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How do you protect your marriage while swinging?

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Recently a non-monogamy group I belong to has been discussing the impermanence of relationships. Two leaders of the group divorced this year and have talked about their situations, noting basically, that relationships come and go. They also related that non-monogamy wasn't the cause of their break-ups, but did make the process less stressful.

 

My husband and I feel strongly that we are committed to each other and our family. We work to put our relationship first. We've definitely had ups and downs in our relationship, but we started playing in a good place in our marriage.

 

Obviously making a commitment and believing in it aren't enough. Nearly everyone gives their vow with good intent. Still, half of all marriages end in divorce. As swingers we have both the release valve and the stress of partners outside ourselves.

 

What I want to know is: Do you think there are steps you can take in swinging to protect your relationship? What do you do specifically to keep your marriage strong while swinging?

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Do I even need to say it?

 

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

 

Openness, honestly, a willingness to have the hard conversations, to tackle the hard issues, to deal with problems rather than let them fester. In the end, it all just comes down to communication.

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Swinger or not it's important to put as much energy into the relationship you share with your spouse as anything else you do or think about doing. For many years we told the kids that it was our job to raise them and get them out of the house but that our relationship with each other was number one as after they were on their own we would still be together. For swingers it's even more important not to take your spouse for granted. Couples come and go (sex is fun) Living with someone takes work and like all things that are worth while attention.

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Dunno. The reasons for divorce among swingers are the same as for non-swingers -- disagreements over money matters, infidelity, being an asshole or Payne-Diaz.

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My biggest fear is for J to fall in love with a lover. I watch pretty closely her reactions to guys and if it looks like it may be heading down the wrong road, we take a break from that guy. She's very understanding and although would never admit to falling for someone, doesn't argue the need to back off for my comfort. We only see single guys so the possibility is always there.

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Protect it from what? We haven't had anything to protect it from really that required some sort of action plan. We have had ups and downs in our marriage of course, but swinging has never been something that was a real cause of them. All we have in all this is each other.

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I think if both parties make their relationship more important than swinging or swinging relationships then they're on the right track. By that I mean things like respecting the others veto of someone, pulling away voluntarily if they start to develop feelings for a swing partner, and taking a break when one or both get jealous or self conscious. That goes a long way I think.

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I wanted to give myself a little bit of time to think about this. Obviously, communication is important, just as being in love with each other, trusting, having respect...but whether or not a relationship or marriage is engaged in swinging or not, there's only so many "precautions" that can be taken. Life is not predictable and people are much less so. Just like we can take all of the precautions to keep our children safe, we cannot control other people and what they may or may not do. The same applies for relationships/marriages. You can love your partner with all your heart, you can talk until you're blue in the face, you can trust them to the end of the world, and respect them for who they are...but it won't do any good if they don't reciprocate. You cannot control them. You can't make them talk to you. You can't make them be honest. And you can't make them love you. Does that mean that you shouldn't try your best? Of course not but there also has to be a line where you have to realize that with all of your best efforts, they have to put just as much into the relationship or else there isn't one at all. One person cannot shoulder the entire load of a relationship.

 

I also think that both halves of the relationship have to have the same goal in mind...to stay together, even when things get tough. Without that same mindset, it can be very tempting to bail when there's a devastating life experience--a family death, life-threatening illness, infidelity, etc. Is there a chance that these types of life experiences may change you or your partner into someone completely different? Absolutely. Can it lead to incompatibility? Possibly. I think that's where a couple has to decide if they want to "begin again" and still be with each other. They might have to fall in love again with this new person or make this new person fall in love with them.

 

For many of us, I don't think we truly understood how much hard work it would be to really maintain a relationship/marriage when we first started out. And perhaps some of the precautions we take to protect our relationship/marriage can lull us into a false sense of security that may actually be hiding an issue or fear that we aren't conscious about.

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I couldn't agree more with other posters that marriage is hard work, and my husband and I disagree on more vanilla issues like money. I actually find compromises in swinging much more easier to come by than compromises other non-swinging areas, so I don't worry as much about swinging weakening my marriage that I need to take precautions. Our ground rules on things like communication, jealousy, trust work well with some regular updating as situations come up.

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I have a confession to make, I've never understood how a marriage is hard work.

 

I don't know if its semantics or if I just got really lucky when I married. To me hard work is doing something you don't want to do but for and endpoint you do. When I decided to get into shape a couple of years ago it was hard work. I had to figure out how to properly diet, how to change my lifestyle, to lift heavy things regularly, to get up early every Saturday, that sort of thing. It required an effort I'd have rather not taken at the time. Sometimes it sucked badly, but the end point was the goal, the journey was hard. The same thing about when I started a business, again it was the endpoint that mattered, the risk and the stress was not desirable.

 

Marriage (or any relationship) is a journey, not an end point endeavor, and if the journey is hard, why the hell are you on that road? Maybe this should be another topic, but its early and I have to go to work so I'll leave this here for now.

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I agree with Chicup... Marriage isn't all peaches and cream, but it's never been hard work. It's never really been work at all.

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I have a confession to make, I've never understood how a marriage is hard work.

 

I don't know if its semantics or if I just got really lucky when I married. To me hard work is doing something you don't want to do but for and endpoint you do. When I decided to get into shape a couple of years ago it was hard work. I had to figure out how to properly diet, how to change my lifestyle, to lift heavy things regularly, to get up early every Saturday, that sort of thing. It required an effort I'd have rather not taken at the time. Sometimes it sucked badly, but the end point was the goal, the journey was hard. The same thing about when I started a business, again it was the endpoint that mattered, the risk and the stress was not desirable.

 

Marriage (or any relationship) is a journey, not an end point endeavor, and if the journey is hard, why the hell are you on that road? Maybe this should be another topic, but its early and I have to go to work so I'll leave this here for now.

 

I'd say that you're lucky. Not all couples experience the same things in life and can go through some pretty rough patches that bring the relationship to the brink. Those are the "hard work" moments, in my opinion. Maybe work isn't the right word but it is definitely not easy to go through.

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Recently, when mentioning that our relationship had lasted 26 years, we were asked: "What's your secret?"

 

I think we mumbled something about communication, respect, etc. But honestly? I believe that our "secret" is that our relationship is one of those that has lasted 26 years.

 

We found the right partner, we (generally) made the right decisions, as we grew we grew in similar directions, as we encountered hardship, our ways of dealing with them were similar, as our goals changed, they continued to be compatible. How much of that could we control? How much of that was predictable? In honest analysis, I don't believe much of it.

 

Yes, communication, respect, compassion, understanding, mutual compromise, etc, are all foundational ingredients of a strong relationship. But ultimately a relationship is based on two unique people, each with their own goals, ideologies, histories, and world views. If they diverge too greatly, no amount of effort is going to keep them together (or at least keep them together and happy).

 

Our longevity is not as a result of some superhuman feat of relationship kung fu. Rather, I believe it is a result of an extraordinary string of good luck that started with us finding each other in the first place and has continued with each obstacle that we've managed to navigate successfully. Certainly we do whatever we can to facilitate that luck, and I am supremely happy that we seem have horse shoes wrapped in four leaf clovers shoved up our asses. But I have no illusion that our relationship has lasted as long as it has for any reason other than we were compatible when we met, and because of some whim of the universe, we continue to be compatible (and in love) today.

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We both had crappy previous marriages. Really crappy.

 

So, for both of us, after 16 years together, this one still doesn't seem like work at all. We don't sweat the small stuff, and handle the bigger stuff with a sense of perspective and humor as needed. That's not to say we don't have our moments, but they're just that; moments.

 

I think the really shitty previous relationships make us appreciate what we have now.

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We're of the opinion that IF IT"S hard work, then it's a bad match... Like "I hate my job"... We have friends in the Master/Slave world, and some of them actually have a freaking CONTRACT!!! I asked them what the purpose was... Hell, if you have to have a 14 page contract, you need to move on...

 

I've had marriages that were indeed, hard work, and that was a clear signal... "do you want to spend the rest of your life "working" on this? Hell no!!!"

 

It's not hard if you both have the same destination, same desires, and same dedication to the relationship.. If you don't, then you have the wrong job and should re-evaluate your mutual goals. I thought about, "what would happen if she fell for one of our playmates", then decided not to worry about it. If the relationship seems to be good, then the only reason for someone to leave is for money, material things or just plain tired of who they are with, and if that's the case, it was just a matter of time anyway...

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We're of the opinion that IF IT"S hard work, then it's a bad match... Like "I hate my job"... We have friends in the Master/Slave world, and some of them actually have a freaking CONTRACT!!! I asked them what the purpose was... Hell, if you have to have a 14 page contract, you need to move on...

 

I've had marriages that were indeed, hard work, and that was a clear signal... "do you want to spend the rest of your life "working" on this? Hell no!!!"

 

It's not hard if you both have the same destination, same desires, and same dedication to the relationship.. If you don't, then you have the wrong job and should re-evaluate your mutual goals. I thought about, "what would happen if she fell for one of our playmates", then decided not to worry about it. If the relationship seems to be good, then the only reason for someone to leave is for money, material things or just plain tired of who they are with, and if that's the case, it was just a matter of time anyway...

 

I understand the general meaning behind what you're saying but I also have to disagree. Sometimes life can be really crappy. Even if a couple is a good match, sometimes unexpected situations can rain down like a shit storm. I also want to revise what I wrote earlier:

 

One person cannot shoulder the entire load of a relationship.

 

When two people are young and able, I would say it's best that one person doesn't shoulder the entire relationship. However, I've been thinking about end of life situations...eventually, one half of a couple will have to be the one holding up the relationship. And that is hard work. I was very young and I didn't understand the hardship it must have been on my aunt, but she had a young family and her husband, my uncle, had Lou Gehrig's disease. All I ever remember of him was how he was always in a wheelchair, couldn't talk to anyone in an understandable manner, and was always drinking from a straw. Imagine going through that in your 40s, taking care of two young boys, taking care of every basic need for your spouse, juggling a job to pay for bills, and contemplating the future without her husband and the father of her children. Imagine the emotions she had to go through--denial, resentment, and fear. Or perhaps the death of a certain family member can completely alter one spouse's psyche--leaving the other spouse to deal with a completely different person--something one of my other aunts had to go through. The person that she loved and knew was no longer the person she was married to.

 

Obviously, these are the types of situations we can't protect our relationships from but there is a chance they will come up as we get older. It's so very easy to sit here and say that the "right match" relationship/marriage is what will make it feel like it is "not hard work" but we're all young and relatively healthy. Not acknowledging that there is the possibility of hard times ahead or giving up when it starts to be hard work is part of what can cause divorce.

 

I'm not saying that all relationships/marriages should stay together. There are obvious ones that shouldn't, like abusive ones, but when both partners agree that their marriage is a top priority and they are determined to work through any rough patch to stay together...that is the difference between couples who stay together only as long as the good-times-roll and those couples who last for decades.

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The core question has next to nothing to do with swinging.

 

Whether or not you define it as "hard", "work" or both, sustained marriages require focus and commitment from both partners. We use the word "partner" easily and perhaps too glibly. Partnerships can be dissolved. Marriages can be dissolved.

 

Durability, robustness, resilience in the relationship spring from the relationship itself, not from "doing something to protect". How we conduct the relationship--the respect, affection, communication compersion given freely to one another--those foundational things create the pleasure and trust in each other.

 

True, we do things to express our feeling for each other, whether it's the surprise flowers or having a great meal waiting or doing the other's chores. But those are expressive much more than protective.

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I have a confession to make, I've never understood how a marriage is hard work.

 

I don't know if its semantics or if I just got really lucky when I married. To me hard work is doing something you don't want to do but for and endpoint you do. When I decided to get into shape a couple of years ago it was hard work. I had to figure out how to properly diet, how to change my lifestyle, to lift heavy things regularly, to get up early every Saturday, that sort of thing. It required an effort I'd have rather not taken at the time. Sometimes it sucked badly, but the end point was the goal, the journey was hard. The same thing about when I started a business, again it was the endpoint that mattered, the risk and the stress was not desirable.

 

Marriage (or any relationship) is a journey, not an end point endeavor, and if the journey is hard, why the hell are you on that road? Maybe this should be another topic, but its early and I have to go to work so I'll leave this here for now.

 

 

I'm with Chicup on this one. LIFE is hard work, marriage shouldn't be. Sure you will have times when you could happily murder your other half and bury them in the garden, but then you realize you would probably miss them so don't.

 

I have only been married 4 years but I have been with my wife for 13 years and we have 2 kids aged 12 and 9, Also I'm only 30. Sure life was bloody hard and we had no money but we had each other and we became each others best friend and we got through it TOGETHER.

 

So to the original question, we don't have any need to protect our marriage from swinging as it is just another fun thing we do together and if either off us gets bored with it or doesn't want to continue for any reason we will stop.

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We have been married for 12 years. There have been 2 times that we have seriously considered splitting. Both were before we were swinging and both were for pretty good reasons...personality changes that might not be compatible ever again. Turns out, one was caused by a disease that was undiagnosed (super bad sleep apnea from a tiny trachea) and long lasting grief from the death of a family member. Aside from those two times - I don't feel like I have to protect my marriage. But I do try to come up with ways to make it feel new and special. I guess that is a form of protection. But one I like doing! Communication, trust, respect - all that comes naturally. If you have to work hard on those things...hmmmm....

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Not once in all the years did we have feelings of jealousy or insecurity. Swinging was never a pint of contention in the 50 yeas marriage. There we lots of others, but swinging was never something that the marriage needed "protection" from.

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Well, I never viewed that I had to protect my marriage from Swinging. Swinging is about having sex with other people, not being in marital type love with others. I don't view the sex I have as infidelity, which would be giving myself over physically AND emotionally to another. I've found myself occasionally developing a bond, as can happen with amazingly great sex, but I never indulged it and would metaphorically pat myself on the head and say, "Isn't that a cute little emotion you're having. Don't indulge it or think it's genuine." Now, has there been a sex partner or two that I've adored on some level and at times couldn't wait to strip naked for and ride them like I was in the Derby ? You bet. Would I compromise my marriage for it ? Never. --Susan

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Communicate! Relationships do come and go, but you can make a choice to commit yourself to a relationship again and again. Just as you make a choice to love someone repeatedly. It's not something that just happens.

 

I encountered a guy at a club this last weekend that gave me his story about how his wife of 7 years decided she wanted a divorce and now she's off with her boytoy. He also said swinging had nothing to do with their break-up, but I can't help feeling like that level of playing separately WITHOUT strong communication and a strong relationship may have been. Obviously, there was something going on in her head that he wasn't aware of.

 

I guess that's the steps we take, we make sure that there aren't things running around in our head that our partner isn't aware of.

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What I want to know is: Do you think there are steps you can take in swinging to protect your relationship? What do you do specifically to keep your marriage strong while swinging?

 

YES there are "steps" you can take to protect your relationship in swinging. Much of this thread is about keeping a marriage / relationship working and about it being hard work or not work. As I read the OP and all the subsequent posts there are two distinctions.

 

First - a relationship / marriage is one distinction. The effort that takes is both relative to the people involved and required for that relationship to exist.

 

Second - taking that marriage INTO swinging requires a whole other level of "work" or effort which will again be relative to the people involved and also required for that marriage to function WHILE SWINGING.

 

Two totally separate issues. I've seen PLENTY of dysfunctional relationships in swinging. To be functional AND functional while swinging takes two distinctly different levels of relationship maintenance.

 

So YES there are steps that MUST be taken to BE IN A MARRIAGE WHILE SWINGING. I won't say "protect from swinging"...but BE IN A MARRIAGE WHILE SWINGING is far more applicable from my POV.

 

The second OP question is about steps I/we take to keep our marriage, the marriage that we take into swinging, strong while swinging. The steps we have learned over the years are:

  1. Communicate about every single emotion and expectation we have about how we feel about our experiences before and after we have them
  2. Share our desires for our experiences and choose experiences that we BOTH are comfortable with
  3. Put each other's comfort FIRST while engaged in our swinging situations making sure we only do things we KNOW our spouse would be comfortable with
  4. Agree ahead of time about how we spend our non-swinging time especially if we are engaged with a couple that can take up our time during our personal lives texting or talking - MAKE SURE WE ALWAYS PUT OUR SPOUSES FIRST
  5. Step up our "game" in our marriage and be EXTRA loving and EXTRA sensitive and EXTRA giving to each other than we would be if we were NOT swinging - and doing this at all times
  6. Keeping PERSPECTIVE on our relationships with partners. We as a couple are comfortable diving pretty deep emotionally with another couple which can be tricky so for us, we do so while remaining in perspective about our primary relationship at all times

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Clear & open communication.

 

Mutually embracing the "otherness of self" we both find through swinging. In other words, we love sharing in our non-sharing selves, together. If that makes sense. The moment we don't feel that way is the moment we stop.

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While the goal is fun with no drama, occasionally we have met someone who was into games and it's important to see it and cut ties asap.

 

It can be as simple as they know our rules are to use condoms and they make every effort to go bareback. The goal for them is to be wanted so much that one of us will break the rules for them. It's an ego thing, it's a power trip, it's high school where boy and girls feel like they win if they take someone elses boyfriend or girlfriend away-even if just to cheat.

 

To protect our marriage from them we first had to understand they were out there. That was learned the hard way by ending up playing with a few. Then talking about it and figuring it out. And then avoiding them in the future and cutting off anyone who we figure out is like that. And yeah, that can mean stopping mid-play-if we catch it fast enough. Which we learned the hard way to do.

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Anytime I see a couple get divorced...(and I've been there), I can't help but wonder if they actually loved each other and if they did, did they continue to invest in their relationship.

 

We have friends who have spent the last 10 years living for their kids and while they can't see it, we have already predicted their eventual divorce. It sounds absolutely horrible and we don't know what it's like to be in their relationship so it's also unfair but I can look back to my first marriage, all the people I have dated and I can almost pinpoint the why's of the failed relationship.

 

Mrs. Diggs and I are far from perfect. We have had our knock down drag out fights where we have called each other some of the meanest things we could think of and we are BOTH very creative but along the way (we have four kids) we have always remembered to put our relationship before everything else. It doesn't mean that we won't someday split up (at 16 years now) but for the life of me I can't think of a single thing that is worth more to me than my relationship with her and I know she feels the same. At the end of the day, not only is she my lover but she is my best friend. We laugh together, struggle through the tough times together and sometimes cry together but everything that happens draws us closer together.

 

Swinging is just an activity. We have gotten pretty close to a few couples but our emotional ties are rock solid. I've never once felt any care or concern for it.

 

Relationships aren't an occasional thing, they are a 24/7 thing which many of us forget. I agree with Chicup that I don't think a relationship is hard work but you get out of it what you put into it.

 

If there is something else I should be doing...I can't think of anything.

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How about this: If you need to come up with a strategy to protect your marriage while Swinging, perhaps you shouldn't be Swinging, at least yet, because you don't understand it. No one can see past a choice that they don't understand.

 

I started this discussion based on many, many couples I've seen breaking up this year. We've been swinging with good results for over 4 years so I feel like we have an ok understanding. I do feel though that there are things you can do to keep a marriage strong while engaging in non-monogamy. And, while maybe not the best wording "protecting" (it's hard to come up with a concise, catchy title for a broad range of thoughts), I think it's naive to think we don't have to take care of each other's feelings and our relationship.

 

I think there are some really great thoughts here about trust and communication and also specific guidelines some of you use while playing!

 

We think transparency is really key. Being able to tell your partner if you are becoming attached to someone and deciding together to cut things off or rework rules is important. We try to keep this as fun and recreation, and limit frequency so attachments don't develop.

 

We've seen at least 10 couples split just in the past year.

 

The pattern I often see is: We play together --- we play separate --- we date separate --- we have separate profiles --- she just wants single men --- we're done

 

I have no idea what other issues were at play with these couples. Some were a shock, some not surprising. One couple I know did use the lifestyle to try to stay together. They said swinging actually helped them stay together and have good times for 4 years longer than if they hadn't. Eventually though, they just weren't compatible.

 

We sometimes play separate, and love the experience. (We never spend the night with play partners.) But, we try to make the majority of what we do play-wise, and socially, together activities. I think separate play is fine if you keep a balance. If it becomes your primary mode of play, I think you are headed for trouble.

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In my mind, protecting your marriage while swinging is not so much an ongoing conscious effort as much as an occasional introspection to re-affirm that you are both properly wired for enjoying swing lifestyle. If swing becomes work, it will erode a relationship.

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