Propose a couple exchange, then develop feelings, reciprocally? On both sides, what’s more? Too crazy to be true? In any case, it happened to Béatrice. Here is his story.
“What are the odds?” » This is the question that will come to mind most often, during this hour and a half of confidences, quite unprecedented thank you, collected a little before the Holidays, in a crowded café in the northern suburbs.
You should know that our interlocutor, a smiling thirty-year-old, has been with her lover for 20 years. “He’s my first serious boyfriend! » Their story, before leading to this particular relationship, is not exactly linear, rather frankly jagged.
It’s because they discovered everything together, together, as teenagers, begins Béatrice. It was she who “dragged” her lover. “Sexuality has always interested me, but no one talked to me about it. So I found out for myself! »
Béatrice also has a stronger libido than her boyfriend. “I have needs several times a week. But he can go a week without it! » Besides this downside, she adds, “everything is fine”.
I knew I wanted this guy to be the father of my children. We are lovers, best friends, he is very close to my family.
Beatrice
However, Béatrice quickly asks herself: “Am I really going to spend my life with just one person? »
As the years pass, the couple experiences their first challenges. Béatrice is more studious, her lover parties a lot, but they still manage to choose each other to “evolve” in the same direction.
New challenge: the arrival of children, at the start of their twenties. “There, it was more difficult,” concedes Béatrice. My boyfriend isn’t very demonstrative, taking care of me is less his style. Quietly, we moved away. »
Not half: she moves so far away that she falls into the arms of a colleague. The adventure lasts a few months, she ends up confiding in her boyfriend, and they find themselves at a crossroads. “Our relationship isn’t working,” she told him.
They separate for a few months, the gentleman goes elsewhere, but strangely, this separation brings them closer together. “It seems that not living together has helped us gain perspective,” says Béatrice, smiling. Relationally, but also sexually. In bed (because yes, they end up in bed!), they also mutually try to “win each other back”. And it works: “We really played on that. » Twist: after six months, they moved back together. “It really helped me to experience something else. […] I think I needed that. »
This return, however, is not easy. Quickly, Béatrice’s questions resurface: “Am I going to spend my life like this? We’re best friends, but do I love him like a lover? » Therapy and several years of work on herself later, at the start of her thirties, she decided to put an end to her procrastination. “I have to make a choice,” she said to herself, “if I choose it, I choose it. »
But in the meantime, the gentleman in turn gets closer to another woman. You follow ? Here we are again as a couple facing yet another challenge. “It was me who got the ball rolling,” analyzes Béatrice. So I have a hard time being angry. […] OK, it’s pockets, but we’re going to talk about it,” she suggests. This is her “personality”, she says, focused on communication.
And then Béatrice is especially not ready to lose her lover. “He is the father of my children […]a very good life partner […], he is a good person. I can’t let him go. »
New twist: the gentleman also chose her again. “Enough of the stupidity,” they mutually decide. End of the story ? Rather the beginning of a new chapter.
You can’t make this up: then comes the pandemic and confinement frankly serves them. As we have said, the gentleman is a party man, but now the party is on hold. They have no choice but to spend time together. “And sexually, it’s been really good. We took the time to rediscover each other, we loved being together! »
It is precisely following this “rediscovery” that our reconciled lovers meet a particular couple, through the children. Here we are. The four see each other regularly, somewhat by force, first for family activities, then dinners, then even evenings.
We knew they were open…
Beatrice
What does she think? Not much. Until she learns from the tape that they have them in their sights.
Are you still following? Béatrice, at first not keen on the idea, quietly begins to think about it. “And then it pops into my head…” The idea goes a long way, she discusses it with her boyfriend, and they end up agreeing on a well-defined proposition: “We each exchange our own sides, we don’t do not that the four together, that doesn’t tempt us. […] And then we want it to be exclusive, she says. We wanted a certain ethics […], we saw it as complicated, otherwise. »
It was less than a year ago. The proposal is launched, during a drunken dinner. To break the ice, the two couples dare to have a first kiss. The first connection is conclusive, as you might have guessed. “It even scared me a little. I saw further. How far could it go…” It seems too fluid to be true, but after a first night, each on his own, it should be remembered, it’s confirmed, the chemistry is there.
“It’s as if we’ve always done this,” marvels Béatrice. Obviously, it clicks, not only physically (the crossed libidos apparently echo each other), but emotionally too. It’s her boyfriend who develops feelings first. Béatrice reacts here philosophically: “OK, it can happen, it’s a risk. » They discuss it, and now she develops it in turn. And vice versa, and respectively. Each on their own. “What are the odds?” Really ! »
It’s been several months, and our two couples are quietly getting to grips with this very particular dynamic between the four of them, and by groping, always relying on frank communication, insists Béatrice. They said a shy word to the children, saw each other for family dinners, then nights, discreetly, and each on their own, in complete privacy, once or twice a week.
Béatrice is in heaven. “It allows me to discover a side of myself that I had put aside,” she says, smiling. Renewal ! » Still, she also asks herself lots of questions. “We don’t want to put children through something weird,” she said. We are good together, good in our couples, how can we combine the two? […] I don’t know how well it can work in the long term…”
Time will tell. “There are risks, for sure,” she said. But for now, I’m happy with what I’m experiencing. […] We just have one life. Anyway, there are risks to everything! »
* Fictitious first name, to protect anonymity