“Life is too short for you to make all of the mistakes yourself – learn from other peoples’ screw-ups.”
This is a philosophy which should be embraced by any married couple choosing to enter the lifestyle. The problem, at least in our opinion, is that most couples spend more time preparing to get laid and do not spend nearly enough time giving thought to the emotional landmines which lay hidden beneath the sheets of another person’s bed. As a couple, you must prepare yourself and your relationship for some emotional turmoil both prior to and following adult playtime. We believe that emotional issues are best handled early, by giving careful and considerate thought to both your partner and yourself, planning strategies to address the issues, and maintaining open venues for communication.
Believe us when we say that emotional problems will arise within your relationship once you choose to enter the lifestyle. We’ve enjoyed adult play for ten years and still have moments when jealousy still spills over into our relationship. Why? Simply because we are human; as such, we are prone to experience the same emotions shared by everyone else on the planet. Jealousy, envy, and anger are all portions of our human emotional make-up. The sad part is that most people refuse to acknowledge that they feel these ugly emotions until they explode and damage the relationship.
That being said, I will be the first man to publicly acknowledge that we men are the worst culprits of all when it comes to admitting that we feel any type of emotion. (They may take back my testicle permit for admitting this stuff in an open venue.) It’s not that we don’t feel emotion, our response and behavior has more to do with the fact that emotions make no logical sense whatsoever to us. However, it is important for men to understand that as illogical as they might be, emotions will drive our behavior before, during, and after a playtime encounter.
When I was younger, I would have read the last section while thinking, “Yeah right” and skipping ahead to look for the good stuff. If you look up the term ‘dumbass’ in a Webster’s Dictionary it will show the picture of a 20-something year old male being questioned about emotions. We men don’t like emotions because they are messy and cause problems, and we never understand that our underlying emotions about a situation drive our responses to our female partner. Shall I prove the point? How would you feel about watching your wife have a mind-numbing orgasm while getting laid by a man with a larger dick? Hmmmm…This is a touchy point for men because:
A) We always worry about the size of our dick.
B) She damn sure doesn’t orgasm like that at home.
The key to the entire upcoming explosion is that we won’t talk about the situation because we’re pissed off. Let’s examine the concept of ‘pissed off’ for a moment. The anger that we’re feeling arises from envy and jealousy. We envy the man’s additional size and can’t do a damned thing about making our pecker ‘bigger, longer, and better,’ despite what those emails are always promising. So instead, we focus on her orgasm to validate our jealous perception of ‘she liked his dick better than mine’ because we saw her bouncing all over the bed in the throes of passion. Being male, we will mull these thoughts over and over for days until some trivial (and probably unrelated) situation allows us to vent our anger, which has been fueled by unspoken envy and jealousy. Beneath the spilling anger and rage, our insecurity is telling us, “She’ll never be satisfied with me again.” Because of this, accusations will begin to fly somewhere in the conversation, trust me.
As a man, it is the most difficult task of all to admit to being hurt and worried. We do pissed off and angry well, but an admission of weakness, to our masculine mind, is unacceptable. Why? Well, because, “We’re men… this is what we do!”
I believe that it requires more strength of character to accept and address the weakness of envy, jealousy, hurt, and fear. Each time the issues are addressed, I find myself challenged to openly admit and acknowledge my emotions about the situation. It is hard to address these problem areas without falling back into old behaviors. However, changing your approach to handling these emotions will solidify your relationship with your partner and smooth out future situations.
How? Good question young Jedi…
The military uses the adage “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance” to eliminate problems before they arise. Primarily, you should sit as a couple to discuss your reasons for pursuing the lifestyle. Be honest when you give your reasons. It may be that you’re tired of the same old thing, or that you need some small degree of adventure in your sex life. Be willing (and brave enough) to tell the truth and expect the truth to be told to you. Anticipate that some of the information given to you will hurt, and then openly discuss the emotions clawing their way to the surface. It is good practice to keep the flow of conversation going in a positive direction and clarify your thoughts. An open flow of communication between partners before a lifestyle encounter is the big difference between getting screwed and being screwed.
You’ll notice that we tend to ‘practice what we preach’ when it comes to the lifestyle. Carol and I both know that I am a control freak. It nuts me up to have situations which I cannot influence or control from start to finish. However, openly admitting this flaw allows us to plan strategies around it and discuss the emotions associated with it afterwards. Our discussions and flow of communication is in place and functioning long before any adult play begins.
Sometimes the situation (in our case, playing with a much younger man) will cause an unexpected insecurity to rise to the surface. (For your knowledge, I’m 49 and have less than graciously accepted the adage of “Once a King, always a King… once a Knight’s enough.”) Therefore, having Carol’s playmate going and going like the Energizer Bunny taps my ‘Damn, I’m getting old’ button. In this case, when it bites deeply, we have agreed that our sharing of thoughts and emotions may need to be placed on hold for a little while to give me time to examine and organize my own thoughts about the situation. Please note that our agreement to postpone the conversation occurred long before the situation arose… Proper Prior Planning works well.
Another preparatory concept is simply accepting the personal truth that different people will stimulate different responses in our partner. Men (and women, even if they don’t admit it) are competitive creatures. We want to be the best. (Actually, this is a biological ‘Survival of the Fittest’ trait over which we have little control.) Therefore, observing a different response occur with our partner can either stimulate us to do more or quit the event altogether. Here’s a better management mechanism – ask your partner what was done differently to bring about the response. Question the techniques and actions which they found pleasurable, and then add them to your repertoire of bedroom skills. It answers your questions about the situation, maintains a positive flow of communication, and makes you a better lover.
I have a question for you to ponder for a moment or two. How would you like to be a rubber-stamp clone of your spouse? How would it feel to have identical tastes, to enjoy only the same movies, to have only the same friends, and to go to the same job while performing the same tasks at work? On the up side, there would be no arguing or disagreements. On the down side, you’d be so bored that you would probably attempt to chew through the arteries in your wrists just for something new to do. Sweet Jesus… I’d be homicidal, suicidal, and any other “-idal” that you could think of after the first 30 minutes.
However, I should point out that many married couples arrive at a lifestyle social with the unspoken expectation that their partner wants the same play and personal behaviors which happen to be running around inside their own head. The disparity between his thoughts and her actions only rises to the surface once the party room opens.
The truth is that our personal at home relationships work because of the different thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs of the two people. As a couple, Carol and I serve to balance one another by using our individual strengths to compensate for the other’s weaknesses. Carol, bless her long suffering heart, is a people person who could talk to a fence post. I, on the other hand, tend to be fairly quiet and reserved around unfamiliar people. Carol couldn’t arrive on time for anything even if the fate of the free world depended on it. I live by the creed that anything less than 5 minutes early is late. Our differences serve as a compensating balance point for each other. (She watches weepy chick flicks and I watch the Muppets…. there is no accounting for taste.)
By now someone is asking, “And this has WHAT to do with the lifestyle?” Actually, it has quite a bit to do with the lifestyle. Have you discussed rooming arrangements for a sexual encounter? Have you questioned if your partner plans to run around nude in the party room? How many people might your partner engage sexually during the festivities? If you haven’t talked, the answers running through your mind are only your own answers, not your partner’s answers.
One of the bigger issues arising with a new couple is the debate over having a sexual encounter in the same room or separate rooms. Our early start in the lifestyle carries a striking similarity to all new couples. Being the control freak and happy voyeur of our household, I preferred engaging another couple in the same room. I termed my request to her under the logical and reasonable heading of: “It’s a security issue because we don’t know these people and I want you to be safe.” This was utter bullshit served on a cracker. The truth was that I wanted to retain some small amount of control over her behavior and felt that I could not do so if she were in another area.
Carol, during our later developmental years (after figuring out that I was full of shit), would phrase her request for going to separate areas as desiring ‘private time.’ The truth was that she couldn’t fully relax to enjoy the sensation with an audience critiquing her performance. As she explained, “It’s kind of difficult to have a series of full-blown ‘please curl my toes’ orgasms when you expect someone to hold up a scorecard afterwards.”
As with all other issues in our life together, we talked together and agreed to a compromise for our lifestyle adventures with other couples. We reached the personal understanding that sometimes we play in the same room and sometimes we play apart; however, I always know what room she is visiting and who she is playing with at that time. Furthermore, we agreed that we would always sleep together after we’ve played and later discuss the nifty stuff that we learned this time while banging his/her eyes out. Our agreement met both of our internal and previously unspoken personal needs to smooth out a delicate situation.
Here’s the key: you have to talk these things out as a couple. It is entirely unreasonable to look at your partner and say, “It’s my way only.” As a couple, you have to be willing to find a mutual meeting point somewhere between the opposing views. A simple truth is that your relationship differences should not be a contest with winners and losers. It should be a team effort where both partners feel satisfied, fulfilled, and important to each other.
It’s not easy to admit your insecurities to your partner. As human beings, we all want to appear to be completely together, and we act like we have no individual vulnerabilities or personally-perceived weaknesses. However, the person sitting on the sofa with you already has had a pretty good grasp of your flaws long before the discussions ever began. Trust that they understand and will be supportive as you admit to yourself that these insecurities exist. You might be surprised how small the individual problems and insecurities become in the days following your discussions and personal ownership of these feelings. Furthermore, you’ll find that the communication has served to strengthen the foundation of your relationship because you trusted your partner with the hidden thoughts and emotions.
In the end, whether you stay with the lifestyle or not, you will have accomplished several milestones by consciously choosing to examine your personal emotions and open the channels of communication. The ability to undertake these activities requires personal courage, dedication to the overall well-being of the relationship, and a deep-seated desire to build on the foundation of your personal relationship to make it better.
