Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures (23 page)

It is tempting to conclude that polyfidelity eliminates jealousy. This may be true, but there are problems with relying on what people say about themselves. People may be unaware of their own feelings, or they may be unwilling to be truthful if their responses put them in an "undesirable" light. It may be that since jealousy was not acceptable in the commune, Keristans were reluctant to own up to it.

It also may be that when describing their experiences and filling out the questionnaire, Keristans simply reiterated their ideology, rather than reporting their actual experiences with jealousy. I am reluctant to accept these alternate explanations. In my long acquaintance with the Keristans, I learned to trust their honesty and willingness to explore difficult issues.

On the other hand, self-deception cannot be ruled out. It is possible that because of their huge investment in their alternative lifestyle, Keristans couldn't accept the possibility of failure; therefore they distorted their feelings unwittingly.

Still, the Keristans demonstrated that a selective group of people, living in a secure social milieu where jealousy-triggers were reduced to a minimum, can succeed in overcoming jealousy. This can be seen as proof that jealousy can be conquered.

It can also provide testimony to the power of jealousy-if it requires so much effort to be conquered. After all, only a small and Unusual group such as the Keristans, living in an unusual, self-created social structure, were able to overcome it. For those who made the kind of monogamous commitment the Keristans outlawed and who live in a less protected environment, some degree of jealousy seems almost inevitable.

The less protected the environment, the more likely is jealousy. A good example of this is another commune I visited. This was an urban commune like Kerista, comprising about twenty adults who shared living space and expenses. Unlike Kerista, this commune had many children, which meant that members had to put much more effort into parenting. More significant to the issue of jealousy, however, was that the commune's members had constantly shifting preferential relationships. At the time I visited the commune, for exam- plc, one of the men was living with two women, one of whom had previously lived with another man in the commune. The man himsell had been married to one of the other women members, who was now living with another threesome, and so on. In addition to changing sexual liaisons within the group itself, members were open to outside relationships. The first man, for example, made an obvious pass at me during the interview-something unthinkable for the Keristans. As a result every woman in the group was perceived as a competitor by every other woman, and every man was a potential threat for every other man. This caused a serious problem of jealousy that hours of conversation among members of the commune did little to help.

When I last visited the town where the commune lived, I discovered that internal conflicts-mostly jealousy related-had overwhelmed the commune and caused it to fall apart. While jealousy wasn't the only cause of these internal conflicts, it was definitely a major contributor.

A review of the literature about communes suggests that the role played by jealousy in this second commune is the rule and not the exception. Jealousy, it turns out, is a significant problem in communes in general, especially in group marriages. I A survey of thirty group marriages suggests that jealousy was a problem for 800/0 of the members. This percentage did not vary much as a function of the stability of the marriage or the age of the group members.12 It seems that without the elaborate social structure that the Keristans had created, jealousy can unleash its destructive power.

When jealousy comes up in a commune or a group marriage, it is most often a result of men comparing themselves to other men.13 A survey of ?80 swingers, for example, indicates that men were far more likely than women to take part in such social comparison and to feel threatened by it)4 This is especially interesting since, as noted earlier, husbands are most often the ones who initiate swinging.

The comparison between the Keristans and members of other communes and group marriages suggests that low sensitivity to jealousy is an important selection factor for living within a sexually open relationship, but it is not enough. A social organization that minimizes threat, prescribes how to handle threat constructively, and provides members with a sense of security is essential in overcoming jealousy.

Jealousy among Swingers

Most people, especially those with a "jealousy problem," will probably find it inconceivable that people could allow their partners to have casual sex in their own home with a stranger or acquaintance. But to swingers this is considered an acceptable form of social recreation, according to family expert Brian Gilmartin.15

Gilmartin studied 100 swingers and compared them to nonswingers living in the same California neighborhood. While the study (as well as most other studies on open marriages) was done in the 1970s before the spread of such sexually transmitted diseases as herpes and AIDS, a 1990 New Englund Journal of Medicine article suggests that sexual practices have not changed much since then: "There has been little change in sexual practices (including number of partners) in response to new and serious epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, with the exception of an increase in the use of condoms."16

Gilnartin's comparison between swingers and nonswingers indicates that, like the Keristans, swingers seldom experience jealousy when their mates have sex with someone else. Swingers believe that it is possible to engage in frequent extramarital sex without being unfaithful or untrue to marriage partners. This is especially true, they say, when the sexual mate exchange happens "together," with both mates present at the particular social situation. Few nonswingers believe this is possible.

Swingers are not likely to respond with jealousy, even to this common trigger of jealousy, because they don't perceive it as a threat. In their own system of beliefs, sex with another person doesn't mean being unfaithful or untrue; it simply means having harmless fun.

Three times as many nonswingers as swingers agree that when adultery occurs it is usually a sign that a marriage is not going well. Gilmartin argues that with this association in their minds, and with this interpretation of the meaning of adultery, it is not surprising that most middle-class suburbanites view the mere idea of" their spouses engaging in any kind of extramarital sex as a strong threat to their egos as well as to their security, masculinity or femininity, and selfesteem.

Swingers manage to differentiate (both ideologically and emotionally) romantic sex from physical sex, or, in Gilmartin's terminology, "person-centered sex" from "body-centered sex." Sexual intercourse at a swingers' party is viewed as a valuable and rewarding form of social recreation and convivial play. It has nothing to do with romantic or conjugal love and is very different from clandestine adultery. Therefore it doesn't pose a threat to the integrity and security of the marital bond.

For swingers, the analogy for a sexual mate exchange is a bridge party, in which it is quite common for participants to select someone else's spouse for a partner. This is rarely perceived as a threat by the men and women involved.

To keep triggers for jealousy to a minimum, swingers (like the Keristans) structure the context of the extramarital sex. They have extramarital sex only as a shared leisure activity. They make sure that the couples they "swing" with are committed to preserving a reasonably happy marriage Most swingers groups don't permit single men to participate, although many welcome single women. Even married men rarely are allowed to attend without their wives. The reason is that men are perceived as a greater threat.

Almost all swingers' groups have strong norms prohibiting members from expressing romantic feelings (such as saying "I love you") and falling in love with one another. Swingers can and do express warmth and friendship toward their sex partners, but they forbid any sign of desire for sexual or emotional exclusivity, which is part of the romantic experience of falling in love. These rules are aimed at protecting the marital bond of all the couples involved.

Despite all these protections, swingers are not entirely free from jealousy. Most often, jealousy surfaces when one or more of the people participating in the sexual mate exchange has accepted the idea of swinging on an intellectual Ievel, but not on the deeper and more significant emotional level.

At times, when people bored with marital sex hear about sexual mate exchange they get very excited and bring up the idea with their spouses. This, as noted earlier, tends to be the case for husbands more often than for wives. My research on marriage burnout also suggests that boredom in sex is a greater problem for men than it is for women.17

A man who is bored with sex at home feels the need for sexual variety. He has fantasies about the exciting sex he would enjoy as a swinger. In his zeal to persuade his wife, he often forgets to deal with the real implications of swinging-such as seeing his wife undress and have sexual intercourse with other men. If, as often happens, his wife at first objects vehemently to the idea but ends up enjoying the experience, such a man typically feels tremendous jealousy. One man who found himself in this situation describes it as the most intense experience of jealousy he has ever had. "I couldn't concentrate on the woman I was with. My ears were tuned to my wife, who seemed to be having a great time with the man she was with. It was horrible. I simply couldn't take it." This man decided that swinging was not for him, and instead found sexual variety in illicit affairs.

Experienced swingers also report occasional jealousy, but their experience tends to be milder than that of the novices and not necessarily negative. When jealousy happens, they typically don't mention it until they come home, and then share it as a tease and a sexual turn-on. Seeing or imagining their ►nates with another person reactivates swingers' sexual interest in their mates. Even when they are physically depleted after spending several hours having sex, the emotional charge produced by jealousy and by talking about it helps rejuvenate their desire.

This positive aspect of jealousy happens so often among swingers that it has become a part of the swinging ideology. When swingers hear their friends talk enthusiastically about how they come home from a party even more erotically charged toward their mates than when they left, they look for similar feelings in themselves. As is often the case, when people look for a particular emotional experience, they tend to find it.

Once again we can see that the experience of jealousy is moderated by the interpretation people give it. For swingers-members of a group whose ideology includes an interpretation of jealousy as a sexual turn-on-it is likely to become that, even if at some other period in their lives it was a response to a perceived threat.

The technique the swingers use is "reframing," and as noted before, people can learn to use it. Adopting new beliefs about the meaning of extramarital sex is only the first step in the complex process of overcoming jealousy. Even among people who manage to reduce their jealousy, chances are that not many will take the next step and agree to multiple extramarital relationships. In that respect, swingers are indeed unusual.

Certainly, one of the characteristics of swingers is that they are more interested in sex than are nonswingers. Swingers engage in extramarital sex more often than nonswingers, and they engage in more sex with their own spouses. Gilmartin asked husbands and wives separately about sex with each other. The discrepancies between their responses were small. The data showed that, among the swingers, 23r►/0 of the couples had sexual intercourse an average of six or more times per week, compared to only 20,16 of' the nonswingers. Similarly, 320/o of the swingers, as compared to 14r/o of the nonswingers, had intercourse four to five times per week. On the other hand, only 1104) of the swingers, as compared 480/o of the nonswingers, had intercourse an average of once (or even less than onc(,) per weeks"

While nonswingers didn't engage openly in extramarital sex, many slid so secretly. In 34%%6 of the couples, one of the partners had been involved in an extramarital affair, and in 5% of the couples, both husband and wife had affairs. Those people who had affairs had the lowest ratings of marital happiness. People who remained sexually faithful were far more likely to describe marriages that were happy and satisfying.19 One can conclude either that poor marriages push people into extramarital affairs, or that having extramarital affairs destroys marital happiness.

Yet the swingers, who engaged in far more extramarital sex than the unfaithful nonswingers, were even more likely than the faithful nonswingers to describe their marriages as "very happy." Because the swingers do not associate extramarital sex with unfaithfulness or betrayal, it does not reflect problems in the marriage and does not generate jealousy.

In addition to having more sex with each other, swinging couples also tended to express more love and affection toward each other, spent more time in informal conversation, and showed greater interest in each other than did the nonswingers. This suggests that the swingers derived the love, security, and emotional nurturance they needed from their marital partners. This is why the "strictly physical" extramarital sex didn't trigger jealousy. On those rare occasions when the extramarital relationship became a threat to the marriage, it certainly evoked jealousy.

Lessons for Nonswingers

In this chapter, I have described three groups of people who have managed to reduce jealousy to a minimum: people in open marriages, the Kcristans, and swingers. All three groups demonstrate that it is possible for people to be involved sexually with several people with little apparent jealousy.