Loss of Social Support
Due to strong social disapproval of open marriages, people in open marriages frequently try to hide their lifestyle to family, friends, and colleagues. Blumstein and Schwartz note:
"Openly non-monogamous married and cohabiting couples often feel they are thought of as bizarre or immoral by the rest of their world. They have to work out their sex lives in opposition to the rest of society. They may have an understanding with each other, but they usually keep it secret from family, friends, and people at work." (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983, pages 294-295).
Keeping their lifestyles secret reduces the amount of social support available to people in open marriages. Numerous studies have shown that social support carries many psychological and physical health benefits. Thus, strong social disapproval of open marriage may lead to a loss of psychological and health benefits for couples in open marriages.
Read more about this topic: Open Marriage Acceptance
Famous quotes containing the words loss of, loss, social and/or support:
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Somebody who should have been born
is gone.
Yes, woman, such logic will lead
to loss without death. Or say what you meant,
you coward . . . this baby that I bleed.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)