I tried to read or glance through the post. I've been with my now wife for 17 years, married 15 and we're now in our 40's. I was pretty wild in my single life, but by age 35, my wife had only been with a few, mostly because she stayed with one man for so long. I had fantasy of others in my previous marriage and it came up a few times, but there we're too many trust issues and problems.
I slowly made others part of our lovemaking and even though it took some time, my wife grew into it and really enjoyed it. Sometimes I felt like I may have gotten carried away in some of our fantasy talk and fantasy sex with others and would ask her "doe's this bother her", wanting to be sure she has no problem with it and she clearly states she loves this aspect of our sex life.
Why we considered other actual people we never moved into that realm, just now slowly starting. Actually, we just met with a couple yesterday for lunch and we're all meeting tonight at my getaway cabin to cook out and see how it goes.
I do know both have to be 100% in love, complete trust with no jealousy issues, if I didn't feel I had that with her or her me, we would never venture into it. For us this is about us and fulfilling fantasy and taking OUR sex lives to a higher level.
See, due to our culture much stigma is placed on sex. My wife and I both grew up in fundy churches. It took me years, but why I still have beliefs I hate religion because it mostly controls us with fear and guilt, not love for others, religion often breeds hate, racism and bias towards others. It took us both years of study to shed much of the bias religion and culture ingrained in us. This culture still exist today and even has great effect on secular people and marriage and I think it effects us all at some level.
I do think most responsible swinging married couples are very moral loving people. Certainly many singles probably get involved for sex, but I think the married couples that do this really love and respect their partners so much so that swinging is much more than sex, it's about fulfilling each other.
I think it's important to test your motives, if I had any doubts about my partners trust or emotions, I wouldn't do it. It's very important to let your partner know they come first and this is about you two equally and you want them and would never leave them regardless if they swung or not. Even with all my wild desires, I love my wife and would never cheat on her. In 15 years of marriage, I can honestly say I've never had a desire to go find another woman, I haven't so much as held another womans hand. Even in my private sex life masturbating my wife is part of it, not that she would care if I didn't. Sure, I'm sexually attracted to other women and may have thoughts in the moment, but I've never desired to cheat and I can tell my wife anything that goes through my mind without jealousy or being judged.
I don't have experience to judge others. I'm sure the emotions behind swinging are complex and differ with people as in all things. I do think married swingers trust so completly they are able to disconnect sex from stigma and it's about both, not one partner. Married swingers would be devestated if their partners cheated on them by breaking their set bounderies or emotional betrayal.
It's a shame that society deems somehow these people are less in love with their partners, they would feel much the same emotional pain if their partner betrayed them as any other, maybe moreso because they have enough maturity and love that they can be honest with their partner, whereas most people keep their inner desires hidden from their partner. I have no doubt the reason for so much cheating and divorce in the real world is due to couples not being able to share their most inner thoughts without fear or jealousy, this breeds an inner distrust. We all know we have these thoughts to a degree, if my wife and I couldn't share these, then all you can do is suspect what is going on in their mind, which leads to suspicion, distrust and often betrayal.
By reading the post, I can't say that I think you two are quite there, but the question may be more needing more time to work through the issues. I do think it would be a bad idea for any newly married couple to start swinging during periods of emotional trauma until those issues are resolved. I do think you can build a much stronger bond during trauma that will build the trust where you could share this. I do know trauma, during these events just naturally for us we don't include as much fantasy and it becomes more emotional.
My partner knows my desires, but she knows she is first and I would never risk losing her over any fantasy, for us, if we take it to the next level, it will be about each other, not just sex..If reality doesn't work out like fantasy, we have no problem with just each other.