I care who she shares her feelings with, her time, her inner world. Her body? Meh, whatever she shares will never be the same as I get after years of relationship and getting so close to someone.
@Mitch It's fine. Me and terdon are just having a heart to heart conversation.
I play that game at another level by the way. I am an ex model. Well, I still get calls from my manager at that medium sized clothing company that I worked. So meeting women isn't a problem, but still I'm a sensitive guy, if you know what I mean.
@Mitch You make it seem as if my practices are unprecedented. It's a fairly nominal form, esp. as you go further back in time. When I use spaces, that's because I'm using two separate abbreviations instead of one, and most commonly it's around the ampersand in emulation of company names like G. & C. Merriam Co.
@Cerberus In which case the relationship has indeed changed. I will, however, submit that if such a change can happen, the relationship was long gone anyway. If you need to enforce fidelity in order to keep it alive, it isn't worth keeping alive.
Enforce, mind you. If it just comes naturally, that's a different matter.
@KitZ.Fox Personally, I've found I've just lost my interest as I grew older. I guess I no longer had as much to prove to myself. I am monogamous these days but because I don't really have any interest in being anything else.
@Cerberus Oh, of course not! It's anything but ridiculous!
@terdon Yeah, it's not that I need to be monogamous, just the effort involved isn't worth it. I love my relationship and it fulfills me and I don't have time or interest for that kind of recreation.
@Cerberus I don't think it's a fact at all. That's exactly my point. They leave because they're not happy and the affair gives them a push or an objective or a kick in the ass or whatever. But if the affair was happening, there were deeper problems in the relationship already.
@KitZ.Fox Yeah, I like the physical aspect but I believe in being loyal to your partner or your spouse. Yeah, kind of like a deep intimacy. You are right.
@terdon Okay, but then such problems happen to almost everyone all the time, also often when one one spouse experiences them and the other had no clue.
@KitZ.Fox Um. So? Murderers can say they killed someone because they were blocking their sun. That's not an excuse for murder. but it's a perfectly good reason to get up and move.
@KitZ.Fox Sure. So if you're my significant other and I have the stupidity to attempt to use that as an excuse, you should throw me out the window. I just don't see what rape has to do with it.
I think it's possible for people who are in an otherwise healthy relationship, with good long-term prospects, to make a terrible mistake and break up because of a love affair—one that falls apart quickly, after which the ex-spouse bitterly regrets his decision.
@Cerberus I don't. If they find themselves in that situation, where one is having a long term affair, lying to the other etc etc, then the relationship is not healthy by definition.
But I think "sex with someone else should never be a problem in a healthy relationship" is a bit too "easy". I think it's more complicated. It all depends. And there is the matter of chance.
I, personally, never put much importance on sexual fidelity. I could never take the idea of my girlfriend spending the night snuggled up with someone though.
@Cerberus True. I became friends with a married woman once, it ended badly for both of us, kind of. I mean I wasn't the cheater nor was she, but her husband didn't buy it. And it became worse.
@Cerberus Yes. If it's "just physical" it simply doesn't compare to what they would be having with their partner with all the emotion and intimacy involved.
When your cat snuggles with you, he couldn't care less about the emotional attachment. If you were only a quarter size, he would eat your face off with no compunction.
@Cerberus But continually having sex doesn't necessarily mean you will fall in love. I mean I don't know about you but sex isn't always hysterical, I mean amazing, I mean unstoppable.
@Cerberus technically I think it is either 'lifting', or 'quantifying over variables' or 'jump' (as in Turing jump). I'm sure there is a better name for it...
@Cerberus Yes. I think that's the best approach myself. I didn't used to, I used to advocate "complete honesty" until I eventually realized that I only wanted her to exculpate me. I've since realized that that's not her problem and it shouldn't be.
@terdon See I don't think I could not tell. It would feel like lying to not share something like that. Not that I would feel the need to share details or anything, but it would feel like a lie of omission.
@KitZ.Fox It does. And it is. But why do you need to tell? Is it for you or for him? I used to always tell myself it was for her, for honesty etc etc. I was forced to admit that it was in fact for me in order to make me feel better.
But if I'm the one who fucked up and broke the rules and regrets it, telling her would only serve to make her sad in the hope that she'd forgive me. That's selfish, pure and simple. I fucked up, so I need to learn to deal with that myself.
Mind you, the simplest solution is not getting yourself into this sort of situation in the first place but that was beyond me for most of my life until my mid thirties.
@Cerberus I always have. Which is why I've always tried to have open relationships. With specific rules, mind you, but with rules that do allow one-off flings.
For me, trusting others has been a central focus of my adult development and necessary to working through my depression. It's a lot of freaking work but it has been very worth it.
@KitZ.Fox Trust is important to all of us. But trust doesn't require full disclosure of everything. It might indeed require disclosure of cheating, but not of everything. So not mentioning something isn't necessarily a lack of trust.
@terdon I think everything you do is to make you feel good. So that alone can't rule out being honest with your partner about things they value in their relationship with you.
@RegDwigнt: Forgot to tell you, I've been playing HZD lately. Just short of The Proving atm. Interesting and fun, with a good story, but so far not a challenge. I may crank it up to hard soon if it doesn't change.
@KitZ.Fox No, I mean simple things. If you don't mention that you went for a jog yesterday, you're not lying. Obviously, cheating, being something that can affect the relationship is different, but in poinciple you don't need to share everything.
I'm just saying that sometimes it might be better for you to suck it up, so to speak. When the only reason for telling would be to make you feel better.
@KitZ.Fox I can think of some where while I might want her to make me feel better, I might choose not to because in order for her to make me feel better, I would have to make her feel worse.
@KitZ.Fox Exactly. I spent 2 years with a woman I found fascinating and was madly in love with. I always found her face to be gorgeous but her body wasn't the body type I find really attractive. That wasn't much of an issue because I found her attractive. So why would I go and tell her that I don't find her body beautiful?
@KitZ.Fox Well, I didn't bring it up. I chose not to share that thought with her. That's all. And I'd have been an utter asshole if I'd done anything else.
it's like blindsight...it's somehow this weird statistical thing that you end up choosing the right one without being able to say anything or refer to any feeling why
I am not saying I lied. Although had she asked me directly I would have probably hedged around the issue. Focusing on something I did find beautiful about her and there was no shortage of those.
If it were a thing that made you feel like you didn't want to be in that relationship and you didn't talk about it, that's dishonest. If you didn't like the color of her shirt but didn't really give a crap about whether she changed it, then it doesn't matter.
Wait, this whole thing is weird. People are scary jealous with very good reason. Sure being open about things is a very intellectual strategy for dealing with it, compensating for it, but it's still there.
@KitZ.Fox Ah, but that is equally true of my example. If I had told her I didn't find her body particularly attractive, that would certainly have affected how she felt about our relationship.
because maybe she doesn't want to get blindsided by someone talking about how great you were in bed, and think they are liars, and then find out they are not.
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…