Divorce Rate Among Swingers

[ldenn2 15]

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 1,132]

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 2,653]

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 20]

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

[couplers 4,727]

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 1,132]

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 4,727]

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 2,775]

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.

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

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 15]

Alura said:

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.

 

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

[lv2prty 17]

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 probably 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 77]

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 324]

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 15]

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 15]

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?

[two4youinswva 3,068]

Can you cite your sources?

 

I would say 10% is too low. I'll see if I can dig anything up, but not holding out much hope for any real evidence.

[DarkVoyuer 15]

Can you cite your sources?

 

I would say 10% is too low. I'll see if I can dig anything up, but not holding out much hope for any real evidence.

At first, I shared your opinion. However, I still get the feeling that the divorce rate for swingers may still be significantly lower than traditional marriage.

[Coupleerotic22 1,419]

I think the question is not specific enough. DO you mean divorced after they were swinging together. Or swingers that have been divorced. Is the question being posed as a link between divorce and swinging? (I assume it is).

 

If it is "have they ever been divorced", it seems WAY too low. Many of the swingers I have met, I dare say most, are one their second marriage. But that is not an indicator that swinging had anything to do with the first divorce. Hell, it could have been that lack of swinging, lol.

 

In any case that number seems extremely low compared to the general public figure of around 50%, if that number is even accurate.

[two4youinswva 3,068]

Libchrist.com throws this information out there:

One study showed divorce rate among swingers was only 5% compared to the normal rate of 40% for traditional marriages.

- They don't cite the study though. Why is this so freaking hard to do?

 

The oft-cited paper, Today's Alternative Marriage Styles: The Case of Swingers, swingers identify themselves as happier, with a more exciting life. That's a self-evaluation though, and they did no study on divorce within this paper.

 

Wiki Answers says the difference is negligible, but once again, fails to cite a source.

 

I saw numbers from 1.2% to 10% to no difference listed numerous times, but not one of them could cite a source. I honestly believe the source for each of their numbers was their own ass, because that's where it seems everyone is pulling their statistics from.

 

I believe the divorce rate may be a little lower, but then again, it depends on who you identify as swingers. We've been playing for 6 years now, and know that a few of the couples that we have played with in the past are now divorced. Of course, that's just anecdotal evidence, and not really of any more value than the numbers cited above.

[Chicup 42]

I would not be surprised if the swinger divorce rate was somewhat lower, but I've seen more than one swinger add go from 'couple' to 'single'.

 

I'm with two4you on this.

[LikeMinds321 1,527]

two4youinswva said:

 

I honestly believe the source for each of their numbers was their own ass, because that's where it seems everyone is pulling their statistics from.

I agree.

 

There are people who come here asking Swingers Board members to participate in their latest research endeavor. I don't think the information gathered through those research surveys/questionnaires reaches far and wide enough. Swingers who participate in such research are a very select group of people - members from various forums who are used to being active, involved, generally happy swingers, who like to discuss and share their views. The statistics gathered from that research is likely biased in favor of swinging because of the nature of the respondents.

 

I see no point in trying to make swingers look worse off or better off than non-swingers by trying to compare divorce rates of swingers to non-swingers.

[VegasLee 1,486]

20 to 30 years ago I would agree that the divorce rate was lower then average in America but in the last Ten years I don't feel that way any longer.

 

If you do a search in these forums you will find a ton of information on that including why I feel this way.

 

Times have changed, Swinging has changed and the divorce rate has gone up greatly.

 

I still see some web sites post their low percentage numbers but once again, no one states sources. I think they post those numbers to try to make Swingers look good to others.

[DarkVoyuer 15]

LikeMinds321 said:

I agree.

 

I see no point in trying to make swingers look worse off or better off than non-swingers by trying to compare divorce rates of swingers to non-swingers.

 

I agree. What I find amazing is that if these statistics showed that swingers have over a 50% divorce rate, anti-swingers would aggressively promote it as proof that swinging does not work.

[AskMeOk 148]

LikeMinds321 said:

I see no point in trying to make swingers look worse off or better off than non-swingers by trying to compare divorce rates of swingers to non-swingers.

 

If that was the purpose, I would agree....

 

There are tons of scholarly research done on these subjects, annually. Here is the first item on the first Google I did. Your local university will have lots of information.....

 

Today's Alternative Marriage Styles: The Case of Swingers. EJHS 2000

[LikeMinds321 1,527]

AskMeOk said:

There are tons of scholarly research done on these subjects, annually. Here is the first item on the first Google I did. Your local university will have lots of information.....

 

Today's Alternative Marriage Styles: The Case of Swingers. EJHS 2000

 

That study is 10 years old and gathered the opinions of only 1092 people.

 

That study summed it up by saying:

 

Much more research needs to be done on swingers before any conclusions can be made about the efficacy of this lifestyle for strengthening relationships. Quantitative research such as this must be supplemented by more qualitative studies such as Gould's (2000) to give us an in-depth understanding of the meaning of this lifestyle to its members. Online surveys such as that used in this research offer a unique opportunity to sample large numbers of people at a relatively low cost while providing the advantage of anonymity, but they do not come without drawbacks. The possible sample biases in this research (favoring males, the more educated, and the more affluent) are typical of problems encountered in all web-based research (Dillman, 1999).

 

I did a Google search under 'research studies on swingers' and I found only three (on the first page), to include the one you linked above.

 

I searched for research done on swinging from local universities and colleges in my state. None came up.

[socolais 696]

Here's a more recent study that many of us may find familiar:

 

The Swinging Paradigm

[AskMeOk 148]

LikeMinds321 said:

I searched for research done on swinging from local universities and colleges in my state. None came up.

 

OK, my bad edit, I guess..... I should have suggested that you go to the local university LIBRARY.

 

A gazillion years ago, when I was in college (majored in Soc and Psy), we did a lot of research on sexual mores and behavior, even going as far as visiting XXX rated bookstores as a class project. There was a LOT of data then.

 

I assume the same is true, today. I don't think a 10 year old article on swinging lacks merit, either.

[ratimadan 75]

Here's a more recent study that many of us may find familiar:

The Swinging Paradigm

 

Good report based on research and worth reading. Not sure that it sheds much light on the divorce rate among swingers.

 

There are too many variables to come to any firm conclusion regarding whether or not swingers have a lower rate of divorce than the general population. The one conclusion we see is that swingers are generally happy with their choice and seem to enjoy multiplae sex partners.

 

[socolais 696]

A meaningful metric for divorce rate among swingers would be quite difficult to assemble. I think there's likely to be some inverse correlation between marriage satisfaction as reported in the study and divorces.

[WesternSwing 504]

I haven't seen any actual hard figures on swinging and divorce, or at least that swinging lead to the divorce. But I can say from personal experience that the couples I know in the lifestyle that has divorced did so for other reasons. Some were using swinging as a last ditch attempt at saving their marriage, foolishly thinking that having sex with others would magically fix all the damage they themselves had created to their relationship over the years. Others divorced for the same reasons that non-swingers do: money issues, becoming different people over the years, problems with step-children, etc.

 

One problem with getting an accurate rate of divorce amongst swingers and pinpointing the reason for the divorce is that most people never take responsibility for their own shit until they run out of other people and other things to blame it on. So instead of saying "I was an abusive asshole" or "I never appreciated my spouse and neglected them for 10 years" they say "We tried swinging and we got divorced" because it's easier to say that than eat their own shit.