In Facebook, don’t you have to friend someone if you want to look at their pictures? My bet is the OP’s husband friends women he finds attractive so he can scope out their pictures. Plain and simple. Whether he will or would go further than just looking at pictures is another question.
Devoured by a huge ancient red dragon.
I’m afraid you’re not being realistic about life and relationships
Ohhh, I didn’t know you could do that. Interesting.
I think you’re correct , although it’s more complex than that. Sometimes it’s not just about sexual satisfaction. Being unsatisfied can encompass a lot of things and sometimes people are unwilling to deal with it directly and openly. Sometimes people want the security or the appearance of a steady relationship, and want to be able to play around as well.
If the man is sincere about wanting to rebuild the trust he destroyed by his own actions then he’ll come to some understanding with his wife about what is acceptable rather than just dismiss her feelings as insecurity. If he refuses to really commit to making their relationship better than I’d say, you’re correct, he’s unsatisfied and he will eventually stray again.
But you are basically correct.
I’m not sure what’s so hard to understand about the situation. I think in a healthy relationship where two people are confidant of the honesty and commitment people are allowed to have good friends of the opposite gender, but there are reasonable limits. If someone is spending far more time with their friend and sharing a lot more with them than they share with their SO, then it’s a problem for any normal person.
Of the three people involved all share some responsibility. If some distance has developed between the couple they both should talk about it and try to find solutions together. If the wife is physically capable perhaps she should try some of the activities her husband enjoys. If she refuses that’s on her. It seems unfair to strike a position of “You’re not allowed to have a close female friend that enjoys those activities , even though I don’t want to try them”
Relationships can be about compromise for the sake of emotional well being.
The woman or man who spends a lot of alone time with a married friend of the opposite sex has to be somewhat aware of the risk. I’d call it asking for trouble, or planning a takeover.
In the case of my formerly philandering best friend, his “need to cheat” stemmed his rampart ego and immaturity, not a lack of regular and satisfying sex from his girlfriends. He repeatedly cheated because betraying his girlfriends with other women (and demeaning them in the process) made him feel like a “man”. No woman, no matter how beautiful or fit or sexually voracious, was ever going to “provide him” with a fulfilling monogamous relationship because at the time he was utterly incapable of one.
Surely you can understand that mindset.
I’m glad you mentioned the open relationship. It was never my thing but I’ve talked to a woman who had one and it was a real eye opener for me. Intimacy for me includes physical fidelity but I realize it doesn’t mean that to everyone and you can have a loving relationship with someone and still have other lovers if there is a mutual understanding.
Based purely on the standard set by your uncle’s behavior, I’m currently having an affair with several women in marriages or monogamous relationships, including one lesbian in a long term relationship.
I’m sure there are plenty of ways to break faith but shouldn’t they have to at least vaguely hint at romantic feelings? Was this short woman naked under the fur coats maybe?
But we don’t know that that was an issue for the uncle. He says there was no issue. It could very well be that the aunt/wife was just a very controlling insecure person and her insecurity was why the relationship ended.
For all we can tell from what’s been presented, the aunt may just be really out of shape. It’s not like the friend and the uncle had a really wide range of intimate interests they shared. The only example that wasn`t fitness related was the time he needed help buying his wife a nice fur coat.
??? If he’s a married man and spending lots of time with another woman then it is an issue for him because it’s an issue for his wife. It would be an issue for most reasonable people. That’s the point.
“Hey honey I’m spending a lot of time with another woman rather than with you but don’t be insecure. We’re only friends.”
That’s not very realistic or healthy boundaries.
Right. Barring any physical limitations I think the wife ought to at least try and share some of those interests rather than simply object to his sharing them with someone else.
If you are “in love with and giving all your time and emotional energy to someone else, when you’re just waiting for that person to leave her husband to bail” as CrazyCatLady described her uncle then yes, you’re an emotional cheater. If you’re pining for your lesbian friend and hoping she realizes that she’s actually head over heels in love with you so you can both dump your current lovers and live happily every after, you’re an emotional cheater.
These kind of golly-gee comparisons between friendships and an unconsummated romantic relationship are par for the course for cheaters, emotional and otherwise. “Hey, we’re just hanging out/texting/emailing/shopping. Geez, by your criteria I’m cheating with my Mom hurr durr!”
On preview: What cosmosdan said.
Having several friends whose company you occasionally enjoy is a lot different than one person you’re spending a lot of time with. Especially if time spent increases.
The presence of romantic feelings can be easily denied.
Ah, the SDMB. Where cheating isn’t really cheating, and when it is, it’s your fault anyway.
If you have a close friend who happens to be of a different gender, I’m not sure why that automatically has to be an issue. It was for the aunt but from the uncle’s perspective, it was harmless and it was all in his wife’s head.
Right, but my point is that CrazyCatLady first listed a bunch of examples of really innocuous friendly activities to share with a friend. My understanding was that she intended that post per se to make him out to be an obvious cheater. It was only when that was called into question that she said he was “in love” with the friend and giving her all his emotional energy.
For instance, if I wanted to describe an emotional cheater based on observable behavior I might say, oh, take my cousin for example. When she has a bad day at work, the first person she calls to vent to is this dude she knows from the gym. In fact, she is more prone to share any important news with this dude than her own husband. They even go out together with mutual friends more often than with her husband, but have never had any physically romantic encounters.
That’s off the top of my head mind you, I don’t even have a female cousin. But that type of behavior would seem to me to imply an emotional affair. Playing a lot of sports together might be, but I don`t see any reason to conclude it is absent other indications.
We keep going around on the emotional cheating issue, but it really comes down to the standards and boundaries of each individual couple. Some couples (as already posted) can have sex with other people and not have it be over the line; other couples consider a private lunch with a preferred gender co-worker to be over the line. We don’t have to agree on where the lines are; just the couple have to, and if one member of the couple goes over the line, that usually means bad things for the relationship.
Even bigger problems exist, if the couple can’t even agree where the lines are, which might be the case of the OP.