I’ll add to my statement. I have no problem with him going alone with someone of his preferred gender to an activity. He’s gone out of town for weekends with someone like that. I have no problem with it. He also has no problem with me doing the same. It doesn’t come up often, but it’s not a big deal.
For us, the difference between what you describe and what I would is that he would be fine to go shooting (actually out playing pool) with only 1 other person of his preferred gender and I would be fine to go to an activity with only 1 other person of mine.
That is what works for us. I understand that it doesn’t work for you. My statement was not intended as a strawman and I see rereading it that I was incomplete in my statement.
But are people like you in the majority?. Just take a look around you, for crying out loud, and you’ll see countless people who’s genitals get them in trouble. And not just 18 year old kids either. Surely you’ve noticed this?
“Friends of the marriage” is not such a literal concept; it means that the single friends that married people have are friendly to the idea of your marriage; they support it and they do not wish to harm it. For example: if a married person is having trouble with their spouse, and they come to their single friend wanting to complain about their spouse, a friend of the marriage will be their friend and support them, but also gently suggest that the person they should be having intimate conversations with is their spouse.
ETA: In other words, the friend also respects the boundaries of the marriage (sometimes, possibly, even when the married person isn’t).
Reading this and having no knowledge of anything else in the situation, I can give you one guess as to why your wife hates one and not the other; your description of one as the little sister tells me that you might be casting yourself in the role of her big brother, who comes to her defense and helps her (which is very flattering to a guy). I’m going to guess that your wife feels that SHE is the one that you are supposed to be protective of and helping, with little sister usurping some of your wife’s place in your life.
What random strangers do with their own and each others naughty bits is not my problem nor does it affect me, my husband or our marriage. Friends who act that way aren’t friends.
Besides, I really do believe people who do not indulge their every fleeting thought and whim are in the majority. Non-celebrity people over about 3 years of age, that is.
Look around you. Do you truly see countless people who simply just can’t keep their pants zipped? How do you know? How high can you count? Maybe some people have made some choices that you would not have, but are you sure those choices were based solely on sexual attraction?
There are usually many deeper reasons than mere opportunity and attraction when adultry is committed, and those reasons aren’t changed by restricting contact with half the planet.
But being aware of opportunity and attraction is more than half the battle (and I don’t consider it “mere,” either - if you’ve got both things going on, you have a serious problem). In fact, my opinion and the opinions of others who keep their boundaries further in than others are advocating is supported by scientific fact - from “How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking” (by Patricia Love and Steven Stosny):
That is really interesting to me; we all think as responsible adults we are always able to make the right, rational decision, but this obviously is not true. If you don’t put yourself in situations where you have to rely on a brain that isn’t working properly to make the right decision, you may have better luck not going down a path you had no intention of traveling.
*From “Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love,” by Helen Fisher.
Here’s the thing, though. IT’s not about whether or not you keep your pants zipped. If a friendship develops into more–into infatuation, into true, honest to god love–and you pull yourself back because you love your spouse as well, you have still done real damage to your relationship and the other person. If nothing else, you’re having this huge, epic experience that you have to hide, and that does harm, it pushes people apart.
Surely there is some level of friendship that would bother you? If your spouse started to call a new friend with exciting news before they called you, if they started canceling plans with you in preference to plans with the other person, if they valued another person’s advice and good opinion over yours. When friendship starts moving towards that level of closeness, it’s damaging to a relationship, and if the participants are potential sexual partners, it becomes increasingly likely that true romantic love will develop, and if that happens, there are no good options. Control yourself, don’t control yourself, you’ve still hurt the marriage, and once a friendship reaches a certain level of intimacy you are no longer in control of whether or not those emotions develop. So a person in a marriage has a responsiblilty to “avoid the near occasion of sin” not because they can’t control their genitals but because they can’t control their heart.
Some people seem to feel that if they are truly in love nothing can make them fall in love with someone else, but I think that’s often hubris. Loving one person doesn’t immunize you from loving someone else.
This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have close friends that are potential sexual partners. But those friendships shouldn’t cross some level of intimacy, and I think that line is after “never alone together” but well before “never actual penetration”. There is a lot of gray there.
I agree with Manda Jo that there’s a level at which a kind of “emotional adultery” can occur. This gets back to the “Is it cheating if it’s ‘just’ cyber?” question.
FTR I don’t care how other consenting adults lead their lives in this regard and if others can make these friendships work, great for them! I wonder if those of us who think it’s dangerous territory tend to be older and have seen problems emerge from the setup.
In all fairness, we notice negatives. They don’t have TV shows about “Nobody got killed at this high school today.” Instead, Columbine makes the news.
And in a way it’s a modern artifact. My folks were married in 1941 and as they had kids etc., they barely had time or money to interact with any friends. Now we have more leisure time, disposable income, the internet…we’re more mobile.
The term cultural lag refers to the notion that society is unable to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag.
I actually don’t like the term “emotional adultery” because I don’t think that it’s adultery to fall in love with someone else–it’s not something you choose, it’s something that happens. It’s just a tragedy. So you have a responsibility to avoid situations where it could happen.
We’re arguing the same side, except I’m emphasizing the parts about having Friendly to the marriage (as explained by Featherlou) friends, and not allowing that invisible line to be approached, much less crossed. It is not about sex, but too many people act like it is solely about sex and romance.
Remove sex and the term “adultery” and there is still infidelity-- a line of intimacy that shouldn’t be crossed even with non-preferred gender friends.
That is emotional infidelity. A intimate relationship that has nothing to do with gender or sex, which is sort of my point. Sex, adultery, sleeping around, whatever you want to call it, is not necessary for infidelity, and I suspect this type is actually more common.
How many women, especially of prior generations, have deeper, more emotionally satisfying relationships with their female friends than with their husbands? To me, that is at least as much of a betrayal, but because they aren’t sleeping together, everyone else is okay with it? Or should no one ever be allowed to have any friends just because some people engage in non-sexual infidelity, and some people engage in sexual infidelity, and some people engage in both?
I am offended by the increasingly common notion that sex is the most important thing in the world, and by the assumption that all preferred gender relationships are subject to sexual tension, and amazed by the implication that extracurricular sex is the only reason for a relationship to founder.
FYI, fMRI studies tell you jack-all about whether you can think rationally. They just tell you where the blood goes when you’re thinking about that thing; it doesn’t say you can’t think rationally, just that you aren’t thinking about rational things at that moment. It’s completely meaningless in the context of your ability to make decisions.
Of course, I’ve always been of the opinion that love is a decision and a set of accompanying actions; the idea of “falling” in love without any control over it is something I just can’t grok.
Well, for some people this is true. But most of these people aren’t men. Tell you what. Next time you’re out with your platonic male friend that you have no sexual tension with, tell him that you want to have sex with him. You honestly think that he’s going to turn you down flat? Maybe he will, but what odds do you want to give me?
Careful with your quotes there, Vihaga - I was quoting from a book; those are not my words.
I see your point, that is it not possible to tell from an fMRI that you are rationally incapacitated, but there is much more evidence that people in the throes of infatuation are not their normal selves. Taking your point into account, I’m not comfortable completely disregarding the conclusion of the authors of my quote that people are not using their rational brain when they are infatuated; it does explain a lot of spectacularly bad decisions.
Sorry; I pasted and didn’t realize the tags didn’t go through. I meant the quote to be in a separate indent from your note. My point was merely that that particular piece of data tells you nothing about an individual’s ability to make rational decisions; your authors presumably could’ve done a lot better in supporting their point.
/slight hijack
I actually saw a really good talk about this (not specifically, but more generalized) yesterday, from a guy named Pete Redgrave, who studies the computational function of different parts of the brain. The talk was about determining the function of the basal ganglia, and after considering the constraints imposed by biology (both evolutionary and structurally, as it is a very old and highly conserved structure) and consistency with their models, his theory was that the purpose of the basal ganglia was selecting what stimulus/processes to act on. The idea is that the entire structure consists of a bunch of parallel circuits that integrate competing signals, then choose one to act on. (You only have one body, so at any moment you have to choose between food, drinking, sex, or whatever, depending on the strength of the motivation.)
What’s interesting about this is that it’s a problem almost all animals have to solve, whether they’re lampreys or people, and the connections indicate that there may be this same competition between the rational (cortical) and more “base” (subcortical) structures- and that the one that wins is the one that shouts the loudest. The point (I do have one) throws free will out the window a bit, but is interesting to me, as it provides a neat perspective on how people make different decisions in a given situation. It’s not that someone lacks willpower, necessarily, but what if his drive for sex is just screaming compared to someone else’s? That idea also explains a lot of “bad” decision-making; we all do things that we know aren’t the best idea occasionally.
Sorry about the hijack, my striatum compelled me to share!
/end hijack
As far as the OP goes, this is really a decision that is going to be so couple-specific that there’s probably no good general rule of thumb. Everyone has a different comfort level, level of self-trust, and level of partner trust.
it’s also none of your mom’s business. My mom thinks it’s weird that one of my friends (F1)is comfortable with another friend of hers (F2) staying in their house, considering that F2 once had a relationship with F1’s husband years ago. I didn’t even think about it being weird. Everyone’s mileage varies.
/edited for horrible grammar and typing, some of which persists
Hence my quotation marks around it. Not sure precisely what I’d call it and it falls short of consummating the feeling physically. It’s definitely in the danger zone, however, and to be avoided at all costs.
For me love is caring about someone’s well being as much as or more than I care about my own. As that’s not my state with most people, and not how I feel about people with whom I’ve only been infatuated, it’s a useful definition for me. I’m attracted to my husband, but it’s not the same as loving him, which, for me, is a completely different beast. I decided I wanted him to be my family, and I decided to give him the importance he has. I’m sure other people experience it differently, but I’ve never felt like I didn’t ultimately have control over loving him.
/and curse you, lobotomyboy, I’ve got “danger zone” stuck in my head now.
I’m sorry you don’t know anyone with morals, ethics or a good relationship.
I’ll shut up about it now, unless you decide it would be prudent for all women to wear a burkha and have chaperone, because **you ** can’t comprehend any mutual interest but sex.
Seems to me this isn’t an all or nothing issue. Surely one can find a person attractive, even sexually attractive, and yet refrain from having sex with them because you really like their company and don’t wish to put that in jeopardy for a fling that may not last very long?
I’m in that position myself - I’m male, have a long-time female friend (now for more than 20 years) whom I find very attractive (and I assume vice versa), yet we have decided not to pursue a sexual relationship because we prefer things the way they are. I’m married to someone else and she is in a long-term common-law relationship with someone else. Over the last 20-plus years, we have been friends while both of us went through different romantic partners - yet we never hooked up.
The reason? I think initially because we were just too similar, and then as time went on our relationship became more important to us. Our current partners are cool with it because they trust us and have reason to trust us - fact is, I don’t “love” her like I love my wife; she’s more like a non-biological sister.
While sometimes we do stuff my wife would not approve of (mainly, getting loaded) I feel no more guilt over this than if I did it with my male buddies.
Does this mean there is no attraction? Well, no. I still find her attractive. But that isn’t what it is about. Fact is, if I was going to have an affair (and I’m not), it would be with someone else.
