OUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEX AND PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIVING: LOVE POLYGONS

posted by admin in General health

There is no love triangle in our marriage. There are more people involved than that. My wife knows almost everybody in the world. The police should call her if anyone is missing. She either knows them or would know someone who did.

HUSBAND

One of the most difficult tasks for the thousand couples was balancing commitment to their spouse while maintaining outside friendships. Our society seems to divide itself into “married couples” and “single people.” When a married person tries to have other married and single friends separate form the marital relationship, problems can result.

Each couple has to find its own solution to how many “other” people can be included into the marital life. There were two major dangers that seem related to this problem in the interviews.

First, when one of the partners is searching for more and more friends or is turning almost exclusively to a “friends advisory group,” this outside focus signals marital problems. What needs are being met outside the marriage that cannot be met from within it? Friends are necessary for healthy living, but marriage is the one place for total vulnerability and intimacy. If you are telling your friends things you will not or feel you could not tell your spouse, you will never achieve super marriage or super marital sex, for both of these require exclusive intimacy rights.

Second, if the couple factor is decreasing, with any social event creating more distance than mutual enjoyment, problems may be brewing. When you go to a party, do you see as much of your spouse as you do other people? Or do you and your spouse split up only to “meet up” at a prearranged time to leave? Do you have to search out your spouse and almost drag him or her away from others? Does your spouse seem more “on” and “up” when she or he is with others than with you? These are signs of problems that may require a system re-evaluation.

“I only ask that he gives me what he gives to others. Everyone loves him. I love him, too. He seems to value their love and respect more than mine. He just takes mine for granted. Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.” This report from one of the wives illustrates the “polygon” issue. This is not the “love triangle” affair discussed when I reviewed the two types of extramarital sex. A polygon is a many-sided figure with no real base, and the issue here is multiplicity, extent, and priority of involvement with others outside of the marriage, resulting in dilution of intimacy.

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