I think I may have lost my only guy friend

Don’t have a job right now. Doing the stay at home mom thing. Do have a masters degree. Active in my church. Quilt. Kids are alright, just a lot of work. Started exercising on the regular. Lost a lot of weight this year, want to lose more, so focusing on that quite a bit too

I would call that a fairly balanced life.

What does your husband think of your flirting and need of attention from men?

Are any of your children boys? Don’t you think they are capable of emotion?

He’s been giving me more attention since I talked to him about it, but he wasn’t upset with me

Of course, but he’s 7, so not much experience with romance

Perhaps this is a game you both like to play?

Works for both of you on different levels for different reasons.

Maybe, but I don’t want Guy Friend to get hurt. I never thought he would be getting anything out of this other than a little entertainment and someone to talk to, but the DZ’s post had me rethinking the whole situation.

I genuinely want to maintain a friendship and don’t want to make him.think I’m using him

I think the odds of him being hurt are extremely low. You appear to be about late-20s, so he would be too. If he’s single and two states away, a married housewife and mother of 3 is not someone he’s pining for. He has a sense of humor about the whole thing and likes you as a friend, or he would have quit texting you out of boredom long ago.

It sounds to me like all the adults who matter in this scenario are fine with it, so have your flirtatious fun. Christ, if I were home with 3 young kids all day I’d be sexting the shit out of anyone who would respond.

It’s fun to keep up with kids from high school; there is a very limited pool of people who knew you as a teen and know you now. Have fun with the few you’re still in contact with.

We are both 32, but I like the way you think!
Late 20s in my mind;)

Well damn girl, you certainly don’t. Best of luck with whatever it is you’re after here.

Usually it’s me who forgets what I’m talking about. I’ve been oddly linear lately.

A lot of my work friends are sassy, middle-aged black women, not an archetype I’m attracted to sexually. It makes life simpler.

Lemme see. At four I had a crush on the kindergartner next door, but being younger than her I was invisible. By seven it was Louise Corrigan, though I didn’t tell her for a couple years and nothing came of it. Also at seven there was the cute younger girl on the school bus. At least I think she was cute, though she wore those blue pixie glasses popular in '61 for some ungodly reason. It was probably her pink, angora sweater. Still have a thing for them.

My point is that your son might be deeper than you think. Or maybe not. You’ll never know until you ask him.

April, maybe I missed it somewhere, you said your husband trusts you, my question is should he? Has he read all the text and messages back and forth between you and Guy Friend? If he hasn’t, I would say he’s only getting your sanitized version of the relationship. I would suppose that his impression of you might be different if you let him read everything.

So, got this text from Guy Friend this morning
“Yup. Totally did. It’d probably be best to make other plans. I don’t want it to be suspicious that you’d come out to tucson just to hang out with me then there starts to be doubt about staying faithful and it starts to drive a wedge between you and your hubby (even if we didn’t do anything, it could seem suspicious). Does that make sense or am I being weird?”

Then he tells me how he loves his new jeans and sent me a selfie entitled “outfit of the day”

I have not responded, still collecting my thoughts so I say the right thing, but I appreciate his decency.

Congratulations on being able to post from inside a Japanese dating sim.

I’m not sure he even wants you in the Friend Zone anymore. You have made him feel uncomfortable, and he’s doing the math regarding continuing the status quo. That he told you that is a sign he’s having second thoughts, though, because he got a lot out of y’all’s “relationship.” Best thing for both of you is to not reply, or reply with a quick goodbye, and block his number. And learn from this that men have feelings, too, and flirting can have consequences. Which could trigger another anecdote, but I won’t let it. Nobody here really wants to hear about my, or anybody else’s, personal life.

“Y’all’s” was used instead of “your” to clarify that I am referring to all of the people in this. “Your” is too easily read as a singular.

Sounds to me like your marriage isn’t as perfect as you’d like us to believe, or you believe yourself.

I made you rethink the situation? After fifteen years here I have finally managed to get someone to rethink something, other than their opinion of me (generally going from indifferent to bad)?

I’m going to bask in this all day!

Huh?

:p:D:)

Never said it was perfect or even tried to imply it. What marriage is?