It’s funny.

You never quite expect how close you’re going to get to people. And you really don’t think at the beginning when you’re meeting someone for the first time that in the future, way out there somewhere, you’ll love her. Both of you. The way you loved girlfriends in the past, close to the way you love each other.

People’s fears always seems to be “What if my partner falls in love with someone else? What would I do then?” I know it was a concern for us way back then. In the beginning. When we were young and nervous and new and everything seemed big, the world was different. Had changed.
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Changed with a decision, in fact. But in practice it changed with a kiss.

‘Cuz it was she who made us confident. She who made us comfortable. She who walked in effortlessly, her curls bouncing around her smiling face and assured us, without saying a word that it was going to be okay. That yes, we were on a date, a swinger date, with a couple we’d never met, but somehow we could relax. We could be ourselves.

We could rediscover who “ourselves” were.

Details are beside the point, suffice to say she introduced us to the world. With a man we’d sooner forget, but one who disappears from our memory often thinking on her. So much so that, despite the issues and conflict with him that would follow, there was always her, there, a possibility that we’d never considered.

A possibility we never thought we’d love.

Because they say you shouldn’t love as a swinger. That it’s the purview of the poly folk. Because we’re just here for the fucking, right?

Right?

Anyone?

Yeah, we all know that’s bullshit. Because while you worry about the “what if?” that postulates the nightmare swinger scenario of your spouse or partner falling in love with someone else, falling in love and leaving you, falling in love and leaving you alone…as you worry about that one, that one that I’d imagine is far rarer than all the worriers believe, you don’t really worry about what would happen if you both fell in love.

And time can do such interesting things, can’t it. For resolve, for interests, for relationships. Time and time and time. And suddenly you find yourself having the discussion with your spouse, that strange discussion that in its first tiptoes wonders what it might be like for the three of you to be…a couple? Is that the only way we know how to define this? The only way that it’ll make sense to us.

We three.

But, alas.

So is that why it hurts more? Because it was nebulous? It never really set up…stayed an almost, an apparition. On the edge of reality, on the edge of happening. So close, yet oh so very far.

Is it better then, somehow? That we didn’t have it fully, that we didn’t engage, become the triad, become a unit. With questions of what we would say at Thanksgiving if we brought her home to the families, is it better that we never left the launchpad?

Perhaps.

We knew that poly relationships, these triads, seem to have distinct shelf lives. That the primary may stay constant, but those in secondary positions sometimes drift in and out. Or is that even the case? I really have no idea. Just that there was this girl, and she made us happy, she enriched our lives for good, whether she remains in them or not.

The events of late steal nothing from those that came before. The moments after that first kiss, through the two and a half years we explored this crazy idea in various capacities, sometimes not seeing her at all, other times when she was sad, other times when we were, times when we were happy, times that were sexy. These are all still with us, not diminished in the least.

Shining brighter, as indicators of happiness and love.

Love that we never expected. But love that we’ll never regret. She brought more love into our lives, and into our marriage. And for that we thank her, and wish her luck, and hope the best possible world for her in the future.

A Bit About Cooper:
The original article may be found at http://www.lifeontheswingset.com/6730/falling-in-love-accidental-polyamory/

Cooper Beckett’s life isn’t like other people’s. When he’s not writing or podcasting at Life on the Swingset, he’s living it up with his wife Marilyn as evangelical swingers, spreading the good word that “sharing is caring.” He truly believes that a good many people would be open to exploring the fringe of human sexuality, knocking down the borders between orientations, and experiencing the most basic of human rights: great sex, if only they were told it’s okay to do so. He has resolved to change the world, even if it’s only one couple at a time. Be his friend on Facebook – Follow him on Twitter
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