sounds as if it wasn’t a lack of communication (your mutually agreed upon guidelines certainly seemed clear and reasonable) but rather when push came to shove, she did not stop doing what she wanted to do instead of honoring what she agreed to do.

    Contrary to popular belief, swinging is not a physical or sexual free-for-all and in fact, requires a great deal of self-restraint, perhaps more so than in the “vanilla” world. One has to have the ability and be willing and able to say “no” even when you do not want to, or when you’ve had a couple of drinks, just because you either said you wouldn’t or are unsure of your partner’s reaction. It appears as if that’s where she started, with “is it okay if….” but somewhere along the line, her inner resolve let her, and you, down.

    There is plenty of time. Taking a break or stepping back is a good thing. If you make it through, you’ll both come out the other side not just better swingers, but better people. She can develop more inner strength and the increase the ability to assert herself, you’ll have a greater understanding of the limits and depth of your ability to assert your own needs as well as to forgive.

    Best of luck to you,
    Ivey

    • BMV1996

      , “Swinging can light a fire; it can also burn the house down.” I love this quote- OH how true it is! Luckily we have not burned the house down, and only the lighting a fire has happened. It is ONLY due to talking about things and not taking one for the team though, no matter how great the chemistry is on one side. (Often there is always one with more chemistry than the other).

      I agree with the others. You seem very eloquent in putting your words on paper and trying to understand your feelings. You handled the situation very maturely. Kudos to you. Many would not have handled the situation so well.

      You HAVE to/MUST take a break till you can sort things out. Making out and MAKING OUT are two different things. Whether or not they went all the way, it still hurt you and broke the trust. Work through some communications and rules again before trying the LS or LS parties again. I would also recommend a swinging in same room rule or even same bed for awhile to see if that helps.

    • http://www.facebook.com/kim.latour Kim La Tour

      “Swinging can light a fire; it can also burn the house down.” – Excellent quote! It is absolutely true, thanks for sharing!
      Him & I have been in the lifestyle for a few years, but haven’t had the opportunity to fully get into it until now. We’re easing our way in and making sure to get a couple rules in place other than the basics..a couple interesting experiences make you re-evaluate those ‘everything goes’ rules!

  • MsSpark

    Yes, self-restraint is so hard sometimes. We went through a similar situation and after months of therapy – and really, at the time as well, I KNOW that my LACK of Self-Restraint had nothing to do with HIM(spouse). It was a very selfish, weak thing that was all about me. That piece of it is really hard to convey and to understand, but I think that it is key as well. Basically the consequences were not thought through….and the reaction was equal to the action. The laws of physics come through again!! Good luck!

  • Goofball

    My heart goes out to you. I experienced a VERY similar situation the first time my wife (of 17 years at that time) ventured in to the world of swinging. We had the same agreement – no separating, no sex unless we both agreed, and safe sex always. At the party we attended, there was a room where they had a Sybian machine, and a group of women asked my wife if she would like to join them to try it out. The women said that it was “girls only” – some of the ladies didn’t want guys gawking at them. She asked me if I was ok with it, and I said “sure”, and away they went. As wrong as this may sound, while I didn’t at all like the idea of my wife having sex with other men in a separate room, the idea of her with women was kind of a turn on. Long story short, there were 7 or 8 women in the room, and 1 guy, who owned the Sybian (I had no idea he was in there – apparently 1 of the women was his wife). While I waited outside, my wife had a good time with the other women, and in the course of events, ended up giving the guy a blow job during her turn on the Sybian. As it turns out, she actually initiated the blow job – felt him up, unzipped his jeans and pulled them down. To make matters doubly worse, the guy without warning came in her mouth (who DOES that?). When they finally came out of the room, and I saw the guy with them, she quickly told me about what had happened. I have to tell you, you handled the situation with your wife much better than I did. A wave of complete rage came over me. I’ve never experienced anything like it before or since. It was completely unexpected – a side of myself I didn’t know existed. I did manage to exit the party with my wife before it came out, but I can honestly say that it was the darkest, most painful night of my life. Now, 3 years later, it seems a little crazy that I would react like that. Like you, though, I felt completely betrayed. We only had a couple of rules, and she broke both of them while I waited outside like a fool – and to top it all off, I was the one who ended up being the “bad guy”.

    I only have a few words of advice, but I hope they help. People aren’t perfect, and they make mistakes. It took a good while to get past my anger and hurt, but time does heal. We did continue in the lifestyle after a fairly lengthy break, and our marriage is stronger than it’s ever been. Hang in there, and know that it will get better – forgiveness truly is divine.

    Good luck!

  • http://twitter.com/swapfu Swap Fu

    Thank you for candidly sharing what was obviously a very painful experience. In our past, we too have been in situations where we’ve had to pull the handbrake then spent months (!!) getting back to good. This is before we were officially in the lifestyle and we didn’t have access to all the experience of swingers who came before us. Well-run websites like this on are also a phenomenal resource… but you already know that. :)

    I think that what is probably most pressing in your mind is how to fix this. Not how to avoid this from happening again necessarily, but rather how to stop feel crappy about it.

    You’ve already done the first thing right and have forgiven yourself (and your wife by extension) for what happened. You recognize that you didn’t fail as a couple, but rather the situation was a failure. This is a important step… you will never get passed this without it.

    The next step is to make a plan and make it as detailed as possible (Brian covered this very well):
    1. Who you can play with (couples, single guys, single girls, etc.)
    2. How far play can go
    4. Where you can be relative to each other (same room/same bed, same room/separate beds, separate rooms, etc.)
    3. When to check in — frequent communication is important

    While the plan is important — essential. The *most* important step to feeling better about yourselves — and this may sound weird — is to *try again*. It’s like the old adage about being thrown from a horse. The best way to rebuild trust and confidence is to take what you have learned and get back on… as a couple :) You will now have a plan in place and when you work it, together, as a team, you will only improve. With every success, you will feel more connected, more trusting and you will have more and more fun.

    Where I disagree with Brian is that I think you should try again sooner than later. Ms Swap Fu and I found that spending a long time thinking about what went wrong in the abstract is a lot like trying to learn to fly an airplane by reading a book. It doesn’t work. If you try to fly a plane without taking lessons, you are going to crash. But that’s not the plane’s fault… you were just unprepared. Just like you cannot learn how to fly by reading books, you cannot learn to swing by just thinking abstractly about swinging. You have to do it, each time getting better. So why not start getting better now?

    So with that, I’m adding another item to the plan above:

    4. Recognize that you are going to make mistakes, which will require adjusting the plan
    :)

  • Anonymous

    I’m so sorry to hear your difficulty. Sometimes in order to find your boundaries, they have to be crossed – it’s not necessarily a bad thing, just an unpleasant part of the process.

    Think about it in terms of the rest of your relationship too – if you had had a conflict about shopping at the mall, it doesn’t mean you would never go to the mall again! It would just mean that you would have to communicate more about going to the mall to avoid conflict (I know a simple example, but it makes the point – my husband hates shopping with me so if we were going to the mall I think it would require more negotiations than a swing party!)

    Also, I would say that you should try to not just focus on trusting your partner to stick to the agreement, but sometimes you have to trust your partner’s judgement. My husband and I had this very same conflict, and ultimately it came down to the fact that while both of us WANTED the other one to check in with us before they did something, it is hard to be the person checking in and not feel like you are a child checking in with a parent…Once we both understood that when you get into the heat of a moment, saying “stop, I need to go ask for permission…” is very uncomfortable, we understood that what works for us is not trusting that we “stick to the plan” instead, it is far more important to trust each other’s judgement.

    Hope this helps. I know it is a lot to process, and it is going to take time, but it really does seem like the problem you are having is not about swinging per se, it seems that it is about THAT event and THAT communication breakdown. You’ll both pull through, just don’t forget to communicate and heal like you would with any other fight/issue.

    ::hugs:::

  • He Said

    Thank you for sharing your story. Having shared our own cautionary tale (the blog entry entitled “Douchebagopolis…”) only 3 months ago, I can tell you that the intensity of the feelings fades. Our experience helped us clarify what experiences we want, what situations we are comfortable with, our boundaries, etc. It also made me a bit less naively trusting of people in the lifestyle. That might sound like a negative, but it was more of a realization that not everyone is as honest as one might hope.

    We “got back on the horse” too quickly and it wigged me out. Luckily, that experience was with a couple we knew well and trusted. We talked through it, Mrs. Said and I talked more, etc. After a couple more good experiences in the intervening months, we are 100% good. I no longer feel burning anger towards the offending character in our swing-gone-wrong story.

    We are more cautious, more selective. And no longer seeking out a single to join us. But we are having as much fun swinging as ever. Whether you decide to swing again or not, with enough communication you will get back to OK!

    I wish you the best!

  • Carla

    What in hell were you doing at a swingers party???!!!
    You think you’re “sophisticated” but you’re not. You may be a really nice guy, but you are NOT ready for a swinger’s party with your wife.
    I read the responses about “rules.” Crap!! The’re are only two rules for a swinger’s party. The first is not to go if you insist on rules. The second is if you’re past rule number one then have fun.
    Men and women go to swinger’s parties or orgies, if you will, for only one reason – To Fuck! And when they Fuck they do so so to enjoy themselves.
    When I go to a sex or fuck party I want to orgasm and enjoy sex for sex sake. I don’t want to hear some guy say “Well, gee, Martha, I didn’t think you were actually going to suck his dick!” Of course she was!!! That’s why she’s there!
    Get real……

    • http://lifeontheswingset.com Cooper

      I fully disagree…and this may well be the reason YOU go to swinger parties, but our community of swinger friends are awesome, we love spending time hanging out talking to them. Yes, we do fuck them, but that’s only part of the reason.

      And criticizing someone for thinking they’re sophisticated for looking at parties differently than you….perhaps you’re the unenlightened one.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZXPMIDALECP6FHZA4D2TXZOT3A bjxxx

    Now what if it were you disappearing to a fuck room leaving your wife to wonder what was going on? Would you expect your wife to forgive and forget? There’s a reason many people get involved in the lifestyle only while single, sewing their wild oats as it were without hurting a significant other deeply, many times beyond repair. She does it once to you she’ll do it again. You’re only kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

    • Anonymous

      This is a very negative comment…

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZXPMIDALECP6FHZA4D2TXZOT3A bjxxx

        Yeah chief it sure as hell is.