Day marriage good,
Day marriage great;
Day may come day litigate.
Don’t worry; Be Happy…
I’ve heard people say this, even here on this board-- that they and their SO have celebrities that they’d allow each other to cheat with. It’s from that episode of Friends, right? Having a list and all that. How serious is this in truth? Like, if you actually fucked Bianca Marie DeGroat, your wife really wouldn’t care? Or would she go from being your current wife to being your former wife despite your alleged “arrangement”?
This happened to me twice.
The first was after about 3 years of marriage. The woman was someone with whom I just really hit it off with at my first real job. She was fun, intriguing, easy to talk to, and of course beautiful. We became fast friends and I just couldn’t help but wonder, “What if…” Of course nothing ever came of it.
The second was at my 20 year class reunion. I found out that a girl I had a major crush on in high school was now divorced. We caught up at the reunion and she was like she was as I remembered her. Of course I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I would have mustered up the courage to ask her out back in high school.
I don’t stew over these thoughts though. I look at it mainly as a healthy curiosity. I know what I have with my wife and don’t want leave it. I’m happy. Why would I want to screw it up?
My husband and I have that “arrangement” (we’ve never watched Friends) but we’re also more or less semi-serious; there isn’t a chance in hell it’d have a chance of coming true. And besides, he’s flattered that my pick has a strong resemblance to him. 
Back when I was still dating him, I went through a mildly depressive, stupid early-20s “wild oats” period where I wasn’t sure if I was “settling”/settling down too quick. And I cheated on him. When I woke up from that and got my brain together a little more, I tearfully confessed, and he’d practically already forgiven me. Now we’re married and have been together a long time, and I can’t see who I could meet that I would throw that away for. Maybe a little bit of lustful aching but not real regret.
It’s not from Friends…I’d first heard people talk about the concept in the late 80s (he was allowed Reba McIntyre, she got Robert Redford).
And who cares what happened afterwards? Bianca DeGroat is HOTTT!!!
My wife is a little bothered that Ms. DeGroat is a very different type from her - my wife is blond haired, blue eyed, and big breasted, Bianca DeGroat is black and has little titties. She says she’d be less bothered if my choice was someone like Pamela Anderson who is more like she is. My thinking is that if I chose someone who superficially resembled her, then it would be like saying that I wasn’t choosing my “cheatin’ option” because of just having a different appearance, but that I just wanted someone who was like her, just someone else. Kinda like how people would be less jealous if their wife cheated on them with a woman - they are going elsewhere to get something they can’t get from you. If my wife cheated on me with a man, why bother when you have a man right here? Likewise, if she cheated on me with a guy who looked a lot like me, that would hurt more emotionally.
I was in the middle of breaking up with a boyfriend - who had just about talked me round to giving things (yet) another try.
During the middle of all the drama, I got to take a reality break to interview someone for a room in my flat. He seemed like fun, we got on well.
Once he left, I finished breaking up. After all, a complete stranger had just walked in and been more fun and compatible, even though I had no idea if he was interested or available. If nothing else, it was a conversation with no drama.
After a couple of weeks, when the late night phonecalls and weirdness had finished, I mentioned that I was single. Turned out that the new flatmate was, too.
Good times.
End of thread right here.
I’ve felt the same way. When I was single and dating, or involved in serial relationships, it was one thing. Since I’ve been married, I can’t imagine any person on the planet who would appeal to me more than my husband. Nobody is as sexy, smart, and funny as he is.
I should probably tell him that more often.
I meet other women all the time that I might want to be involved with. The problem is when you meet someone new, it’s easy to think they are so much more interesting and exciting than your current SO simply because it’s new.
have you ever met someone that made you regret being in a relationship?
[QUOTE]
Every day during the last 1000 years I spent with my ex.
Now, not so much meet someone as to sometimes speculate about one I drove away.
I’ve met a couple of guys that make me wonder where the hell they were back when I was single. One of them became a very close friend. I met him three months into my relationship with my husband, and I know he was initially attracted to me too. It was awkward until he fell in love with another girl. Now we’re both happily married to other people. We sort of dealt with our mutual attraction one day, in the unspoken way that two very monogamous and faithful people would given the circumstances. We had our little moment of reckoning where we were able to somehow communicate, ‘‘Yeah, this is how it could have been… but this is the way it is now.’’ My husband knows I had a crush, but he doesn’t know how deep my feelings ran or that the attraction was reciprocated. That would seem to be needlessly vexing information to share with him, because I chose to be with him and I am very glad I made that choice. Learning that you can be attracted to someone, or even love someone, and not act on it, is just a part of growing up. I regret nothing.
sorry dp.
There was a guy that I know who was in another chapter of my bf’s fraternity. Since I had started the QSA on our campus, he felt comfortable telling me about his closet status. Guy is like 6’4", hairy as a… well, hairy man, solid where it counts and cushy where it counts, and wants to go into medicine, just like me! I had known him fairly well because he lived on my floor in the dorms freshman year. He comes to my apartment for the “Welcome Home Me” party when I came home after 2 months on the Equality Ride, and goes on and on about how he used to lust after me. Used to watch me in the showers, etc. Anyway, I ended up outing him to my bf because he realized there was something strange going on with the friend and he wanted to know what, and “I’m sworn to secrecy” doesn’t cut it, apparently, even when there’s a secret.
Now he’s dating some guy (a cardiologist, of all things) in Texas and going to med school, and I haven’t talked to him in a couple of months
Well, after I read the OP I was going to say one thing, but then after having read the replies, I’m thinking another thing. So now I don’t know what to write but thanks for giving me some food for thought.
Folks, it ain’t gonna happen. Dream on. These Hollywood people wouldn’t give the common person the time of day. Like, they’d ever be interested in you? Folks, the cameras in Hollywood only project an image out for you to drool upon. Them Hollywood folk ain’t a-droolin’ over you! Comprendez? :dubious: Besides, that is not what the OP is asking.
Exactly. No matter how much you love someone, how happy you are together, how right you are for each other… at some point, it gets… well, old.
And so you get distracted by something shiny and new. And if this shiny new thing finds you equally distracting, it can *feel * like this is something better. Most likely, it’s merely different. And if you do the cost/benefit analysis, you’ll realize that it’s probably not worth it.
Rubystreak, I think that the “get out of marriage free” card isn’t something that anyone takes seriously. The joke, as **Jinx ** so insightfully noted, is that the possibility of having sex with George Clooney is sufficiently remote that your spouse feels free to say “Sure hon, knock yourself out.”
I actually think a key to a happy marriage is knowing that you could be happy with someone else, too–to me, at least, the feeling that I could never be as happy as I am with anyone else would make me paranoid about death or about his affections waning. It would make me clingy and unpleasant, and, ironically enough, unhappy.
I have crushes all the time. One or two a year. They aren’t really sexual, I just really, really like people and am easily impressed. But there have been a few of those where the person in question was someone that fit the gender/age catagory of “potential mate”, and it occured to me that if I wasn’t already in love, I’d be trying to get closer to them. But it never goes beyond that occasional musing, and I’ve never wished I wasn’t with my husband–more like I’ve regreted we only get one life to live, and I can’t ever have my 2nd and 3rd and 4th choices along with my first choice.
I have a friend who had her chance with her celebrity. It did not go well for the marriage, though the marriage survived.
The thing with the celebrity list is that you are never going to get these opportunities - its a shared fantasy. In her case, the celeb became someone she knows - and more awkwardly yet - sees from time to time now even a few years after the whole marraige crisis. So, Jinx, it does happen. Though it sort of depends on who you are and the circumstances of the celebrity.
Maybe I’m being overly literal, but to me, it’s creepy to say to your SO, even theoretically, “I would totally cheat on you with X if I had the chance, OK?” No, it’s not OK. It’s sort of a gross thing to say. There’s no celebrity I’d cheat or would even contemplate cheating with, and I would certainly not say something like that to my husband. It’s not that he’s better looking than George Clooney, nor that, if Mr. Clooney was sweatin’ me that wouldn’t be a weird (and astronomically unlikely) and trying situation… it’s that regardless of whoever else crosses our path, no matter how tempting, it’s not an option.
Yeah, I’m probably being overly literal. I just don’t like to say such things even in jest because I wouldn’t want him to feel that twinge as I said it.