Well, Linty, it is clear to me that it is you that hasn’t been reading closely.
While I agree with your first sentence, I am not talking about monogamous agreements. You, apparently, are unable to grasp the distinction. I thought I made it clear when I posted a while back, “I am referring to a concept more generally described as polyamory.” Perhaps you missed that. Perhaps you also missed where I have been questioning the underlying reasons monogamous relationships are assumed to be the “only truth”, and what benefits society derives from such assumptions. You seem to have missed all that.
Don’t presume to know how I, my wife, or anyone else besides yourself for that matter, might react. It is clear from your posts that you don’t know.
Even in the context of a previously established monogamous relationship, you earlier suggest that if my hypothetical conversation were to occur, that it is too late!. OK. If you would allow your spouse to say “hello” to someone of the other sex without suggesting it is too late, then the only issue is one of where to draw the line. To suggest that relationships only develop with concerted effort, that they don’t “just happen”, is putting your head in the sand. Who isn’t being honest with themselves?
I’m suggesting it is honest, and that honesty is always appropriate. The implication of your position is that there are certain things that you should not be honest about with your spouse. I still don’t understand that.
On your issue of honesty and infidelity, as well as the ultimatum issue, I completely agree with the response that Lilairen has already provided. If such an event led the breakup of my marriage, I wouldn’t find establishing blame to be a useful or productive exercise.
catsix, and perhaps pepperlandgirl, I was trying to establish that the criteria, the line, is whether you are upfront with your SO about your outside relationship. I’m not trying to say that you would have to tell your SO all of the same content of the conversations with your outside relationship. I think a major benefit of an outside relationship is that of a confidant(e). But wouldn’t you both agree that allowing such a relationship to develop without keeping your SO aware of it becomes problematic?
I’m not trying to “dictate” your attitudes. I’m not trying to place any moral judgement on you at all (except for when I said that your SO would be justified in leaving you. That was wrong of me, and I apologize.).
I’m saying that it doesn’t make a difference who you are or what you do. If you are in a monogamous relationship, and you have physical relations with someone outside that relationship, then this is, by definition, infidelity. Maybe you have a perfectly good reason for committing infidelity, I don’t know. More to the point, I don’t care. It’s your life.
But it doesn’t matter if you’re Elenore Roosevelt or Lynette “Squeaky” Fromm. Your boundaries don’t really matter, either. Infidelity is infidelity. It’s all about the definition of the word. I’ve heard “honesty” or one of its forms mentioned quite a bit in this thread. Can we be honest about this, at least?
Just because that line is not drawn in concrete doesn’t mean it’s not there at all. My wife has plenty of close male friends, and I have plenty of close female friends. The only reason we don’t spend every minute of our waking lives distrusting each other is because we know the other has the maturity not to let the friendship go too far to the point of emotional intimacy
I’d still say it’s you who isn’t being honest with yourself. Are you really trying to tell me that you suddenly become emotionally involved with a friend just like that? What about personal responsibility? What about life choices? Even if you do suddenly find yourself head over heels over another woman, you have the choice not to pursue the relationship. For you to claim that the fact you’re now involved with someone else “just happened” is a clear-cut case of you ducking responsibility for your own actions.
That’s just as well, Cowboy, because from where I’m viewing the hypothetical situation, you can’t blame your wife. Not in this case study, anyway.
Stonebow, if you believe that there has been anyone posting to this thread who “does not believe in fidelity”, I suggest that you have not been reading closely.
I have said repeatedly that I am aware that there are people who want to share everything with their partner, but that I don’t want it; I have been responding to comments that seemed to me to suggest that someone who doesn’t spend every instant of free time with their partner is being selfish and has a weak relationship. I have been arguing for the radical notion that partners in a relationship do not have to share 100% of their interests and 100% of their free time to have a valid, strong relationship.
Linty Fresh, speaking of honesty, slamming someone for supposedly supporting physical infidelity in response to her comments on a situation that explicitly does not include any physical happenings is disingenuous. If you want me to respond to a situation in which there has been sexual activity, posit one, rather than inserting “and you have physical relations with” in a discussion that did not include anything of the sort.
Speaking only for myself, my last SO knew only that I had a best friend who was male, but there was no need to sit down and say to the SO ‘This is the exact nature of Ed and my friendship.’ The only time it was ever discussed, I referred to Ed as ‘practically my brother’.
If he had a female friend he felt close like that with, I wouldn’t expect him to tell me minute by minute exactly how their friendship was going.
catsix, I understand that, and agree that the actual content or “play by play” isn’t necessary. But wouldn’t you agree that you have a responsibility to your SO to at least properly disclose the nature of your relationship (such as, “practically my brother”)?
IOW, it may be fair to accuse someone of emotional infidelity if they are developing a rather deep or intense emotional relationship outside of their SO, but fail to even keep the SO informed of its general nature, right?
Linty, my comments clearly acknowledge that there is a line, the (rhetorical) question is, where do you draw it.
And yes, I am trying to tell you that sometimes, with close (and otherwise innocent) relationships with peoples of the opposite gender, you may suddenly find yourself more deeply attached than you intended. I agree that you can choose to pull away from the relationship, in order to not (emotionally) harm your SO, but that’s not being honest, now is it? I can see where you might claim it honorable, but honesty is a different value.
And finally, you seem to be conflating the terms “adultery” with “infidelity”. Adultery is having sexual relations outside of your marriage. Infidelity is, according to Merriam Webster, unfaithfulness to a moral obligation. As Lilairen pointed out previously, if you commit adultery with your spouses permission (or at least knowledge and acceptance), you have not been unfaithful to any moral obligation.
Considering that you seem to think that issuing ultimatums to the person you supposedly most love and cherish in the world is an appropriate tactic to control their behavior, I am quite sure I have no interest in your determination of blame in a failed marriage.
If this is directed at me (and I’m not sure whom else it may have been directed at), please let me know where I (or someone else) has 1) stated a lack of belief in fidelity, and 2) implied a sense of superiority.
If I have done either one, I apologize. I fully believe in fidelity - in terms of both making and keeping commitments, as well as in full, open, and honest disclosure of all signficant and relevent issues associated with those commitments. Frankly, I have felt more defensive of these positions in this thread, then lording them from some superior position.
and statements like this, that suggest that those of us in exclusive, monogomous relationships are ‘submitting’ ourselves to all manner of things:
anyway, stuff like this is seen in other threads as well (god, please don’t remind me of that thread a few months ago where a guy was labeled a potential rapist for objecting to his gf getting groped by her lady friend)…to really get a handle on this particular hypothetical, we really DO need to restrict it to traditional monogomy, lest we introduce so many variables as to make the answer useless.
no one is really impugning your right to have any sort of relationships that you want with consenting adults- it’s just these sorts of backhanded attacks on other people’s relationships that i don’t like. and yes, if you are defending a position that no one is attacking (or even discussing) then you are attacking.
for the record, i am overjoyed for you if you’ve found a workable relationship wherein everyone involved feels loved. it might not work for me, but i’m happy where i am- who am i to judge others?
and i agree wholeheartedly with your view on honesty- but i believe that the given hypothetical (the ‘confession’) is one where the ‘honesty’ is coming far after the fact, after a lot of damage has already been done, as was pointed out by Linty Fresh My wife and i talk about pretty much every interaction of note that we have in a day- if i don’t know about it until she confesses, then she’s been keeping secrets. and that’s not good.
Stonebow, again, thanks for clarifying your comments.
As I review the comments of mine that you selected, I feel no need to apologize. In each case, I limited the scope of my comments to myself (“IMHO”, “is beyond me”, etc.). The first comments were directly intended to support my response to the OP. Without it, I am afraid my final comment would have been without context.
In the second case, my comments were in direct response to a poster suggesting I was being dishonest with myself or my spouse, which I consider an attack on my integrity.
I find your suggesting that these comments, as well as Lilairen’s, to be coming from a sense of superiority as quite interesting, in and of itself. I find the objection highly selective, compared to other behaviors exhibited in this thread. I certainly claim a right to my opinion, and my right to express it. Reminds me of a comment I made earlier:
Yes it is. You are being honest to your SO by honoring your pledge to be monogamous.
You make shades of distinction here, which, I confess, are lost on me.
But this was not part of your hypothetical situation. Let’s look at what you posted again:
Does that sound like something you say to a spouse with whom you have an open relationship? You couched the question in terms designed to lessen a shock. When you’re in a swinging relationship, you do not have to say things like “I love you very much, and I would not intentionally do anything to harm you or our marriage.” or “I don’t know what to do, this is driving me crazy,” or even “We need to talk.” In an open relationship, you don’t need to talk. It’s understood that this is acceptable, right?
The spouse in this scenario has no idea of what is about to go down. The shock is going to be like nothing she’s ever felt before–unless, or course, you aren’t the first man in her life to tell her this.
I’m sorry, it was you who posted this earlier, right?
So we are talking about adultery, aren’t we? We’re talking about a possible physical relationship with a woman behind a spouse’s back. A spouse that clearly has not agreed to this sort of relationship beforehand.
And why, exactly, should a woman tolerate a cheating husband? Why should she put up with a spouse whom she can’t trust to make emotionally mature decisions about the relationship? The ultimatum would be a kindness. She’s perfectly within her legal rights to divorce an adultering husband and cry Cadillac tears at his expense.
Once again, I must ask you how you reconcile these sentiments with your beliefs that honesty involves getting involved with someone else behind the back of a spouse who is unaware. And as Stonebow pointed out, in the scenario, you’ve taken your sweet time building up to the full, open and honest disclosure.
I just realized that I committed a logical error here. The person in the scenario is not cheating . . . yet. Therefore, the woman isn’t within her legal rights to divorce, etc.
Still, in this scenario, cheating is probably inevitable. The spouse admits to an emotional attatchment. He admits to seeing this woman for an extended amount of time behind the SO’s back, and he implies that the situation has spiraled out of his control. It goes back to the 11th commandment.
So technically, within the limits of the scenario, I was wrong to post that he was outright cheating–but give it a few weeks, and he will be. Therefore, I still maintain that the ultimatum is justified.
Ugh, Linty. First off, while I have posted numerous comments about physical relationships outside of an SO relationship, that has not been what we are talking about. We have been talking about emotional infidelity, which, in my mind, specifically excludes physical sexual acts and incorporates a level of dishonesty regarding the emotional involvement in an outside relationship.
Any comments I made regarding physical interactions were outside the main discussion. And before I close this sidetrack, let me repeat to attempt to clarify my position - infidelity and adultery are not the same thing. Adultery is a sexual relationship outside a marraige (and cannot occur in an SO relationship, btw). Infidelity is a violation of a trust (and can occur in any relationship). If you and your spouse have agreed to a monogamous relationship, and one of you has a sexual relationship outside that marriage (without knowledge, acceptance, or permission), that is both adultery and infidelity. Get it?
Now, back to my hypothetical. The point I attempted to make earlier is that if you feel the speaking spouse has already gone too far, then change the hypothetical to the level just before you think the spouse has crossed the line - right up to it, but not across.
You seem to take the position that the spouse with the growing outside relationship should not be honest with their spouse about their growing feelings, but instead, sacrifice the relationship in order to spare any pain or harm that may come to the spouse.
While I can see how such an action might be honorable, I cannot see how it is consistent with a truly open and honest relationship. My wife and I can share our deepest emotions. If my wife has romantic feelings for someone else, I want her to share those feelings with me. I want to know. I will not, necessarily, feel threatened. I recognize that humans have a tremendous capacity to love, and that capacity is not limited to only one individual at a time.
I understand that you, and many others, may not want to know your spouse’s true and honest feelings. But I don’t understand why. I can only assume that you would feel threatened, and I am interested in understanding where that threat comes from.
But to suggest that my approach is less honest (or outright dishonest, as you have posted), is hooey (and offensive, quite frankly).
I hestitate to respond to this, because of the lack of a solid understanding between you and I as to the meaning of an “open relationship”. Despite my attempt to clarify, you continue to apply a meaning closer to swinging to the term “open relationship”. I am not talking about swinging. The most descriptive term I can offer is polyamory (loving more than one person at a time). And yes, it is something I might expect a polyamorous spouse to say to their spouse. You are right, however, in that I also couched the hypothetical into a scenario that might be said by a spouse in a monogamous relationship.
Your implicit assumption that polyamorous spouses have a blank check to have any and all outside sexual relationships without the knowledge of their spouse is mistaken. While there may be some relationships like that, I doubt that most are, and it certainly isn’t my assumption.
She shouldn’t. And vice versa. Cheating implies infidelity, which incorporates dishonesty at its core. I cannot condone such dishonesty with any loved one. And I have not condoned such behavior anywhere in this thread (or elsewhere), and, in fact, I suggest exactly the opposite.
If you are suggesting that an “emotionally mature decision” is to not share one’s true and honest feelings with their spouse, but to instead deny ones capability of love, compassion, and intimacy, then I don’t understand where you are coming from.
And quite clearly, you have failed to understand where I am coming from as well. Nowhere I have condoned anything “behind the back of a spouse”. If you think the hypothetical displayed such, then modify the hypothetical back to where that line hasn’t been crossed.
Your posts have had an underlying presumption, and I would like to better understand it. Take a look at this earlier exchange:
Why do you agree with the cultural mores? Do you have anything to offer better than, “that’s just the way it is”?
First off, AZCowboy, your hypothetical has to include some secrecy- if this is all coming out in one conversation, then your relationship, or at least the depth of it, is dishonest. if you ‘roll back’ your hypothetical to the point where there has been full disclosure at every point, then i guess there’s no big deal. though i’d also not be in a good place to complain if the relationship went from emotional to physical. but i’d also not be at fault for delivering an ultimatum well in advance of that point- for me, this sort of relationship is a clear violation of what my wife and i agreed to when we got together.
i’ll also answer your last question, as i am sure that Linty Fresh will later. i support the ‘norm’ because i think that by definition your SO is one person, and there must be things that you share with them and no one else, physically and emotionally or else the term becomes useless. this is without any social or legal factors weighing in when you talk about property law, inheritance, child custody and support, etc. that is a whole other debate- on the merits of polyamory. but we can’t say that it works for all, or even most of the population.
for me, my wife is it - wife, lover, best friend, everything. like i said, if you’ve found a workable solution outside this paradigm, then i’m nothing but happy for you. but it’s clear that we’re working from several different sets of definitions here, and Linty Fresh and i are approaching this situation from a more conventional one. it does not invalidate your position in any way, but it makes it hard to maintain a dialogue.
Stonebow, I appreciate your response, and I appreciate your acknowlegement that others might find happiness in a manner that is outside your paradigm.
By acknowledging that others may feel differently, I would conclude that you also acknowledge that (at least some) humans have the capacity to love more than one person at a time. Obviously, a parent can love more than one child, so let’s try to limit this to romantic love, even though that term would also be difficult to define.
Do you think you have the capacity for romantic love with more than one person at a time? I am not asking whether you think you would ever exercise that capacity (you’ve been quite clear on that). But does that capacity exist within you?
Sorry, consider me dense, but why must “significant other” refer to only one? Why can’t someone have two (or more) significant others? I presume you don’t limit your capacity for romantic love based on a semantic limitation of language.
Reviewing this thread, I notice that in your first post, prior to my even posting:
Do you think this drive for “one and only one” relates to possessiveness?
Let’s say that I give you this one. So stipulated. But if it might work for some, why should any one person exclude the possibility? Maybe they are part of that “some”, but just haven’t yet considered it.
Well, that’s a hard one. I’ll concur with Stonebrow’s assessment and add my own: In this scenario, it’s just about impossible to tell how long this thing has really been going on, because the spouse has a very convenient sense of time as to when to be “open and honest” with his SO and himself. Maybe this has been going on as long as the spouse says, but he’s fooled himself into thinking he’s being true to his spouse by waiting for this long before telling her, so perhaps it could have been going on even longer, or perhaps he just met this girl last week. Once you take into consideration that this guy waited a long time to be honest, and then only when it suited him, it’s impossible to establish a timeline. Remember, we only have his viewpoint. That’s not enough to get the whole story. Not nearly enough.
IMHO, the spouse reaches the all-important line when he realizes he has feelings for this woman that extend beyond friendship. That’s the time to be honest. If he’s smart, he’ll let the friendship cool for a while until he gets a chance to do some inner soul-searching. That’s the time to remember that (a)You’re married and (b)You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re married, then she’s supposed to be the main woman in your life (unless, of course, you have that sort of relationship, yadda-yadda-yadda–and if so, she’d better be fully aware of it beforehand). If the spouse pursues the relationship, then his wife is shunted to the sidelines, he’s getting his fulfillment from outside the marriage, and he’s crossed that line.
It doesn’t matter if you call it polyamory, polygraphic, or poly prissypants. The spouse is involved with another woman outside of marriage. It’s problematic, Cowboy. Even if the SO accepts the situation (after being slammed with it like with a baseball bat), the room for error is too great.
Non-sexual relationship? Maybe this week. Next week, maybe the SOyells at him for not picking up his dirty socks from the floor, so he goes out fuming, grabs this other woman, and whoops! How did that happen? I’ll tell you how it happened. It happened because the spouse, after all his talk of honesty, turned out to be a little less than honest than he thought. Because he thought that as long as this other woman and he weren’t actively involved in a sexual relationship at the time of the conversation that everything was A-OK.
Reality check. When you become involved with another person outside of your marriage, the threat is always there. People screw up. It’s axiomatic. They don’t always screw up that badly largely because the temptation and means to screw up that badly just aren’t there. When they ARE there, you’ve gotta watch your step. And sooner or later, you’re probably going to step wrong. Why? Because people screw up. It’s axiomatic.
Originally posted by AZCowboy
Ugh, Linty. First off, while I have posted numerous comments about physical relationships outside of an SO relationship, that has not been what we are talking about. We have been talking about emotional infidelity, which, in my mind, specifically excludes physical sexual acts and incorporates a level of dishonesty regarding the emotional involvement in an outside relationship.
Any comments I made regarding physical interactions were outside the main discussion. And before I close this sidetrack, let me repeat to attempt to clarify my position - infidelity and adultery are not the same thing. Adultery is a sexual relationship outside a marraige (and cannot occur in an SO relationship, btw). Infidelity is a violation of a trust (and can occur in any relationship). If you and your spouse have agreed to a monogamous relationship, and one of you has a sexual relationship outside that marriage (without knowledge, acceptance, or permission), that is both adultery and infidelity. Get it?
Got it. Fair enough.
I meant that I get that Cowboy isn’t talking about a sexual relationship within the bounds of polyanthropy, or whatever he calls it.
I still don’t believe in calling an emotional involvement outside of marriage infidelity, although I’d argue (well, I am arguing) that it’s less than honest.
As for me, I think it comes down to the pre-existance of these relationships.
I’ve been with my blokey a year, but I have some friends that I am very emotionally close to that I’ve know since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
I am not going to sacrifice my exisiting friendships, and I wouldn’t expect him to do so either, but they will change kilter slightly, as ultimately my man will be the person I am closest to emotionally, he will be the only one that knows the terrible things I can’t tell anyone else. That doesn’t mean that I wont have similar conversations with my exisiting friends, but that at the end of the day if there is something I wouldn’t tell my man, I’m not going to be telling it to other people either.
However, there is no way I will seek to form or encourage emotional closeness with a new person now, regardless of how much I might have in common with them. And if my S/O was to form a very close friendship with a new girlie friend now (even if there was no sexual element at all) I would be devestated. And if he developed a new emotional connect to another blokey (even though I know there will never be any sexual element to it), I would still feel put out.
It’s the emotions in our relationship we should be working on, not trying to form bonds with strangers.
This is the person I have chosen to spend my life with, in order for that to work for me, I need him to be the person I’m emotionally closest to, and I need him to feel the same way about me.
