Sorry this is a long one…

We (46MF) have been married 20 years and been in the lifestyle a little more than a year and currently consider ourselves soft-swap with no specific kinks or fetishes. I’m also bi so finding another couple with a bi husband would be ideal, but I’m perfectly happy to play with straight couples. Our experiences have included going on vacations to Hedo, a couple clubs, one house party, a couple local swingers events, and hanging out regularly with some friends who are swingers but most of our time with them has been on the vanilla side (except for attending some of these events together with at most some parallel play together, but that’s a different story).

The situation we’re currently in though has us in a little bit of a stalemate. My wife has a lot of “barriers to entry.” She has a bit of social anxiety, so large gatherings are a bit stress inducing. Once she is comfortable with people though she loves chatting and talking but it takes a bit to get there. And she loves going out.

Cleanliness of facilities and the appearance of other guys are also on her mind constantly. Which is perfectly reasonable, but especially if we’re in a public setting she’ll get turned off immediately if she sees someone significantly older, or a man that looks or acts a certain way. Putting it generally and nicely, she’s a lot less body-positive than I am.

She can also get super focused on her own appearance and attractiveness. Basically a lack of confidence. She will tell me repeatedly that she wants people to approach her and tell her how hot and pretty she is and that kind of greases the wheels and she’d be much more willing to pursue things with a couple. She has told me it’s more so that she just doesn’t feel like a piece of meat and that she has some value to other people. That makes sense. Doesn’t seem like it should be that big a deal, except it usually doesn’t happen that way in the situations we’ve been in so far.

My philosophy is that most people at clubs, parties, meetups etc tend to stick to themselves and the ones they already know unless approached. I feel like 10% of the people out there make 90% of the advances. Meaning if we’re the ones standing around waiting for someone to approach, it just won’t happen. I believe that’s just the way people are but she comes away with the impression that she wasn’t good enough for someone to approach her.

And when people do approach, as has happened a few times, they’re not good enough for her. Sometimes we become friends but just in the vanilla sense and not in a potential play partner way. She also too nice and won’t turn someone away but I can immediately tell because of her body language and she’ll start hanging on to me. Which is fine, I never expect either one of us to take one for the team, but she’s a little surprised when I see that maybe half of the people somewhere could be a potential play partner for me but for her it’s more like 5%. The numbers are not in our favor.

Recently she told me she saw a hot couple a club we were at, but earlier in the night when we were alone and making out she told me she only wanted to touch me. So, getting a bit of mixed signals but decided I shouldn’t approach the other couple based on what my wife said earlier. We ultimately ended up having a great time anyway at the club and had some really hot sex in a room with others but that’s as far as we got.

On top of the above, she hasn’t explicitly told me what exactly she wants to do. We have boundaries, but she doesn’t really have goals if that makes sense. She’s kind of along for the ride and has told me she keeps waiting for a situation to come up and is happy to try stuff, but I feel like I’m steering and she’s just looking out the window. It doesn’t make me feel great about continuing, at least in this way.

We do debrief after events and I focus on things we could do to enhance our next experience, what makes her more comfortable (and feel sexy and horny) and she said she wants to keep trying. It’s just not as enthusiastic as I keep hoping and I’m the one initiating most of our conversations now about the topic.

So I’m wondering if anyone has tips on how to navigate here because it seems like we have a lot to unpack. I don’t want to do anything to blow it all up, I keep trying to find ways she will have fun, and I guess trying to find a way we can be equally excited about the next time. Ultimately I’ve even offered to take a break but her answer is “I want to keep going and see what happens”

TL;DL wife and I are at different comfort levels right now and not sure how or if we should keep trying.