Swinging: Ask the Man Shrink

Dear Man Shrink,

My husband and I are in our late thirties and lead a pretty nice lifestyle. We don’t have kids, so we have enough money to do a lot of fun things. I thought we were pretty happy. However, my husband recently made a suggestion that almost made me faint. He said we should try meeting with a group of local “swingers” who have sex with each other’s spouses. He told me about some research that said that people who do this have healthier marriages than those who don’t. (Is this true?)

I’m not totally against the idea. I love my husband and feel secure in his love for me. However, this does make me wonder if he doesn’t find me attractive enough or if he’s bored with our sex life. I guess I’d be willing to give it a try, but honestly, I’m a little afraid and repulsed by the idea. But if it will help our marriage, I guess I’m open to it. I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this, as I’m very confused.—Betty

Dear Betty,

Some research was done a while back suggesting that couples who consensually engaged in extramarital sex had better relationships than those prudish monogamous types. So you’re husband isn’t lying. But he’s still wrong about this being a good idea.

The research indicating that “swinging” promotes healthy relationships has a pretty big hole in it: researchers interviewed only active swingers. This is the equivalent of interviewing everyone at a bowling alley and discovering that most of them enjoy bowling. I have found no studies about people who stopped swinging, and those are the folks that would give us the real dirt. Ex-swingers could give us a better picture about the potential damage it can cause.

For the sake of argument, however, let’s assume that swinging makes marriages better. You get the opportunity to act on sexual impulses instead of repressing them, and then go back to the business of working on a healthy relationship. That sounds great on paper. In practice, however, things get a lot messier.