Below are some thought provoking articles written in the media , about married dating, and www.marriedandlooking.co.uk, enjoy...

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The World and His Mother

Talking to your spouse about dating other people can be complicated enough, but if you've successfully negotiated that, and you're both comfortable with the idea, there can be other hurdles in your way. Unfortunately, marriage is about more than just two people. Inevitably, friends and relatives will concern themselves with it too, and the consequences of them discovering that you're married and looking can be disastrous. How can you handle this?

The first thing to do is to understand that complications involving friends and relatives are an inevitable risk, no matter how discreet you try to be. Talk to your spouse about this and make sure you both take due time to think about it. Try to agree on the right way to talk to anybody who raises concerns. If those close to you are worried that your marriage may be on the rocks, it helps to present a united front. You'll also need to make sure that concerned friends don't inspire doubts which put pressure on your relationship, and that they don't intrude into the privacy which is an essential part of the bond between you.

Most people who are married and looking feel that nobody else needs to know. It's essentially a private matter, and being open about it could lead to social approbation or even problems at work. The unfortunate downside of this strategy is that when your secret is uncovered, the very fact of your discretion can make it look like something you were ashamed of. It's important to anticipate this and have an explanation ready, one which aims to head off people's concern and acknowledge their curiosity without giving away too much of what is private. Many people won't believe that you and your spouse are both comfortable with it until they've talked to you both, so, difficult though this can be, it's usually best to try and deal with it quickly before your friends become tempted to gossip.

Gossip, of course, feeds on moral outrage, and sometimes people who consider being married and looking to be immoral will still make a fuss about it even after you've shown them that no-one is getting hurt. It can be difficult to deal with people like this and you may find that it seriously damages your relationships with them, but you should be wary of getting into passionate arguments which will only make them more likely to blow off steam about it with other people. Try to downplay its significance so that they may think of it as wrong but they don't think of it as a big story. Discuss what they say with your spouse so that neither of you feels morally isolated by it and you're less likely to be persuaded to doubt your choices.

 

Of course, disapproval by a friend, or even a work colleague, is a minor problem compared with disapproval by a parent, sibling or grown-up child. We don't get to choose our families but, for the most part, we're stuck with them, and moral disagreements within a family can be very upsetting. Try to remember that these aren't always as clear-cut as they might seem. Although, upon first discovering that you're married and looking, your relatives may well argue that it's 'wrong', very often their reaction is less about principles than about a simple desire to protect you, your spouse, and/or your marriage. To most people, the discovery of extra-marital activity is an indication of impending breakdown. Because you marriage itself represents an extension of your family, this is something which family members will usually want to prevent. They'll also want to prevent the unhappiness or humiliation of those they love, which they may well see as inevitable.

 

Talking about your marital arrangements with your relatives can itself be upsetting and humiliating, but it may be a necessary evil. It helps if you can deal with one person at a time. If you think a relative is suspicious about your activities, it may be better to take the initiative and have a talk with them before they raise their concerns with somebody else. That way, if the rest of the family do find out later, you'll have somebody who has a better idea where you're coming from to help explain your situation.

 

Most people expect that their elderly relatives will be the hardest to talk to about this sort of thing, but that's often not the case. People who remember what life was like during and just after wartime, when normal family relationships were disrupted and there were shortages, in different places, of women and of men, are often familiar with the idea of open relationships and have sufficient experience not to be bothered by them. These people can be useful allies when you have to explain things to the rest of your family.

 

Once your family understand that you're married and looking, and that it doesn't mean your marriage is in crisis, you may encounter another problem - that your secret has become the family's secret and that they are anxious to protect it, to the point where they become controlling. This can be particularly difficult if you're already open about it with some of your friends, and it can effectively limit your dating options. Try to explain that what you do on dates with other people deserves as much respect and privacy as what you do within your marriage. It's one thing to be discreet about extramarital dating - say, by using a matchmaking service like www.marriedandlooking.co.uk - but trying to hide all your social interactions with your dates from the public eye is quite another, and can have an unhealthy effect on all your relationships.

 

Sometimes friends and relatives will react badly to discovering that you're married and looking because they don't think it's a big deal, and because you've chosen to exclude them from that part of your life. This can best be dealt with by explaining that you were concerned for your dates' privacy. That way they won't feel that they lacked the trust of you and your spouse.

 

Dealing with the ordinary interactions of your family and social life with your marriage can be difficult enough, without complications like this. But if you plan ahead and make sure you deal with it together, it's far from impossible to find a happy resolution.

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Looking for Trouble

 

For many centuries major world religions have railed against adultery. Social conventions have vilified it and stressed the importance of sexual fidelity to a committed marriage. But in more recent years, as religion has lost its influence and individualism has taken priority over fitting in, people have begun to question this. What harm does it do, they have asked, to have an affair your spouse doesn't know about, or even to do so with their consent? If indeed there is a God, doesn't He have bigger things to worry about? And is it any of society's business? But like many of our ancient taboos, the proscription of adultery is based on something still more fundamental.

 

Many of our taboos rest on reasoning which it can be difficult to understand without experience. This isn't so much of a problem when you're a child forbidden to play with knives, as there'll usually be an adult there to intervene if curiosity gets the better of you, but when we become adults ourselves there may be no other authority to protect us. Incest may not seem unreasonable until severely handicapped children come along to illustrate the thinking behind it; drinking heavily may seem like nobody else's business until we realise there's no money left to pay the household bills. Adultery can raise difficulties which might not initially be visible to us. This is why we have traditionally relied on the accumulated wisdom of ages.

 

These days, an increasing number of people describe themselves as 'married and looking', using websites like www.marriedandlooking.co.uk to arrange discreet sexual encounters with or without the consent of their spouses. For most, this is just a way to get a bit of extra excitement in life and it will never amount to anything serious. For others, however, it's a way of trying to deal with underlying problems in a marriage which really need serious attention. Dating other people is a recipe for disaster for people who should really be paying more attention to each other.

 

When communication starts to break down in a marriage, it's easy to feel misunderstood, to blame the other person for not making an effort. But very often, that feeling is mutual. Both parties may protest their commitment to being married, but looking for other people with whom to share intimacies betrays what's really going on. Whilst being married and looking for sex may not seem like such a big deal - sadly, it's nothing unusual - it becomes a much bigger deal when sex partners start to become confidantes and emotional intimacy comes into the picture.

 

When a marriage is on the rocks, finding someone else who understands can feel wonderful. In fact, we're often so desperate for that feeling that we identify it in people whom we really don't know very well. This can make us emotionally vulnerable. Since sex also makes us vulnerable, an affair can quickly lead to the development of feelings which turn it into something much more complicated. Thus, just when people most need to support their marriages, they find themselves motivated to do the opposite.

 

What is a marriage? There's little doubt that this tradition, which developed independently all over the world, came about in order to provide a stable environment for raising children. Over time, it also became clear that a married couple could make a good team, compensating for one another's weaknesses and reinforcing one another's strengths. They could depend on each other. Being married but looking rocks the very foundations of this institution because it takes some of the resources which should be going into the marriage and directs them elsewhere. How, then, can those people rely on each other to be there when times are hard? Even in good times they're going to have to get by without the full support which others enjoy. This puts them at a serious disadvantage in life. What's more, the partner who suffers the most deprivation is the one who isn't having the affair.

 

Being married and looking for sex elsewhere is looking for trouble - for your marriage, for your spouse, and for yourself. What will your spouse be doing whilst you're out there enjoying a fling? Probably sitting at home thinking about the problems which you're unwilling to address. Likely becoming more aware of how much they're losing out on by being with you. How long do you think it will be before they start questioning their commitment to what the two of you have built together? Even if they don't decide to join you in looking for affairs, they might start looking for a way out.

 

In this climate, it comes as no surprise that the average length of a marriage is getting shorter and shorter. Far too many people assume that the commitment happens when they go down on one knee or accept a ring, not understanding that commitment is an ongoing process which sometimes requires hard work. Making a marriage work requires patience, honesty, a willingness to look at things from the other person's perspective and, above all, loyalty. There will always be difficult times when you're married but looking for affairs won't provide a solution, it will only exacerbate them.

 

If you want to have a marriage that lasts, commitment is something you'll need to take seriously, even when the act of betrayal seems trivial and you find it hard to imagine any serious consequences. Try talking to divorced people and you'll find that many of them made the same mistakes. The wisdom of those who have been through it before is a valuable thing. It's the source of our taboos. A wise gambler will advise you to bet only what you can afford to lose, so don't take risks with what you hold most dear. If it was worth getting married in the first place, it should be worth sticking to that, no matter what temptations you encounter.

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Meeting a Need

No matter how much they may enjoy having fun with different people when young, most people eventually reach a stage where they want to settle down and spend the rest of their lives with one special person. This is the reason why most of us get married. It's easier to cope with the stresses and strains of life as part of a team; it can be wonderful to make a family together; and it's always good to have that special person to come home to at the end of a long working day. But the western tradition of monogamous marriage demands more than just this. It demands that we also deal with all our sexual needs with just that one person. And that can create a strain which causes many otherwise healthy marriages to break.

Despite the prevalence of sexual imagery in popular magazines, on television and in advertising, most of us still find it hard to talk about our sexual needs. We see them as somehow dirty, as an inappropriate subject even in the most intimate company. Many of us find it hardest of all to discuss them with our spouses, where we have the most to lose. Controversial topics like married dating may in fact be easier to talk about than the underlying problems. So can married dating offer a solution?

No matter how hard we may try to avoid it, it's easy to get into a fixed way of doing things when always sleeping with the same person. We find the things we like, or the things we're willing to settle for, and stick with them. Attempts to spice this up can feel awkward and too artificial, and we may also lack the confidence to take the lead in doing other things if it's been a long time since we had any practice. Married dating can offer an opportunity to rediscover your sexuality without breaking up that most important relationship. Because you'll be introducing a new person into the equation, you won't necessarily have to be the one who initiates new things. If you meet your dates through a specialist venue like www.marriedandlooking.co.uk they'll understand your situation and will be patient whilst you adjust.

Married dating can present an ideal opportunity to explore sexual interests which you may not have had the chance to explore in your youth. It can be particularly helpful to people who have got married without having any prior sexual experience, or with only very limited experience, and can help them to work out what it is they really want from sexual encounters. Rather than leading to frustration with the marital situation, this can in fact help to renew a married couple's interest in each other and help them to develop new forms of intimacy. Where one partner has always had to take the lead it can lead to a more equal relationship.

Because our sexuality and our sexual desires continue to develop throughout our lives, a relationship which seemed to provide everything when you first got into it may later prove unable to satisfy your passions. This doesn't necessarily mean that the relationship has failed or that your spouse has let you down - simply that you've changed as a person. Perhaps your spouse has stayed as slim and attractive as ever but you've increasingly found yourself attracted to more voluptuous people; or perhaps you want to try something kinky which your partner has no interest in. Married dating can make this possible, and in giving free reign to your desires you may well find that they are not as overwhelming as they seemed when you were trying to ignore them. When, through married dating, you are able to find an outlet for your conflicting feelings, you may find that you are once again able to properly enjoy sex with your spouse.

Married dating can also be a means for couples to explore their sexuality together. When both partners engage in married dating they can get together again afterwards to discuss what they've learned and how they feel about it. This is itself can provide an erotic boost to a relationship. It can also help them to understand each other's interests and desires without having to address their own sexual interaction directly. It can be a useful way for them to exchange ideas about things they might try together.

Sometimes there are insoluble problems with the sexual aspects of a marriage. One partner might have sexual interests which the other just doesn't feel comfortable being involved with, or one partner might have a sex drive which is much stronger than the other's. Married dating can offer a long term solution in situations like this, providing an outlet for sexual appetites which could otherwise lead to resentment. Sex drive, too, varies over the course of life, and it can be affected by all sorts of factors (such as pregnancy, medication, menopause and stress at work), so a couple who are a good match to begin with may not always be so. However, being sexually less compatible doesn't mean ceasing to love or support each other, and married dating can be the perfect complement to a marriage of this kind.

Even if a marriage becomes completely sexless, many couples find that they want to stay together. After all, falling in love and making a commitment are about much more than just sexual desire. But it's quite natural to want to experience sexual satisfaction, regardless of your circumstances. Married dating can provide a healthy, respectful way of resolving this problem which doesn't involve recourse to prostitution and all its associated ills. What's more, it can lead to the development of new social contacts and can enrich the life that a couple share. Most people want to see their spouses happy. Married dating can let that happiness happen whilst they stay together.

No matter how committed you are to your spouse and no matter how much you love them, it's not always necessary - or practical - to be monogamous. Give married dating a try and you may find that it gives your marriage a new lease of life.

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Looking for Trouble in Married Dating

 

These days, as society becomes more open about different types of relationship, the traditional framework of marriage is slowly crumbling. Increasingly, married people are beginning to look elsewhere for sexual and even romantic opportunities, and married dating is on the rise. This doesn't always need to involve secrecy. Some spouses are quite open with each other about their married dating, and it's possible for relationships to be strong enough to take it. But people don't tend to give so much consideration to the strangers they're getting involved with and what the situation is doing to them.

 

Getting involved with somebody else when you already have a life commitment isn't always easy to handle. If you don't know the background of the person you meet, married dating can be looking for trouble.

 

Gone are the days of wife swapping parties and clandestine meetings in sleazy bars. Married dating has cleaned up its act, and you can now meet people in online venues like www.marriedandlooking.com. There are pictures to look at and profiles to consider before you get in touch. But as we all know, meeting people over the internet can be risky at the best of times, and you have to ask yourself how much you can be sure of in a situation where you know from the start that the person you're meeting may have something to hide. If you've chosen to be honest with your spouse, that doesn't mean they're being honest with you.

 

There are ways to reduce the risks when you start married dating through a website. Always make sure that your first meeting is in a public place such as a bar or restaurant, where you can easily leave if you feel uncomfortable. If you don't want to confess what you're really up to, tell your spouse that you're going to meet friends in that place, but provide a time when you'll be home and stick to it - that way you know that someone will come looking for you if things go wrong. If things go really well and you can't resist pursuing a sexual opportunity that same night, regardless of the risks, you can always call to say that you'll be late.

 

It's a good idea to spend some time getting to know your date in person before you take things further, simply because doing so involves going somewhere private with them and this puts you at risk. And don't assume, if you're male, that the risks of married dating only apply to women. It's not unheard of for men with important careers to find themselves blackmailed in what seemed like an innocent situation, or to discover that the women they've met are being followed by husbands who want to fight or rob them. You can never be sure that you're dealing with just one person, so if you must get involved in something as risky as married dating, be cautious about it.

 

Most people who get involved in married dating are simply looking for a fling, for some sexual excitement which won't impact too strongly on the most important relationship in their lives. However, there are other people out there who are looking for much more. It's important to try and work out what sort of person you're dealing with before you get involved. If your date is lonely and frustrated in a crumbling marriage, they may become attached to you very quickly and more intensely than you can cope with. It can be very difficult to get out of this kind of situation without breaking somebody's heart, and you also risk finding yourself with a stalker. Try explaining to the police that you acquired your stalker through married dating and you may not receive the most sympathetic of reactions.

 

Beyond these practical concerns, there are moral complications to married dating. If you're happy in your marriage (even if it doesn't give you everything you want) and if you have no intention of ever parting from your spouse, what are you going to do if you find yourself falling head over heels for somebody else? It's very difficult to navigate a situation like this without somebody getting hurt. Alternatively, if you and your spouse have discussed all the ins and outs of married dating and are confident that you can handle it, what will you do if you find out that your date is keeping it a secret from their family? What if there are children involved and a trusting partner who would be horrified by the very thought of married dating? This is the sort of thing which can break up families and you need to be aware of that from the outset. No matter how careful you are, there will always be some risks, because you are having to rely on a stranger's honesty and capacity to handle complicated, high pressure situations.

 

There's a reason why monogamy is at the heart of the western marital tradition, with affairs undertaken only in a context where nobody seriously expects them to last. Once you start legitimising married dating, people lose sight of important boundaries. There simply aren't the social structures in place to cope with it. What might be a fine idea in a society where it carried no stigma and where jealousy was unusual, rather than expected, is far more complicated, difficult and dangerous to pursue in the world we live in today.

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