Imagine if we told you that having sex with someone outside your marriage could save your marriage from impending shambles. Obviously, this statement would run counter to the messaging we’re spoon-fed on a daily basis. When marriages find troubled water, rarely do either partner think, “maybe I should have sex with the neighbor and that could help us.”
But there’s a growing movement with couples experimenting with open relationships as a medicinal proposition to their marriage. Most of the time, when a marriage or relationship finds trouble and one or both partners begins to consider extramarital relations, its the end of the relationship.
But with couples who share the motivation to improve the marriage through swinging, the experience lands differently.
Does Swinging Help or Hurt a Marriage?
We’ll try to be as fair and unbiased as possible.
To begin, if both partners aren’t completely sold to give the swinger lifestyle a legitimate try, it will end in failure. Moreover, if both partners aren’t overtly willing to take all the steps to build a swinger strategy that features boundaries, consent, and love, it will fail. Many couples experience emotional benefits in swinging, but none experience these unless they are fully invested in the concept.
Without giving the swinger lifestyle a real chance, it probably fails.
But for those who are swinger-curious and considering giving swinging an authentic opportunity to help their romance, it most certainly can act as a beneficial relationship tool.
Deciding To “Open Up”
“Opening up” is a concept that means the couple is willing to learn more about swinging. There’s no plan as of yet, only an admission between partners that the idea of an open relationship is worth exploring. In the “opening up” process, the journey of informational exploration and education begins.
During this phase, you don’t reject monogamy in a bitter sense. Instead, you open your mind to the idea that extramarital partners, or polygamy, could be a tool that helps improve the core relationship or marriage.
An open relationship is a high-level term that mans a couple is willing to experiment with consensual non-monogamy.
During the opening up phase, for some distraught couples, healing begins. This is because one of the biggest issues in a relationship revolves around lack of proper communication. To embark on a swinger lifestyle, you must work out the “kinks” in your relationship. And yes, pun intended.
In relationships and marriages which find themselves crumbling, often one or both partners feel unheard and alone. Often, this isolation runs prominent in the sexual and physical aspects of the relationship. One partner desires certain sexual needs that the other partner doesn’t know about, or understand. It works both ways to grind down the gears of the once thriving relationship.
When opening up, these issues begin to surface and communication becomes a healer. For some, this process may in and of itself improve the relationship and the couple never moves on to full on swinging.
For others, the next stage of perusing swinger lifestyle dating sites begins to infuse health eroticism long gone back into the relationship.
Confronting Jealousy
You’ve probably heard of the cold shower movement. Maybe your uncle who does crossfit is now preaching that his life is wholy different now that he takes cold showers. And he thinks you should take cold showers. Its all he talks about.
We aren’t sure of the benefits of cold showers. We don’t care, we love our steamy hot showers. But there is one interesting aspect to cold showers. We find them incredibly crazy. We’d never do them because it sounds miserable. When we’ve been out of hot water, we’ve flailed in defeat, grabbing for the towel, hoping the hot water returns later in the day.
But there’s something odd about cold showers. People get used to them. That’s aside from any of the mythical benefits. People do get used to taking cold showers and they soon become less of a big deal.
Jealousy is the cold shower of the relationship. The idea of adding in a partner to a relationship sends chills down most couples’ backs. That’s because we have this idea that adding a partner(s) to our relationship is taboo and unsavory and a means to an end. Its trauma.
But then why is the swinger community rapidly growing? The coronavirus shutdown encouraged a rise in swinging like we’ve never seen.
How could this be when adding in a sexual partner dooms relationships?
Like the cold shower, people eventually get over the fear that mostly resides in their minds, not in reality. That’s not to say that swinging is for every couple, not hardly. But in many cases, like the cold shower, the idea of swinging is the more palatable fear, not the actual act.
When boundaries are set and communication is valued, a marriage might find itself in a better place, even by simply exploring the swinger lifestyle journey. That doesn’t mean that swinging is right for you, but there could be value in furthering your education and knowledge of the subject, particularly if you’ve exhausted all other options at salvaging your relationship.
Charles Lace is a distinguished UK-based writer, born in 1975 in Brighton, who has become a prominent voice in the open relationship and swinger communities. His passion for exploring and documenting alternative lifestyles, particularly in the UK, has made him a well-known figure in these circles.
After studying Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, Lace began his career as a freelance journalist for London newspapers. In his late 20s, he found his niche writing about non-monogamous relationships and the swinger lifestyle. His breakthrough came in 2005 with the publication of “Open Hearts, Open Doors: An Introduction to Ethical Non-Monogamy,” which became an unexpected bestseller in its niche.
Known for his frank yet sensitive approach, Lace’s writing style combines personal anecdotes with well-researched information and expert interviews. He regularly contributes to various swinger publications, most notably through his column in “Lifestyle Horizons,” a popular UK-based magazine for the swinger and polyamorous communities.