How It Works

ONE

Write alone

You each answer the same question on your own page. No peeking — your answer has to be yours.

TWO

Swap and read

Trade the book. Read your partner’s side in silence before anyone says a word.

THREE

Talk

The gap between your answers isn’t a problem. It’s where the real conversation starts.

What’s Inside

What We’re ProtectingWhat you love about each other, before a single lifestyle question.

Before AnythingFantasies, fears, a Yes / No / Maybe list, and comfort scales — where a 3 facing a 9 is a conversation.

The Rules We Think We WantWrite your rules, then revise them together as you learn.

Consent, health & signalsHow you’ll know it’s a real yes, what to do if something slips, and signals for when words fail.

Before the Night & the Car Ride PagesFive-minute check-ins before you go out. Honest debriefs after.

The Feelings Nobody Warned Us AboutJealousy, compersion, comparison, surprise turn-ons, feeling nothing, feeling wanted again.

When It Goes WrongHow to repair after a night goes sideways.

A year of check-insTwelve monthly temperature checks and a one-year re-read.

Who It’s For

Still just talking about it

Say everything before a profile is created or a club is googled — the fantasies, the fears, and what would make you stop.

Already through the door

Write down the rules you’re actually living by, debrief the nights that got complicated, and keep checking in. New or five years in, it’s the same job: keep talking.

The Story Behind the Journal · A Memoir

The Open Book

Our Marriage, the Swinger Lifestyle, and the Truth About Both

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 clubs and resorts, the strangers who disappeared and the friends who stayed, the nights that brought them closer and the one that nearly ended everything. And they both tell it — in alternating voices, often remembering the same night completely differently.

This is not erotica. It is not a how-to. It’s what actually happened.

Over 600 readers claimed advance copies at launch.

“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

Read it on Amazon Read the First Chapter Free

Ebook & paperback · Free in Kindle Unlimited

Content note: This is a frank, adults-only (18+) memoir about consensual non-monogamy. It contains explicit content and candid discussions of jealousy, alcohol use, mental health, and a past sexual assault. Names and identifying details have been changed throughout — the authors’ included.

About Mike & Julie

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 The Open Book anonymously, to protect the people in its pages. Then readers kept writing to them with the same line — we had no idea how much talking this would take — so they made Before the Door Opens: the questions they wish someone had asked them.

For interviews, podcast appearances, or review copies: mikeandjulie@readtheopenbook.com

MIKE & JULIE