In working with couples recovering from affairs, I’ve learned that there are some topics that lightning rod issues. Those topics spark comments and reactions.
I’ve also learned that there are some couples so caught up in the swinger or polygamous lifestyle that they react strongly to anyone daring to raise questions about what they’re doing. You’d think I was choking their god judging by the intense reactions generated.
I can always tell when authors are making another push promoting profligate living by the article promoting her books. Google lets me know when there’s a new push for non-monogamy or when journalists are having slow news days so they put up another shocking headline taking digs at monogamy.
Such reactions still surprise me at times. They haven’t seen the casualties and damage other couples share with me about what happened in their lives.
The reactions defend what they are doing, claiming that they are happier, better adjusted, have better communication, ad nauseum. The defenders make their choices appear as the ‘healthiest’ of all ways of living.
One recent comment left included the statement “It’s the hottest live porn imaginable!” Although the writer was expressing the intensity of his experience, his choice of words revealed some deeper truths.
He was excited about his life, which he enjoys. His comment told me that his life is one beyond what he ever imagined.
In using the word ‘porn’ in describing his marriage, it lets me know what his reference point is. When real life reflects porn, something is off. Porn is imagined, real life is very different.
When the word ‘porn’ is the highest expression of your marriage and love, something’s wrong. You strive for your focal point, and when that focal point is porn, your marriage is not achieving its fullest potential.
If porn was as wonderful as he claims, then porn stars would be happy people. The numerous suicides in that profession, tell me something different.
I also recall when I worked with a former Penthouse Pet, and saw the results of all the porn and sex. From the articles, you’d assume she’d be the happiest person in the world. The reality is she was broken shell of a woman on the verge of suicidal depression.
Porn sells fantasies, not real relationships.
Porn is also about exploitation and transforming expressions of love into a marketable commodity. A surprising number of spouses turn their spouses into marketable commodities by offering photos of them for sale on their own porn sites.
I don’t consider that an expression of love. I know that many famous artists have painted their lovers, yet that’s very different than crassly offering photos of them in embarrassing poses for sale.
I also don’t consider selling photos of your wife or buying those of another wife a form of tenderness and caring for them. If anything, it rips away the special closeness a couple may have once had.
The times I’ve seen older couples caring for each other in hospital settings show evidence of a lifetime of love and tenderness. I haven’t seen those couple post porno photos of themselves in their hospital rooms for the world to see. Their love is made of different stuff.
The experience of swinging or affairs definitely force you to have to discuss private areas of your life that you may not have talked about before. It may encourage the indulgence in fantasies. Such actions are substitutes for healthy intimacy, trust and communication.
Those actions give you stimulation, but that’s not a healthy kind of closeness and tenderness. If you want a way to return your relationship to a healthy status, you can. Your marriage relationship can change, even if you lost your direction along the way.
At the Restored Lifestyle membership site, you can share with others and learn ways of finding your way back. You don’t have to do it all alone.
The damage is real, unlike the fantasies used in promoting them, whether sexual fantasies or faked research.
Having genuine sharing about your fears, hopes and dreams is very different than your spouse sharing themselves or you with others and calling it love.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
