Hi, everyone! New to this sub. Just wanted to share some ground rules that really worked for my wife and I. We've been swingers for about 8 years - mostly only casual encounters. No polyamory or longterm relationships with others.

These are our specific rules to protect ourselves from getting hurt:

1. First of all, we both agreed that threesomes were often unequal, and it would be better to only swing with other couples - that way, everyone had a partner, even if it wasn't your own.
2. Furthermore, we both have veto power as to any couple. In that way, we know that I am attracted to the other female, and she is attracted to the other male. She also wants to be attracted to the other female, for girl-girl play. No one ever takes one for the team.
3. We always play in the same room (unless permission is explicitly granted for whatever reason). That way, it's not about just having sex with other people, it's about having sex with other couples together.
4. We never escalate from same room play to soft swap to full swap without consent from both of us. Most of the time, my wife will only want to do soft swap (oral swapping, but no PIV), unless she is really comfortable with the other guy. This is mostly for her comfort. I'm almost never opposed to full swap.
5. Finally, this is not a spoken rule, but I know it really makes her happy: I always try and pay her a lot of attention while swapping. I make eye contact with her, ask her how she's doing, etc, even if I'm with the other woman. Some couples just want to trade partners for the night. We don't do that. I always try and go back and forth between my wife and the other woman. We also try and initiate positions that allow three or more people to be involved all together (like spitroast, or one female on my face while the other goes down). Again, we're really not interested in pure swapping. We just want to make sure both of us are having fun.

3* The only time I can think of where we separated and had sex was when the other guy was having performance anxiety and couldn't keep it up with me and his girlfriend in the room. My wife discreetly asked me if it would be okay if she finished him off alone, and I told her that was completely fine.