How to “come out” to friends and family about your nonmonogamous or swinger lifestyle?
Good evening Fam,
Everyone wants to avoid judgment, but every one of us has also participated in being judgemental. At Feeling Seen, we are creating a community. That means, we are here to learn from one another, draw on the experiences of others, and connect to lives that are not our own. This is how we release ourselves from judgment and instead expand into compassion.
So, this week, we ask the entire Fam to check their judgment at the door and stay open to learning from the experiences of others–whether or not we would choose these experiences for ourselves.
Dear Mike,
My spouse and I are swingers and have been for many years, but we haven't told our families or even some of our close friends. Should we? It feels like an important part of who we are but I'm not sure people will understand it.
Sincerely,
To Tell Or Not To Tell
For this complex topic, we engaged Feeling Seen Friend, nurse, counselor, and hypnotherapist Kathy Labriola who created the renowned “Platform Release Strategy” for intimate disclosures. This approach, which you can read about in the below blog post, teaches you how to “come out” as swingers to the people in your life who you believe are most likely to be accepting.
Important crossover fact: This strategy was first used successfully by LGBTQ people in the 1980s during dangerously homophobic eras to make “coming out” safer.
Here's what Kathy Labriola had to say about telling your family and friends about your relationship dynamic:
This is a question everyone in consensually non-monogamous relationships faces, including swingers: to “come out of the closet” about your lifestyle, or not? Any individual or couple who lives an alternative lifestyle that is different from the traditional marriage model must decide how much, if anything, to tell friends, family members, and co-workers about their private lives. There is a price to pay for coming out about your unusual relationship and lifestyle, but there is also a price to pay for staying in the closet, and you will have to choose which price you would prefer to pay. If you decide to tell family members and friends that you and your spouse have sexual relationships outside your marriage, they may respond with shock, judgement, disapproval, and even disgust. Disclosure may strain or even jeopardize your relationships with some of the people who are the most important to you. You may even lose one or more precious relationships with family members, friends, or colleagues who cannot accept your open relationship and lifestyle.
Some people feel that their swinging lifestyle is none of anyone else’s business, and prefer to keep this aspect of their lives private. Swinging is usually more “compartmentalized” than some other forms of polyamory, as it generally takes place at parties or in private homes, and the people you have sexual relationships with do not live with you, so those relationships are not likely to be visible or obvious to anyone else in your life. Many swingers become close friends with other couples that they have sexual relationships with, but it is usually fairly easy to present this publicly as a platonic friendship between two couples. So these friendships can easily thrive and be visible in public, and even openly with family members and other friends, but no one will catch on that behind closed doors, nonmonogamous sexual relationships are occurring.
If you choose to disclose any information about your non-traditional life and relationships, you risk being ostracized by friends and estranged from one or more family members. If there is any overlap between your family, friends, and your job or profession, this could make you vulnerable to potentially losing your job or not advancing in your career. In some cases of parents with minor children, it has caused other family members to take legal actions to try to take custody of the children. This is especially a concern if you have a vindictive ex-spouse or co-parent who may file for custody after a bitter divorce or child custody battle, claiming that your "deviant lifestyle" makes you an unfit parent. This is very rare, but is important to consider as a possibility in your decision about how much to disclose to others about your relationship.
However, if you choose to keep your swinging lifestyle private, you may feel like you are repressing part of who you are, or presenting a public face which does not really represent your full self. Some swingers and polyamorists have said that they "feel like an impostor" or that they are "living a lie," because all their friends, family members, and colleagues see them as a traditional married couple living a very conventional life, and have no idea that they have sexual relationships with many other people outside their marriage.
You may find it helpful to talk with other people you have met through the swinging lifestyle before making any decisions about coming out of your “swingers’ closet.” Ask other swingers how they have managed this issue of disclosure, whether they have told people about their lifestyle, and what, if any, negative consequences they have experienced if they have come out to friends, family members, or co-workers. Do they feel that it has been worth it, and that the feelings of freedom and of feeling that they are living a more honest and authentic life has been important to them, or do they regret telling people about their unconventional relationships? Is there anything they wish they had done differently? Ask their advice on how, and how much, to disclose, and to whom. Some swingers and polyamorists have in retrospect felt it was a mistake to come out to even one or two family members. This is partly because in the age of the Internet and social media, the news they may have shared with one trusted family member may have spread far and wide to distant relatives who have sent harsh criticisms by email or text, or even "outed them" to their boss or ex-spouse. Another swinger told one co-worker about her lifestyle, who told other co-workers. Word eventually reached her supervisor, who called her into a disciplinary meeting and accused her of sexual harassment and of creating a hostile work environment, because she had talked about her sex life with one co-worker in the office.
If you do decide to take any steps to disclose your swinging lifestyle, consider using the “platform release” strategy that was used successfully by LGBTQ people during dangerously homophobic eras in the past, as a way to make coming out safer. This approach may allow you to slowly “come out” as swingers to the people in your life who you believe are most likely to be accepting, and whom you believe you can trust to keep this information private, until and unless you decide to disclose this to others. I originally named this “the platform release strategy” in the 1980’s, because this is the term movie studios use to describe how they release movies that they believe may not do well at the box office. To minimize any losses, they initially only release the film on a small “platform,” only showing it in a few theaters in a few big cities. If it does well, they then release it on a larger platform of theaters in many other large cities, and if it sells enough tickets in those markets, they release the film all over the country.
For gay people, the first step in the “platform release” strategy was to choose one friend or family member whom they believed was most likely to be gay-accepting. Then, they would begin by dropping hints to that person, such as dressing or walking or talking “more gay,” or talking about movies or books with gay themes or displaying gay “paraphernalia” such as photos of a lover, tasteful LGBTQ-themed art on the walls, or other gay-coded symbols in their home. After employing these steps, if they did not trigger a hostile response, then they would “test the water” by mentioning that they have a gay friend, and see how they react to that. If that goes well, and they don’t get an overtly homophobic response, they might feel safe directly coming out to them.
Swingers and polyamorous people have successfully used this same strategy to test the safety of coming out to the important people in their lives about their unconventional relationships. For instance, they may start by mentioning to a trusted family member or a close friend that they read an article on the Internet about couples who go to swingers’ parties. If they do not recoil in horror and seem to respond in a positive or at least neutral way, they may want to add that they know a couple who revealed that they “swing” and have sex with other couples. If this does not provoke a hostile reaction, they may want to ask them how they feel about couples being nonmonogamous, and what they would think if friends of theirs disclosed such a relationship. If that turns out to be a calm and civilized conversation, the next time they see this family member and can have a private conversation, they may consider telling them that they are considering becoming swingers. This may feel safer than telling them that they are already involved in this lifestyle. This way, they still have “plausible deniability” if they react badly, and can tell them they have thought about it, but have decided not to act on it. But if they respond favorably, they may feel comfortable sharing that, in fact, they have already started going to swing parties. If this family member or friend has a positive or at least neutral response, they will ask them to please keep this information private until they decide if there is anyone else who they might feel would be safe to tell.
If you decide to employ this “platform release strategy,” it is wise to pause at each stage of disclosure to gauge the reaction of the person, and often is best done in a series of conversations over time, to make sure that they do not come back later and express a lot of judgement and hostility to the idea of “swinging.” This way, you can minimize your risk, by stopping at each point in the process, and not reveal anything more. For instance, if after disclosing that you have friends who are swingers, your friend or family member calls you and says that they have thought about what you told them, and that they feel your friends are disgusting perverts who should be arrested, then you will know that you should not disclose anything to them about your own involvement in this lifestyle. On the other hand, if the next time you see them, they say they have read more about swinging on the Internet, and can see that this could be a healthy lifestyle, you may feel safe in telling them that you and your spouse are considering engaging in swinging.
Each couple has a unique set of circumstances, and there is no “one size fits all” answer. Don’t allow yourselves to feel pressured by what others tell you about whether you “should” come out to others. Only you can look carefully at the “cost-benefit” ratio and see both the risks and advantages that are specific to your own complex life situation. This way you can see more clearly what you may lose by coming out, and what you may gain, and decide if you feel comfortable disclosing your lifestyle to some of the important people in your life.
About the author:
Kathy Labriola is a nurse, counselor, and hypnotherapist in Berkeley, California. She has provided affordable mental health services to alternative communities for the past 30 years. Kathy is author of four books on consensual nonmonogamy: Love in Abundance: A Counselor's Advice on Open Relationships, The Jealousy Workbook, The Polyamory Break-up Book: Causes, Survival, and Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships. She has been a card-carrying bisexual and polyamorist for 50 years. She is extra crunchy, rides a bike, lives in a housing cooperative, grows organic vegetables and raises chickens.
Kathy can be reached at (510)841-5307 or at anarchofeminist@yahoo.com. Her website is: http://www.kathylabriola.com.
