The only subject of this discussion is sex. I understand that you have this itch that you feel you have to scratch. It sounds like an obsession and a problem with them is that the more they are denied, the worse the obsession becomes. But as others have said, if you did go down the threesome route, even with a willing partner, it’s impossible to predict the outcome.
I think channel 4 had a documentary about swingers a few years ago. If I remember correctly, it focussed on a number of couples who tried swinging, with different results. There were some where one partner wanted to try it, the other didn’t, but they went ahead anyway. There were others who were both into it and talked very enthusiastically about their experiences. What I found interesting was the summing up at the end of the programme. The enthusiastic couple had broken up. I can’t remember the exact details, but it was possible that one of them had become attached to one of their co-swingers, so had decided to leave their partner and then the subsequent partnership also fell apart. And some of the others were disillusioned with the swinging scene because it turned out to be a bad experience.
But we’ve only been discussing the sex and ignoring everything else. If you decide that you have to split up so you can go on your exploratory journey, what else will you be losing? Your established home? Can you afford to set up on your own? Maybe you’ll lose friends who side with one or the other of you? What I’m getting at is, are you willing to lose everything else about your current life just because you want to try a risky experiment, which might not live up to your expectations anyway.
I’ve also been thinking about your husband’s reaction to your suggestion. You said that he said it didn’t interest him. It’s possible that his feeling was much stronger than that, but he was cautious about what he actually said. He may have been absolutely horrified. Personally, I have a sort of moral code, a set of rules about how I behave, and one of them is that I would never engage in an affair, under any circumstances. I’ve been married for 51 years and there have been a couple of occasions when someone has clearly shown an interest in having an extra-marital relationship with me. I can’t say that I wasn’t flattered, but I didn’t think for a single moment that I could do that and remain married. That’s my personal set of values, but obviously not everyone’s is the same, or they wouldn’t be having affairs or getting divorced.
Finally, my wife and I used to go and spend weekends with a couple who had been our friends for years. They were quite a few years older than us and over time we got the impression that they may be swingers and had been to ‘wife swapping parties.’ They also had a huge porn magazine collection and when they moved house they didn’t want to take it with them, so donated it to us and we enjoyed reading them together in bed. They gave us a few ideas for things that we hadn’t tried before.
We still used to stay with them at weekends in their new house, and we’d stay up to the early horse, playing board games and listening to music. On one occasion I was very tired and went to bed on my own, the others staying up and drinking together. Some time later, I woke up and was aware that my wife still hadn’t come to bed. I went to the living room and discovered that our friends were in the process of trying to coerce my wife to engage in a threesome with them. She was quite drunk and seemed to be enjoying what they were doing to her.
I went ballistic. They all looked like naughty kids who’d been caught doing something that they shouldn’t. My anger brought my wife to her senses, she burst into tears and came back to our bedroom with me, drunkenly saying that she didn’t know what had possessed her to let them lead her into that situation. She kept on apologising and pleading with me to forgive her, but to me it had been the ultimate betrayal. We’d never discussed getting involved with their adventures and my wife had never said that swinging or swapping was something she’d like to try. We left early in the morning, before the others were up, and had no further contact with them.
Having sobered up by morning, my wife was mortified and still begging me to forgive her, but I was in no fit state to even discuss it. We drove home in silence and we never openly spoke about it again. She’d apologised, but I’ve never said I’ve forgiven her, even though I thought they’d taken advantage of her while she’d had too much to drink. Even in that state, I couldn’t believe that she thought that I’d be OK with it.
The atmosphere was cold for weeks but eventually we got back to some kind of normality. But even after all these years, I still don’t know whether she’d secretly had a fantasy about a threesome, but had never mentioned it to me. Up to that point we’d had a fairly adventurous sex life together, but afterwards, it was never the same. Perhaps there was always a doubt in my mind about what she really fantasised about that has never gone away.
A few years later, he libido disappeared, then she had a number of serious health problems, from which she recovered, but her libido never returned, so we’ve been in a sexless marriage for around 30 years. Apart from the lack of sex, we still now have a good relationship.
So be careful what you wish for, you might just get your wish and forever live with regret because of it.