How about this – I have three kids and it would be a sleaze bucket thing to do to my kids. I wouldn’t cheat even if my wife gave me permission. My vows mean something to me. I said for better or for worse and I meant it.
It’s also easy to be magnanimous about this shit when it’s only theory. You don’t actually have a clue how you’d feel if the shit was for real, and involved a real person. Everybody thinks they’d be a selfless hero in theory. Few actually are in reality.
I really wanted to avoid calling people liars, but I agree with this.
Incidentally, I think a 20 year old like Clockwork gets a pass to split. Especially if there aren’t any kids. That’s too young to have to sacrufice everything. You can still be friends and be supportive or whatever, but you shouldn’t have to stay in a committed relationship. That’s too young to be married in the first place, even if everybody is healthy.
Another thought – these other proposed sexual relationships are unlikely to be just sex with no emotional entaglements at all. Life just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t seem to me that looking for other people to use completely callously and unemotionally for physical release would be either an easy or admirable thing to do.
How do you explain this to the other person?
"I’m married, and I love my wife, and don’t want to leave her, but she’s paralyzed so I just need something to stick my dick in. This will never go anywhere and I don’t care about you, but if it’s ok with you, I’d like a blowjob every wednesday friday, and maybe a fuck on saturday? Cool?
Seriously, how much of a douchebag would you have to be to do that? I think people who are saying they’d give their spouse their blesings to cheat are romanticizing the idea of being selfless, infinitely compassionate saints whose love transcends societal bounds, but reality is a lot messier than that.
I’m guessing that they’d just operate it as a girlfriend on the side. That’s how I’ve done it in the past (no, not cheating and no, not the situation described in the OP) [sneak bragging!].
Girlfriends on the side turn into separate, emotionally involving relationships. It’s also not a great thing for the girl who always has to be on the side and not the guy’s “real” SO.
I agree. But that’s likely how it would go down. Of course, this isn’t for sure- there are swinging couples who don’t get emotionally involved with what amount to temporary partners but it seems like the easiest way for, say, a married man to regularly have sex with someone other than his wife.
I think it’s easier for some people to say they would be accepting of such an arrangement (and I assume we are talking about normally monogomous people here) than to actually do it.
When it comes down to actually thinking about the person you love, not only porking away with someone else, but engaging in all the affectionate byplay that goes with it, people are not that noble.
It’s also not really the kindest and most caring arrangement the healthy partner could really accept.
Again, agreed.
Sometimes people stay married even though they don’t love each other. They might like each other, they might like the household and lifestyle, but not not want a physical relationship, for a variety of reasons. Arrendaja and I have a combined income that lets us enjoy the material things we want, things we couldn’t have in separate households. I have excellent insurance that covers us all - because we’re married. We have a huge investment in raising Arrendajito, and together we provide an intellectually rich, stable, loving home for him – he’s almost fledged now. We have a history that we’ll always share, no matter what. When I die I want Arrendaja to inherit my goods. It’s the accumulated stuff of our lifetime, and if that lifetime didn’t always encompass a satisfying sex life, so what? Relationships are not just complex, they’re fluid, evolving things. That’s what makes them interesting. If we split up after Arrendajito leaves home, so be it. I’ll never marry again, that’s for sure, and I still want Arrendaja to inherit my stuff.
My general feeling is that sex is something shared between lovers. Without it the relationship is that of 2 good friends. My answer would be to stay if it was a physical problem to be conquered. If it was a drifting of desire and it occurred at an early age I would question the nature of the relationship. If it occurred at a much later stage in life (and the relationship) I would stay no matter what if I believed there was mutual love. Cuddling would still be a requirement.
First off, nobody is advocating cheating. Everyone is advocating an open, consensual and honest arrangement.
Secondly, people have sex without emotions all the time. I’ve had my share of friendly-but-not-romantic partners. Hell, single people probably have sex without emotions more often than they have sex with emotions. Sure, it’s nowhere near as satisfying as the real thing, but it’s nice enough on its own terms and gets the job done.
Of course, it would not be easy. There are pitfalls and dangers everywhere. But nothing in life is easy. Even the most conventional path is probably equally loaded with it’s own pitfalls and dangers. Life is complicated, especially when circumstances mean you have to forge your own path.
The OP scenario happened with me and my last girlfriend. We just weren’t sexually compatible, amongst other reasons. We’re still good friends though, because we get along great otherwise. My ex-wife also hated sex because she has unresolved daddy issues that she won’t get treatment for.
So no, after 12 years (added together) of having sexless women in my life, I refuse to tolerate it any more. Put out or get out.
Y’know, I won’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but it seems to me that suddenly not wanting physical intimacy would reflect a bigger a pretty substantial mental or emotional change, which I’d think is more significant to a relationship than a mere physical ailment.
I mean, if the love of your life ended up as a head on a life support system, they’re still the same person you married. Just, you know, a little shorter. But the OP would seem to suggest a pretty major shift in how the partner’s come to view the relationship.
It’s easier to say you would accept this than to do it. It’s especially easy when the other pesron is completely imaginary and not a real person that you have a real history and emotional bond with. For most people in real life, suddenly allowing a person with who you’ve had a long time monogomous relationship to go out and fuck around with other people and expect your own emotional relationship not to change (or more likely, be usurped) is not going to be a realistic or acceptable option when the rubber hits the road.
You also didn’t address my contention that it would be a sleazy and insensitive thing to do to the children
It’s aslo still a crappy thing to do to the people the cheating partner (and to me it WOULD be cheating even if my wife gave permission. I’m not breaking my vows, end of story) uses for sex toys.
I know it might be hard to imagine, but such relationships do exist. That’s pretty much my situation now.
FTR, I would never approve of my husband having sex with other women, and neither would he approve of me having sex with other men if the roles were reversed. I would consider it a betrayal of the relationship either way.
When it comes to issues about marriage and family, I usually find myself agreeing with Diogenes. I vowed to marry my wife “for better or worse, in sickness and health” and there’s no out-clause if she becomes unable for physical, emotional or psychological reasons to have sex. We’d deal with it.
This is insulting, and the fact that you capitalize “Morality” is very telling.
Look at it from the other person’s point of view. Suppose, for whatever reason, I am no longer able to have sex. Do I want my partner to become frustrated and bitter and resentful. Don’t I want him to be fulfilled and happy. If it came down to that, I’d much rather he have an affair than deprive himself of one of the joys of life. Especially in the name of “Morality.”
This is why we decided that if we were ever in that situation, the best solution, for us, would be to make it a 3-some.
It’s easy to say you would be accepting of that, but quite another to actually do it.
And what if there are kids involved? Are they just supposed to accept a new person in the household hired just to be a fuck doll?
ETA actually (at risk of sounding stereotypical), it’s my understanding that gay male relationships tend to have a much more open dynamic than the hetero ones, so it probably wouldn’t be as destabilizing to bring in another person in those cases as it would be for the trad hetero families.
Outta there in a heartbeat. I *might *stay with the love of my life if he had an unquestionable physical reason for not having sex with me. But to sacrifice sex for an ‘average’ relationship is silly. I might as well spend my life with any random person I can more or less tolerate.
This is silly.
1.) Why would you have to bring a new person into the household?
2.) Hired?
3.) Just to be a fuck doll? You’re assuming that the other person isn’t getting something out of it. You’re a “fuck doll” to them, too.
