That depends on if it’s acceptable to the other person. My bottom line is how it makes my spouse feel, not what I think I’m entitled to.
I’m still good friends with an ex of mine, and his wife. In fact, they were instrumental in helping with our wedding a while ago, seeing as they both work in wedding-related fields. My husband doesn’t feel threatened at all by us remaining friends, although truthfully I’m better friends with the wife than my ex by now.
FWIW, I wouldn’t sleep with him again under any circumstances, regardless of the marital statuses involved.
One of my husband’s exes is a friend of ours, as well. A still single and available friend even. I figure if he’d have wanted to be with her, he would have; instead he married me and she danced her butt off at the wedding with us.
I can’t fathom being uncomfortable with him being friends with her just because they had a relationship before me, YMMV.
So this would be subjective to the feelings of the partners involved, but if the third party is someone that the spouse in question has slept with, then it’s wrong regardless of what anyone involved thinks?
I’m not being sarcastic; it’s an honest question. In threads related to relationships, you tend to declare a number of brightlines and absolutes that don’t seem to stem from any defined objective standpoint. Of course, I’d argue that there isn’t any objective ground when it comes to intrapersonal relationships, so I’m admittedly biased…but coming from someone who, on any number of other issues, champions the causes of moral subjectivity and nonjudgementalism, these hardline stances on the One True Adult Relationship seem somehow incongruent.
You’re being overly simplistic. I understand what Dio is saying. You, however, can’t seem to get past the booty call part of his argument.
If I were to take such a simplistic view of your argument, I would post a poll like…
“who thinks it’s totally okay to do whatever you want, say whatever you want, and hang out with whomever you want in a relationship and if your SO has a problem with it they can SHOVE IT!”
But I wouldn’t do that, because I would assume that, being someone of passing intelligence, your argument would be more nuanced than that.
Could be wrong, though.
::raises hand::
The funny thing is, I posted what I posted, and it is not what you have misrepresented as being what I posted, yet what Dio posted is precisely what Dio posted, and precisely what I quoted.
I don’t see how you can make the leap from “I don’t believe it’s possible for previously sexual partners to see each other in an entirely platonic light” to “Do you see your exes as booty calls?” Of course people are going to answer no to that. The pollster controls the results of the polls.
No, it’s only wrong if the spouse is uncomfortable. My issue is with dismissing the feelings of the spouse, not with the per se behavior that causes the spouse to be uncomfortable. That would include, for instance, a husband blowing off his wife on the weekends to go hang out with male friends, if that really bothered her. The issue is showing some empathy (and some sacrifice) for the spouse, not in the specific behavior. If it doesn’t bother the spouse, then it’s not an issue, but the entitled, “I’ll do what I want” mentality is an issue, and is immature.
You’ll have to ask Dio about that. He’s the one who made the assertion that: “I never believe it for a second when people say they’re “just friends now.” My ass. They might not be fucking right now, but they still want to. It’s like they’re keeping a booty call on retainer.”
While I am aware of some people who do think that way, I expect that most people who have moved on to another relationship and who claim that they are just friends with their ex do not think of their ex as a booty call on retainer. I’m curious as to the proportion, thus the poll.
The ones with penises, anyway.
Do you believe that people who have had long term, live-in relationships (or even marriages) to another person can suddenly just switch off all that emotional and sexual history and just see each other as platonic friends? Really?
All I’m saying is, that’s not the entirety of his argument, which is what you’re portraying it as.
I don’t agree that all exes are booty calls on retainer. That’s silly. However, I absolutely agree with Dio about the necessity of taking your SOs feelings into account when evaluating certain relationships, regardless of whatever sexual tension may or may not be present.
Some people are cool their SO’s remaining friends with someone they once lived with and shared a life with. Others (I’d wager a guess that a greater majority) would not be. I think, and I believe what Dio is asserting, that whether or not you have such relationships would depend, in part, on your SO’s degree of comfort with such a relationship. That is how mature adults behave in a monogomous, caring, loving relationship.
Yes - I am friendly with one of my exes (3 year relationship). The relationship ended over 15 years ago, we went about 10 years without any contact. Now, I feel a certain nostalgic fondness for him, but there is absolutely zero sexual interest.
He is married to a lovely woman (who I am also friends with), I am happily married - the ex is a platonic friend and that’s it. He is not even a blip on my sexual radar.
From what I have seen as a divorce lawyer, most spouses who separate, heal up, and then move on to a new relationship are not interested in having sex with their ex, but still maintain a relationship with their ex that ranges from civil to friendship. (And then there is the file I just finished where the couple did not recall that they had filed for divorce a over decade back :smack: .)
I come across a minority of people who either developed a new relationship before leaving their spouse or developed a new relationship very shortly after leaving their spouse. It is very significant that it is from this minority of people that I occasionally come across people who find that the new relationship was not what they expected, resulting in their new relationship failing, and on rare occasions, resulting in their going back to their first spouse. As a rule of thumb, I’d suggest not getting into a relationship with a separated person until that person has had time to heal and become an emotionally independent/self-secure person again. It’s one thing to be platonic friends with an ex, but it is quite another to start a new relationship before the relationship with the ex has stabilized into a platonic friendship. Best wait until things stabilize before moving on to a new relationship.
Then discuss that with Dio, who was very clear and absolute in his statement.
And the flip side of the coin is that mature adults in a monogamous, caring, loving relationship do not try to emotionally control each other by forcing the other to give up platonic friendships. Doing so is emotionally abusive.
What a crock of shit.
I agree. Equating taking your SO’s feelings into consideration about a continued relationship with a serious ex to emotional abuse is downright absurd. Good to see all attempts at a rational discussion flying out the window.
I would suggest that perhaps it’s easier for women to think of exes in a platonic light than it is for men, but hey, wouldn’t want to be sexist, would I?
:rolleyes:
So Dio, let’s test your position.
A few years ago, I was presented with a draft marriage contract in which it was set out that the wife would only be permitted to go outside of the matrimonial home once per week, and then only in the presence of the husband. The contract was drafted that way at the behest of the husband, because he felt very uncomfortable about his wife going outside, and extremely uncomfortable about his wife going outside on her own.
I submit to you that for most Canadians and Americans, it would not be reasonable for a wife to respect her husband’s strong feelings on this issue, so let’s discard the notion that a spouse should necessarily modify his or her behaviour simply because the other spouse is uncomfortable. Instead, I submit that reasonable accommodation should take into account the interests of both spouses, and for any particular issue there may or may not even be a reasonable accommodation.
Now let’s look at an example of when it is reasonable for a spouse to accommodate the feelings of the other spouse. There is a strong social norm that a spouse should respect the feelings of his or her married spouse by not having sex with another person. This social norm is so solidly entrenched that it is grounds for divorce across all jurisdictions in Canada and the USA.
So there we have two ends of the spectrum. What it comes down to is that for some things it is not reasonable for a spouse to change his or her behaviour to mitigate the other spouse’s comfort level (e.g. being house-bound), whereas for other things it is reasonable for a spouse to change his or her behaviour to mitigate the other spouse’s comfort level (e.g. being monogamous in a marriage).
The question then is where platonic friendships with ex-spouses fall on the continuum of reasonable spousal accommodation.
You appear to me to see sex lying under the surface of platonic friendships between ex-spouses who have moved on to new relationships, and you appear to me to assume that ex-spouses in new relationships will take the opportunity to have sex with an ex-spouse under certain circumstances. If people were to be this way, then it would be reasonable for a new spouse to expect the other new spouse to not remain friends with the ex-spouse.
Although I recognize that some people are untrustworthy, opportunistic, and sexually attracted to their ex-spouses despite being in a new relationship, such that they would have an affair with their ex-spouse, I am of the opinion that most people are not this way, and instead, most people who have moved on to a new relationship would be no more inclined to have sex with their ex than they would with any other friend. If people were to be this way, then it would be unreasonable for a new spouse to expect the other new spouse to not remain friends with the ex-spouse.
So which is it? Are people untrustworthy, opportunistic, and sexually driven to the degree that they would cheat on a new spouse with an ex-spouse? Or are people trustworthy, respectful of their new spouse, and either simply not sexually interested in their ex-spouse or sufficiently in control of their sexual impulses such that they do not have an affair with their ex? I submit that the latter is the norm. You obviously differ.
When it comes to requiring a spouse to give up a friendship with an ex, remember that it is most likely to be a deep, long-term friendship. Such a friendship should not be taken lightly, and terminating such a friendship would most likely hurt the spouse. Hurting a spouse for no good reason is abusive. Controlling a spouse to the degree of determining with whom the spouse may or may not have a platonic friendship is abusive. You believe that this is “a croc of shit” because you believe that a spouse cannot be trusted to have a platonic relationship with an ex-spouse, and therefore controlling a spouse’s friendships is reasonable. I find that line of thinking similar to that of the fellow who thought that his spouse could not be trusted to go outside on her own, and therefore controlling her mobility was reasonable.
Is there no level of friendship with an ex–or any member of the opposite sex–that would make you uncomfortable? Not if she called him first when she got good news? Not if she canceled plans with you because he asked her to go somewhere? Not if they talked on the phone for an hour a day? I agree with you that Diogenes seems to be taking this to an extreme, but I think the gray area in the middle is wider and grayer than you are admitting.
And, again, I think people are complicated and sometimes that means allowing them to have their quirks–that can be breaking off a friendship because it makes your SO uncomfortable OR tolerating without comment a relationship you are uncomfortable with because it makes your SO happy. It’s ok for people to have these quirks, to ask for or to make sacrifices that the other person doesn’t entirely understand or agree with, but nevertheless accepts. My husband’s never told me he loves me. I don’t know why it matters to him to not say that, and, truly, I’d like to hear it, but I accept it as important to him. On the other hand, I demand a standard of emotional stability of him that I totally fail to meet myself–I don’t even try.
Calling discomfort about an SO still being friends with a serious ex “controlling” and “abuse” is too absurd to merit a response. It’s self-discrediting, and the issue is not about what’s “required,” anyway, it’s just about giving a fuck about hurting your spouse’s feelings. I think it’s profoundly selfish not to be able to see this kind of conflict in any terms but what “I’m entitled to,” and to decide that any discomfort on the part of your spouse about anything you do is exactly the same as controlling, Taliban sexism. My eyes are rolling out of my head, here. If you have that much contempt for the feelings of your SO then why are you with them?