Divorce Rate Among Swingers

[ldenn2]

I think the total number of divorces in the US is near 50%. I have seen this somewhere. Does anyone know the divorce rate among long term swingers? I'll bet it's somewhat lower.

[DigginIt]

Vegas Lee posted some comments around this topic. I don't recall quite where it was. I'm drawing from memory but I thought he said that at one point in time it was pretty safe to say that because the swinging scene was different and smaller but not any more. Even the long term swingers are going their separate ways. Search for his posts and you might be able to find it pretty quickly. He might even respond here.

Today there are a lot more swingers and many are into building relationships with their swinging partners versus just meeting them for sex and moving on which adds a layer of complexity. You also have the people that shouldn't be swinging and get into swinging and adds to statistics of swingers getting divorced, etc.

How do you really get a clear snapshot of what is caused by swinging versus the couple just having a screwed up marriage in the first place? A good stable marriage will be a good stable marriage regardless of what they are doing because the things that make up that marriage, trust, respect, honesty, love, etc. and is the glue that binds it together. A screwed up marriage is going to crumble equally, regardless if they swing or not. I guess it would boil down to the percentage of good marriages that start swinging versus the ones fated to crumble by the wayside.

Just my thoughts mixed in with what I though I have previously read elsewhere on the boards.

[bbarnsworth]

DigginIt is correct in that it is hard to evaluate the topic.

That said, one of the leading reasons for divorce is infidelity. More than 50% of married people report having cheated on their spouse.

Among swingers, that rate is less than 2%. Swinging isn't a tool to eliminate a reason for divorce. Further, there may be no causal connection. Still, it is interesting.

[Erotics]

There is an old saying: " Swinging won't fix a bad marriage, but it sure as hell won't hurt a good one"

[couplers]

One thing that every person should acknowledge regardless of one's moral, religious or philosophical view is that humans by nature are neither monogamous nor do we mate for life. We may want to think we are or should be, or that it is better, but we just aren't. It is like being a vegitarian (which I am not) - it may be better for us in many ways, but that's just not the way we are.

The question is what we should do about it; there is no easy answer. Some societies stone adulterers, prohibit divorce, arrange marriages, prohibit premarital sex, control what girls and women can wear or go, etc. Most of those are evils greater than what is being prevented. On a personal level what we in this community try to do is love our spouse without jealousy and giving him/her the freedom to be happy. Our biggest difference is by acknowledging the non-monogamy of our nature we help overcome the fact we inherently don't mate for life. That is our advantage in our marriages.

[DigginIt]

Originally Posted by couplers

One thing that every person should acknowledge regardless of one's moral, religious or philosophical view is that humans by nature are neither monogamous nor do we mate for life.

I totally agree. The problem is we are also selfish and insecure by nature and we make things worse by imposing rules and laws that attempt to protect us from ourselves. This is not constructive nor healthy. Instead of trying to change our ways, we prefer to try and treat the symptoms and not the cause.

[couplers]

Originally Posted by DigginIt

I totally agree. The problem is we are also selfish and insecure by nature and we make things worse by imposing rules and laws that attempt to protect us from ourselves. This is not constructive nor healthy. Instead of trying to change our ways, we prefer to try and treat the symptoms and not the cause.

Right. We become better persons overall when we recognize and overcome our selfishness, jealousy and petty insecurities toward our spouse. The feeling isn't always pleasant when we first let go. It is like the painful burn of running the last mile, or doing the last rep to exhaustion. Yeah it hurts, but it is exhilarating afterwards both physically and as an accomplishment. And you keep coming back for more. That's what surprised me, how much giving hubby sexual freedom increases both the strength of our relationship and my sexual enjoyment.

Letting go of possessiveness gives us all here a better chance that a swinger's marriage is happier and will last. A source of dissatisfaction has been removed. I am not so naive to think that there is no chance that my marriage will fall apart. But from the complaints of so many of vanilla married people my age that I know, there is much, much less conflict in ours. We are still in our 20s and will face the "humans don't make for life" and 50% divorce rate thing for a long time, but if hubby ever does leave me I know it won't be because I drove him off.

[Alura]

My guess is that swingers stay married more than others but I doubt that meaningful statistics could ever be developed because of the secretive nature of the hobby.

Alura

[JustAskJulie]

It's about the same as the non-swinging population. Swinging doesn't make your relationship stronger, it amplifies. IF EVERYONE who entered swinging had a great strong relationship the divorce rate among swingers would be lower than the general population, but that's just not the case. Swinging is just a small cross-section of society as a whole.

[ldenn2]

Originally Posted by Alura

My guess is that swingers stay married more than others but I doubt that meaningful statistics could ever be developed because of the secretive nature of the hobby.

Alura

I know you are correct. If it could be done and for sure if you could eleminate the ones already in trouble and would divorce anyway the rate would be very low.



If we were supposed to go naked we wouild be born that way.

[lv2prty]

some people swing because they are bored in the relationship. they try to spice up things with swinging. this is not the true swinger and might wind up in divorce so stats would be bad. most long time swingers like me would probubly say that in a stable relationship swinging just keeps the loving, trusting relationship flame glowing. too many non swinging couples get divorced because one or both of the couple has sex with someone outside of the marriage. that;s why i love my life, no need to cheat, and no reason to lie.

[mikeandjenn2001]

Divorce is caused by a number of factors. We've had our fair share of ups and downs in our marriage and almost ended up getting a divorce last year. The lifestyle wasn't a factor, just your usual husband/wife bs.

We have had friends in the lifestyle that have gotten a divorce for several reasons, among those was the issue of cheating, but also among those was the issue of money, spousal abuse, and growing apart.

I would say that it would be hard to determine the actual divorce rate of couples that swing against couples that don't swing, purely because of how many variable circumstances there are surrounding the issue of divorce.

[willyoats]

Enough anecdotes will begin to give a pretty good picture. In our experience, the divorce rate is way below 50% among swingers. As we think back over about 100 couples we have known, around 25 % have had one or more divorces. A large majority have been married to the same person more than 25 years.

[megauxurious]

According to a relatively recent survey of swingers in

"Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality, Volume 12, January 23, 2009
Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality
The Swinging Paradigm: An Evaluation of the Marital and Sexual Satisfaction of Swingers"

the divorce rate of both male and female swingers is around 39%. This is still lower than the general population. Most relationships were of long standing too. Quite possibly most of the divorces occurred prior to swinging so the divorce rate of active swingers may be even lower.

The author also administered a marital and a sexual satisfaction (with usual partner) questionnaire and swingers were well above average on both. In fact they were well above average for even satisfying marriages. With those results one would expect very low divorce rates among swingers.

[DarkVoyuer]

I have read several reports that state that swingers have a 10% divorce rate. Does anybody know if these reports are accurate? My concern is whether these reports include former swingers who divorce because they experienced sexual jealousy in the swinging lifestyle. Can anyone provide further insight on these reports?