He isn’t ok with the dirty talk and we did discuss that. I told both my husband and Guy Friend I’d stop. I fell into default seductress mode instead of just trying to be a friend. That was stupid and I know it.
You made a pass or suggestive comment to a friend of the same gender too. Right?
Why? Would you have followed through if your attention was reciprocated in kind?
Was it because of a genuine attraction to her, or was it due to a particularly low period of self esteem combined with a dry spell of male attention?
You come across a little desperate/needy in these events you’ve described. Maybe try to figure out why that is before you continue to ‘try’.
I’m completely needy. I know that about myself. And yeah, if she had been interested I would have tried something with her. I’m lucky she’s better than that and not at all interested in experimenting with girls, which I’m not really either. I’m not attracted to girls, but I am attracted to attention and a bit intoxicated if it’s physical attention.
I could blame my relationship with my father, but placing blame on others has never been my style. I just blame myself
April R, you are ignoring that you have a bunch of platonic male friends who you feel comfortable unloading deeply personal thoughts and problems on. That’d be us. I think the board skews heavily male. And if it’s too personal, any one of us is a PM away and plenty of us would be happy to pretend to listen while you go on and on about whatever. Find someone you think you can trust (I don’t remember any details, but I seem to recall that I’m not one) and put out feelers.
Um, you did say you lost weight, right? 
But seriously, you got us, and we’re mostly harmless.
In what way is your relationship with your father the possible cause for this behaviour? You don’t have to say if you don’t want to. Just curious as to the dynamic between father and child that causes this sort of behaviour.
Typical stuff. He puts the utmost importance on one’s appearance as a sign of self worth. He had me constantly exercising and criticizing what I ate as a child. He called me a fat bitch when I was 12. He left my mom, who admittedly gained weight after she left the military and had her second child, my brother, for an older but skinner woman. He constantly berrated her about it, and then started on me when I was a preteen.
I grew up thinking my mom didn’t try hard enough to keep my dad and that I wasn’t good enough to make him want to stay around.
I used male attention and sexual interest to validate my worth as a woman. Now granted I’ve only had intercourse with two men, a college boyfriend and my husband, but did a lot of other sexual things with several guys until I met my hubby.
Thanks DZ, I’ll remember that. :rolleyes:
I’d like to go on record here as officially NOT being represented by this spokesperson.
Haha haha. Duly noted Napier
:rolleyes:
This dude ain’t no friend. He’s a bunch of 1’s and 0’s that fulfill your need to be sexually desired by men other than your husband.
You shouldn’t have gotten married. Your husband wants out but is stuck because he took the vow. In 30 years, he will hate you.
Probably just a quirk of mine.
Taking with other women is kind of like a sisterhood. We’ve all been there, we all have our stories to tell, you get some sympathy or advice. Unless it’s something serious (like infidelity or abuse) the complaints get shrugged off or laughed about. Men can be jerks. :rolleyes: So what else is new?
I don’t get that with men friends.
Unlike my women friends the men seem to start to dislike/lose respect for the SO.
They don’t shrug it off the way the women friends will.
I feel like the man loses face with my male friends, the women roll with it.
Also, I’ve seen too many instances where the platonic friend thinks it’s an open door. I think you have to take a little more care who you are talking to when you cross gender lines.
Regardless of your good intentions, I do not think that your attempt to be “friends” with a heterosexual man who is the right age/look for you to find him attractive is going to lead anywhere good.
His comment about enjoying the flirting because he isn’t getting enough of it elsewhere makes it pretty obvious that your relationship was fulfilling some kind of romantic need for him too.
If this “friend” cared about your marriage, he would have said something like, **“I don’t want to be the cause of any problems in your relationship, so let’s stop the flirting for now. I don’t want your husband to get the wrong idea” **
That’s the right answer for someone who cares about making sure you don’t screw up your marriage over this. There’s no reason he should be encouraging you to continue flirting with him unless he really doesn’t care about your marriage and would be willing to cheat with you if he had the chance.
Quite frankly, that is how a lot of guys are. Most guys are horn dogs. Don’t let yourself think it means that you are something really special if a guy wants to have sex with you (which I suspect may be part of why this behavior is so addictive for you). All it means is that he’s a guy and you have a vagina. Most guys are not that picky about sex and will have sex with pretty much anything they can get if the circumstances are right. That’s just how they are. There are guys out there who will have sex with farm animals because that’s what available, for goodness sakes.
If you are craving male attention, then I think the safest outlet for that would be to look for an opportunity to meet some gay men you can be friends with. I have a gay male best friend and it is really nice having a male perspective on life where I know there is no chance we will ever have sex with each other.
If you do feel you must continue to talk to this man, then I would make sure that your husband is involved in the friendship. Show your hubby the conversation you’re having and ask him if he is comfortable with what you’re talking about. If you’re saying things to this guy that you wouldn’t say in front of your husband, then I think that’s a real problem.
Why, after you told us that you flirt with men, that you think it’s pure crap when your therapist told you you were flirting with him?
Next time find a woman therapist, or a male so stereotypically gay that you can’t possibly be attracted to him.
If I were to complain about my husband to other men, then it would be easy for those other men to have thoughts like, “Why is she with that jerk? I could treat her better than that” or similar ideas. Confiding in other heterosexual men about the ways your husband has let you down is just inviting trouble. If you need a male perspective, there’s no better place to get it than by simply communicating with the man in question, your husband.
I do have male friends, but I DO NOT tell my heterosexual male friends about it if I am having problems with my hubby. (Admittedly, I have vented to my gay BFF about occasional times when something my husband did annoyed me, but obviously my gay BFF is never going to try to come between my husband and I - he cares about both of us).
Even with non-sexual situations, you should be careful about when and how you complain about your spouse. For example, I have seen how the way that my mother in law likes to complain about her husband to their children has really created a toxic situation in the family where nobody talks to the husband about the issues they have with them - they all just complain about him behind his back and have a strained relationship with him.
Now, I have no intention of cheating on my husband, but why invite any trouble by forming alliances with other men that could put a wedge between my husband and me?
His behavior was crap. Unprofessional. I was literally 0% attracted to him. He was crazy, and I felt he was using his position as a college campus therapist to pick up young, impressionable women.
That’s why it was crap
And I didn’t,chose my therapist. The student health services did
So unattractive men are ok? Got it. Uggos only
Plus they’re so fabulous and witty and delightfully cutting, and will call you “girlfriend” and criticise your decor and always be on hand to handle your affairs of the heart. Really, everybody should get one.
Like a puppy? Not sure if serious?:dubious:
I’m thinking of getting a wise-cracking, street-smart black guy too.