What is the difference between wife sharing and wife swapping?

The two phrases get used interchangeably online, but they describe structurally different arrangements. Wife swapping — the older term for partner swapping, or swinging — means two couples come together and exchange partners with each other: each husband and each wife is an active participant, paired with someone from the other couple.

Wife sharing is narrower. It centres on one couple: the wife has experiences with someone outside the relationship, with her husband's full knowledge and encouragement, but he isn't necessarily having a parallel experience of his own. It overlaps heavily with what most of the community now calls hotwifing.

In practice the lines blur constantly. A couple who swaps with another couple at a lifestyle event is, in one sense, also 'sharing' — and a couple exploring wife sharing might meet their third person at exactly the same kind of event a swinging couple attends. The vocabulary describes emphasis and framing more than it describes two separate communities.

Which term to use depends on what a couple is actually looking for: partner swapping if both partners want their own parallel experience with someone else, or hotwife/wife sharing language if the arrangement centres specifically on the wife. Precise vocabulary on a profile helps attract better-matched connections either way.