Well most of us are fascinated by it, so why the mystery, why the secrecy, why the ‘oh my god… you never guess what I heard about Jenny…’
Jenny is a 45 year old woman. She has a perfectly lovely ‘normal’ life with her husband Dean, 46. They like to potter in their garden together on a Sunday, in the week Dean works in an uneventful office, he wears a suit and manages a small team of colleagues. Jenny is a florist, she spends most of her time in her wellies and Joules body-warmer, because it’s kept cold in the shop to keep the flowers fresh. Jenny’s elderly mother comes to visit every other Friday afternoon, and often takes their two teenage kids, a son and daughter, to spend the weekend after school. On these particular weekends, Jenny and Dean start to message. ‘I’m off out tonight with the boys for a few drinks’, types Dean, Jenny follows it up with ‘well I’m off to Caroline’s, so I’ll catch up with you once we are home.’
Standing behind the bar at the swinging club my father-in-law and husband owned and ran, Jenny and Dean come in separately. Jenny first, glowing in a little black dress, her eyes sparkling, paying at reception and taking a seat behind the bar at the far end, ‘I’ll have a lime and soda please, to start,’ she says with a slightly nervous laugh. Ten minutes later, Dean enters and takes his seat at the opposite end of the bar, dressed casually with the trace of a smirk across his lips. He orders a Jack Daniels on ice, and the game begins.
It’s hard not to watch these little games unfold, serving drinks to other customers but keeping half an eye on the flirty looks being passed back and forth across the bar. Dean beckons me over, he smiles and asks if I wouldn’t mind asking the lovely lady at the end of the bar if she would like a drink. I nod, ‘It would be my pleasure.’ I explain to Jenny that the gentleman would like to buy her a drink, she shoots him a look and orders a Prosecco, and as I serve it to her she asks me if I would be so kind as to invite the gentleman down so she can thank him in person.
As the bar grows busier around them, Jenny and Dean only have eyes for each other. They flirt, and drink and you can feel the chemistry between them, it’s electrifying. At some point they slip away, I dont see them go. Two hours later, a dishevelled Jenny approaches the bar. By this point the crowds have dispersed to the play rooms and it‘s quieter, apart from the odd shriek of delight coming from somewhere within the club. ‘Two cokes please,’ she asks smiling. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair damp, a towel tied tightly around her. ‘Thanks for earlier,’ she says, showing me her tab. ‘It’s no problem, it’s fun to be a part of it,’ I say. I mean it, it really is. These are the times that I am glad places like this exist.
Jenny and Dean are regulars. They attend mostly every other Saturday. They only come for each other, they don’t look for other play mates. I had the conversation with them once on their way out, as they paid their tab, Dean asked me if I knew they were married. ‘Well, I guessed.’ I lied. I knew of course, apart from the glaringly obvious connection they had, I also did the memberships, so I knew they had the same surname. Hand in hand Jenny and Dean left the club, a spring in their step, a glint in their eye.
Jenny and Dean are fictional, but they are based on very real people. Couples who have kids, families, and want to indulge in the intimate moments they had back when they were young too. The excitement of meeting for the first time, being able to have uninhibited sex without the worry of being overheard, or disturbed. I have seen many people like Jenny and Dean. They enter with all the weight of the weeks ups and downs, ships passing in the night, late nights and early mornings, school runs, work schedules, Netflix series encroaching on bedtimes getting later and later…. and then the weekend comes. They can’t afford a hotel for the night, they need to be back home for the morning to feed the dog and for the mother in law to drop the kids home, so they go to their local sex club. There they can be whoever they want to be, indulge in their fantasies with no one to judge. Jenny and Dean can leave ‘mum and dad’ behind and be themselves for a few hours, and re-connect with each other.
These are the success stories. Jenny and Dean’s are in fact very few and far between, and in my blogs going forward I will be talking about the positive stories because there are many, however I am mainly here to talk about when it goes wrong. When Jenny and Dean allow their boundaries to move further and further from where they began, when communication begins to fail, and non- monogamy becomes a part of their relationship. When Dean meets another woman and they begin to discuss polygamy, he will always be in love with Jenny, but Melissa brings out sides of his personality he has never explored with Jenny. Jenny feels an overwhelming sense of desire and jealousy, she likes the idea of Dean being able to explore other parts of himself, but she can’t control the feelings this brings. Soon Jenny and Dean are stuck, in an unending cycle of resentment and misunderstanding, no longer able to communicate, no longer connected.
I want to talk about all the issues that can (that’s not to say they will-as I mentioned above, there are many many cases where non-monogamy works) arise, and talk about how they could have been dealt with in the early stages, to save the cracks appearing. As a counsellor specialising in alternative relationships, the majority of my clients come to me with issues that centre around non-monogamy. I will explore the ways non-monogamy can test even the most secure amoung us. And when it does go wrong, in what ways? And can it be fixed.
Is the fantasy really as good as the reality?