Q I have been with my husband for 20 years. About eight years ago he lost interest in sex and romance and he has admitted to cheating on me six years ago. I can’t help thinking that he is no longer attracted to me because he has no interest in restoring our sex life. The only “therapy” he wants is for me to go “swinging” with him. I want to save my marriage, but I refuse to compromise myself.

A One of the biggest mistakes made by couples contemplating joining a swingers’ group is that it will revive a relationship that is clearly on the way out.

As Kaye Bellemeade, the author of Swinging for Beginners points out, “swinging won’t save a troubled relationship, it will tear it apart”. Swinging works only for couples who share the belief that commitment and nonmonogamy are not mutually exclusive. Successful swingers compartmentalise the sexual side of their relationship so that they don’t experience feelings of jealousy when they see their partner having sex with other people, but the majority of men and women are just not able to do that.

Most human beings have an innate desire for sexual exclusivity and for a wife to see her husband being sexual with someone else, or even processing the idea that he is undisturbed by the sight of her being sexual with another man, conflicts with their understanding of trust and commitment.

I suppose there is a chance that your husband has convinced himself that the stimulation provided by group sex would restore his mojo, but if this is the case he is being naive because, in reality, the very public nature of swinging means that many men who join the scene have difficulty achieving erection initially. Research also suggests that men who tend to be the ones who initiate swinging in their relationship are less well able to adjust to the lifestyle afterwards. Studies into couples who have dropped out of the swinging scene found that husbands reported being more jealous than their wives and resented their wives’ popularity and endurance, and the fact that they appeared to have more fun.

As with all sexual communities there are well-established etiquettes and codes of conduct among swingers and one of the biggest no-no’s is coercing an unwilling partner into participation.

I would suggest that what your husband is trying to do is close to blackmail because his refusal to seek professional help for your marital difficulties forces you into a position where you either give him permission to have sex with other women or continue living the half-life that he currently dictates.

In light of his previous infidelity and his ostrich-like approach to your “problems”, it is unsurprising that you interpret your husband’s loss of interest in your sexual relationship as a loss of interest in you.

You say that you don’t want to give up until you have tried everything, but you can’t save a relationship by yourself and you seem to have been struggling alone for nearly half of your 20-year marriage. If your husband refuses to meet you half way you may have to accept that you are fighting a losing battle.

At this point I would suggest that the time and energy you continue to invest in your relationship would be better spent nurturing yourself and planning for your own future.

You may find that if you resist the temptation to continually try to “fix” your relationship you will be better able to evaluate whether or not it is worth repairing at all. Stepping back from your situation will help you to put things in perspective and to work out what you want, or at least what you are willing to settle for. It may also wake your husband up to the fact that he needs to talk to a third party rather than have sex with one.

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