The Secret Hotwife
How can you sit between a man you’re in love with, and a man you want to have sex with…and everyone be okay?
That was the big one I couldn’t get my head around when my husband, J, and I first started talking about exploring the world of ENM.
We’re a regular couple, with busy jobs, kids, and a mortgage, a Netflix subscription and too much housework to stay on top of. I couldn’t picture how something as alien as ‘swinging’ could ever really fit into our lives. As an exhausted working mother in the north of England, sex was the thing that was already too-often shelved in favour of other more pressing items on my ‘to-do’ list. The idea of finding time in my busy schedule for messaging, dating, and sleeping with other men was absolutely preposterous to me.
I’ll be the first to admit it was a long journey from ‘no way’ (my genuine initial reaction, and by initially, I mean for months) to curiosity, mild interest, ‘possibly,’ and then the first sparks of excitement, all the way through to where we are today: ‘Hell. Yes.’
The first time J told me he thought the idea of watching me have sex with another man was hot, I thought it was a joke… or maybe even some sort of test. It had to be. There was no way he could really want this, I told myself. In the 13 years we’d been together, it wasn’t something that had ever come up before; not even so much as a whisper in my ear during the throes of our dirtiest sex. And outside of ogling Benjamin Bratt in Private Practice, or Chris Hemsworth in Thor, I honestly didn’t look at other men. I’d happily kissed goodbye to my flirting days years earlier. I was a one-woman man - a mother, a professional, months from closing out my 30s. I was a firm no. I wanted no part of it. If I could have closed the conversation down then and there, I absolutely would have.
But my husband is an excellent person, the best I know. His revelation to me on that wine-hazed Friday night - slightly sheepish but well-articulated, and clearly the subject of much thought - deserved more than to be swept under the rug and never referenced again.
So over the next few months, we talked. A lot. Sometimes we argued. I was upset with him for bringing something to the table that was so far outside my comfort zone it left me feeling...lacking. I worried I couldn't live up to what was in his head. He was frustrated with me for just shutting down and avoiding the conversation, which I can acknowledge now I absolutely did. More than once one of us took the idea completely off the table, but something in us wasn't quite willing to keep it there. Occasionally, in between all that, we fantasised. In those moments, the first sexy seeds were planted, but when the climax dissipated, so did the fantasy. We'd take a couple of steps forwards, and a big old step back. It was a slow process.
I know that neither J nor I are alone in these early feelings and experiences. In the past few weeks, I’ve received private messages from both men and women interested in knowing more about ENM and sexually open marriage, but who are worried that their partner may not feel the same. I’ve also spoken with women and men whose other halves have revealed to them that they’re interested in swinging, and who have told me these admissions have left them feeling vulnerable and uneasy.
I understand those feelings, truly.
This lifestyle is not for everyone. I’m sure of that, because nothing is. But I also know from personal experience, that - given that we're all walopped by societal norms and expectations at every turn - an initial reluctance shouldn’t automatically be taken as an indication that it isn’t for you.
I would even go so far as to say, it’s to be expected.
Unless you grew up in a progressive household, where sex was discussed openly (fantastic for you if you were) you can probably relate when I tell you that sex was - and to some extent, continues to be - on my family’s ‘taboo’ list of topics to discuss. My mum and I are very close, but we never sat around gossiping about boys when I was growing up, and she was not the person I went to to discuss contraceptive methods when I lost my virginity. I’ve never seen more than a peck on the lips exchanged between my parents, and could easily believe I was the postal product of a stork-style delivery system.
It took a while for me to realise, then, that there was a whole very real world of sex beyond my small northern-England exposure to it.
Ten months after that first conversation, back in August 2022, J and I attended our first sex party. That was an eye-opening experience. Then we went to a spanking workshop hosted by Killing Kittens in London (more on this later). Then we went to a couple of socials. During this time we met lots and lots of people, all over the country; lovely, normal, intelligent people for whom sex is a topic as open for discussion as their favourite restaurants - provided they’re in the right circles. I could feel some of the shackles of my somewhat prudish upbringing beginning to fall away. And it did wonders for our sex life.
But while I was enjoying opening myself up to a more sexual life, I still couldn’t imagine opening up our sex life to another person. Our sex life was a two-player game. The idea of it becoming a group sport was something I was really struggling to wrap my head around. I didn’t believe I would ever be able to sit between my husband, who I loved, and a man I wanted to have sex with….and everyone would be good.
I remember vividly the first time J left me alone in bed messaging some guy on an app while he went downstairs to get us a drink. I was so uncomfortable. It felt wrong, like I was cheating, even though J knew everything I was doing. Would I ever shake that feeling off?
Looking back, I think part of what was missing for me was a face to attach to that ‘other guy.’
Whenever I pictured how the experience would look and feel, or we played with the fantasy in bed, the ‘guy’ was always faceless. I gave him no thought, he was the equivalent of a human dildo. And that’s crazy, because - certainly for me - arousal isn’t anonymous. I want to know who I’m having sex with, the character of a person is as big a turn-on as any physical trait. That’s why, after all, we all fall for those characters in films and TV shows.
But I wasn’t looking to ‘fall’ for anyone here. That part of me was taken. So the real question was, was I capable of feeling a purely physical attraction to a man, feeling aroused by his hands and mouth on me, his dick inside me, whilst my husband, who I loved more than anything, watched on? Would my traditional brain ever be able to cope with this marriage of sensations?
As it turns out, yes. Ohhh and how…
In the end, it took a combination of things to get us to that ‘hell yes.’
It also took us getting those things wrong a few times, to figure out what was right, what did work, what we both needed (more on this later too).
THE TURNING POINT
After all those months of talking and reframing, when the final and biggest change came, it was like a switch being thrown.
I’d spent about six months chatting on-and-off to different guys on various apps and was starting to enjoy myself, getting used to flirting again, sharing pictures with men, the teasing conversations and the hot fantasy sex with J that it led to. Most of the conversations died off pretty naturally - especially given how slowly we were proceeding - and the first couple of guys we met for drinks, though perfectly nice, both failed to elicit a spark.
I was starting to feel like maybe this was something that would remain in the fantasy realm for us.
Then, one Thursday evening, we met a guy in a cocktail bar close to where we live. I’d been chatting to him for a few weeks and the vibe was really good. He was good looking, at least in his pictures, and I decided, given we were only about 10 miles apart, that the three of us should meet face-to-face. A drink. An hour tops. Casual.
That night changed everything for me, for us.
When Mark walked in, he was tall, handsome, with a friendly face, big smile, and a groin-tightening Irish accent to boot. He shook hands with J, kissed me on the cheek, and sank into the seat opposite us in the cosy little booth we were sitting in.
The three of us spent the next four hours chatting and laughing, sharing a couple of bottles of wine, and swapping stories.
I spent the night with butterflies in the pit of my stomach.
Mark was no stranger to ENM and, in particular, to being a third. Every step he made that night, starting with texting as he was walking to the bar to double-check J’s name so he could greet him properly, was spot-on. He respected our relationship, he was a gentleman… and he looked at me in a way that made my skin tingle with possibility.
There was one moment towards the end of the night that sticks in my mind; sitting on a sofa outside in the sticky summer warmth of that June night, J on one side of me and Mark on the other. J’s hand was on my right thigh and Mark’s was on my left knee. I had one hand on each of them. My husband was smiling and telling a story while Mark laughed, each of them squeezing me gently, but firmly. And my butterflies grew.
That was the turning point for me. I knew, in that moment, that I absolutely could sit in a room with the man I love and a man I wanted to have sex with. Because here I was doing it. And everyone was smiling. Everyone was good. All three of us at that table wanted this.
After that, my eyes were opened, my last doubts answered, and I was ready to book a room and set a date. The next time we met with Mark, J watched on with a smile on his face (and, if he’s being honest, a tightening in his trousers) as Mark and I kissed. That was his test for himself. We met Mark a third time, in a hotel suite nearby, less than a week later.
When I speak to couples struggling to decide if this lifestyle is really for them, I wish them all a Mark.
As I said, it isn’t for everyone, I’m sure. But if there’s a chance it’s for you, I urge you to talk about it, think about it, explore - find out.
The journey we've been on to get to where we are hasn't been quick or easy, but I'm so grateful now that we did it. Because when it’s done right, ENM isn’t just like having your cake, and eating it too. Nope. Fuck that. It’s more like getting a Willy Wonka-style tour of the factory where they make the cake, complete with free samples and a goody bag to take home with you…
See you next week,
- The Secret Hotwife
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