No, of course not. Sometimes my wife just doesn’t want to have sex. Sometimes I just don’t want to have sex. Masturbation should always be an option, as long as there’s a decent sex life in the flesh, so to speak.
Too late now, but right at the beginning you should have told your spouse “Hey, spouse, I just heard from such-and-such, we’re catching up on old times.” If your spouse were immediately distrustful, there may be issues already present. But now, your spouse would IMHO have a right to be suspicious, considering your secrecy. Drop the whole thing and never contact the ex again, or tell your spouse now.
You’re not cheating yet…
again for clarity’s sake. Nobody said that, in fact, most of us encouraged life outside of marriage (barring the people who took issue with the idea of marriage itself) was a great idea…provided that you aren’t or don’t feel the need to deceive your spouse about it. In particular, we took issue with the idea that you needed to confess that you were simply having lunch with a member of the opposite sex. This seems like such a trivial act, even the friendship you describe is alright. What people were warning you about such friendships is that they are happening completely seperately from your married life to the point where you felt almost dishonest to your spouse (again ref. the use of the word “confess”)
there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing, merely how you’re doing it (as if it’s a dirty secret, which is somehow what you inferred it should be from our posts)
And it’s the secrecy, not the closeness that’s the problem.
If you’re worried about a missed opportunity, just get a divorce. There will be plenty of opportunities in the next 40 years - you may not have to miss them if you’re not married to the wrong person.
Diggerwarm, this is what I’m getting from you from this thread.
You start out asking if it’s cheating to go out and have dinner with a woman you’re obviously attracted to and acknowledge there may be basis for attraction. Your OP dealing with, essentially, “What is cheating?”
This gets debated for a while but by and large the consensus seems to be that if you’re not at least cheating, you’re in the very least deceiving and headed into dangerous territory.
Then you say this:
So somehow the subject has shifted from, “Hey, is this cheating?” to “Hey, why shouldn’t I be able to deceive my wife and change my level of commitment to her? I’ve been faithful for 15 years!”
So what do you really want out of this thread? Do you want to debate the semantics of the word “cheating”, or do you want us to give you permission to cheat? Because it’s beginning to look an awful lot like the latter. If you feel you want to tweak the details of your commitment to your wife, you have a responsibility to let her know you’re doing so, and she has a right to decide based on that fact whether she wants to kick your ass out, or have some fun of her own. You’re talking to the wrong people about this–the fact you even have to ask this question and you can’t share these thoughts with your wife is sad. That’s how I know I wouldn’t cheat–because the second I had any desire to, I would go to my husband and we’d deal with it. Sure it would be hurtful for him to have to hear that I’m attracted to someone else, but a hell of a lot less hurtful than him having to hear that I’d fucked someone else. That willingness to be open and honest ahead of time could very well save the marriage.
If you go have lunch with this woman, and you develop emotional intimacy, and you develop a relationship, and you cheat–it’s on you. Your wife’s hurt feelings–on you. Your broken home–on you. Even if you’re emotionally done with your wife and ready to move on, that’s no excuse for being deceptive. You are still honor bound to go to her and tell her what you’re thinking and be up front and clear with her–she deserves that, as she’s committed 15 years to your relationship as well (you aren’t the only one who put time and effort into this marriage–don’t forget that.) The further you push this the more chance you have of destroying the trust you and your wife share in each other–destroying it irreparably. And I would say that stands regardless of whether you actually screw this woman or not.
So I’d think long and hard about that before you go any further.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
If you sincerely want to fix your marriage, this is absolutely not the way to go. If, on the other hand, you want out, then man up and tell your wife so and exit the marriage.
Exactly. thank you.
DiggerWam,
I’m certain your wife is at least a little suspicious already, unless she’s been living under a rock. What makes you think she’d be so surprised?
If this would really shock her, it’s unfair for you to keep up appearances by acting like everything’s just fine. You need to be honest. You can 1. accept that marriage is a compromise and no relationship will give you everything, especially if you don’t really make the effort, OR 2. move out, get your mind where it needs to be, and have the balls to live out there in the world. Either way you need to tell her. now.
You don’t get to define ‘cheating’ in your situation. Your spouse does. If she thinks it’s cheating, or you believe she would think so. Then it’s cheating.
This I agree with. If you feel the need to hide it, then your guilty conscience is telling something is wrong. What is the reason for not telling you’re wife you’re visiting with an old flame as friends?
My fiancee and I are both on good terms with most of our exes and we still spend time with them socially (either as a couple or separately). She was out last night with her ex for dinner. He’s still one of her very best friends in many ways. (She loves him to pieces, but realized back when they were cohabitating that she just couldn’t envision a future with him. He just wasn’t “the one”.)
But if you definitley don’t want your wife to know… then it’s a “cheatin’ heart” scenario. A guilty conscience is a warning sign you heed.
So tell your wife you want to “tweak” the vows. Be up front about it. Don’t use “falling in love” with someone else as an excuse to end a marriage you now find boring.
Your ex might be ready to do the same. But–what if one of you decides to fix up their marriage & the other one doesn’t? Or can’t–because an offended spouse won’t play along?
For example: A woman spent her most fertile years with a sterile man. She chose a life with him, even if it meant no children. Now he wants out & her 40th birthday is not so far away…
(Apparently that unattached co-worker you lunch with every week will not “rescue” you. All that talk about how your wife doesn’t fulfill you wants & needs indicates that you aren’t one of the married men who can be “friends.”)
That’s total crap. See my above post. My fiancee is still really close to her ex, they are best friends and share a really tight emotional bond. I’m still very involved with a few of my exes and one in particular that I consider one of my best friends. I can tell my fiancee anything, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone else you tell anything to who is outside your relationship and can offer a non-relationship perspective.
My fiancee and I don’t have any need to hide these close friendships with members of the opposite sex from each other. And there is definitely no guilt because we trust each other completely and know the friendships are non-romantic and not in any way sexual, even though the bonds are strong and in some ways emotionally intimate.
My finacee’s ex is a decent guy and I kind of relate to him like a brother-in-law. My ex and I just get along like old buddies that have known each other for years. She gets along fine with my fiancee.
The problem isn’t having serious connections and emotional bonds with the opposite sex. The problem is that if you feel there’s a need for subterfuge, then somethin’ ain’t right there.
not going to continue the pile-on which I’ve already commented on, BUT I do want to jump in to take issue with this contention (again). I stand by my original statement that in a good relationship, you will never feel as if you have to sacrifice anything. If you’re continually feeling as if you are “compromising” or “giving things up” then you are in the wrong relationship. Arguably you’ll have to modify some of your habits but you won’t feel as if you’re losing something as a result, since you’re gaining more from your SO as a result
How is “modify some of your habits” different from “compromise”?
You’ve tacitly accepted mssmith’s moronic definition of compromise as the “worst outcome in a negotiation because it generally means both parties end up with an arrangement that falls short” by writing that sentence. Don’t. Simply assert the truth - compromise does not mean not getting what you need. It means reevaluating what the two of you need and figuring out how you can **both **get it all - or at least the important parts.
Look, I like spaghetti noodles. My husband, due to an unfortunate food poisoning incident, can’t stand them. He likes farfalle (bow-tie pasta). Am I accepting the “worst outcome” by making farfalle instead of spaghetti? Or have I reevaluated the importance of the issue to each of us, and decided that on this issue, his need to not puke at the dinner table is more important (to him AND to me) than my getting to twirl and slurp? Of course I’ve given up eating spaghetti noodles with him. But so the fuck what? It’s not important.
Exactly, it’s not. I’ve long since passed the time when I looked upon my married brethren with sympathy. If they are in a terrible relationship, well, that sucks. But many married couples seem to get along just fine as a “team”, and many take on the challenges of life better as a unit than they ever did as individuals.
I’m not married, but the idea of an ex at all generally makes me squeamish. Maybe that makes me sensitive, but I’d rather not know. If you are going to have an affair, you are going to have an affair. If you don’t feel right coming to me with your feelings, and would rather go out hunting, what can I do at that point? It’s over already. And if it’s totally innocent, why should I be concerned?
Sorry to reiterate, but I also would disagree with the statement that you are not allowed to have emotional relationships outside of your marriage. I would, however, agree with those saying that as long as it’s known by your wife it would be better. I have female friends. Heck, my best friend for a time was my wife’s sister! In fact, I get along a lot better with women than with men and my wife knows this. I am much more likely to feel comfortable in a group of women than with men doing “manly things.” But again, none of this is kept from my wife.
As far as my marriage goes, I have never EVER considered it a “prison” or something where I have to compromise all the time. No, to me, it’s much more like a “sharing of the adventure of life” with someone. I can tell her how I feel because I know she cares. She can tell me how she feels because she knows I am interested in how her life is going. Together we get through life. We experience the fun of the highs and share the burden of the lows. Again, to me, it’s the sharing of an adventure.
There is also a world of difference between “accommodation” and “compromise”. I agree “modify your habits” is a compromising choice of words, although I understand how they were intended.
If you’ve given up eating spaghetti noodles and you miss them. That’s “compromise”. I’d likely cook a batch of bow-ties AND spaghetti noodles, so we can both share the same sauce on our pasta of choice. That’s “accommodation”. If the lack of spaghetti noodles are ultimately inconsequential to you, you don’t particularly miss them because they are waaaaay down on your list of priorities, then I don’t see that as any kind of painful compromise either.
If there is a healthy balance of give and take, then you don’t feel deprived (this is key) or feel as if you have compromised yourself. You don’t feel like you are on the losing end of some deal or that you had to “give up” anything. And that can be very relative.
I’m a vegetarian, I’ve dated die-hard carnivores. There is a way to juggle things around so everyone is happy at meal time and gets to eat the foods they like – accommodation. If my poor ex-girlfirend had to adhere to my vegetarian diet, she that would have been a sad, sad compromise for her and we would have broken up a lot sooner. If you feel as if you are losing out, or compromising yourself, or if you feel you had to give up something important to you, that builds up as an itchy resentment that will wear things a little thin in the future.
ETA: Accommodation can also lead to incredible anarchy. But it’s the really, really fun kind!
Specifically what I was referring to was the implication that compromise was used in the sense of “giving something up”. Swallowed My Cellphone hit on the basic nature of the difference I was making. Yes it’s sort of a semantic game, but I was disagreeing with the point that people were making that the nature of a relationship involved sacrifice, which as I stated, shouldn’t be true in a loving relationship.
I think Shawn Summed it up beautifully, and I’m glad it’s going so well for you
also as an aside, thanks for the votes of confidence up above
To me a happy marriage is a situation where the benefits, be they emotional, financial, etc. outweigh the costs. msmith537 has a point about how one does give certain freedoms when one is married or indeed in a relationship, however, like everything else in life, it has a cost.
I view it as follows, the benefits to being married to my wife and having her in my life outweighs the costs. It is no different than the cost of having to go to work is outweighed by the benefits of having a place to live and money in the bank.
