Ending an affair is tough. Ending a lifestyle is tougher.
How do I get out of the swinging lifestyle?
<<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Today we’re going to be dealing with a topic that is very serious and concerning to myself and those who are caught up in it, and that is in regards to swinging, or the swinging lifestyle.
The questions comes up, “How do I get out of the lifestyle?” We’re going to be talking about that today.
The main problem with this, as all of you know, ending an affair is always tough. When you’re talking about ending a lifestyle it’s even tougher.
You’ve got more relationships and more people, more emotional involvement, than you had with just one affair. It’s almost like taking the challenges of ending an affair and multiplying them exponentially.
That’s what you’re dealing with here. And so it’s definitely a tougher dilemma to find a solution to than just ending an affair. Another factor that enters in, some swinging communities don’t like their members leaving.
They may resort to things such as blackmail, threats, activating emotional triggers, use of embarrassing material. These are some of the tools that they may resort to using to try to keep you locked in to that whole lifestyle.
I want to give you some ways that you can go ahead and start the process to get out of it. Because after you wake up to the reality of that’s not what you want, this is not the way a marriage is supposed to be, this is not the way a family’s supposed to be, this is not the way a community is supposed to be.
Once you wake up to that then you’ve got to take steps to leave it. Because staying in there is going to take you deeper and deeper down into the rabbit hole. You don’t want to go there. That is not a good place.
In terms of the solution and what you can start doing:
- Maintain contact and connection with friends and family that are not in the lifestyle. If you have some that are not in the lifestyle I encourage you, stay in connection with them. Start talking with them. Expand the relationship more. Develop it, talk to them more.
Because many times what happens, the whole set of community involved in the lifestyle often try to monopolize or control their members. And if you’ve got connection to people outside of the lifestyle you literally have a lifeline to people that can save you. And you literally have hope that some of those who are locked into that lifestyle don’t have.
I encourage you to start using that lifeline. If you’re in real deep, and you’ve cut off all those connections, start rebuilding them. Now is the best time.
Don’t worry that it’s too late, don’t think that you’re beyond hope. Don’t think that it’s gone too far. Because the longer you stay into it the worse it’s going to get. The best time to get out is now.
2. Reject the mind control. To keep people locked into this lifestyle, many times there’s either mental manipulation or the use of drugs and alcohol, to keep people into it. Many times they have to literally numb themselves out in order to continue doing what’s going on. If you’re in that position you need your mind clear.
If they can keep you doped up, drugged up, and controlled that way, it’s going to be hard to think clear enough to get out.
And so you’re going to need to start taking some steps to get out, and that will involve saying no to the lies and the control mechanisms.
3. After you leave, or after bugging out, you’re going to have to give yourself time to heal in your mind and in your heart. Any scars or bruises, physically things heal relatively quickly. But it takes much longer to heal your heart and heal your mind.
When you’ve been in the lifestyle for any amount of time, there are scars on your heart and scars in your mind, in terms of memories and things that you wish you could block out. These are the things it’s going to take time to heal.
You’re going to have to give yourself time to heal. If you’re one of those that are expecting well gee, now that I’m out of it I should have this immediate turnaround, within a day or maybe if you’re a little more understanding you’ll give yourself a week or maybe a month. It’s going to take longer than that, folks.
This thing didn’t happen overnight. And in terms of getting out of it it’s going to take a little while to get out of it. And this is why you’re going to have to give yourself time.
I know when people are caught up in all types of drug addiction they get frustrated because they want to be further along with their healing than what they are. It takes time for healing. Many times they have to double the amount of time that they were expecting. That’s how unrealistic it is.
And likewise, with getting out of the lifestyle, you’re going to have to give yourself time. While you’re giving yourself time you also want to avoid any parties, clubs, social gatherings, where there’s a possibility that you’re going to come into contact with people that are still in the lifestyle.
Because if you contact them, or they contact you, there’s going to be this whole thing of activating triggers, bringing back memories, and trying to get you back into this. So it’s going to be important when you bug out to not have that contact.
Does that mean you’re going to need to take them off your phone list? Yes.
Off your Facebook. Off of all those social contacts. Like ending an affair you’re going to have to cut it all off. Likewise you’re going to have to get new phone numbers and pull out of the lifestyle altogether, and stay out of it.
Because if you go back thinking oh but I had a few good friends and we had a few good times, it’s going to suck you back into it. You want to resist it. That’s part of that rejecting the mind control.
These are things that you can start doing right now. In the case of getting out of the lifestyle I realize it’s going to take some time. You may have to come up with your plan and start executing these things one phase at a time.
That’s okay. Because the freedom that you’ll experience once you’re out is well worth the effort. And I encourage you to take steps in that direction.
Because it will open the door for healing and recovery from not only the affair, but recovery from the whole lifestyle, in your situation.
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 have 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 “Overcoming Relationship Trauma for Swingers“.
Best Regards,
Jeff
