I think it’s not that much more likely than many other more conventional romantic pairings to end in a breakdown. Staring deeply into your girlfriend’s eyes and proclaiming your eternal love does not seem to be a particularly successful strategy for long-term relationship success. Indeed, neither does marriage. And both of those types of relationships are often severed by the same type of problem that arose here: lies by one partner, who is sleeping around.
I agree that this situation did not have “long-term potential” engraved on it. But that makes it completely unremarkable in the pantheon of human relationships. What causes problems is not the terms of the relationship so much as it is the lack of integrity by one of its participants. The OP’s rant was about that lack of integrity. As she places the blame squarely where it belongs, I support her.
You seem to suggest that the problem was the type of relationship or its terms. If this were so – what terms do you suggest give guarantees of success – that won’t end in “some sort of breakdown?”
Her acts weren’t “immoral” as so many of you are saying. They may have been immoral for YOU to do, but obviously, if she did it, it isn’t immoral to her.
That said, I’m sure if there’s a lesson to be learned, she’ll be the one to decide what that lesson is.
“Friend of a friend” legends, my ass. I had the exact same agreement with a friend, and it lasted for a significant amount of time (more than a year), and at the end of it he became romantically entangled with someone else, and told me the truth before he did anything physical with her, and I was fine with it. Absolutely fine! I didn’t want him to lie to me, I didn’t hate him, we simply agreed it was best to end the physical stuff. We still sat next to each other in the class we shared, we still drank together every now and then, we still danced at parties. We still talked. See? No meltdown. No failure or doom or anything like that.
Unsatisfactory to… you? To who? If you’d read this thread carefully, which I don’t think you did, you’d have noticed where M_G shared that her agreement with her former friend came into play after she left an eight-year relationship in which she was deeply in love. Most people don’t end eight-year relationships with ease, and most are emotionally unavailable for a great deal of time after such a break-up. So because she was emotionally unavailable, you think she should also be sexually unavailable? Why? Especially in what was, according to the terms of their agreement, a safe environment for her to enjoy her own and her friend’s sexuality?
I’m squarely with Bricker on this one. Whether or not you understand or condone the terms of the relationship, this is NOT about sex. This is about one person deliberately betraying the trust of another, made more reprehensible because maintaining the terms of their agreement had no bad consequences for the liar.
“The trouble with safe sex is that it accustoms young men to the idea that sex is something that can be had without commitment.” In plain English: Why buy the cow… etc.
Now I get it. I should have asked him to marry me before we had sex. Or wait for him to ask me. Or remain celibate until such time that I can walk down the isle of a Catholic church/chapel/cathedral/whatever. Or else I would be deemed an inmoral person by the SDMB Moral and Religion Squad. And therefore do not deserve respect or honesty because I imposed such onerous condition on the poor man.
People cheat on their partners, wives, husbands - and whilst this act is a bad thing and a mistake, it doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person. This guy made a big mistake, but you used to like him - is he really a bad person?
Bricker, Beadalin, and UncleBill are behind Mighty_Girl. These physical relationships do exist. I have had them. Beadalin has had them, from what she says. Maturity and honesty make them work, like maturity and honesty make MOST relationships work. You make an agreement with a friend, you honor that agreement. My personal experiences did not include the promise of monogamy, but if I had made that promise, I would have kept it. The promise, as spelled out by the OP:
For those who may not agree with this type of relationship, fabulous, I would protect your right to hold your opinions. But to declare that these relationships are impossible or doomed to painful failure is pure ignorance.
blowero,
Hello, and I apologize for cutting and pasting of your post. It is NOT to take anything out of order, merely to highlight disagreements that I have.
Yes, but does the outcome of her choice HAVE to be the outcome that has actually taken place? Your statement seems to assume that no other outcome is possible, which is just not true.
So, why should she have to re-evaluate her lifestyle choices if the outcome is not a given within her lifestyle choice?
Okay, here’s my big problem with your post.
Cite?
Not a ‘many people in these types of relationships have problems’, because that doesn’t prove that it’s BOUND to happen now, does it?
Basically I don’t think her type of relationship is BOUND to blow up, not only because we have had actual proof in this thread of a successful ‘friendsexship’, but because I think this is a personal lifestyle judgment transferring to someone else’s life. This just isn’t a fair thing to do as we do not know enough about her, but also because are we suddenly made God that our lifestyles are the ‘perfect kind’? It generalizes her situation and all situations like her, and I do not this helps the discussion.
Okay, I feel that by adding ‘unsatisfactory’ to describe her ‘kind of relationship’ you are adding another unnecessary personalized judgment that does not deserve to be there.
WAS her relationship unsatisfactory DURING the relationship? Only she can answer that, not you. This is an unsatisfactory ending, yes, but I do not feel that a negative ending = negative relationship. I don’t feel it is a given. Yes, certain lifestyle and certain PEOPLE are more LIKELY to lead to cheating, betrayal situations, but should not be a blanket statement of all relationships of a certain type.
Basically, don’t we have to prove that this type of relationship HAS to be unsatisfactory across the board before adding subjective labels like this?
The issue of this thread is that a trusted friend broke her trust.
Perhaps I should explain why I am arguing against some of the judgments here with a little story:
A homosexual man starts a thread about his long time partner leaving him and the grief he feels. Many people support him, but a few people join the thread with one purpose in mind. To tell him how immoral homosexuality is and that he is going to hell, to tell him how likely homosexual relationships are to lead to depression, to let him know that heterosexual relationships are the ‘best’ way, and to link to Christian lifestyle websites etc…
How does this deal with the point of the thread: his grief at the ending of a relationship? Is this REALLY the best time to be doing the preaching? Is it entirely appropriate in this situation?
I’m with blowero on this one, moral arguments aside, the bigger issue is that I also feel Mighty_Girl has some intimacy issues. How reasonable is it to want a clandestine relationship so that you don’t have to face or discuss the issue with anyone, other than us, when it ends. What kind of friend is she with her own friends. Has she managed to not lie to them about what was going on between her and the man in question? Is it still lying if you omit what you’re doing or who you’re seeing? I would go out on a limb and say you have lied to people close to you about this relationship unless of course you don’t have any friends. What say you?
I take it, then, that you go around making sure your friends know who you’re sleeping with? What business of theirs is it, exactly? And if you were a woman, which you’re not, and living in a deeply sexist society, which you’re not, and furthermore lived as a woman in a deeply sexist society which expects marraige as the logical next step after casual dating (which you don’t), would you still be as eager to tell everyone who you’re having sex with?
Take the OP at face value-- you don’t have the right or the calling to do anything else.
And in case it wasn’t clear earlier, not being ready for emotional intimacy after a LONG intimate relationship does not preclude being ready for physical intimacy. Whether or not acting on that readiness fits into your own moral code is irrelevant.
Let me start by saying that I agree, Mighty_Girl. If you both had a clear understanding of what the “relationship” was to entail, then he wronged you.
However, with that said . . . am I the only one who sees the danger of “having unprotected sex with someone is safe if they’re not having sex with anybody else at the present”? (Apologies if this has already been covered. I didn’t read all four pages.)
If he’s carelessly slept with any STD “x”-infected person in the past (much less in the present), your chances of being infected with STD “x” are greater. Plain and simple.
Depends on whether or not others are going to be harmed by the omission. If nobody is harmed by the omission, then BFD – my friends often don’t tell me (or each other) about every one of their (short-term or long-term) sexual encounters, since they realize that I’m usually not harmed in any way by the omission, and since they also realize that, generally speaking, I don’t really give a shit about their fuck-buddies or friends-with-benefits (other than maybe offering a “congratulations, you’re getting laid”). I have the same consideration towards them WRT my own casual or semi-casual sexual encounters.
Then by this logic, Mighty_Girl shouldn’t have a problem if she hasn’t contracted a disease from this guy. There was not emotional connection, no harm, no foul, right???
