Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are I hope you have blue skies and let’s talk about a deep topic today. Welcome to That Other Lifestyle podcast. I am your host Jayson, leave Vanilla behind as we dive into the Lifestyle.
We need to talk about the most important aspect of the Lifestyle today. It ain’t testing or protection or safety or consent though all of those are super important. Today we will be talking about maintaining your marriage in the Lifestyle.
New to the Lifestyle? Stumbled onto the show and wondering what the next step is? Go to my website, thatotherlifestyle.com and you can sign up for a trial account of SDC.
Courses. Why courses? Given my show’s subject matter, I have no chance in hell of getting monetized. Ever watched a YouTube video or listen to a podcast and you get an ad dropped in randomly? That is monetization via dynamic ad insertion. The platform provides the commercials, and the creator gets a cut. Since I talk about sex and Ethical Non-monogamy, yeah I probably won’t ever get a cut of that sweet easy money. Now if I had a podcast that described gory crimes in graphic detail, they would throw money at it. But I don’t. I talk about sex. Long explanation for why I do courses.
I have the single men’s guide to the lifestyle course available now. Next month I will be launching the Men’s guide to flirting in the Lifestyle. This course will help all the men out there who forgot how to flirt, need help flirting and most importantly, how to tell if a woman is flirting with you.
Last item to tell everyone about. National Lifestyle Weekend, set for July 19-21, 2025, keeps on growing. Over 11,000 people have RSVPed for this epic three day party, topless pools and after parties all over town. Tickets are on sale now. There is a link on my website to purchase tickets.
Please note this podcast is intended only for adults. Not safe for work. We will talk about adult or sexual topics, and I will use salty language, often. This content is for entertainment purposes only and again only for those over 18 years of age.
I also try to be as inclusive with my language and terms as I can. It can be challenging to formulate and write and say all the inclusive terms in every instance. For simplicity's sake and time management, I may use terms like husband or wife or partner, or spouse for the purpose of the narrative I am sharing. This podcast is for everyone though, no matter your background, gender identity, gender expression, or whatever truth you may be living. Everyone is welcome no matter how you personally experience the lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy.
A question to start us off. What do you do in the Lifestyle to maintain your marriage with your partner? Assuming you are already married or in a long term relationship as participants in the LS, what do you do every day to ensure that your partner knows they are your emotional and romantic epicenter?
What have you done this week, this day, this hour to let your spouse know how much they mean to you? How they are more important than everything else in the LS? How do you connect with your spouse on that deep meaningful level? What have you done to show and express to your spouse that they fulfill all three intimacies for you and to you?
I have talked about different kinds of intimacies before, physical, emotional, romantic.
Physical intimacy is connecting physically. That one is easy. Beyond sex, it encompasses hugs and kisses and holding hands all the time. Emotional intimacy is friendship and vulnerability. You can be friends with another person and vulnerable with them, but your spouse should be your best friend and the person you can be the most open to. Romantic intimacy is love. Either that giddy new love where you want to spend every minute with them or the love you feel for seeing them come home from work for the ten thousandth time at the end of the day and you still smile. Super simple explanation but Ya’ll gets the point.
For people in the LS, we have physical intimacy with other people but draw the line at emotional or romantic intimacy, which is different than the polyamory world. I guess this advice also applies to polyamory people too.
If you aren’t married stick around this is still important to everyone in and outside the LS. Don’t get it twisted, I ain’t just talking to married people. This can and does include those in long term relationships, even those who don’t have a ring on their finger to formalize the union. Still valid and welcome in this discussion. Really it is about maintaining your relationship with your partner in the world of the Lifestyle.
In the lifestyle, your relationship with your partner is the most important thing, element, aspect of all this. Full stop. You must maintain and nurture that connection above all. It ain’t the sex, it ain’t the dating or texting or parties or whatever else the LS throws at you. Staying grounded together. That’s it. Figuring out how to communicate, connect and maintain that connection, focus on that. Especially after a sexual encounter with another couple.
The connection we need in the Lifestyle is different than vanilla marriages. We need to be fully connected with our spouse so that when we do shag another couple, we know that connection is still there, and they support what we are doing. I know deep thought stated very poorly here.
In the vanilla world, if a person has sex with someone else, it is considered cheating. I respect it. In the Lifestyle, for us, it’s a Tuesday. Regular old Tuesday night. In the vanilla world, sex is considered one of the pinnacles of connection, a physical commitment reserved for only one person. For us in the Lifestyle, physical intimacy does not factor into the connection equation in the same way. Yes physical intimacy is important, but we have a different viewpoint.
We can be physically intimate with other people and not threaten our marriage. People may bristle and cringe at me associating physical intimacy with the act of sex with others. They think, well it is not that big of a deal. It is though. To be physically intimate with another person is one of the ultimate vulnerabilities in life. To be naked with another person takes courage and a willingness to share the aspect of ourselves we normally hide under clothes. To be touched by another person should require a level of trust, it should need a level of connection. Albeit tentative or brief. You are still connecting with another person, literally.
We are secure in our connection with our spouse in a different way than a vanilla marriage. No it does not make sense to vanilla people.
Let me share one of the differences I see between vanilla and Lifestyle marriages. Broad generalizations here, don’t get offended if you think you are one of those special few this does not apply to.
There is a particular kind of humor I cannot stand. Be it a standup comedian, memes, sitcoms whatever the format, where a married couple straight up insults each other. Maybe the husband is portrayed as a bumbling buffoon, or the wife is portrayed as ditzy and only the husband can save her from hilarious situations. The husband, picking on men here, might be shown to be terrible at caring for children. Or the wife drives around for weeks with the check engine light on because she didn’t think it was important, thereby implying a lack of mechanical intelligence.
Maybe it is a meme where one person is having a conversation with another person and dropping straight fire insults on their partner. I don’t like it.
Don’t insult your spouse. They are supposed to be the love of your life, treat them like it. But Jayson is all in good fun. Okay yeah but that good fun after years and years of that bullshit turns toxic. It becomes the default brain setting in a married couple. Instead of seeing each other as the amazing humans you were when you met, the toxic mindset corrodes that once golden statue into a tarnished lump of copper and slag.
Every time you see them, instead of seeing them as a being you love and worthy of love, you see resentment and disappointment. Damn it I am being depressing today.
Dropping a truth bomb right about here. In the LS, in all the interactions I have had with men, and it’s a bunch here, only one time has a man ever insulted his wife and maybe this dude thought it was just good natured fun and every person in the room didn’t like it. We as men in the LS do not insult our wives in any way. We treat them as goddesses. Every single man I know and associate with does, and I don’t associate with men who don’t treat their wives like goddesses.
In the vanilla world, you get five guys together and there is this silent signal where they will start bitching about their wives. Not all the time but yeah it happens, and you know it happens. Same thing with women. Get a bunch of wives together and they will all start bitching about their husbands. Are they all collectively really that unhappy? Maybe not. Maybe it is just a societal expectation to engage in this behavior.
The LS though is a whole different society. Newbies out there. Insults, good natured picking, yeah don’t fucking do that. Your spouse will be your greatest wing person, cheerleader, confidant and emotional rock. Treat them with respect and kindness.
Why does this happen in the vanilla world? One of my personal theories, a piece of this is the erosion of the act of maintaining a marriage. Life gets in the way and without a relief valve of some sort, that external pressure weighs on a marriage. Demands from your job, kids, money, time, taxes, health. All that corrodes this once beautiful relationship until two people are just going through the motions.
I say relief valve. I am not advocating for anyone to join the LS as a way to fix their marriage or provide relief for unhappiness. The LS is not here for that. Pick up a mutual hobby like hang gliding or knitting before you ever think about getting in to the Lifestyle. Much less stressful and chaotic hobbies out there to try first.
Maintaining our marriages, either vanilla or LS, for the long term, because marriage, as unpopular as this sounds, I believe should be a life long commitment. Yeah life happens and may not work out that way. But we can try.
I know growing up I always heard the statistic that over half of all marriages end in divorce, this was late 90s-ish. Guess what that statistic is wrong. The divorce rate has dropped in the past 20 years. Woo Hoo good news.
In the LS we have to maintain our marriages a little differently. We have different factors and variables to contend with. Like physical intimacy from other couples. We willingly, better be willingly, open our marriages to new connections with people. Those new connections lead to new interactions that no one ever prepared us for.
We face different threats, maybe that word is too harsh, but it gets the point across. Physical intimacy is just a hop skip and a jump away from romantic intimacy. Some couples and people see a happy marriage in the LS, they can’t figure out how to make their own happy marriage, so they decide to attempt to take someone else’s. Maintaining our marital connection helps us deal with and navigate these external variables.
Sounds all fucking great Jayson, but what does it mean? Real concrete advice because that is why you tune in, the practical advice. Alright let’s talk about what you can do today, right now to strengthen that connection with your spouse.
First up flirting. Do you flirt with your spouse? Do you tell your husband he is sexy every day? Do you try to sneak peeks at your wife’s boobs every chance you get?
I know a couple, they have been together for 27 years, and still flirt like they are newlyweds. It is adorable and inspirational. The husband of this couple, he will profess often and loudly how lucky her is. For the wife, the way she looks at her husband will melt a glacier. And they flirt and giggle and you can see real love between them.
That expression of love, communicating their happiness, continuing to remind each other how attractive they find the other, desirable, wanted, needed. We need more of that in the world. Every marriage needs more of that. We need more outward expressions of love and less TikTok. We need more affirmations of love and less true crime podcasts. Fucking true crime podcasts.
And the simple first step is flirting. It is an oft overlooked aspect of marriage in general. People settle into routines, bodies age, we get tired, life wears on us. Do not stop flirting with your spouse. Make them feel special every day. As an offshoot of this, I offer the double up technique. Whatever you do with another person in the LS, due to your spouse double.
If you have sex with someone else, do your spouse double. Send a nude to another person, send your spouse two. Do you send nudes to each other? Like special super spicy nudes to each other? Do that. Send texts of love and affirmation all day long. Little actions that add up and help to maintain the marriage.
Communication. I talk about this all the time and still just as important. You will hear other thought leaders, podcasters, people in this space talk about this. The reason we talk about it so much is because it is so important. You have to, must have, need clear lines of communication to stay connected and maintain your marriage. No grunting, no pointing, use those words.
You have to be able to talk about what makes you uncomfortable, things you like or dislike, and your spouse or you have to be receptive to these conversations. If an issue with the LS or marriage in general comes up be receptive.
When you are married the two become one, you and your spouse are now one entity. You are no longer separate people but one married couple. Issues should no longer be you versus your spouse. Problems and arguments should be how can we, together overcome this issue. I know this is easier said than done. I get that.
Remember in the LS you are operating as a unit. You deal with issues, give consent and get naked as a unit. Whatever your particular rules are, rock on and have fun. Together. As a unit. The one thing that will destroy a unit in the LS is secrets.
You ever work in place where one person knows everything. They know where the extra copier paper is, or they know how to do a process no one else knows. Everyone goes to them for help because they just seem to know everything. Yeah fuck that guy. Let me tell you what they do. They are keeping secrets. Instead of cross training everyone, they hoard all the knowledge to themselves. Like demented goblins, because in their mind they are now valuable to the company and unfire-able, not a word Jayson, because they know everything. They are keeping secrets. No one likes that guy. Same with a marriage.
Don’t keep secrets from your spouse. Good rule for this, all texts and communication are open. Either a four way chat with another couple or if you have side chats, the other spouse can look at the chats at anytime they want. Remember you are operating as a unit and secrets creep in when you don’t. Secrets destroy marriages. Secrets breed resentment or open the door to let in cracks.
Here is a crazy idea. Go to marriage counseling. Yall can go to counseling even if you have a great marriage. Think of it like a tune up. Learn new communication techniques, work through any hidden resentment or lingering issue. Do not be afraid of getting help especially mental health help. It does not mean your marriage is in trouble
All too often couples will wait until it is way too late to seek out professional help. Do not wait until it is too late for your marriage. I know older generations think that getting any kind of mental health help as a weakness or a deficiency. It is not. Not the fuck all. Going to marriage counseling is a sign of strength. It is two people saying together, we need help, or we want help or maybe we just need to work on communicating.
That is a sign of strength. That is a sign of commitment. That is a sign of a healthy marriage. The stereotype that only marriages on the rocks go to counseling needs to stop.
Granted you may not need it. That’s fine. I just want to let people know there is no shame in seeking help. If you do decide to seek out help, look for a therapist that is certified in Ethical Non-monogamy or consensual non-monogamy. They exist. They are trained to speak our language and approach marriages in a ENM healthy manner.
Think about it. In the lifestyle, we may have sex with another couple. That’s not an issue at the fuck all. In a traditional vanilla marriage, straight to divorce town. We deal with different issues. Jealousy works differently and oddly the same in the lifestyle.
We may not get jealous if our spouse says another person is attractive. Not intimidated by that at all. We could get jealous if an interpersonal relationship with another couple crosses a line, like going into secret territory off to the side, just two people and not four people, which is when shit gets weird and bad. In the vanilla world, there are people who will go apeshit if their spouse gets a nude from someone, for us it is just another Thursday.
Jealousy is real and kicking in the lifestyle. Can’t deny that. What matters is how we deal with it. The way you deal with it is communicating. Yes it is uncomfortable to tell your husband that you feel a conversation with another woman makes you jealous or it crossed a line. But it needs to be done. You and your spouse have to break down feelings of jealousy, figure out the triggers, recalibrate your personal rules and move forward.
Another key to maintaining your marriage is protecting your castle. Protect your castle or marriage unit, castle sounds so much better in this instance, from the drama of others. Protect your castle from being dragged into the drama of others. Ya’ll, the Lifestyle can be messy. Drama. We are swapping partners which naturally leads to swapping drama. Best advice here is if you start slinging shit, eventually you get covered in shit.
You will encounter married couples that are full of drama. You will encounter couples that have no business doing this. Their marriage is rocky, they are trying to fix their marriage, can’t stand each other, don’t like each other, get jealous. Oh this list keeps going.
People with bad marriages in air quotes as in not good candidates for the LS, they tend to see themselves out the door quickly. I have been asked by vanilla friends about bad couples in the LS. Specifically what do you do if you encounter a batshit couple. Honestly they tend to disappear. At the first sign of batshit behavior, we bounce and cut off contact. We do not need that shit in our lives. And other couples will encounter that behavior and cut them off. Eventually the batshit couple either settles down or stop being in the LS.
Whatever issues they bring into the LS, get magnified ten times. Probably going to break their marriage which honestly ain’t my problem. Going back to not getting dragged into the drama of others. Ain’t my problem and I don’t want to be a part of it. Do not let the drama in other people’s marriages impact yours.
Here is a scenario that happens. This is an example and could just as easily flip around to the other gender. Two couples, the A couple and B couple, have a date and hit if off. Few days later Wife A starts texting Husband B on the side complaining about Husband A. Secret communications!
Then Husband A wants to go off alone with Wife B. And someone catches the feels. A solid marriage in the LS, ain’t no room for the feels to develop. We can be friends, but no one wants to replace their spouse with someone else.
The A couple in this example, they got problems. They have marriage problems. The A couple is looking to the B couple to fix their marriage problems and in the end try to break up a healthy marriage with their own drama when they really needed therapy.
See what I am saying? The drama of other couples, people can and will try to drag you and your spouse into it. Stay out of it. Stay the hell out of it. You are not here to fix anyone else’s marriage. Focus on your own marriage, keeping your spouse connected and happy.
Everyone needs to prioritize their own marriage. Either Vanilla or LS. Make time for each other. If you go on one date a week with another couple, make sure you go on a date with your spouse as well. My wife and I have date night. Usually Friday nights after work, we go to dinner, turn off the phones and just be together. Nothing grand. The best gift you can give someone is your time. You can make more money or buy more stuff but time. Time is the one resource we can never create more of and giving your time and attention, that’s important too, is the greatest act of love I can think of between two people.
How many times have you hung out with another person, and they are glued to their phones? Their attention is split between you, the real live person in front of them and the pixels on their phone? How did it make you feel? Kind of shitty right. Like this other person doesn’t care about the time and attention you are giving? Yeah. Don’t do that to people. Respect people enough to put down the phone and be present with them. Double so for your spouse. Show your spouse they are a priority for you in any moment by paying attention to them.
And another fucking thing. Check-ins. Make time to check in with your spouse. Blanket advice for everyone. Does not just have to be about the fuckery. Checking in with your spouse on how they are doing, mentally, physically and emotionally. We tend to think of doing check-ins leading up to or immediately after a fuckery encounter, but you can do them when you want, as often as you want. No rules bitches.
Broad guidelines for check-ins. On frequency, prior to sexy encounters, post sexy encounters, the day after a sexy encounter and at least weekly. Or whenever you want because you are an adult and can do what you want.
Did you know as an adult you can buy a birthday cake whenever you want? Does not have to be your birthday, they don’t check or card you. Go buy that cake. Check in with your spouse whenever you feel the need.
The best time to do a check-in in, usually not the end of the day, before dinner. Low blood sugar is a thing. There is a study I found and of course I can’t find it again, that most couples have fights between 3-6 in the afternoon. The researchers hypothesized it had something to do with low blood sugar and being hangry, that anger brought on by hunger.
Make time to check in when you are both relaxed, the day is done or at least everything is settled so you can spend 10 to 20 minutes talking with out interruptions. It needs to be a safe space and time so you both know that you will be heard and listened to too.
Damn it this sounds like so much work. It is. Prioritizing your marriage is work. Maintaining your marriage is work. It is worthy and good work though.
To our vanilla audience, I am now going to share a secret term we have in the lifestyle. I know Ya’ll are just here for the secrets. We don’t have secret symbols, stop asking. Are you ready? Here we go. Reclaim sex.
Often those of us in the lifestyle will get asked and rightfully so, what do you do after you play with another couple? Side tangent, that word play. I don’t like it. It is part of the vernacular of the lifestyle, as in we are playing with another couple. The sexual act we engage in with other people can and is called playing by some. I don’t like it. The term rubs me weird, and I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it trivializes the act in my mind, though in the mind of others, the act is so simplistic and natural and easy, playing seems like the appropriate term.
To say we engage in playing with another couple, maybe it is just a cute replacement for the real term, sex. We have sex with another couple. We fuck. We fuck like wild animals crashing through a forest. I guess it is safe neutral term. More of that coded language. I don’t like it, but I will use it.
Same thing with the term swinger. I don’t like the term. My lifestyle associates don’t like the term, but I will use it because you have to use terms that people know and meet them where they are. Lifestyle is a great alternative but most vanilla people know the term swinging so I will use it sparingly and in the context I feel is correct.
Back to what I was originally going to talk about, reclaim sex. So vanilla people will ask after we do the fuckery, what do you do? They want to know what action follows the encounter. I promise the answer is not as sexy as anyone assumes. Probably a shower. Then a snack. Then reclaim sex.
What is reclaim sex? Bunch of different definitions to this. Simple answer, the first sex you have with your partner after sharing them with another. Could happen immediately after, could happen the next day. Either way it is awesome on this primal level. Still horned up from the night, wanting one more release. Wanting that release with your partner. Oh it is glorious and fucking awesome.
Lifestyle people enjoy reclaiming sex for a lot of different reasons, none of them are the end all answer. Some people see it as reclaiming their spouse as theirs. I shared this amazing person with another, but they are still mine. Or it could be an intimate reconnection. Two people are coming back together to reunite in marriage and love. Other people enjoy the sensation of reconnecting. That reengagement of two bodies. The physical passion that follows a sexy adventure. Or as I mentioned, still horny. Need more sex.
Like so many aspects of the lifestyle, if you are standing on the outside and this sounds like a completely alien concept, it is. No amount of rambling is going to convince you that this is a good thing. If you have experienced it, you know what I am talking about.
If you are in that weird limbo of, hey we are in the lifestyle, but we have not swapped with another couple and are looking forward to reclaim sex, I can help with that.
Reclaim sex should be special between two people. You had fun with other people, now you are reconnecting on near spiritual level. Take it seriously and make it special. Hold each other, embrace, kiss. Think tenderness over brute force. Slow versus frantic. Eye contact over buttholes. The purpose is to reconnect. Think of it like honeymoon sex. Yes we get to relive honeymoon sex all the time and that is special.
There is no right way or wrong way or right time or wrong time to have reclaim sex. Walking through a hypothetical situation here. You and your spouse swap with another couple. Yall four go two or three rounds switching up. Then you go back to respective spouses and bang it out, have the reclaim sex together in the same room. Or you could wait until you are alone again, other couple has gone home, you and your spouse bang it out while y’all are still sweaty and sore and needing one more release for the night.
Or, you could wait until the next day after y’all are rested. Spend the whole day texting each other at work naughty recollections of the night before. Build the tension so when you get together again that night, after work, that sexual tension has been building for hours and boom fireworks. However you and your spouse decide to do it, that is up to you.
Talk it out. Figure out what you both like, timing, tension, when and where and how. Talk it out, express yourself and use your words. Share if you like immediately after or want to wait. Share if you want to have multiple rounds of reclaim sex.
I always appreciate hearing your feedback and comments on episodes or suggestions for topics, so feel free to reach out to me.
Single guys listen to me, you need my course. Go to thatotherlifestyle.com for more information.
My personal disclaimer, I am not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way. I am a guy with a microphone, sharing my personal experiences with you. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and please join us for the next episode.
Whatever you may do today, I hope it is a fantastic time doing it. Know that you are appreciated and loved. Have a great day.
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