Emotional Affairs

[Jamougha]

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Actually falling for another person is a choice. It's not something that just happens to someone like a bolt of lightning.

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Mmmm now that's interesting. For me this is not true. Falling for someone is one the few, or perhaps the only emotional experience that I have absolutely NO ability to consciously control. I've had it hit me out of nowhere, going on like a light bulb with someone who I've never felt attracted to until that point. And when it does it totally blows the rest of my emotional control. I mean I still have volition and can even suppress any external signs or inappropriate behaviour, but internally it's like riding a dingy in a hurricane.

On reflection I would guess that most people I know are more like you than like me. As I say, interesting. You probably have the better deal here.

[DrewDevil]

It's fairly certain that you will develop crushes, fantasies, fall for other people, etc. This may not be in your control, but your actions are within your control.

[Duke]

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Would you rather have your husband have a single drunken one night stand while on travel for business or be secretly in love with another women? To some people, the second is more damaging because the first is just drunken sex.

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Yeah you're right. I would rather he have the single drunken one night stand. If he were to be secretly in love with another woman then it follows he would want to sleep with her. He would be hoping for an affair. And that sounds like a real bummer for me. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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I read the OP, and this post. This is obviously the correct answer.

I could deal with my gf banging some dude. I hope she has a good time, as long as I don't have to see it.

If she harbored some secret desire from me, well, that's a relationship ender. Immediately.

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do you really feel this way? your statement seems like you don't care if she bangs other guys while you are in a relationship? this seems very odd to me, unless you have some kind of open relationship understanding or something...

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Well, I'm not completely cool with it, but it could be forgiven. There is a lot more intent (I feel) in the long term desire situation.

[tarheeljks]

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Well, I'm not completely cool with it, but it could be forgiven. There is a lot more intent (I feel) in the long term desire situation.

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i'm not convinced that the drunken hookup being a one time thing makes it less damaging. if my wife did it once, i have no reason to believe she wouldn't do it again. they are both serious breaches of trust and in imo the emotional damage inflicted is on the same order.

[diebitter]

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guys aren't friends with girls, they are just trying to get sex.

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Actually that's not true. I've had a few female friends that I had no attraction to, but enjoyed to hang out with.

However, I did find out a long way down the road that they were attracted to me. So I guess there's very often something there, even if it's unreciprocated.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

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blarg,

this isn't about casual friendships or flirting, it is about being 'emotionally intimate' (however you want to define that) with someone of the opposite sex. like others have alluded to, i think emotions are tied to physical attraction and sexual desires. i don't think a man a women can be emotionally intimate without being attracted to each other and desiring each other, atleast that is my experience.

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I was talking about being friends, which I think you were originally talking about too when you said that men and women can't be friends.

I think "emotionally intimate" is a bad phrase, too, in that it conflates being emotionally connected with the kind of intimacy that one would expect from a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife, as if there is no other way to share deep emotions. Yet we grow up sharing them with many people we don't want to boink -- parents, siblings, relatives, friends at school, etc. It takes a determined turning away and turning off of emotional possibilities to claim that there really are none outside of one's relationship with one's partner. It just isn't true.

Can you confide in guy friends? Get great advice from them, some real empathy and good feedback and some concern sometimes? I can. Some of that stuff can go down real deep. But I can also get that from a female. And not necessarily have the slightest physical interest in her, or at least be able to keep it well in perspective.

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My understanding of the term emotional affair is that you develop very strong feelings and desires for another person, only you don't act on them physically. In other words, you are Bill Murray in Lost In Translation. You are close to someone and feel strong energy between the two of you and open up yourself to them in an intimate way that you would only do with someone you were physically attracted to... i think you can see how this is different than discussing politics over lunch with a female and not feeling anything for her.

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You seem to be moving the goalposts back every time the ball comes near. First you said men and women can't be friends, then said they can't be emotionally intimate, and now are speaking of emotional affairs. I'm with you when it comes to emotional affairs being out of line, but that seems pretty much basically self-evident. To be fair, these terms are so fraught with assumptions, prejudice, and sexual fear or braggadocio that it can be hard to nail down what we really believe or want to say.

Up to that point, though, women are still great to be around, without it having to "mean" anything. In other words, there is a line to be crossed, but it's not simply one of which gonads you are born with. And sometimes more than others, you may have to finesse this line and remind yourself to keep your head on straight. But it's not like we don't do that every day of our lives with others, too -- bosses, subordinates, co-workers, our kids, friends, or partners when we're pissed off but don't want to show it or take it out on them, etc. Life requires a lot of fine control. That's not beyond our abilities. Saying that it is paints us all as children, animals, or idiots.

I think the lack of confidence both in one's own ability to handle that combination of emotional openness and sexual responsibility, and the fear that one's partner might be as incapable as we fear or know ourselves to be, is what makes silly phrases like "Men and women can't be friends" such a relief to espouse and suggest others agree with and live by too. It justifies, even declares as some sort of law of nature or worldly-wise fruit of maturity, our own fear of ourselves and instinctive, childishly unflattering distrust of our partners.

Perhaps it also brings to the fore how our choices in partners might not have been good ones.

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relationships, like everything else in our lives, are based on our self interests. lets say i meet a girl and i hit it off with her and i know another guy who i think would make a better partner for her - if i really like her, shouldn't I introduce her to the other guy if I think she will be more happy with him?

Much of the happiness that human beings derive from relationships come from dominating and possessing their partner. Reading the posts in this thread, everyone seems to draw the line on physical contact, but then again some couples are swingers, after all as long as you are the only person she loves, why not let another guy stick his dick inside of her? All of these lines of what is OK and what is not OK are arbitrary and are up to the individual couples to decide.

If a guy is going to lunch twice a week with a girl, and talking to her on the phone for an hour every night, then the chances that he wants to bang her are very high imho. This is just my experience, but I don't see men and women being this close unless their is a physical attraction. Platonic friendships do not get this close. (The exception is siblings. Even in animals, they choose not to mate with their siblings but pick partners who remind them of their siblings.)

[bogey1]

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Well, I'm not completely cool with it, but it could be forgiven. There is a lot more intent (I feel) in the long term desire situation.

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... they are both serious breaches of trust ...

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And this, in a nutshell, is this issue. What's deemed a breech of trust and why?

And, at least in an academic sense, it's a fascinating question. Where's the line that got crossed and how was it drawn? Does the fact she enjoyed an orgasm with someone other than you really change anything about your relationship? By what right do you deny her pleasure, physical or emotional, if it really does you no harm? The harm is in your perception of what that event meant. You've used fidelity as an arbitrary measure of her "love" for you.

Would you deny her a massage? That's a physical pleasure.

Would you deny her a hug from a male friend?

Would you deny her a cup of her favorite coffee from a male friend?

Where do you draw this arbitrary line about what pleasures she can have and why do you draw it where you have?

We all have some limit, some arbitrary restraints on our partners capacity to give of themselves to another, that we use as a measure of their love and committment to us. Or as a measure of our ownership over them, which is made obvious in societies where the women must serve and be demur to their husbands.

This in turn I think probably stems from an insecurity, a fear of loss or a desire to own. We use these arbitrary measures as a way to show ourselves we haven't lost, or aren't in danger of losing, our partners. I think if someone truly had no fear of loss, they'd have no concerns if their partner played around as long as it didn't damage their own relationship.

(I use "you" in the generic sense for discussion, not to attack anyone in particular).

[tarheeljks]

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... they are both serious breaches of trust ...

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And this, in a nutshell, is this issue. What's deemed a breech of trust and why?

And, at least in an academic sense, it's a fascinating question. Where's the line that got crossed and how was it drawn? Does the fact she enjoyed an orgasm with someone other than you really change anything about your relationship? By what right do you deny her pleasure, physical or emotional, if it really does you no harm? The harm is in your perception of what that event meant. You've used fidelity as an arbitrary measure of her "love" for you.

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for me the fact that my wife/gf enjoyed another orgasm from someone else would certainly change our relationship. not in the sense that i believe she should be literally physically unable to enjoy sex w/another person while dating me, but because if she is with me she understands how highly i value fidelity. i wouldn't be denying her the right to be physically involved with others, but it would certainly be a condition for being in a relationship w/me. if she wants to be able to have sex multiple guys more power to her, but she won't be doing it while dating me. a relationship is basically just a contract; my contract includes fidelity as one of its terms. if a person doesn't care whether their significant other is involved with others, then fidelity is not an issue regarding breaches of trust.

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Would you deny her a massage? That's a physical pleasure.

Would you deny her a hug from a male friend?

Would you deny her a cup of her favorite coffee from a male friend?



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in each of these scenarios i would tend to assume that there is really nothing to worry about; however,
intent is paramount. it wouldn't be hard to tweak them enough for me to be made uncomfortable. (e.g. if her coworker gives her a massage for an hour every day after work, etc.)

also, i wouldn't necessarily question my partner's motives in such a scenario, but i would expect her to be aware of the scenario and judge other people's motives accordingly.

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Where do you draw this arbitrary line about what pleasures she can have and why do you draw it where you have?

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i'll have to think a little more about this. at the moment i can't explicitly state guidelines, but if you gave a scenario i could quickly tell you whether it would bother me.

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We all have some limit, some arbitrary restraints on our partners capacity to give of themselves to another, that we use as a measure of their love and committment to us. Or as a measure of our ownership over them, which is made obvious in societies where the women must serve and be demur to their husbands.

This in turn I think probably stems from an insecurity, a fear of loss or a desire to own. We use these arbitrary measures as a way to show ourselves we haven't lost, or aren't in danger of losing, our partners. I think if someone truly had no fear of loss, they'd have no concerns if their partner played around as long as it didn't damage their own relationship.

(I use "you" in the generic sense for discussion, not to attack anyone in particular).

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I agree that sentiments regarding fidelity are the result of insecurity/fear of loss, but is it even possible to have no fear of losing something you truly want/desire?

edit: is the desire not to be hurt emotionally a sign of insecurity? i just think it's human. i suppose someone could argue that if i had enough self-confidence, i wouldn't place such high value in fidelity, but i don't agree. obv the fear of loss exists-- i'm not ashamed to say that i would be devastated if my wife/gf had an affair and/or left me for someone else. this just means i'm human and have emotions.

[bogey1]

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I agree that sentiments regarding fidelity are the result of insecurity/fear of loss, but is it even possible to have no fear of losing something you truly want/desire?

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All good questions. Caring about having something, even something intangible like someone's love, brings with it the fear of losing it.


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-- i'm not ashamed to say that i would be devastated if my wife/gf <u>had an affair</u> and/or <u>left me for someone else</u>. this just means i'm human and have emotions.

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First, I'd be crushed too. The tie in between love and fidelity is so ingrained in me that despite intellectually understanding they're different, emotionally I'm not sure I could.

That said, I underlined two things above. A key point is they aren't the same at all.

The first, having an affair, in theory shouldn't be an issue. So she enjoys time with someone else? That is about them, not you. Just like when you make love to your wife it's about you two, not about someone else and their lack.

The second is a reason for fear since it is about about you, about your losing something you value: her love and companionship.

People tie the two together, assuming loss of fidelity == loss of love/companionship. Why though? They aren't the same. And if you're really worried about loss of love, wouldn't an "emotional affair" be far more devestating than if she picked up a male hooker during a trip to Vegas?

It's a pretty common fantasy for men to have their wife bring another woman home to their bed. Many are even fine with their wife having a girlfriend on the side as long as she tells him all about it later (the titillation factor). Why? Because it's another woman, not a man, thus not competition. There's no fear of loss. Yet, really, why is the gender of your wife's special friend relevant? Whatever they do is about them, not about you. The restriction is arbitrary based on personal fear (woman "friend" = not a threat, male "friend" = threat).

Like I said before though, I feel as you do. I'd be crushed. I have found that thinking about it over the years has really toned down my insecurity levels though.

At the intellectually level it is something that I find intrinsically interesting. The attempt for people to rationalize basically negative behaviors (jealousy and posessivness) acceptable, or even positive, in the framework of a relationship.

[bogey1]

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Where do you draw this arbitrary line about what pleasures she can have and why do you draw it where you have?

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i'll have to think a little more about this. at the moment i can't explicitly state guidelines, but if you gave a scenario i could quickly tell you whether it would bother me.

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Giving you a scenario would defeat the point of the question [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. The point is to look inside and understand why you feel the way you do and then decide if that's really a reasonable way to feel.

Some men (I think earlier there was an example) will be "bothered" if you just look at their girlfriend or if she happened to just wave to a male coworker.

I think we can safely say most all of us find that way over the top. The question then is, where is your line and why do you think it's reasonable? Answering "because that's just who I am" really isn't sufficient since the over posessive maniac in the above example would answer the same way.