Trying to Follow DB & DR

[Miman2]

Yup still here. Just needed to try and digest everything that's been posted and find a time to get to respond. I'll try to do without all the quoting, people trying to catch up on the sitch will just have to forgive me.

Thank you, 25yearsmlc, for your input. No offense taken.

I'll put up some ****** for people who'd rather skip the swinging talk.

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Don't know how much I should get into it but...

I do agree with you 25yearsmlc, when I first brought it up to her she said it broke her heart. Why would I want to be with anyone else. I don't have a good answer other than I thought it would help our sex life because she didn't have any fantasies. We talked about it for a long time, she kept saying she couldn't picture herself even touching another guy. Then one time while I was out of town for another conference she went out with some friends of hers from school and she wound up dancing with some guy all night. She said they didn't have sex, but in her mind she said she had wanted to. That's when she decided we could try out the lifestyle.

When we our first swing club I didn't pressure the W. We didn't have a whole lot going on between us and other people. In fact our first visit some guy tried chatting us up and he was telling us that we "HAD to do SOMETHING" because it was our first visit. Totally turned her off and she hated that creep from then on. We found though that we liked the other people who did talk to us and found them in our fantasies after that, and the sex became amazing. The W did eventually find a single male she liked and thought she wanted to try being with him. I didn't much care for him (skeezy, dirty, and thuggish) and kept having to remind her we were supposed to be doing this together and that we needed to find a couple.

Turns out she couldn't get him out of her head, one weekend I was out of town for a conference and she went to the club we would visit and "got together" with the guy. After she told me it was a huge turn on and when I got back we went at it like rabbits. After that we turned to looking for couples.

The truth of the lifestyle is the women have all the power. It's ultimately up to them on whether or not anything happens between couples. Usually the guys can only really "suggest" people and see how their W's respond. After a couple of years of going to parties/clubs my W started saying to me to just find someone I was interested in and she didn't care who the guy was. I never did that and we certainly didn't do anything with anyone during that time.
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As far as change I know its definitely a change from what I had been
doing. I could just "give up" and continue to live mostly like I had
been before. Instead of cooking for myself and cleaning up the house and
after myself I could just be hitting up fast food and minimizing any
effort I'd have to put forth around the house, but I'm not.

Does eating fast food and not cleaning up after yourself sound like an
adult life style or one that appeals to you, really? B/c if it does,
then where is the "authentic change" you speak of? I'm being sincere.

I was trying to say that I was changing because instead of hitting up fast food and not bothering with maintain the house (like someone in a depressed state might, or kinda similar to how I was before) I am behaving like a responsible adult. As far as I can tell at least. :P

I am changing how I've been doing things around the house. I am trying
to keep things neat, organized, and clean. It started by maintaining a
set schedule but now I'm letting that schedule relax a bit and trying to
keep things going as they crop up.

How do you feel about these^^^ actions? Are they who you aspire to be,
or are they tactics to help you feign improvement?

My IC had recently asked who I had hoped to become when I mentioned that I was using this time to become more like the guy I was before my W was ever in the picture. At the time I was 19, a junior in college, had been out of the house and on my own for 3 years. Although I had to move back in with the parents for schooling and financial reasons I was largely independent. I had my own social life and took care of things both in my schooling and home life. I was lonely though, I never really dated. There were girls that I might have gone out with once or twice but nothing seriously long term. No one seemed to be a great match. When I found the W we meshed so well I guess I kind of turned her in to my life, because I was happy to not be so lonely anymore. I think she did the same.

This time to grow is nice because I do have the opportunity to become the independent person I once was, but the loneliness has set in again. Going out with others is nice because it does allow me to meet new people and make new friends, but then when the night ends I have to go back to the cats... it just reminds me of how lonely I once was, how lonely I am, and how I never want to be that lonely again.

I have my moments where I'm content to be alone with myself but it quickly fades. I keep telling myself I'll be okay with or without her and when I've been talking to the new people I've been meeting it genuinely feels that way. But in the quiet moments in-between, when the loneliness sets in... I know I'll be okay with or without her. I know in my head that one day I'll have happiness again. But in those moments...I think there was an episode of House where he said something along the lines of "I'm fine, I'm just not happy." and that's exactly where I feel I am.

I guess I had asked about the authentic interactions because I just want to see her again.

We don't even need to talk about the future or the past. I just want to hear her voice, not in anger but in just calm tones talking about whatever.

I tell myself that's about as an authentic interaction I can get right now, but I worry it's too clingy and will be a turn off to her. Too much of the old me. When we first got together we told each other how much we meant to each other. She even went so far as to say that if I ever left her or died before her she couldn't see her self as wanting to continue on living. I never said anything along those lines, but we professed how we would each be nothing without the other person in our life (codependent much?).

Which means to me that at this point meeting with her probably is not a good idea. Because even though I authentically just want to see her just to see her, without invoking any strategy to "winning" her back, seeing her would just be sating a deep seeded need to feel whole and complete again in her presence...