When I took my vows on my wedding day I thought I was finally done with dating, done with boyfriend woes, and that I certainly would be done with break ups. Boy was I wrong! Here I am, 2 years into an open relationship (after 18 years of monogamy) and I am grieving the loss of a love and it’s not my husband. What the fuck!?

This man was officially my first love outside of my marriage. And it happened in the beginning, during a time we were only identifying ourselves as “swingers” which meant to us that we were not open to falling in love and we were not open to separate relationships. Poly?! No way!

So this man and I developed a wonderful flirty, spiritual, sexy, deeply intimate friendship. Then about a year into it realized I had fallen for him. Oh shit! What does this mean? I panicked for a little while until I could see that my love for him co-existed with my hubby love and, in fact, they enhanced each other. I shared my feelings with my hubby and we navigated things as they developed s l o w l y. Including the first solo dates, the first kiss (without him there), and first lover’s quarrels.

All the while we were having fun swinging with other couples and singles. Most recently, after our trip to Desire in November, we decided to fully embrace separate dating and relationships and my hubby met a great gal within days of this decision. The best part is that he is now more available to support me in my relationship because he sees the other side of things. Since he is my best friend, that’s extremely helpful!

And this brings me to the title of this post…now we get to navigate the first break up. Boy does this suck. My dear friend, and fellow Swingset blogger Wetcoast Kat, wisely suggested I make sure I take time to grieve. And I spat back, “But how do you do that and be a loving wife and mother!?” And of course she is right. So tonight we are going to meet a new couple we connected with on Kasadie and Life On The Swingset goes on. In the mean time my heart hurts and I need to honor that too.

Hubby has more capacity and compassion to hold my hand through this now that he is navigating his own dating challenges, but I still feel like I can’t share it all with him ALL the time. I suppose there is a balance that I will figure out. And thank goodness for my network of Swingset friends we met at Desire! It feels like just in the nick of time for this next evolution of our open relationship journey.