Emotional Affairs

[Blarg]

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This is all true, but it doesn't change the fact that people get really jealous over stuff that is completely harmless. Sure, people should be able to have friendships/closeness/whatever with members of the opposite sex without it progressing to sex, and without pissing off the significant other, but in reality, that's pretty rare.

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Yeah, people can be dips, but there are plenty of other ways to live, too. A lot of us probably never really grow up much, and we have to suffer the consequences.

I used to work with this lady, and we yapped all the time at work. We never got together outside work, but really enjoyed the yap-time at work. One Sunday she and her boyfriend were driving down the street and she waved to me and shouted Hi out the window as they were passing by. The next day at work, she told me her boyfriend grilled her all about me for a long time, and said she saw me at a mall once when she was with him but didn't want to say hello because she didn't want to go through all that with him. She said he tries to pick fights with any guy that comes anywhere near her.

My brother once waved to a girl he knew from school when he saw her in a truck ahead of him. The driver of the truck waved to him to pull over, and we did. The guy charged over to my brother and started screaming at him. My brother didn't even know what was going on, and had never seen the guy before. The guy pounded his fist into the top of our truck, which actually belonged to one of my other brothers, leaving a huge dent. The fight was on.

Remember that line in Goodfellas where the girl at the bar says something like, "If my guy caught me even looking at another guy, he'd kill me." And the other girl goes, "Graaaaaayyyt!"

Basically, a lot of people create very small and stupid worlds for themselves, infantile and full of drama, and try to rope other people into them too. I think part of growing up and being a good person is not to simply settle for being our worst selves without even a struggle.

[Blarg]

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There are certain things that are just plain inappropriate when you're in a relationship: dining out (one on one) with a "friend" of the opposite sex is one of them. Sure there are exceptions, and it can be completely innocent, but on the whole it's just not respectful of your significant other.

[/ QUOTE ]Katy was talking about having lunch once a week. That seems to be different from 'dining out.' I have lunch with female colleagues all the time at my previous job. It's completely meaningless. Just friends/co-workers having lunch together.

Throughout my 11 year marriage, I've had to deal with this problem because it's always easier for me to form friendships with women then with men. So my wife always had to deal with the fact that I hung out with women or had lunch with them. But just because I'm having lunch with a woman, or having a conversation with a woman doesn't mean that it will lead to anything.

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Ditto. I've had countless lunches with women from work. It didn't mean anything.

[Dominic]

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Blarg, you make a lot of good points, and believe it or not, I agree with most of them. However, I think your statements live in a "perfect world" where "this is how it should be." Most of us do not.

Should men and women be able to be friends, even if they are in relationships with others? Of course they should. In the real world, does this often lead to unfortunate complications, jealousies and misunderstandings? Yes, they do.

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I just take these difficulties for granted and think they are well worth dealing with. Far from expecting a perfect world, I am willing to deal with an imperfect one rather than close my life down enough that I can kid myself that I have achieved some sort of safety. That is, if you are going to cheat, you are going to do it anyway, and so is your partner, whether or not she has friends of the opposite sex. Imagining that they won't strikes me as self-deception. This is a question of fundamental character. Temptation is a constant, not an occasional appearance, and you can either be persuaded or you can't.

I don't mind if life is a little harder. The human companionship is worth it and right up there at the top of what life has to offer. And I think one's significant other should be cut some slack, or else one should find another whom they trust more.

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I understand and I agree with you...but my beliefs are not there to protect me or keep me from cheating. They are there to keep a certain level of respect and care for the relationship I am in (or not, as of right now [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

Some activities are just not appropriate when you are in a relationship. It's a matter of respect. Naturally, that line differs from couple to couple, but I do think it's there in all cases.

[Dominic]

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This is all true, but it doesn't change the fact that people get really jealous over stuff that is completely harmless. Sure, people should be able to have friendships/closeness/whatever with members of the opposite sex without it progressing to sex, and without pissing off the significant other, but in reality, that's pretty rare.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, people can be dips, but there are plenty of other ways to live, too. A lot of us probably never really grow up much, and we have to suffer the consequences.

I used to work with this lady, and we yapped all the time at work. We never got together outside work, but really enjoyed the yap-time at work. One Sunday she and her boyfriend were driving down the street and she waved to me and shouted Hi out the window as they were passing by. The next day at work, she told me her boyfriend grilled her all about me for a long time, and said she saw me at a mall once when she was with him but didn't want to say hello because she didn't want to go through all that with him. She said he tries to pick fights with any guy that comes anywhere near her.

My brother once waved to a girl he knew from school when he saw her in a truck ahead of him. The driver of the truck waved to him to pull over, and we did. The guy charged over to my brother and started screaming at him. My brother didn't even know what was going on, and had never seen the guy before. The guy pounded his fist into the top of our truck, which actually belonged to one of my other brothers, leaving a huge dent. The fight was on.

Remember that line in Goodfellas where the girl at the bar says something like, "If my guy caught me even looking at another guy, he'd kill me." And the other girl goes, "Graaaaaayyyt!"

Basically, a lot of people create very small and stupid worlds for themselves, infantile and full of drama, and try to rope other people into them too. I think part of growing up and being a good person is not to simply settle for being our worst selves without even a struggle.

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The actions and feelings you describe are not at all acceptable in my world. Jealousy is a wasted emotion. Either there's trust or there's not. And if there's not, the relationship is doomed.

I hope you're not equating what I'm talking about to how some goon reacted to your brother waving at his girlfriend.

If my wife has lunch with an old boyfriend to catch up, would I mind? Not at all. But if she started lunching with him on a regular basis, talking on the phone, emails back and forth...guess what? That's not appropriate. And it's either going to stop or I will no longer have a wife.

[Blarg]

I'm not saying they're equivalent, just giving examples of how natural it can be for people to foolishly constrict their worlds and those of the ones they love, and to be paranoid for reasons that don't even make sense, and then try to build a screwy life around that.

Men do this to women and women do it to men too, forcing them to drop friends, even sometimes same-sex friends. This is one of the more well-known behaviors of abusive men, and of cults as well -- cutting people off from outside influence and support. Essentially making enemies or strangers of their friends and loved ones, so they have no one else to turn to or help keep them on the level. This points out the enormous weakness and negative effect of the party trying to cut off the other from the outside world.

I'd just rather work on that weakness, or variations of it, than succumb to it.

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Either there's trust or there's not. And if there's not, the relationship is doomed.


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I agree very much with this. The problem is with the jealous person, not the object of jealousy. It's not the object of the jealousy who has to change for the jealous person, but the other way around.

To me, the focus should be on questioning what's going on in the relationship, not outside it. If you have to worry that someone is going to wind up tempting your partner away from you, that person is not your problem, and your problem won't go away if that person goes away, either.

[Blarg]

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Some activities are just not appropriate when you are in a relationship. It's a matter of respect. Naturally, that line differs from couple to couple, but I do think it's there in all cases.

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Yes, and as you say, it should be variable. Something as simplistic and powerfully life-limiting as "Men and women can't be friends" is positing an extreme as a norm or even as if it were some sort of genetic fact, which seems to be too absolutist by far, and a little bit smug about it. It also quickly writes off further thinking and prescribes arbitrary rules, two habits of mind and behavior that demean the human spirit and have been responsible for so much harm to it. I find it really hard to get behind addressing problems that way. If I am going to draw a line, I'd rather put the pen between my fingers than my toes.

[gusmahler]

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Some activities are just not appropriate when you are in a relationship. It's a matter of respect. Naturally, that line differs from couple to couple, but I do think it's there in all cases.

[/ QUOTE ]Of course, there's a line you don't cross. I just think you're being too conservative when you say the line is at having a semi-regular lunch with a co-worker of the opposite sex.

[Blarg]

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If my wife has lunch with an old boyfriend to catch up, would I mind? Not at all. But if she started lunching with him on a regular basis, talking on the phone, emails back and forth...guess what? That's not appropriate. And it's either going to stop or I will no longer have a wife.

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I agree that hanging all over ex's is going too far.

[R*R]

"Honey, I am going to have lunch with Bob again this week"
"Oh, you sure have been doing that alot lately."
"Well we are just friends. Don't you trust me."
"Of course I trust you. Anyways what do you two talk about at these lunches."
"Nothing really."
"Hmmm ok, see you."
"Bye"
Later that day.......
Boink.

[bogey1]

It's a complicated and personal thing. I don't think asking someone else what they think really helps much because people just don't view boundaries the same way.

At a pure thought level, let's take it to the extreme and say the following are true:
1) My wife loves me and wants me as her partner in life.
2) Our relationship is good in the ways we care about (sex, communication, whatever).
3) We all could fall in love with more than one person. The "soul mate" is a myth. There's a variety of people that would suit us.

Now, say my wife finds a good friend that she realize she really likes and enjoys spending time with. Not at my expense, but at lunches, or times when I'm busy. We all have friends, this guy just happens to be a friend who she feels something deeper for.

Am I dimished by this? No. We're good, she and I. If I know I'm the one she wants to stay with, I shouldn't feel threatened, right?

Now, given who this person is, she realizes her feelings are such that she'd enjoy sharing herself with him physically. Sex is, for some of us anyway, a depth of expression of affection.

Again, does this diminish me or my relationship with my wife? Logically, no. Just because she found something with this other person doesn't change what she found with me. If I'm the one she wants to spend her life with, that hasn't changed. As long as she still fulfills me as my partner and isn't sacrificing me for the other, what have I lost? If I'm not losing anything, by what right should I deny her this happiness? All I really can see I'd have the right to ask is that she be safe.

Intellectually, that's all fine [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Emotionally, it's hard not to feel betrayal at some level. When I feel jealous though, part of dealing with it for me is thinking through the above. Also, I know I've met women that I could tell there might be something deeper there if allowed to flourish. Given my nature, being "just friends" would be really hard for me if it's someone I'm emotionally and physically attracted to, so I just don't associate with those women at all. So, I suppose, for me, no opposite sex friends unless I find them repugnant [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

And, I suppose, if the worst case happened and she found someone else she'd rather be with, then if I really did love her then I'd let her go and be happy. Forcing her to stay would just make things worse (though, in such a horrible situation I would ask that we talk and/or get counseling just to make sure we're doing the right thing).