Thanks for the clarifications! I'm glad you've moved away from the "path of least resistance" in your first posting, where you seemed to be titillated by the "gorgeous friendship of a man who is married" to more awareness of what you feel is acceptable. Kudos for treading carefully until you have more information, and I'm glad the date with theatre-guy went well. You sound like you'd be a lot of fun to hang out with, so you'd have a lot to offer in a relationship!
SSM,
I don't know many people who would consider it an "affair" if both spouses agree to part ways before engaging new partners. That is responsible and mature. The kind of affairs described in almost every situation in Newcomers, MLC, Separated, Divorced, etc, here, involve one partner being blindsided by the discovery that their spouse has developed an EA or PA on the side, and yet has blamed them for all the problems in the marriage to assuage their guilt (and yes, has lied, lied, lied--the emphasis is for the sheer volume, and for the utter shock their partners feel at this). Their raw agony at discovering their "best friend" has betrayed them by sharing confidences, and/or sex, with another, is the worst experience of their lives. It doesn't hurt any less to be what you dismiss as a "stereotype."
ssmguy said: "I don't really think of that as being honest. I meant totally honest with everyone. If you are going to have an affair, or you feel tempted to have one, you should let your spouse know. If you spouse cares, they will work to fix the problem."
UM....HELLO!!!!! How can you be so contradictory. You have NOT told your wife you have had affairs, you have NOT been totally honest with her. Just because you've eluded to it and she has eluded to the fact that she'd rather not hear anything, does NOT mean you are being totally honest. What kind of world of your own creation do you live in where you can tell others to be totally honest, when you have not been totally honest with your wife NOR YOURSELF.
Ssmguy...I wish you had any clue how much damage you are doing to yourself, your wife, your kids, and anyone else you give advice to. You're a monster, there's just no other way to say it. Go ahead and keep being "honest" with yourself while you tell yourself its all good and dandy what you are doing. Meanwhile, the truth is what it is.
Little Miss...you said maybe you aren't ready for full on intimacy. That's fine! Maybe you aren't! There is nothing wrong with just having a few more flings (or even 10-20 more) until you are ready...as long as the flings aren't married. I say, play around until you *know* you are ready.
Maybe "married" needs clarification in this discussion. Or perhaps I'm the one who needs clarification. There are married people who live apart and are essentially divorced, but are still married for convenience or property, etc. And there are PLENTY of people who cohabit, as if married, but are not married.
Surely you don't mean that it would be OK to have a fling with someone who was unmarried but cohabiting as if married? And likewise, why a strict prohibition on someone who's well-separated but still legally married? Is anyone here attaching a moral significance to the legal state of being married?
Or are we using the word "married" to include people who cohabit?
I'm asking because it seems the preoccupation with marital status alone is somewhat inconsiderate.
I'm asking because it seems the preoccupation with marital status alone is somewhat inconsiderate.
I feel like I've stumbled into a rather polarised debate here that I'm not necessarily qualified to enter ... but I've been thinking about this. (and we’ve established it’s healthier for me to be here chatting to you guys than hanging out with whoknowswhattheirstatusis men!!)
I preface this by saying - these comments are from my experience and I understand that everyones experiences and their learnings from those experiences are different. Different is OK.
When I was married I had a couple of affairs. I've also had 2 relationships post marriage. One when I was separated, one when after the divorce was final.
In the affair relationships, the sex was hot and the drama was intoxicating. It was like a drug. But just like a drug, the come-down sucked. In those affairs, while they were fun and intense, there was so much of myself I didn’t give. It would have been unconscionable to really give of myself in a truly intimate way – because no matter how far down I buried the thought of my husband he was always there. It was one thing to give my body to an affair partner, but I could not give away any more than that because that would be admitting that I was in a sham marriage. Even when your having an affair, no matter how “into” it you are, you still have to go home each night and face your spouse. (I blush to think about it now – and I hate how disrespectful it was to my husband, he deserved better than that – he was/is a good, albeit emotionally crippled man.)
At that time, I was able to rationalise that I was married, but having affairs, because there wasn’t enough good sex in my marriage – so taking anything other than sex would have made me a liar to myself.
In the relationship I had when I was separated, and despite him being a delightful young creature who I suspect was capable of far more emotional intimacy than I gave him credit for – I was just too raw. The marriage and the stbx husband were still there in my head (and I still had my step-children living with me so I was pre-occupied with them too – even though they were young adults and were super encouraging of me getting out and getting on with my life)
Post divorce, another charming young man, but I was still raw, healing, and in kind of post-crisis fragile emotional state. I still wasn’t able to be there for him – or for myself really, in hindsight.
What I’ve been thinking about, and reading about, is that for true emotional intimacy to occur between two people you both have to be truly open and “there”. Both partners have to be in a healthy emotional place. For me, that means no other emotional attachments and sincerely trusting yourself to open up to the other person. Being confident, grounded, strong enough to trust someone else.
I don’t know if that’s possible if there is a spouse (co-habiting or otherwise) in the picture.
In my experience I don’t think it is.
Having said all that, I do understand men and women are different – so perhaps it is possible for men to compartmentalise to the extent they can connect with a woman even though they still have a spouse or significant other in the picture … ???
...I feel like I've stumbled into a rather polarised debate here that I'm not necessarily qualified to enter ... but I've been thinking about this. (and we’ve established it’s healthier for me to be here chatting to you guys than hanging out with whoknowswhattheirstatusis men!!)
.....Having said all that, I do understand men and women are different – so perhaps it is possible for men to compartmentalise to the extent they can connect with a woman even though they still have a spouse or significant other in the picture … ???
I think that you are showing some huge steps in getting a life, by some of your changed attitudes. That should cause you to connect with someone in the not-to-distant future. (Sounds like something one might read on the paper within a fortune cookie)
I think that men and women who cheat (both EA & PA) on their spouse are playing an emotional form of Russian Roulette. A truly dangerous and potentially emotionally self-destructive game. It is a game that one can play, but one that can easily go wrong and if it does there may be no way to recover. It also can create deep guilt for the one who engages in such behavior, which is why it is really not good to participate in it from either side. As with most such games of chance, if one plays it too many times, one will loose all they have.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
..I feel like I've stumbled into a rather polarised debate here....
....Having said all that, I do understand men and women are different – so perhaps it is possible for men to compartmentalise to the extent they can connect with a woman even though they still have a spouse or significant other in the picture … ???
...author Charles Orlando interviewed 1,200-plus women and 400+ men and discovered women cheat mostly for emotional reasons, while men admitted to cheating largely for physical or sexual gratification with no emotional tie. And the men who were perceived themselves as "powerful" or "influential" (like doctors, cops and lawyers), say their cheating was "justifiable." Huh?
OK, now I have to get off the computer for the day and work on my getting a life. I just had to share this last thing I recently saw.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
If women cheat mostly for emotional reasons, and men mostly for non-emotional reasons, then who are they cheating with? Are we to assume that women cheat only with single men who are emotionally available? Are is it simply the case that a cheating woman interprets sexual interest as emotional support, while men interpret emotional need as sexual need? I suppose two people see the same thing as satisfying very different needs?
I think this cliched "surveys" are largely bunk. One of the recent best selling book authors on Oprah, "Why Men Cheat", I think was the title, by Gary Neumann, says only a small percentage of men cheat for sexual reasons. Most men, according to that author, cheat for emotional reasons, to be accepted, admired, and listened to.
So there you go. Totally different answers from quotable sources.
And speaking of totally inconsistent stories in various media, here's an update on my pet peeve.
I hear on this board and other books that women come into their sexual prime in later years. I fully believe your encouraging stories, but I think you're the exceptions when it comes to the 40+ women, and especially 50+ and 60+ women. Here's a recent article in TIME:
Older women also enjoy the sex they do have far less than older men. Married women ages 57 to 64 who haven't been divorced or widowed report having about as much sex as married men in the same age group. But while 77% of partnered men in that age group say they are interested in sex, only 36% of partnered women report the same interest. These figures suggest that a lot of older women may be having sex when they don't really want to.
Yep, totally consistent with my experience and that of a handful of friends. Of course, these are just statistics, and they mean nothing if and when you find the woman who is the exception.
Having said all that, I do understand men and women are different – so perhaps it is possible for men to compartmentalise to the extent they can connect with a woman even though they still have a spouse or significant other in the picture … ???
From everything I've read here--and witnessed while my H had his own MLC emotional affair--men aren't so different from women in this respect. It's only possible for them to have one strong emotional connection at the time, and they have to hold off/distance themselves from their spouse/affair partner when they are with the other.
You're quite right, though, that it's impossible to have true emotional intimacy unless you are completely "there" for your partner--and it takes a lot of self-growth and self-acceptance and maturity to reach that place. Affairs are just attempts to find connection and feel-good sensations without having gone through the pain of working on oneself. You sound as though you are growing, reflecting, valuing yourself--I appreciate your honesty about your journey.
