Green-Eyed Monster
This rule got broken at a house party we attended this summer. There were six of us in a hot tub and one of the ladies and I were doing some outrageous underwater flirting with our feet. Later in the evening we bumped into each other, and the sexual attraction between us must have been apparent. She and I were doing some salacious rubbing, and I looked over at my wife with a questioning look - she nodded her ok and said go for it if you want to. Although this lady's boyfriend was not in the room at that point, I hoped that my wife would strike up a conversation with someone and maybe get something started for herself so I wouldn't feel quite so guilty about being the one to break our rule.
An hour later the lady and I returned from one of the bedrooms to rejoin the rest of the group in the living room. Now after living with someone for awhile you can look at the person's face and, at least to a degree, read their feelings. Already feeling a little guilty because we had relaxed our same-room rule and my wife had just spent an hour waiting for me alone, I could tell that something was amiss. Needless to say there was a lot of discussion on the way home. She told me how frustrated she had been waiting for me, how all kinds of things went through her mind about what the gal must be doing for me, and how those thoughts drove her nuts... but that she recognized the fact that she had given me her "ok" to go off in the first place. I could see she was hurt, and I thought I understood what she was feeling, but in my own mind I really didn't feel that it was such a major crisis. In fact, I was thinking it might open up some new opportunities for us - separate-room swinging was ok, as far as I could tell, if we could get past the jealousy.
Now here we are at another party and we're chatting with a nice couple, and the lady tells us that they never swing in the same room because she gets jealous watching her husband with another woman. A few minutes later, when she catches me alone, this same lady tells me that she would like to get together with me. I stammer a little (I'm not used to women telling me that!) and tell her we'll see how it goes... then I hurry over and tell my wife what has happened. I ask her if she is interested in this lady's husband, and she says she could be... but reminds me that they party in separate rooms. As the evening goes on we talk to them a little more... and eventually we agree to party with them separately. The lady and I go next door to the "party room" adjoining the hospitality suite, while her husband and my wife take the key to our room. After a while we come back to the hospitality suite... the other two are not back yet so I settle in to wait... eat some chips, drink some pop... chat with the few remaining people in the room... eat some more chips... proud of myself for handling this "sitting alone" thing so well... eat some more chips... and little by little a funny feeling begins to creep over me - jeez this is taking a long time... he must be pretty damn good to be taking this long... I'll just eat some more damn chips... what do you suppose he's doing to her that takes this long? Damn she must be having a lot of fun... well after about an hour the chips are gone and I'm not hungry anymore anyway... finally, FINALLY my wife strolls back into the room... and needless to say there is much discussion on the way home.
I think what we discovered from these two particular incidents is that our "same room rule" was really a good one - part of what makes swinging sexy for us is the notion that we are sharing a new experience. We want to watch each other, and be there with and for each other, and you can't do that when you're in separate rooms. This jealousy takes a couple of different forms: the lady in the second situation above gets jealous when she watches her husband flirting with other women, and certainly doesn't want to watch him make love to someone else... but for us, *we* get jealous knowing that the other person is off alone with someone else. All of the discussions we've been through as a result of these incidents have simply reaffirmed that partying in the same room (or at least within shouting distance)the first time we meet a new couple creates the best experience for us.
