I was clicking through the xkcd comics when I came across this:
and it made me wonder how often it happens in real life. How common is it for people to commit to someone else (not necessarily marriage), believing it to be for the best, and then have an “Oh my God” moment where they meet someone else that they wish they’d met first?
And does such a moment say anything about the existing relationship? Does it mean that the relationship is weak and would have fallen apart anyway? Or is it possibly to have a healthy relationship going on and STILL feel strongly attracted to another person?
It’s definitely possible. There are a lot of people in the world you could be compatible with, if you met in the right circumstances. Sometimes you run into one. Then you get over it.
I think the whole point of making a commitment is recognizing that there will always be other people to whom you’re attracted and compatible, but you’ve chosen to be with this person and to try and make it work through good times and bad.
Attraction to other people doesn’t necessarily say anything about the current relationship; it’s how far you choose to take that attraction that does.
I was dating a nice guy, but I was not really very attracted to him physically.
Then one day on a recruiting lunch I took out a fellow law student to try to recruit him to join the firm I was going to work for the next year. He was very attractive and we had a great time, with an instant rapport, and I found myself thinking, “Holy crap–this is THE guy!!” The more we talked, the more I realized we were friendly with all the same people, etc. I was trying to figure out a way to finagle a real date with him.
Then The Guy mentions our mutual friend Brent, and we’re talking about what a great guy Brent is, and what a wonderful person he is, and The Guy mentions how funny it is that he and Brent are close pals because Brent is a Southern Baptist and The Guy is gay, and those two things don’t usually go together.
I don’t know how I hid my disappointment. I was instantly emotionally deflated.
As we walked back to campus after lunch, The Guy asked me if I was married, single, whatever. It was only then that I remembered hey, yeah, I actually have a boyfriend. I’d totally forgotten I was in a couple the instant I met The Guy. Not a good statement.
I was not in love with my first husband. I didn’t really realize it at the time - he was (and is) a nice guy, and we were very compatible, and I liked him a lot, but I didn’t love him.
Looking back, one thing that I should have paid more attention to was that I was constantly meeting other guys who I was strongly attracted to. There was always these “what-ifs” going on in my head.
I can honestly say that once I hooked up with the current Mr. Athena, all that stuff went away. I can’t imagine a guy who I’d like to be with more than him. There is no room for regret; I simply can’t imagine ever liking anyone more than I like my guy.
I was in a committed relationship that was winding down when I met the future Mr. Cake. We met, talked, he found out I was with someone else, we said “see you around”, and met again fortuitously when I was a few months out of the old relationship. He’s the only man who I ever considered “the one”.
Remember that song from many years ago, ‘it’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along’.
Back in 2004, I met a wonderful guy and we ended up setting up house together. After we’d been together for 2 years, I happened to meet someone else who was the most wonderful person I’d ever met. I was a very tortured soul during that time. But, I ended up staying with my original guy. Sadly, we broke up a year later because he found out that I carried a torch for this guy.
Never hooked up with the other guy though, since I’d moved 3000 miles away from him. But we still keep in contact and he’s been here 3 times to visit. I’m going to visit him in 2 weeks. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up together after all.
I’ve been married almosts 14 years. We have a strong, loving, committed relationship, and I’m still attracted to him. That doesn’t mean, however, that I (or he) haven’t seen someone else and thought “Man, if I weren’t married…” I think that’s perfectly normal and even healthy. Neither one of us would be willing to break up the marriage to have that other person, but there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging to yourself that there’s another person you think you could also be happy with.
It’s only sad when you’re not happy with the one you’re with, and have to make the decision to either stay with the one you’re with, or go with the one you can be happy with. Fortunately, I’ve never really been in that position.
Oh, and as much as I love xkcd, that strip almost made me cry.
Sometimes there can also be a lot of “the grass is greener” syndrome with those types of moments. When you first meet someone, they are usually on their best behavior, and may even actively be trying to make a good first impression.
But, I agree that it’s possible, even normal, to think “Hmmm…” once in a while, even if you are in a committed relationship.
But there have been plenty of “What If?” ladies and “In Another Life” possibilities. You never know how things might turn out (possibly better than what I have, though that’s really hard to imagine), but there have been several women I’ve known amazing enough that I knew, under different circumstances, it would have been well worth the effort to try.
I’ve never believed in the notion of “the one”, so even though I have an SO and we’re happy and all that, it’s still possible I’ll meet some other guy with whom I’m even more compatible and makes me wish I wasn’t in a relationship. It doesn’t mean my relationship with my SO is weak, just that there are too many damn people in this world for anyone to have just one person they’re “meant” for.
I think the notion that there is one person in the world for you is teh stoopid. So it’s not surprising that even when you are in a relationship you run into someone and recognize you could have been just as happy with that other person.
When I was young, and finally dating the girl I had been madly in love with for years, I went on a trip to DC and met a girl who was so different–so vivacious and full of life, whereas my gf was more cerebral and reserved. It made me doubt what kind of person I wanted to be with. It also made me fuck up my relationship with my gf. And I later had a brief, doomed relationship with the other girl. So I wound up with neither. Worked out okay, in the end. Met a fabulous woman in college; we’ve been together for 15 years now, still going strong.
A couple of times. In my first marriage, which was rapidly going sour (she ended up cheating on me and leaving me), I met a girl who was very attractive, intelligent, liked me a lot, and was a virgin who wanted to lose her virginity. It really hurt to keep her at arms length and had I known how things worked out, I would have definitely cheated on my wife with her.
Another time it wasn’t someone new, but a girl I was in love with when I was 19 who looked me up not long after I married my first wife. We had jokingly agreed to look each other up if we were still single when we were 30. She had heard from my mother that I was married when she got my number from her (I hadn’t seen her in 10 years), and the first thing she said was “It’s too bad you’re married, I was going to hold you to that agreement we made. Do you cheat on your wife?” She wanted me to come visit her while she visited her Dad for a couple of weeks, about 50 miles away from where I was living at the time. I kept putting it off until she had to go back home to another state because I was afraid I’d cheat on my wife.
Sure. I’d be dating Woman A and Woman B would come into my life and turn my world upside down.
It was always a sign that Woman A and I were not going to last.
I’ve even been in the position of telling a potential GF, “I know this sounds crappy, but if I can be with C, I will, even though she’s not available now.” One told me to fuck off; one said she’d take whatever I could give her. (You can imagine how well that ended, right?)
But since I was married? Not even a blip on the radar. Although if Helen Hunt shows up on my doorstep now I’ll be a little pissed that I missed the opportunity when I was single… but even if she showed up naked and begging me to sweep her away, no dice.
Me and my current wife have agreed that we can cheat with a hot celebrity if the opportunity comes up and it doesn’t count. I’m not sure who hers is, I guess I’ll let her do any guy I’ve heard of or recognize from TV or movies. Mine is Bianca Marie DeGroat.
Reminds me of the old joke–husband and wife decide that they each get to pick a person whom, if they got the chance, they could permissibly screw. Wife picks George Clooney; husband picks Julia Roberts. After several years, the husband says, “You know, honey, we should revise our picks, since time has gone by and they’ve aged a bit.” Wife agrees and changes her pick to Patrick Dempsey. Husband says, “My new pick is going to be…the babysitter.”
I remember after dating my ex-husband for about 3 months, I sat on the living room floor of my parents’ home and said to my mother, “I don’t feel that crazy in love with him feeling. I never have. The butterflies, excited to talk to him, wondering what he is doing when he isn’t with me…I don’t think of those things about him.” I said this to her because I was scared I was settling for someone just because he was mature and financially set. In other words, He had his shit together. Wasn’t a “boy”.
She said that was because it was a “mature” love. So I thought it was me being stupid.
Looking back on it, I don’t regret being with him because he was and still is a wonderful person. I regret not listening to my heart.
