My New Year's resolution was to try it once, just to see. That was ten years ago. I had no idea that one decision — made from a place of love for my husband and a willingness to step outside my comfort zone — would change my life more profoundly than almost anything else I've ever done.
Ten years later, I look back at who I was when this started, and I barely recognize her. Not because she was wrong. But because she was so much more limited than she needed to be — limited by fear, by what other people might think, by the version of herself she thought she had to be.
Here is what I wish someone had told me at the beginning.
1. The Fantasy and the Reality Are Different — and That's Okay
The first experience will not match the fantasy you've been building in your head. It will be messier, more human, more emotionally complicated. This does not mean something has gone wrong. It means you are in reality now, not imagination.
Give yourself and your partner grace in those early experiences. The fantasy is the on-ramp. The reality is the road. They feel different, and the adjustment takes time.
2. Your Husband's Feelings Will Surprise You
I thought I understood what my husband was getting out of this. I was wrong — or rather, I understood part of it and missed the rest. The complexity of what he experiences has revealed itself slowly over years, and I am still learning. The jealousy he feels and the desire he feels are not opposites. They coexist. The thorn and the rose are real simultaneously.
Don't assume you know what he's feeling. Ask. Then ask again. Then listen like you mean it.
3. Communication Is the Entire Game
Every couple says they communicate well. The Hotwife lifestyle will test that claim immediately. The things that come up — the feelings you didn't expect, the moments that were harder than anticipated, the experiences that were better than either of you imagined — all of them require you to talk honestly in real time.
The couples who stay in this lifestyle happily are not the ones who were the most sexually adventurous. They are the ones who became the best communicators. The lifestyle is, in a sense, intensive couples therapy that you both happen to find arousing.
4. Privacy Is Not Shame
For a long time, the privacy of our lifestyle felt like hiding. It took me years to understand the difference: I'm not ashamed of anything I do. I'm private about it because I have the right to be. Nobody in my real life needs to know about my intimate life. That boundary is mine to set, and it has nothing to do with shame.
Nobody I know personally knows I'm Happy Hotwife — except maybe a few who found me. And if they did, they know the truth: I am not apologizing for any of it.
5. You Will Change
This is the one I would have most wanted to hear at the beginning. You will change. Not because the lifestyle corrupts you — it doesn't. But because stepping outside your comfort zone, consistently and intentionally, over years, builds a different kind of person. Braver. More honest. More comfortable in your own skin.
I became a Hotwife at 37. I am not the same woman I was at 37. The woman I am now — the one who writes books and records music and builds a public life around her most private truth — she was made partly by this lifestyle and partly by the courage it took to live it fully.
6. Everything Great Came After Something Uncomfortable
This is the motto my husband and I have lived by long before we had words for it. He has always pushed limits — physical, mental, emotional. He rubbed off on me. And the most extraordinary things in my life — this lifestyle, the music, the book, going public for the first time — all of them happened on the other side of something that scared me first.
If you're standing at the edge of something uncomfortable right now, I am not going to tell you it's easy. I'm going to tell you what my life has proven, over and over: it is worth it. Step outside. See what's on the other side.
7. The Marriage Is the Foundation. Never Forget That.
The lifestyle is an expression of the marriage, not a replacement for it. The day I forgot that — even briefly — was the day things got complicated. The day I remembered it was the day everything got right again.
My husband is my first and only love. Thirty-two years together. Twenty-seven married. Ten of those as this. He is the reason any of this works. He is the reason any of this matters. Everything else — the bulls, the experiences, the lifestyle — is possible because what we have is unshakeable.
Protect your marriage first. The lifestyle will take care of itself.
If you want the full story — the beginning, the middle, and where we are now — it's all in Becoming Happy Hotwife. And if you want to understand who I am beyond the lifestyle, start with My Story.
Ten years in. No regrets. Not one.
