I could fall madly in bed with you

I’ve been reading these great posts by Greta Christina.  She brings up many valid points and for the most part, I do agree with her.  However, perhaps I’m tainted by my own experiences, things aren’t always as simple as breaking a “contract.”   There are many variations of the “contract”, depending on the particular circumstances.  This begs the question, ‘What is cheating?’  For me, it is more an issue of what leads to cheating and what constitutes cheating.   Let me share one of my experiences.

I’ve been with a man for four years now.  We shall call him Z.  Our relationship started off as sexual, turned into friendship and then eventually into a “real” relationship.  Considering that our initial draw to each other was sex, we’ve always placed a high value on sex with each other.  For the most part, we have a great sex life.  Of course we have lulls where we don’t get it on that often, but that is due to circumstances moreso than lack of desire.

I should tell you that he and I met on a hook-up site.  Yep, one of those skeevy, psuedo-swinger sites full of cock pics and horny housewives.  I wasn’t looking for a relationship; I just wanted to get laid.  He (by his own admission) was just being friendly to the newbie member and saying ‘hi’.   We did the chatting online and over the phone thing and decided to meet.  Nothing happened on that first meet, we just hung out a bit.  As a matter of fact, it was about a month after we met that we first fucked and we had hung out several times before that.   We fucked for a few months and then decided to be “boyfriend and girlfriend”.

Our sex life has always chugged along quite well.  We are quite compatible and for the most part, communicate really well about sex.  We enjoy being physical together and have shared a number of fantasies.

About a year into our “real” relationship, we decided that it would be fun to do a bit of swinging with another couple.  It was going to be both of us participating so we were both aware of what we would be doing.   So he went on the same site that we had found each other and, amazingly enough, found a couple.  We all chatted a bit and all seemed well.

But, come to find out, the other couple was drama-riffic.  They constantly argued and the woman was only wanting to swing in order to bump up her self esteem.  How do I know this?  She sent him a msg, via IM that said “You think that I’m attractive, right?  Duh, bitch.  He wouldn’t want to bang you if he didn’t.  She then wrote “So you’d fuck me whether or not they (meaning her partner and myself) were around?”  He was telling me all this as it was happening and at this point, I asked him if he would fuck her and he said, “I don’t know.”

This made me think and to be honest, it set me off.  I felt that, since we’d agreed to only play together, he should have told her ‘no’ in clear terms.   We had it out about that and ended up deciding that swinging wasn’t for us at that time and cutting those two out of our life.  She tried to get in touch with him once after that, asking why he wasn’t talking to her anymore and he clearly spelled it out.

So, what can we learn from this situation?

First of all, I’m a jealous bitch and the idea of my man fucking another woman behind my back is not okay with me.  In a situation where we both are getting some action and can see what the other is doing, ok, that’s cool.   But some woman trying to get with my man?  Um, no.  Ain’t going to happen.

Another thing we learned is that communication is so very important.  Z and I had been very open about what we wanted, what we expected and it still blew up in our faces.  In retrospect, I think that we can learn that there is no way to be prepared for something like this.  In any sitiuation where you are bringing other people into your relationship, you are bringing in a variable that you can’t control, nor can you prepare for it.

This was not cheating in any sense of the word.  But, in my opinion, it very easily could have veered in that direction had he taken her offer.  In a relationship, whether it is a fuck buddy thing or a marriage, you can’t control what someone else thinks.  You just can’t.  To me, thinking about fucking someone else isn’t cheating (unless it is an emotional infidelity, which is something else entirely).  Was I mad that he thought about hooking up with her?  No.  What I was angry about was his apparent inability to see what she was doing.

In this case, the contract we had was to experiment, do some swinging and get our freak on.  Technically, neither of us broke the contract but by introducing the variable of other people (perhaps it was just those other people) we came close to it.  And, as a result of the situation, we both came away from it with hurt feelings and a bad taste in our mouth with regards to swinging.

If I were to do it over, I’d be more clear about what we both want, what we expect to happen, how we will handle it if only one of us wants to play, and how we will handle it if we decide its not the right thing.  Having things clearly delineated beforehand mind take some of the sexy spontanaeity awau, but it just might make things run more smoothly in the event there is an issue.