Is you passion for Ballroom dancing cause problems in your household? Ballroom dance jealousy is an all to common phenomenon…
And it can seriously affect both your relationship with your life partner and also your enjoyment of your ballroom dancing.
Many married people choose to pursue Ballroom without their husband or wife, and this can cause jealously and fights within the household. If you are married but have chosen Ballroom as a hobby without your spouse, it can be confusing to them, and even feel like cheating. They fail to understand why you would want to do such an intimate activity with anyone other than them, but they have NO interest in doing it themselves.
If you have a passion for Ballroom dancing and your partner is jealous – show them this to help ease their concerns, and pave the way for a happier relationship and guilt free dancing.
Firstly, most married people who choose Ballroom as a hobby outside their marriage do it for the sheer joy it brings them, the creativity, the movement of their body and the exercise, the challenge and the friendship group. Our non dancing partners often feel that such a physically close activity with the opposite sex MUST lead to an affair – or feelings – but in fact this is just not true. We don’t fall in love with our partners – we fall in love with the freedom and the music, and the delicious way it makes us feel, with the challenge of learning new figures and the excitement of dressing up and going out. There is a clear delineation in our minds of this activity – although done with people we like – being quite different from the love affair and deep connection we have with you.
Secondly, dancing with strangers often makes us better dancers than dancing with our married partner. Ask any married couple, and if if they are honest they’ll tell you of the challenges that ballroom dancing with one another can bring. To be frank, we are often rude and lack respect for our own husband of wife in a way we would never be with any other partner, out of the familiarity we feel for you. This can lead to a cycle of blaming you for our dance ‘problems’ where we would otherwise work on ourselves. We might say “I’m still not that good at the natural turn” to our friend partner and say “I’m not dancing with you until you get the natural turn right” to you. It’s not right but that’s how it is.
Finally, and this is a word to the married Ballroom addicts out there! Stop trying to get your partner to dance if they don’t want to. Ballroom is just not for everyone. But make sure that you do spend time doing something your partner loves doing – even if it’s simply gardening or watching TV over a glass of wine or beer. You’ll need a rest from all that dancing anyhow!
Monica Fincham is a ballroom champion and former competitive dancer and the owner of Dance Kingdom in Lilydale, Melbourne, Australia.
” Even though it seems like such a wonderful activity for a couple to do together, Ballroom dancing can raise surprising challenges within a marriage, that can actually put more stress on you both. It’s absolutely fine to come along without your intimate partner and simply enjoy the dancing “