Our Marriage, the Swinger Lifestyle, and the Truth About Both
Ebook & paperback · Available now · Free in Kindle Unlimited
Over 150 readers claimed advance copies in the first week.
“I started reading this six hours ago and just finished it… relatable in so many ways that it was hard to put down.” — early reader, SDC
The fights are in here. The jealousy we swore we didn’t have. The drive home in silence, and the night that almost ended us.
We disagreed about what happened — so we published both versions.
This is not erotica. It is not a how-to. It’s what actually happened.
After twenty-five years of marriage, two kids, and careers they loved, Mike and Julie walked into the swinger lifestyle — carefully, deliberately, with rules.
What followed was funnier, darker, and more revealing than either of them expected.
The Open Book is the true story of their five years inside the lifestyle: the clubs and resorts, the strangers who disappeared and the friends who stayed, the nights that brought them closer and the ones that nearly ended everything.
But here’s what makes this book different from every other memoir in the category: they both tell it. Told in alternating voices, Mike and Julie recount the same events — and disagree. Again and again, they walked out of the same room carrying two completely different versions of what had just happened. This book gives you both.
Unflinching about jealousy, trauma, drinking, anger, and desire, this is neither a guide nor a warning. It’s an honest account of a long marriage pushed to its limit — and what it took for two people who had every reason to walk away to keep choosing each other.
He remembers it one way. She remembers it another.
That’s the whole story.
We thought we had done everything right.
For months, we talked it through. Carefully. Thoughtfully. We said the hard things out loud. We set boundaries. We made rules. By the time we finally took our first step into the swinger lifestyle, it didn’t feel reckless.
It felt planned.
We’d learn later that talking about a thing and being ready for it are not the same thing.
Mike and Julie have been married for more than twenty-five years. They’ve raised two children, built careers they loved, and are still figuring it out — together.
They wrote this book anonymously, to protect the people in its pages. What they didn’t change is the truth of what happened between the two of them — even when they remember it differently. Which, as you’ll see, turns out to be the whole point.
For interviews, podcast appearances, or review copies: mikeandjulie@readtheopenbook.com
MIKE & JULIE
New projects are coming — and readers hear about them first.