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Do swingers have better marriages?

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With all the news focusing on Tiger Woods and his cheating, my wife and I had a discussion about why people cheat. I am curious if anyone can point to any actual research that shows that swingers cheat less and also if the divorce rate among swingers is any different than the regular population?

 

I believe swingers are happier in their relationships so they cheat less and stay together more often but I don't have the data to support my beliefs. Can anyone help? Thanks.

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With all the news focusing on Tiger Woods and his cheating, my wife and I had a discussion about why people cheat. I am curious if anyone can point to any actual research that shows that swingers cheat less and also if the divorce rate among swingers is any different than the regular population?

 

I believe swingers are happier in their relationships so they cheat less and stay together more often but I don't have the data to support my beliefs. Can anyone help? Thanks.

 

I don't know of any data to point you to, not sure there really is any but, if there is someone here will point you to it.

 

However, from our own personal experience and observations since we've been swinging, we've known swinging couples who have divorced and swinging couples who have cheated. The ratio is pretty even to those couples we've known that didn't swing, who divorced or cheated.

 

It's not swinging or the lack thereof, that makes a good marriage or causes divorce/cheating...the causes of those are just too numerous to count and are different for every individual/couple.

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You will never be able to get that kind of data because a lot of people who get into the "lifestyle" already have problems with their relationship. In some cases they think that swinging will fix something and in others they are already cheating and want to fuck their lover in front of their spouse. Keep that in mind when someone says that they want to try swinging and they already have the partner picked out.

 

Another problem is that I strongly believe that most people on swinger sites don't swing. How do you separate the actual players from the bullshitters and wannabes?

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Unfortunately, the information you have received, so far, is true! There is only one true and accurate method to obtain the metrics needed to prove or disprove the thought that swingers are happier in their marriage. Talking to real swingers who are active in the lifestyle is the only way!

 

One way would be to visit each and every swingers club and party and just ask. The issue here is, you may not see the people ever again. You would need to take this survey in 1, 3, 5 and 10 year intervals. LOL! If I could get a research grant for this, I would certainly do it! HA HA HA HA!

 

The best REAL information you can hope for is anecdotal. "Friends of ours got divorced after being in the lifestyle for X years"... etc...

 

BUT! It is not all bad news here. There is one thing that those in the lifestyle do that most do not. And by that I mean true swingers who want to be happy for themselves and their spouses. Real swingers are open, honest and communicate with each other. When you have that, it is difficult to have a bad marriage!

 

I hope this helps!

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As others have noted, gathering real, useful data is darn near impossible. Cheating, while classically a reason for ending a relationship, is usually just the symptom, not the cause. A good and otherwise strong monogamous relationship can withstand a transgression, many do. Know what the leading cause of marital stress is? Finances.

 

Now, swinging done well is built on a strong foundation of a solid relationship. But then, a solid relationship is not as likely to fail regardless of opening the sexual aspect of it. Sadly, only a small percentage of swinging is done well.

 

 

At SWAG as a more than casual observer of interpersonal relationships, I'd say that the swinging community (as opposed to people who dabble or who have tried it once or twice) probably has a slightly lower divorce rate than the general populace. But I'd be surprised if that was much below statistical noise.

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I've actually seen plenty of data (I'm a data whore) that suggests that swingers are considerably happier in marriage, have a lower divorce rate, the cheating rate is virtually nil (like 2%), and life satisfaction is higher.

 

The problem with the data is...is it causal? Are swingers this way because they got into swinging or because the swingers who aren't ready for it, or don't have a relationship that can accept swinging, get out of the lifestyle fast (therefore skewing data), or?

 

The data is difficult to obtain in such a way that it is not equivocal.

 

But, I think it's very safe to say that a couple that's been swinging for (arbitrarily long period of) years have a highly successful marriage, which is very close, very open, very intimate, with no cheating, and never even a thought of divorce.

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I've actually seen plenty of data (I'm a data whore) that suggests that swingers are considerably happier in marriage, have a lower divorce rate, the cheating rate is virtually nil (like 2%), and life satisfaction is higher.

 

The problem with the data is...is it causal? Are swingers this way because they got into swinging or because the swingers who aren't ready for it, or don't have a relationship that can accept swinging, get out of the lifestyle fast (therefore skewing data), or?

 

The data is difficult to obtain in such a way that it is not equivocal.

 

But, I think it's very safe to say that a couple that's been swinging for (arbitrarily long period of) years have a highly successful marriage, which is very close, very open, very intimate, with no cheating, and never even a thought of divorce.

 

Without even getting into correlation vs causation, the question I have is what parameters are used to define "swinger." Without answering that then any further suppositions from the data are no better than random. Is someone who (to borrow from Kinsey) has had one swinging experience a swinger? What about people who have had one, may in the future but have no immediate plans? What about the folks who get involved with swinging to "save" their marriage?

 

I'm suspicious of any study of "swingers" that doesn't define the parameters first and up front.

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I have no scientific data but it's been my experience (with some exceptions) that swingers do, indeed, have better marriages.

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I don't really know of anything based with real fact that has been published but if you are keeping count, you can add us to the "marriage has definitely improved" side of the scoreboard.

 

The problem with trying to classify 'swingers' is that I do not necessarily feel that every 'swinger' fits into any particular pattern/standard that you could put into a study. There are swingers and then there are people that are swinging that have absolutely no sane reason for swinging and are just a step away from divorce/separation. The problem is you can't aways tell the difference between the two.

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I fully agree with the Lorax!! Without a standard defining set of activities, including the number of activities in a specific time frame, ANY information gathered would be useless! THANK YOU LORAX!!!!!

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I believe the keyword here is "HONESTY" ...

 

Can you really be happy in a relationship when you cant be honest and open about your feelings and sexual fantasies ?

I believe that a lot of people go through life that way and may be content but not truly happy.

 

I don't know of any statistics I can only speak of my personal experiences and in our case swinging did not lead us to a open relationship but the other way around....being honest and open with each other is what led us to the lifestyle.

 

I get a great deal of pleasure not just in having sex with others but most of all in the fact that the freedom that most people loose when they go in a serious relationship I still have, and that I'm able to share that with the person I love the most.

 

When you have the freedom to really be yourself without having any feelings repressed, any regrets and most of all somebody to share that with you just can't help being happy.

 

We have a large circle of friends and when you see that some of those friends can be more honest with us than with their own spouses we can't help but wonder.

 

I don't know about the rest of the nation but of all of our vanilla friends we just don't know anyone that has a more solid marriage than ours.

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Susan here-- As a science girl, I would say that Swingers do not have marriages that are better or worse. They are different from the mainstream and face different challenges that bring about success or failure in their own unique ways.

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A study (it is on the web) entitled Today's Alternative Marriage Styles: The Case of Swingers by Bergstrand, C & Williams, JB administered 41 questions to 1092 swingers from a variety of local (Michigan I think) clubs and compared their answers to the general public as seen on the General Social Survey. The mean time of involvement in swinging was 5 yrs. I guess being a swinging club member who has been involved in swinging for a few years qualifies as a real swinger.

 

Now to answer your question. Swingers valued family about the same as the general adult public (if not more). Both groups valued companionship more than personal freedom (at least on average) however the swinger group were significantly less inclined to want to make divorce more difficult. A subtle attempt was made to tap whether respondents had been abused in childhood, on the grounds that it is implicated in sex addictions. Swingers came out slightly less likely to have been abused but the difference wasn't significant.

 

They report that 73.7% are married, 6.3% divorced, 1.6% separated, 11.7% in a committed relationship and 6.7% single. Average number of marriages is 1.5 and the mean length of marriage was 10.5 years. They quote another study that says 60% of first time marriages end in divorce. An average of 1.5 marriages implies that at MOST 50% of ever married swingers have ever been divorced. That is less than the general population.

 

This swinger sample however constitutes successful swingers and excludes those who tried and stopped. So all one can say is that if you, as a married couple, can swing successfully, your marriage is likely to be more stable than average. It doesn't prove swinging contributes. However other questions suggest swinging does contribute. The swingers reported happier marriages than average (23% more likely to be very happy) and 62% said swinging made their marriages happier (there were no gender differences). Only 1.7% overall say swinging decreased their marital happiness. 49.7 of those who say they were very happy before swinging claim swinging made their marriages even happier, while at the other end of the scale 90.4% of those who say they were unhappy before swinging claimed an improvement due to swinging.

 

With respect to their lives in general swingers show an even more pronounced happiness advantage over the general population than they do with respect to marriage (83% more likely to be very happy this time).

 

I figure the evidence is probably on the side of swinging being good for the marriage of any couple who can accept it. Certainly there is no evidence that it makes marriage worse.

 

Let me know if this helps.

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"Today's Alternative Marriage Styles" report is from 2000. Almost 10 years old. This Lifestyle has changed drastically in the last ten years.

 

I don't believe as Swingers that we have better marriages, just different. I know many people that are not in the Lifestyle that have great marriages. I also know many IN the Lifestyle that have some marriages that nightmares are made of. It depends on the people, not the lifestyle.

 

Years ago I could agree that the divorce rate was much lower then the general public. After 30+ years in this Lifestyle and seeing 800 to 1000 people each week at the club I no longer feel that is the case.

 

Seems in the last 8 to 10 years I have seen more and more "stable" swinging couples get divorces. Some of them married over 30 years.

 

I am only going off my personal experience here. I used to do some surveys at the conventions and on many Internet sites but I have not done any of them for the last three years. I started to see the slide to the "darkside" in the surveys that we posted in the last few years of us doing them. I also started seeing many more divorced couples the conventions the last few years.

 

Another long time couple that we have hung with many years and I where discussing this same subject last weekend. We used to have a "party group" of about 30 couples. We noted to each other that out of all the couples there are only four, including ourselves that are still together. The rest had all divorced in the last five to seven years.

 

As Swingers we all live a different way of life, I don't know that it is better in general, just different and works for some of us. We still have many of the same problems as the general public does.

 

I do believe that couples in the general public will admit to having problems in their marriage faster and more honestly then Swinging couples will. I feel swinging couples will try to keep up the image that we have the "better" relationships and won't come clean about problems as fast as regular couples will.

 

Just my point of view. I could be totally wrong on some of my assumptions but not on the facts of what I have seen.

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That's interesting VagasLee. I'm a psychologist and a statistician so please understand my interest and forgive my questioning below.

 

As far as I know the general public divorce rate has stabilized or declined in the last decade. If the swinger divorce rate has gotten much worse over the same time period there is something interesting afoot that should be investigated. We need to see if your anecdotal evidence is accurate.

 

You mention that the LifeStyle has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. How?

 

Gould's book The Lifestyle implies a significantly greater proportion of people are becoming swingers. Do you think this is a factor i.e. more people unsuited to it are trying it? Has the way the LS is practiced changed significantly? Can you detect some pattern in who among swingers are divorcing and who not e.g. does it vary by education? What reasons do the swingers getting divorced in your personal group give? Are the divorces acrimonious or amicable? Are they choosing singlehood or do most get remarried? Do they still swing? I am really very very interested in your impressions.

 

If there has been an increase in swinger divorce rates I don't believe it could be due to a partial move toward polyamory because a survey of the polyamorous community showed a divorce history no different to the general population.

 

I also don't believe there has been a change in the type of people who are swinging because they were a pretty good sample of the general population 10 years ago and when I suggested a year ago that they were smarter than average almost everyone said they were still pretty much a representative sample.

 

I need to see more recent studies - are you aware of any?

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I do believe that couples in the general public will admit to having problems in their marriage faster and more honestly then Swinging couples will. I feel swinging couples will try to keep up the image that we have the "better" relationships and won't come clean about problems as fast as regular couples will.

 

I find that thought to be very troublesome as I believe one of the defining differences between the vanilla and swinging lifestyles is the open, honest and constant communication between couples.

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I read that differently. I thought Vegas Lee was referring to keeping their secrets from the swinging community and keeping up an image, not between the couples having trouble themselves.

 

Did I misunderstand that statement?

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forgive my questioning below.

Nothing to forgive that is what this forum is for.

 

 

As far as I know the general public divorce rate has stabilized or declined in the last decade.

The Marriage rate has also declined in the last ten years. Less new marriages will give you lower divorce rates since 42% to 50% of new marriages end in divorce within the first five years according to the national stats.

You mention that the Lifestyle has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. How?

I believe over the years here I have expressed this a few dozen times. Swinging used to be about the sex. In today’s Lifestyle it is about becoming best buddies, hanging out, going bowling, meeting the family and becoming emotionally attached.

 

Gould's book The Lifestyle implies a significantly greater proportion of people are becoming swingers.

 

Mr. Gould being a fine man was NOT a swinger. He was spoon fed a great deal of information by Dr. Robert McGinley. If Dr. McGinley would have been a writer I believe he could have written that book.

 

Do you think this is a factor i.e. more people unsuited to it are trying it? Has the way the LS is practiced changed significantly?

In a ratio of pure numbers, yes, more people trying something will end up showing more people falling out or ending up divorced.

Can you detect some pattern in who among swingers are divorcing and who not e.g. does it vary by education?

The “pattern” I have observed is that those from the “old days” that tried to adapt to the “new Lifestyle” where the ones that ended up in divorce. They would become attached to their play mates in an emotional manner. Allowing more than “sex” to become involved would interfere with their primary relationship and they would end up divorced or problems within their relationship.

 

Another thing we have noticed is since there are more of the younger people trying this lifestyle there has been more divorces. I personally believe that is also because younger relationships tend to end for many reasons and many will try swinging to fix them. Younger people get married more so numbers will show they also get divorced.

 

Something else I have noticed is that it tends to be more the “well educated, professional, “higher end” type in the Lifestyle that end up divorced. The more free loving in it for the fun type’s don’t tend to end up with the problems. They are happy with their primary relationship so they don’t look to others for emotional fulfillment.

 

What reasons do the swingers getting divorced in your personal group give? Are the divorces acrimonious or amicable?

 

When we have seen couples that have divorced I normally see one or the other. There is always three stories, his, hers and the truth. Most don’t seem to be very friendly towards the others involved.

 

Are they choosing singlehood or do most get remarried?

 

Most we have experience with seem to get married very quickly once they are divorced. Most of the time the divorce has involved other swingers and they end up with two divorces and some end up married to the others. Not totally swapping but have seen that happen also. We have also noticed that when “Swingers” divorce they tend to physically move from the area they have been swinging in for years. (Out of town, state, etc.)

 

Do they still swing?

 

Some do but many don’t. We have seen many couples that split up one or the other goes totally the other way, many becoming very involved in the church or something similar. My personal take on this is that they did not want to be in the Lifestyle in the first place but did it because they thought it would either “fix” their relationship or make their spouse happy. Once they get out they head to the church to make their life better in their own mind.

 

I believe today people look at the Lifestyle for many different reasons, many for the wrong reasons.

 

There are so many definitions of what a “swinger” is today also.

The old days of recreational sex between consenting adults now has nothing really to do with it. Being a swinger means something different to just about everyone that claims to be a swinger.

 

I don’t have your education, your studies or access to the material that you may have due to your profession. I tend to run on common sense, observing people most of my life from many different aspects. I sit back and watch hundreds of people a week.

 

Over thirty years things have drastically changed just as they have in this country and life in general.

 

What I state is my observations of what I have seen over thirty years. No studies, no scientific studies. At conventions we have taken basic surveys and have also done the same On Line for about a ten year period.

 

Many may and will disagree with my observations and that if the way it should be. We all see things in a different light and look at things differently.

 

Hope this answers some of your questions.

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Thanks VegasLee.

 

My interpretation of what you say is that swingers are not merely changing from being married to being single, they are ending relationships in order to enter new ones, and that the cause seems to be the cultural shift toward including friendship and emotional exchanges in swinging.

 

In other words swinging has become more like polyamory in the last decade?

 

I accept what you say although I would like to see a proper survey that controls for various things. One thing that makes me unsure though is that the single polyamory survey I could find shows divorce rates no worse than the general population, so if swingers were becoming more polyamorous I wouldn't expect that to make their divorce rate rocket past the general public figure. On the other hand my reading of polyamory does give me he impression of instability and rampant jealousy so it wouldn't surprise me if polyamory divorce figures were much higher than average. Polyamorous people deliberately enter into their relationships with prior preparation and the expectation of multi-emotional connections. It could be that swingers are falling into poly-relationships unexpectedly and unprepared and are less careful about it.

 

That many of the divorced are dropping out of swinging and joining the church is interesting but we have to be careful about anecdotal evidence, it could be that you selectively remember those cases.

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From what I have been seeing in the last five to seven years I don't feel Swinging is becoming more like polyamory. I don't believe they are looking to add more people to their relationship. I feel many people are getting into swinging to replace something they don't have in their own relationship and are trying to find it in other people.

 

Once they do that, they go the divorce route and hook up with what they feel is better for them. In many of those cases I don't see that working either but that is just my personal opinion.

 

Just my thoughts. You bring up some good points.

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