‘Silicon Valley’ Star Thomas Middleditch Claims Swinging ‘Saved’ Marriage

Silicon Valley star Thomas Middleditch recently opened up and spoke candidly about his relationship with wife, Mollie Gates, claiming how swinging “saved” their marriage. The 37-year-old actor opened up about his sex life Playboy magazine, admitting that swinging – the act of couples swapping partners for sex – has revamped his relationship with Gates.

During the conversation with the magazine, the actor was asked about a time during the production of Godzilla when he and one of the writers visited a swingers club with their partners, sharing: “I don’t know how much I can say, because I don’t want my wife to be mad at me. Only after I got married was I like, ‘Mollie, I’m sorry, but we have to get nontraditional here.’ To her credit, instead of saying ‘F— you, I’m out,’ she was like, ‘Let’s figure this out.’ To be honest, swinging has saved our marriage. We have different speeds, and we argue over it constantly, but it’s better than feeling unheard and alone and that you have to scurry in the shadows. By the way, it’s now called being ‘part of the lifestyle.’ The term swinging is old.”

Middleditch then explained that. while he is in the lifestyle now, it was “absolutely not” something he’d ever been into before. “I self-deprecatingly call myself a pervert, but that’s not what it is. I just like it. I’m sexual,” he went on to say.”

“I’d always thought I was a romantic and that when I fall in love, that stuff fades away,” Middleditch added. “It does for some years — enough to be like, ‘I should get married, and I’ll be different.’ But it’s part of me. If that’s part of your being and it feels important to you, find a way to explore it, because repression sucks.”

When asked if he had “any advice for couples who may be exploring that lifestyle,” Middleditch suggested that “for anything sexual — whether in terms of the sex act or identity or kink — you want to know where the walls of the box are.”

“Mollie and I have created our own rules, and compared to most of the people we’ve met who do this kind of s—, our rules are strict,” he continued. “We’re not off on our own; we’re together, a unit. It’s a perpetual state of management and communication, to the point where it’s like, ‘All right, we’ve got to stop. Chill.’ I’m gas, and she’s brakes. This is actually the premise for a comedy series we’re writing together.”

The final season of Silicon Valley is set to premiere on HBO at 10 p.m. ET on Oct. 27.

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