As a
person who very adamantly believes in monogamy, I found this article to be
extremely interesting. Growing up in a
very conservative town, I never even heard of couples that did not value
monogamy. My first introduction to this
idea came when I first started dating my now husband. One of his friends, Shawn, was engaged, but
he and his fiancée called themselves “swingers”. They explained that there was a difference
between love and sex. They were “in love”
with each other, but they still allowed and encouraged one another to have sex
with other members of the opposite sex. I
do not agree with this way of thinking. Perhaps it is because I am a woman or
maybe it is just my opinion, but I do not think that I can separate the two.
Further
proving my point, a few months before our friend’s planned wedding, Shawn
called off the wedding. It turned out
that he had fallen in love with the girl he was swinging with. He ended up becoming monogamous with this
girl and they have now been together for almost 3 years! He has not admitted
it, but I think that his actions speak for themselves. You cannot separate passion and love from
sex. His fiancée has also moved on and
moved away from the swinging lifestyle. She is engaged to be married later this summer
and adamantly protests the idea of swinging.
I found
the statistic in Schmookler & Bursik (2007) interesting because it gave a
potential reason for infidelity. It
stated that “43% of college students listed relationship dissatisfaction as a
potential reason for engaging in infidelity during a dating relationship” (p.
823). Looking back on Shawn’s relationship
with his fiancée, I think that this might explain their decision to become swingers. They got along amazingly and Shawn’s family
absolutely loved Jodi; however they were lacking the passion and sexual
connection with one another. In order to
fill this void, they decided to turn to other people to fill these desires.
Overall,
it is important for individuals to be on the same page about their expectations
for their relationship. Both parties need
to communicate their wants and needs in order for a relationship to work. The same idea goes for addressing conflict in
relationships. There are always going to
be things that couples do not both agree on, but the key is to fight
fairly. This is something that I have
tried to work on in my own relationship. One of the statements in Chapter 7 is
something that I tend to do in arguments and need to work on being better
at. It lists several ways to modify an
argument and states that, “In confronting another, try not to make dogmatic
statements about the other person” (Corey & Corey, 2008, p. 205). In trying to prove a point, I often times
find myself accusing my husband of “always” doing this or “never” doing that. I
need to learn to focus on the problem at hand rather than trying to make the
situation bigger than it needs to be and falsely accusing him of always or
never doing something.
Corey,
G., & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Explorations
in personal growth (9th ed.). Belmont,
California: Thompson Brooks/Cole.
Schmookler, T.
& Bursik, K. (2007). The value of monogamy in emerging adulthood: A
gendered perspective. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
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