Carolyn Hax: Turns out admirable, devoted couple are swingers
Q: I have dear friends I’ve known since college. They are married to each other, have a wonderful bond with each other and their community, and years and years of therapy to become their best selves, are intentionally childless, and have an abundance of business success and subsequent financial resources. They are generous to charitable causes with those resources and also travel the world together.
I love them individually and together, admire them, and have sometimes envied their freedom, even as I have a happy life. This isn’t about wanting to trade. But I thought if anyone would be able to figure out the secret to contentment and a meaningful life, it would be these friends.
Recently, they shared that for the past eight months or so, they have engaged in “the lifestyle,” or ethical non-monogamy. Otherwise known as swinging. They’ve also spent time exploring psychedelic drugs.
I have responded supportively to all of it, asked questions and outwardly been the great friend I always aim to be and whom they can count on.
Internally, I’m struggling with disappointment. Is this all there is? It just seems so progressively narcissistic. I know that is judgy. I don’t want to be. I’m just finding myself saddened, and a little scared of the gulf developing between us in terms of common interests and shared life goals.
I would appreciate your perspective.
— Sad Friend
A: Wait, there’s a secret to contentment and a meaningful life?
(That’s the magic of cynicism: When the bar is low, you can clear it in all kinds of creative ways.)
You have a few answers available to you; it just depends on which one you want.
This answer applies no matter what: You don’t have to like this couple anymore, or like what they’re doing. Or judge them. Your options really are wide open, so be patient with your internal struggle. We all need to adjust to new information, and the more out-there it is, the more time we need.
This answer gives you cover to stay close to these friends: You and they still share a life goal of finding the secret to a meaningful life. Their search took them back to Woodstock and left you reeling, sure. But the fact of the searching remains unchanged. You do maintain that in common.
This answer reframes your thinking about these friends: What you have admired in them — their closed circle, intention, self-care, success, charity — is indeed worthy of admiration. In megadoses, however, any of these can tip to excessive self-regard.
If that’s the case with them, then it’s reasonable to be uncomfortable with it — and for doubts about “the lifestyle” to be the vehicle that took you there. I don’t encourage judging, but friends can certainly express qualms. Judgment: “OMG, you’re narcissists.” Dishonesty: insincere support. Qualms: “I appreciate your trust, but I’m struggling with this.” You can love and support the people while balking at the choices. “I hope you’ll be patient while I process this.”
This answer reframes your thinking about you: Time to let go of the idea there’s one “secret” to life. Or that it’s a secret at all. Or that any one person or couple living a long, messy life could possibly embody it even for themselves, much less for someone else. Enough to depend on it.
However you adapt to your friends’ news, I hope you will love yourself enough to call off this secrets-and-heroes search. Glean wisdom from every source you can. If anyone can use that to stitch together contentment and a purpose YOU find meaningful, it’s you.
• E-mail Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.
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