Staying Together For The Kids? When casual sex might trump true love

Dear Duana,

Stuart and I parent well together.  We run a household well together.  And that’s it.  We aren’t at each other’s throats, but the lovin’ feelin’ is long gone.  I’m lonely, but I don’t want to disrupt our kids’ stability, especially since they are adopted from abusive backgrounds and are now doing well.  I’m considering asking Stuart for an open relationship where we’re both free to fall in love with others, understanding we will keep living and parenting together until the kids are launched in about 8 more years.  Whatever you advise, the kids are priority #1.  What do you think? 

Jeffrey

Dear Jeffrey,

You definitely have a common and heart-wrenching problem.  But do you have an ideal solution—one where you can maintain stability for your kids while alleviating your loneliness?  I asked several non-sciency types, and they considered your plan safer than casual sex, and more realistic than monogamy with someone you haven’t loved in years.  Some even thought your kids’ lives might improve because you’d be happier.

And I wanted to agree.  Except that as a sciency type, I can’t.  Surprising though it may sound, I found myself wishing you’d just asked whether casual sex could help scratch an itch your primary relationship doesn’t take care of anymore, and/or whether your current relationship might improve on its own.  Here’s why. 

Men are wired differently for casual sex than passionate love.

Most men can do something few women can:  Throw gametes around without emotional penalties.  To wit, ¾ of straight men report being able to maintain emotional distance from their friend with benefits—whereas ¾ of women say they can’t help falling (at least a little) in love with guys after sex.  And the more casual sex a man has, the greater his ability to detach. 

Men’s mechanism?  Dopamine.  Increase it only briefly—as in, just long enough to get in someone’s briefs—and the neurotransmitter plummets along with the guy’s orgasm. 

This come-and-go strategy appears to have enabled ancestral men to cast their genes far and wide while remaining emotionally attached to a primary partner—simultaneously creating children with many casual liaisons while protecting the babies at home from the dangers of paternal abandonment.  And it’s still alive and kicking in many of their XY descendants today, including gay descendants.  Gay men are not only even likelier than straight men to endorse, have, and enjoy open sexual relationships, but many gay couples use casual sex as part of a strategy to stay with the primary partner. 

But dopamine behaves differently when men fall for someone.  Ramp up the dope over weeks or months by getting to know someone before the sex begins, and you’ve got Passionate Love and a long-term relationship.  And passionate love is a whole different animal from casual sex. 

Obsession doesn’t share.

Before we go any further with the whys and wherefores, I’d like you to take a brief quiz known as the Passionate Love Scale:  http://www.elainehatfield.com/Passionate%20Love%20Scale.pdf. 

This measure reveals that passionate lovers are obsessive lovers who fervently desire total union with the beloved, think of each other incessantly, and yearn for each other when apart. 

Put another way, they’re the ones the rest of us can’t talk with unless we want to hear Sweetie’s name every five seconds.    

And obsession doesn’t share.  In the USA and globally, passionate lovers are exclusive lovers, becoming jealous if their beloved begins falling for anyone else, and opposing whatever or whoever gets between them…such as a scenario where you won’t be available full-time for 8 more years, during which you would have to tolerate being apart, and your beloved would have to tolerate your living with another man. 

Which brings us to the next point:    

Other men are wild cards.

All that sustained dopamine in passionate love isn’t for nothing.  It may even be why men fall in love faster, harder and longer than most women; love begets the ultimate male investments of willing and able resource provision, not just for today but for many, many tomorrows.  It keeps hearth and home together.

Or, in your case, breaks it apart as a new commitment becomes The commitment.  If passionate love in a male-female dyad makes for a committed man, how much truer might that be when everyone in the relationship is male?  Even if you and Stuart can buck the passionate obsession and behave rationally, will your two new partners be okay with the arrangement you made, pre-them?  Can they remain satisfied hanging onto the fringes of your daily lives for almost a decade?  Could you all move in together? 

It’s possible.  But highly improbable even with men you know…nevermind those you haven’t met yet, who don’t necessarily share your ambitions for your children and your home. 

What’s the solution?

Jeffrey, this article was among the hardest to write—not because the science is murky, nor because the answer to whether your plan is workable is absent.  But because I want to give you a green light, or at least a simple alternative, and I don’t see one.  I don’t see a reliable way for you to simultaneously nurture your children and your heart unless you patch things up with the man you already have. 

Falling in love with others will likely create chaos, not stability.  Casual sex can scratch an itch and provide a diversion; it may make life more livable; but it probably won’t resolve the loneliness at the core of your question.  And splitting up your family will indeed undermine your kids’ well-being.  That’s true of biokids whose parents can at least tolerate each other, even if those parents aren’t in love.  It’s especially true for your children, who come from abusive beginnings and who’ve made such strides under your care.  They need you…together. 

Every relationship has its seasons of discontent, yet about 85% of couples describe themselves as ‘very happy’ within 5 years even if they’d formerly been contemplating divorce.  Can you remember what drew you to Stuart at the beginning?  Can you start adding compliments and subtracting criticisms?  Are you both basically capable of kindness and respect towards one another?  If so, science shows the love may very well return.  If not, it’s still to your kids’ advantage for you and Stuart to stay together until the kids are grown and you are free. 

In sum, whoever wrote that love is a many-splendored thing forgot to add that sometimes love dies; sometimes it’s lonely; sometimes it’s resurrected; and sometimes we have to pick the greater love…and pursue it instead of other desires.  For now. 

Cheers,

Duana

Do you have a question for Duana?  Email her at Duana@LoveScienceMedia.com.

All content copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScienceMedia, 2011

Related LoveScience articles:

Most of the science behind today’s article has appeared in other LoveScience pieces:

How casual sex usually prevents emotional attachment in men: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/when-men-wait-for-sex-dumb-like-a-fox.html

Why women usually fall for casual partners—even when we don’t want to:  http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/sex-the-happily-single-girl-1.html

Why breaking up for adults’ happiness is usually bad for kids’ well-being  (Bonus!  The surprisingly high odds that unhappy couples will be happy again.):  http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/her-cheatin-heart-infidelitys-aftermath.html

Why bringing new men around could be dangerous to the children:  http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/stepmarriages-keeping-love-alive-when-theyre-somebody-elses.html

How to add positives, subtract criticisms, and do the stuff people do to fall in love again (or avoid falling out to start with): http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/dealing-with-your-difficult-man.html

Why passionate love doesn’t last forever (ie, we all fall out of Obsessive Love, even if we still love our mate): http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/comments-from-passionate-kisses-too-much-to-ask.html

The author wishes to thank the following scientists and sources:

John Marshall Townsend, for his research into men’s and women’s very different emotions following casual sex 

Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher, for their research on and scale measuring passionate love

Comments

[Gillian]

What a touching article!

I feel for Jeffrey. What a tough spot! And he should be commended, too. He obviously cares deeply for his kids and their well-being. I have the greatest respect for that!

Are there any houses for sale across the street from Stuart ...? :)

Here's why I ask: Many years ago, a relative of mine faced a similar situation. He and his male partner were raising the partner's biological son from the partner's affair with a married woman. (Yep, you read that right.) My relative and his partner lost that loving feeling, too. But both men loved their son.

Solution: My relative bought the house across the street from his former partner. My relative was better-suited emotionally to be the primary parent. Thus, the child resided with him, being raised across the street from his Dad. 2 loving homes, and the child saw both parents regularly.

I can understand Jeffrey's longing for true love. I'm wondering what you think about the house across the street idea ....? :-)

I love your article, and it does seem that pursuing true love with others while living in the same house will bring down chaos. Having said that, the children do need both parents to stay involved in their lives, especially parents who are as loving as these are.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Gillian, this was a terribly difficult to write because I have such high regard for Jeffrey as a parent, and I wanted to tell him his solution would work. So thank you for underscoring his decency as a human being...

and for sharing the story about your relative. Bravo, him! He did find a workable solution for making sure the child was raised by both parents. (Did he find love? I hope so.)

And it'd probably work for Jeffrey and Stuart as well, except for two things:
1. The other partners are still wild cards. Stuart and Jeffrey could agree to this and then find that the love of their lives doesn't.

2. In Jeffrey's and Stuart's case, finances are such that only one partner works outside the home...the other has been taking care of the kids full-time for years, and is not very marketable b/c his career was in an area that is basically unemployable now. They want to maintain this division of labor because it works out for the children to always have at least one parent available. And they don't have the resources for the breadwinner to support two homes.

That said, I love how creative people can be in resolving extremely difficult situations like this one. I am still hoping Jeffrey and Stuart can find a path that gives those children what they need every day...even if I was, in the end, better at showing why one path doesn't work, than why others might.

Thanks again for an inspiring story.

[Angie]

I think the missing piece in the Stuart/Jeffrey example is what, if anything, has been done to try to resurrect the relationship and the attraction. That 'lovin' feeling' isn't what sustains a rewarding relationship. It takes time, effort, hard work, moving apart and coming back together--it isn't a one way ticket straight to immortal bliss.

I'm inclined to say that if they aren't able to make this work, when they clearly work well together as a team, and IF they treat each other and others in general with care and respect, that they would have no better luck with third parties than they do with each other. Just my 2 cents.

In addition, I disagree that 'staying together for the kids' is always best, although I see how this could be different with the childrens' background. There are definitely situations in which nobody wins when people stay together for the alleged sake of the kids. I think sometimes people cling to that reasoning when they are just insecure and afraid to be alone but truly have no interest in doing the relational work needed to have a successful marriage/union. They can get paralyzed by their baggage and can become incapable of making healthy decisions. And if there is emotional or physical abuse going on at any level (with the children or with each other), that is not helping anyone by the couple staying together if all efforts to solve the problems have been exhausted.

[Gillian]

Sadly, no. Neither partner has found true love yet. But they still might!

Hope springs eternal, and I like your point about creative solutions.

With the important info you have provided to Jeffrey, he can now focus on finding a path that works for everyone involved. His inner voice may know a way ... Again, I salute Jeffrey for recognizing his children's needs. Sending well-wishes to all.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Hi, Angie,

Lovely to hear your new voice at LoveScience! I'm enjoying your response. I agree it would've been ideal to know what Jeffrey and Stuart had already tried regarding staying together, but I wasn't privy to that information.

And you're correct that passionate love, wonderful as it feels, doesn't last forever; former LoveScience articles have treated that topic. Not only isn't it a ticket to eternal bliss, but it only lasts a year or two, tops (one study does find 10% of people sustaining it longer, but it was a very small sample and appeared to have some biases). Its apparent purpose is to assist people in creating a bond by motivating them to do the hard work of uniting lives. Once the uniting has taken place, companionate love typically takes over.

Most people lose that lovin' feeling at least some of the time; some lose it for years. But as the article said, about 85% of people fall back in love in a steadier way within a few years, even if they had contemplated divorce. A few years is a long time to wait if you're unhappy. But long-term relationships are, over time, usually a lot happier than lives lived in isolation or with revolving partners.

Will Stuart and Jeffrey rekindle their love--not the passionate kind, but the warm glow that can really last forever? Well, that depends. I don't know their relationship dynamics, but without consistent kindness and respect, it won't happen. Yet if even one of them decides to add kind acts and subtract negatives (such as ignoring, slighting, criticizing), renewed love is a good bet. (LoveScience has covered that before, too.)

Also agreed is that people who can't figure out the respect/kindness thing in one relationship will carry that into subsequent relationships. This could well be part of what's behind the higher divorce rates in many second, third and later marriages. Finding the right person is just part of the journey; *being* the right person is the other half.

However, it could be that only one member of a pair has an issue of being unkind and disrespectful. If so, the other former partner would probably succeed in finding lasting love, as long as he chose someone kind and respectful the next time around.

Finally, your response makes me think you and I are more aligned on when divorce is justified for the childrens' sakes than it may at first appear. Our culture in the USA has gone from thinking divorce was always horrible, to a frequent endorsement that whatever makes adults happy is the best for the children. Both views are much too narrow. I've also written about that before, but here's the brief science take on that:

Divorce is harmful to most kids most of the time, compared to the outcomes reliably enjoyed by children whose parents stayed together. Even when parents contemplated but didn't go through with divorce, the kids still usually fared better than their peers whose parents separated. Hey, I'm divorced and I wish it weren't true. But it is.

That's because most kids of divorce were being reared in homes that were, for the kids, working---homes that were superior to being exposed to less money, less time with either parent, higher odds of abuse by non-genetic relatives, and lower odds of college education and their own stable marriages (to name a few). These are the divorces that happened when parents had fallen out of love but weren't abusive or addicted to substances/alcohol. Between 1/2 and 2/3 of current American divorces fit this the-kids-would-be-better-off-with-parents-together category.

But there are clear circumstances where kids do better if the parents divorce: homes with very high parental conflict, homes with abuse (any kind), and homes with addictions. In fact, addiction is the one case where children become reliably richer following divorce--because the using parent was costing a ton in lost work, cash for drugs/alcohol, hospitalizations, etc. When kids go to the stable, non-drug/alc-abusing parent, the kids are usually better-off in many ways.

Additionally, the presence of chronic philandering is something most straight and lesbian couples (and some gay couples) will not abide. There was a time when women were reliably too financially dependent to have an option to leave that scenario; that time is, for most developed nations, over.

That adds up to three A's where divorce truly is The workable solution:
chronic Addiction, Adultery, or Abuse.

Jeffrey's situation, as so many others, does not fall into any of those categories. His relationship, while not happy, is stable, and his first priority is his kids. And his kids are particularly vulnerable, having been adopted after infancy and following severe abuse and lack of attachment while in the foster care system. My hat's off to him for deciding that if somebody is going to be unhappy, it's not going to be the children. And I remain hopeful he will take all this information and use it to craft a life that works for everyone.

Thank you again for outstanding observations, Angie, and I hope you will write again soon.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Gillian, thank you. I hope your friends are able to find love. Here's to creative solutions!

[GC]

Wow, what a hard topic but I must agree with the well founded theory where adding more men adds more uncertainty and risk. You said globally/universally males are not the type to take care of kids that aren't their own. Correct me if I misunderstood that. I wonder what the case would be with two homosexual females who were to try the same thing as Jeffery proposed. Would the dynamics be different as to where the kids would be cared for even better with more "MAMA's".
I'm not saying that all men won't be great care givers for others children, but I do know men take the approach with their own children of letting them "take the pain to make them stronger" idea. Of course to very certain extents, but with children not of their loins, so to speak, that limit may be much more generous where it would seem uncaring and negligent.
I say no to Jeffery's proposal for it brings too much risk for the children into the picture. Jeffery may be able to control his immediate environments and own self but others take time to know and who knows what inadequacies, "baggage" or issues, metal and health related, they bring to the previously safe and controlled family setting.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Hi, GC, and thank you for writing in. You and I are on the same page regarding why I consider adding more men to be adding risk for these children, although I probably would say that we need to qualify the "globally/universally" part of men not being as willing to take care of kids who aren't biologically their own. Most abuses and murders committed upon children are committed by non-biologically related males, but most non-biologically-related males do not visit abuse and murder upon children. So even though every culture studied has found that children have between 40-100x greater odds of abuse or death from a stepdad/parent's boyfriend than from a biodad, there are still plenty of non-bio men who won't harm others' kids.

To wit, Stuart and Jeffrey aren't biologically related to their kids, but they are good to their kids; in fact, they rescued these children from abusive situations.

The risk I'm worried most about for Stuart and Jeffrey's children is that the prospective new men in their lives will not have the kids as the top priority. That is, indeed, almost a given. Men do tend to be far less child-oriented than women are, and these new men would very likely be *much* less invested in the kids' well-being for several reasons:
--These men aren't biologically related to the kids;
--These men aren't parentally related to the kids--they don't have the history of raising them and growing to love them over many years;
--This means the kids are now old enough that they may not bond well to the new dads, either;
--The nature of passionate love is such that these new men will want Stuart/Jeffrey for themselves...they will have far lesser motivation than S&J to keep things together for the chidrens' sakes.

I've very recently written two articles about step-parenting that go into the risks of both men and women as step-parents, and the challenges male and female step-parents face, and I'll be sure to re-post those links with this Q&A next week.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

However, those articles don't discuss the two-females situation. What happens when lesbians raise kids together?

Well, usually, one is the biomom of a particular child--meaning that it's rather atypical for a child to be reared by two moms the kid is not genetically related to. Data with various other family constellations lead me to think the child will be more loved, attached to, and protected by Biomom than by any other human in its life--including the Other Mom. However, I'm reaching a bit here because as far as I know, nobody's specifically examined the Two Moms situation. I just know that in other family constellations, kids are usually most attached to biomom, and in other family constellations, biomoms are the most invested in and protective of their kiddos.

So finally, to your real and really good question:
Is it possible that kids of two adoptive lesbians would be better-off in the Jeffrey/Stuart proposition than Jeffrey and Stuart's kids would be?

In one sense, probably so; the risk of outrageous abuse and death to children is far, far less when only women are involved in childrearing. Women do tend to be more into kids to begin with, however and wherever one measures parental attachment. That said, there are Evil Stepmothers in the world (please see the Q&A for the Stepfamilies article)--they don't tend to be physically dangerous to kids, but they can do tremendous emotional harm.

In another and much likelier way, though, I think the Two Moms Becomes Four Moms scenario would be *even worse* for kids' stability than the Four Men situation Jeffrey was considering. That's because stats show that straight women and lesbians alike tend to view monogamy as absolutely essential in all phases of relationship. So true is this, some scientists cite this monogamy ethic as a reason lesbian relationships last a shorter duration, on average, than long-term gay relationships: Women don't tolerate cheating very well. If they aren't going to meet each other's needs, most women move on. (Please see last week's article for more details.)

So if Jan and Stacie (or even James and Susan) had written with this proposal, instead of Jeffrey and Stuart, I would have been even more skeptical of its odds of keeping the core family intact for the kids. Women tend to fall in love with people they sleep with; obsession doesn't share. And except for some butch lesbians, women of every orientation tend to view sharing as unwanted even after the obsession has waned.

Upshot? Any relationship with even *one* woman in it is a relationship where emotional monogamy, and often sexual monogamy, will be at a premium. How much truer would this be if *four* women were involved? Science hasn't directly addressed it. But I don't think it would be a safe bet if the primary focus was stability for children.

Thanks again for a great question, GC.