Can Swinging Save Your Marriage?
I just read a brief synopsis of some research done by sociologist Curtis Bergstrand.
He's recently written a book called Swinging in America: Love, Sex and Marriage in the 21st Century.
In the book, he explores whether the institution of marriage is broken.
In a word: yes.
In Bergstrand's exploration of what's wrong with marriage (and by that, he means traditional monogamous, til-death-do-we part marriage) led him to wonder what, if anything, could save this age-old institution.
And that's where swinging enters the picture.
By swinging, I mean consensual recreational sex that involves one or more persons in addition to the married couple.
Swinging is done as a way to enhance the relationship, and it is talked about and acted on with full, open and honest communication.
Bergstrand wanted to know whether swinging was just a fad, or if it was a viable way to enhance a long term relationship and perhaps inject some life into the dying institution of marriage.
He was also curious about the psychological make-up of swingers.
Are they deviants? Are they part of a fringe counter-culture? Who are these people? In 1999, he conducted a survey of 1,000 people who self-identified as swingers.
He discovered that they're pretty normal, just like you and me (haha).
The average age is 40, with ranges from 22-82 years old.
90% were white, but I don't know if that was because of his sample or if swinging is primarily a 'white' activity.
Let me know what you think about that one.
They were primarily Democrats, but identified as middle of the road, not lefty liberals.
Other than that, they really seemed to be a cross section of Americans.
There were doctors, lawyers, business owners and blue collar workers.
The degree of education varied, but most were at least semi-educated.
Most important, to me anyways, was that they were psychologically normal (no pathological traits), and they were happier than most non-swingers with their primary relationship.
Bergstrand concluded that swinging seems to have a positive affect on strong relationships and a negative effect on weak ones.
In my experience, he's right.
If your relationship is on the rocks and you think swinging will bring the spice back into things, you're probably mistaken.
When my partner and I were rocky last year, we decided to explore whether swinging would help.
After a lot of honest, open communication (which is absolutely essential for a positive swinging experience) we decided that we needed to strengthen the emotional component of our relationship before we branched out into swinging.
In a nutshell, we didn't really trust each other enough at that point.
And if you don't completely trust your partner, jealousy will rear its ugly head and make a bad thing worse.
After working on the trust component of our relationship, we were ready to play.
Since then, we've dabbled a bit.
We still have a lot of exploration to do, but what I really love about the process is that it's brought us much closer emotionally.
When you trust your partner and are able to consistently have open and honest communication (even about the tough stuff), then swinging can enhance the relationship and add a component of excitement that often dies in long term relationships.
He's recently written a book called Swinging in America: Love, Sex and Marriage in the 21st Century.
In the book, he explores whether the institution of marriage is broken.
In a word: yes.
In Bergstrand's exploration of what's wrong with marriage (and by that, he means traditional monogamous, til-death-do-we part marriage) led him to wonder what, if anything, could save this age-old institution.
And that's where swinging enters the picture.
By swinging, I mean consensual recreational sex that involves one or more persons in addition to the married couple.
Swinging is done as a way to enhance the relationship, and it is talked about and acted on with full, open and honest communication.
Bergstrand wanted to know whether swinging was just a fad, or if it was a viable way to enhance a long term relationship and perhaps inject some life into the dying institution of marriage.
He was also curious about the psychological make-up of swingers.
Are they deviants? Are they part of a fringe counter-culture? Who are these people? In 1999, he conducted a survey of 1,000 people who self-identified as swingers.
He discovered that they're pretty normal, just like you and me (haha).
The average age is 40, with ranges from 22-82 years old.
90% were white, but I don't know if that was because of his sample or if swinging is primarily a 'white' activity.
Let me know what you think about that one.
They were primarily Democrats, but identified as middle of the road, not lefty liberals.
Other than that, they really seemed to be a cross section of Americans.
There were doctors, lawyers, business owners and blue collar workers.
The degree of education varied, but most were at least semi-educated.
Most important, to me anyways, was that they were psychologically normal (no pathological traits), and they were happier than most non-swingers with their primary relationship.
Bergstrand concluded that swinging seems to have a positive affect on strong relationships and a negative effect on weak ones.
In my experience, he's right.
If your relationship is on the rocks and you think swinging will bring the spice back into things, you're probably mistaken.
When my partner and I were rocky last year, we decided to explore whether swinging would help.
After a lot of honest, open communication (which is absolutely essential for a positive swinging experience) we decided that we needed to strengthen the emotional component of our relationship before we branched out into swinging.
In a nutshell, we didn't really trust each other enough at that point.
And if you don't completely trust your partner, jealousy will rear its ugly head and make a bad thing worse.
After working on the trust component of our relationship, we were ready to play.
Since then, we've dabbled a bit.
We still have a lot of exploration to do, but what I really love about the process is that it's brought us much closer emotionally.
When you trust your partner and are able to consistently have open and honest communication (even about the tough stuff), then swinging can enhance the relationship and add a component of excitement that often dies in long term relationships.
Source...