Is Swinging Cheating? <<– Listen to the podcast
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio.
I’m glad you’re here with me today. We’re dealing with a different topic. In some of the previous sessions we’ve dealt with lying, and some of the ways of dealing with it. Today we’re going to be talking about “Is swinging cheating”, or “Is swinging an affair?”
To some of you this is obvious. You know the answer already and you’re probably sitting with your hand saying I know, I know, I know! Okay. You’ll still learn some stuff from today.
This is an important topic because there are many people that are caught up in the swinger lifestyle, the swinger community, and they really don’t know the answer to this question.
This is a perplexing dilemma for them. Because cheaters, especially when you get into the swinging community, have a way of twisting the meaning of words around.
The words sound familiar, but mean something totally different.
Just an everyday cheater tends to twist words around anyway, but when you get into the swinging community everything gets twisted around a whole lot worse. You need to be aware of that, and we’re going to be talking about some of that today.
I mentioned how they twist everything around. There’s a lot of confusion regarding the issue of swinging and affairs. Swingers are those in what they call the lifestyle, twist the words to mean something totally different. That culture, cheating typically means sleeping around without permission.
To them, if you are sleeping with someone else and you have the permission of your spouse, that’s okay. That’s swinging. In their mind that’s also having fun. That is adult recreation.
If you’re not in the lifestyle that sounds like gee, everything is all twisted around. That’s one of the dangers with the whole swinging mindset.
Because the other folks, if you’re sleeping with someone else outside of your marriage, to you that’s clear and simple. That’s cheating. But to those that are caught up in the swinging lifestyle, since they have changed the whole definition of what is cheating, they’re confused and they’re not clear on the issue.
In terms of a solution I’m using the anagram of, I guess what you would call the old stop, look, and listen type of mentality… where you need to STP, or Stop, Look, and Listen.
- The S, you need to recognize that sex outside of marriage is cheating. That S refers to the sex outside of marriage. To get this idea in your mind you may want to think about how a pig is a pig no matter how you attire it. You can put lipstick on it, you can put little pink ribbons on its tail, you can dress it up. It’s still a pig. And sex outside of marriage is still cheating.
You can call it all kinds of things. It is still infidelity, cheating, stepping out. There’s various other terms that people use for that. In the swingers community they often embellish the whole aspect of cheating and they use words that make it not sound so bad.
2. The T in terms of the STP. That refers to terms. You need to find out what “terms” mean. Don’t just assume because you’re used to using a particular word that it means the same thing in the cheating community. That is not the case. Although you and they may use the same words, what they mean is something totally different.
It’s almost like it’s a whole different code word. And so if you’re dealing with someone there you want to ask them what do you mean by sleeping around. What do you mean by being loyal, what does that mean to you. Find out what their terms are.
3. This is the “P”. This is peer pressure. Because the third part of the solution is you’ve got to resist the peer pressure.
I know that some cheaters exert pressure on their spouses to get into the swinger lifestyle. This is something you want to resist. And they (the cheater) will, resort to using peer pressure because they know that groups are more effective at putting pressure on people than just individuals.
Many times they’ll put pressure on you and view you as being an outsider. Or they may say that you’re uncool or, hold onto your seats here, they may call you selfish because you’re not sharing yourself with other couples. If you want to keep the sexual part of yourself to yourself they view that as being selfish. This is part of their peer pressure.
And the pressure may come also in the form or pseudo-scientific articles on polygamy and swinging saying this is natural, this is healthy. This way, because there are some people that they have a lot of respect for anything that has that label science or has the appearance of science and they want to be seen as oh gee, I’m intellectually hip so I want to go along with science. So if science says this is cool, then I need to go along with it and be cool.
Don’t fall for that. That’s part of the scam. That’s what I mean by peer pressure. Because if it’s not just a literal group of people they will bring in articles, bring in books, and bring in so-called experts to try and put peer pressure on you.
Once again, is swinging cheating? I think I’ve made that very clear. Now, in terms of solutions, you’ve got to first of all recognize that sex outside of marriage is cheating. And two, find out what the terms mean.
If you’re in a situation where this kind of pressure is being put on you right now you may want to go ahead and start putting together your list and find out what do they mean by this, this, this, this, and talk about it with them to find out.
Then when they start putting the pressure on you realize that, in many cases, they’re twisting the words around and they’re trying to exert undue influence to get you in to this whole cheater’s lifestyle, or swinger’s lifestyle. Because they do tend to want to present it as being hip, being cool, being with it, being fashionable, this is what’s expected to get ahead.
And that is not the truth. That’s a big part of this deception.
I encourage you to go ahead and start applying that solution because this will start helping you to get your head clear and to be clear about this issue to where you’re not confused and your head is spinning about it. You can know whether or not swinging is cheating.
If you’re struggling with the effects from swinging you may be experiencing relationship trauma. You don’t have to get drunk, take pills or medications to numb yourself out, and keep symptoms under control.
When you’ve been traumatized, there are reasons for you not being able to get over it’ and bounce back. Discover the tools, exercises and techniques you need in understanding and moving past what has happened to you.
If that’s your situation, get your copy of the video on “Overcoming Relationship Trauma for Swingers“. Each hour you delay is another hour of living with the trauma.
Best Regards,
Jeff
