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An emotional affair...

24567…13

Comments

  • #32
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    TheBeardedLady wrote: »
    genuine curiosity and white wine in the system.

    "The Devil's cocktail" as I believe it's called by no one anywhere ever, but should be a thing.


  • #33
    TheBeardedLady
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,086 ✭✭✭TheBeardedLady


    strobe wrote: »
    "The Devil's cocktail" as I believe it's called by no one anywhere ever, but should be a thing.


    I'm to question the fook out of everyone on here tonight. Question 'em good 'n' proper.;)


  • #34
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Are they distinguishable?

    An emotional affair kinda = a man being very good friends with a woman other than his wife, and confiding in her? Many women might consider this "emotional infidelity". Many men might shrug their shoulders and say there are either affairs, which involve sexual intimacy, or there are not affairs, and not this mumbo jumbo of emotional affairs.

    Men might not use the term emotional affair, but I wouldn't say most men would be comfortable with their partner having a very close non-sexual relationship with a male friend that involved them being discussed, or things that they didn't know about their partner being divulged and so on. Hell if anything I'd say men are less enthusiastic in general about their partners having close male friends (just in general though, plenty men are grand with it obviously, but take a look through PI)


  • #35
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Sierra Creek wrote: »
    There's a very good reason men don't like their girlfriends and wives having close male friends, the risk of cuckoldery which evolutionarily speaking is close to death. For women emotional affairs are usually worse because they risk losing their support and commitment which is important in raising a family.

    But the sort of close friendship I'm describing is what I'd consider an emotional affair. Nobody likes them, maybe women are just quicker to use the terminology


  • #36
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    I think an emotional affair is when it starts to affect your real relationship.
    You're blowing off your OH in favour of spending time just talking to your friend.
    You're not comfortable moving your real relationship further because it could be better further with someone else.
    You're not seeing the need to discuss your problems/look for solutions with your OH because you prefer to do this with your friend.

    When the thoughts of your friend going out and pulling someone else is enough to make you snap, even more so than the thoughts of your OH being with someone else.

    When you're being deliberately cold with your OH because you've maybe acknowledged you're more than just friends with this other person, you know they feel the same, but you can't act on it because it's wrong because neither of you are single - but sleeping with someone else when you know it'd "hurt" your friend seems worse than not sleeping with your oh and hurting them.


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  • #37
    TheBeardedLady
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,086 ✭✭✭TheBeardedLady


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    I think an emotional affair is when it starts to affect your real relationship.
    You're blowing off your OH in favour of spending time just talking to your friend.
    You're not comfortable moving your real relationship further because it could be better further with someone else.
    You're not seeing the need to discuss your problems/look for solutions with your OH because you prefer to do this with your friend.

    When the thoughts of your friend going out and pulling someone else is enough to make you snap, even more so than the thoughts of your OH being with someone else.

    When you're being deliberately cold with your OH because you've maybe acknowledged you're more than just friends with this other person, you know they feel the same, but you can't act on it because it's wrong because neither of you are single - but sleeping with someone else when you know it'd "hurt" your friend seems worse than not sleeping with your oh and hurting them.


    That'd some it up, I reckon. I've known both woman and men to dapple in this kind of thing. Luckily I haven't experienced it myself - I'd be super gutted if i discovered me fella was at this.

    *sups more white wine*


  • #38
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Terry Shallow Sealskin wrote: »
    Men might not use the term emotional affair, but I wouldn't say most men would be comfortable with their partner having a very close non-sexual relationship with a male friend that involved them being discussed, or things that they didn't know about their partner being divulged and so on. Hell if anything I'd say men are less enthusiastic in general about their partners having close male friends (just in general though, plenty men are grand with it obviously, but take a look through PI)

    It's the very opposite in my world.

    I know if I was out with, say 5 friends, 3 males, 2 females, all 4 men would go home and say to their wives that they were out with the 3 males and not mention the 2 females because of the jealousy and rows it would provoke. Wives hate female friends of husbands.

    Whereas if each of our wives were out with 5 friends, 1 female, 3 males, all 4 of us males would be told, because it wouldn't provoke a negative reaction. And it wouldn't, we'd shrug our shoulders and not assume there was something going on.


  • #39
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Deleted User wrote: »
    It's the very opposite in my world.

    I know if I was out with, say 5 friends, 3 males, 2 females, all 4 men would go home and say to their wives that they were out with the 3 males and not mention the 2 females because of the jealousy and rows it would provoke. Wives hate female friends of husbands.

    Whereas if each of our wives were out with 5 friends, 1 female, 3 males, all 4 of us males would be told, because it wouldn't provoke a negative reaction. And it wouldn't, we'd shrug our shoulders and not assume there was something going on.

    Well we can argue back and forth about anecdotes like, pretty pointless though


  • #40
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Terry Shallow Sealskin wrote: »
    Well we can argue back and forth about anecdotes like, pretty pointless though

    Well let's not rely on anecdotes.

    Studies suggest that in all male female relationships, men read more about sex and intimacy into it than females.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/

    I think this is known, it is intuitive, which is why women are more suspicious of the relationship between their husband and other women than vice versa. As I said, that's mirrored in my world.


  • #41
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Well let's not rely on anecdotes.

    Studies suggest that in all male female relationships, men read more about sex and intimacy into it than females.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/

    I think this is known, it is intuitive, which is why women are more suspicious of the relationship between their husband and other women than vice versa. As I said, that's mirrored in my world.

    See now to me that link says the opposite of what you're arguing. Men are less likely to believe that an opposite sex friendship is platonic, and therefore could be presumed to be less comfortable with their partners' opposite sex friendships.


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  • #42
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    I personally wouldn't be paranoid about my oh having female friends. He has plenty of female friends, some that he knows a lot longer than me and that's fine. However, if I discovered he had a female friend he lied about or kept secret from me, his balls would be stomped on while wearing a pair of those boots they used for cracking chestnuts.

    Why hide a friendship? Why lie about something innocent?

    For example - I'm currently in canada, with the OH. I have a Canadian friend I know almost 10 years. He's married and we only really talk through emails and Skype. Me and him have went out for dinner three times this week. Each time, my oh knows where I'm going, what I'm doing, when I'll be home. They don't know each other, haven't met each other but it's not a major problem.

    But his wife doesn't know he's coming out for dinner with me. She doesn't know we email. She doesn't even know my name, or the fact we've been talking many years. This does bother me, and I asked him why he's lying to her when he hasn't done anything wrong. He says because it's easier, because she's jealous and because he believes men and women can never just be friends.

    All I know is if I was his wife, I'd be furious, not because he was going to dinner with a friend, but because he was lying about it.


  • #43
    Saralee4
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Saralee4


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    Well let's not rely on anecdotes.

    Studies suggest that in all male female relationships, men read more about sex and intimacy into it than females.

    http://www.scieŕntificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/

    I think this is known, it is intuitive, which is why women are more suspicious of the relationship between their husband and other women than vice versa. As I said, that's mirrored in my world.

    But you could also argue that and if the results of that study are to be believed,that men would be less trusting of their female spouse when out with other platonic male friends because as the study suggests they do not believe that it is possible like a projection.


  • #44
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    But his wife doesn't know he's coming out for dinner with me. She doesn't know we email. She doesn't even know my name, or the fact we've been talking many years. This does bother me, and I asked him why he's lying to her when he hasn't done anything wrong. He says because it's easier, because she's jealous and because he believes men and women can never just be friends.

    And that's precisely it. What he's doing is very standard. At least amongst my friends.

    Men just don't tell wives about female friends because it provokes jealousy and rows. Because women think, correctly, that generally men read more into relationships than women than vice versa.


  • #45
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Deleted User wrote: »
    And that's precisely it. What he's doing is very standard. At least amongst my friends.

    Men just don't tell wives about female friends because it provokes jealousy and rows. Because women think, correctly, that generally men read more into relationships than women than vice versa.

    But going back to your link, women underestimate the amount of attraction the man in an opposite sex friendship is feeling. Maybe men presume it's going to provoke jealousy and rows because that's how they themselves would react


  • #46
    Wacker The Attacker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,473 ✭✭✭Wacker The Attacker


    This is the best **** promotion thread ever.


  • #47
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Saralee4 wrote: »
    But you could also argue that and if the results of that study are to be believed,that men would be less trusting of their female spouse when out with other platonic male friends because as the study suggests they do not believe that it is possible like a projection.

    But the projection is not onto their wives, but their wives male friends. If my wife hung around with men all the time, I would have absolute trust in her, but I would not trust them. So it would cause no row whatsoever between us. If I hung around with women the whole time, she would assume my intentions were dodgy. So it would provoke jealousy.


  • #48
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Terry Shallow Sealskin wrote: »
    But going back to your link, women underestimate the amount of attraction the man in an opposite sex friendship is feeling. Maybe men presume it's going to provoke jealousy and rows because that's how they themselves would react

    No no, women underestimate the attraction male friends have in them.

    Women get the attraction husbands may have in female friends. Because men read more into the relationship.


  • #49
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    Deleted User wrote: »
    And that's precisely it. What he's doing is very standard. At least amongst my friends.

    Men just don't tell wives about female friends because it provokes jealousy and rows. Because women think, correctly, that generally men read more into relationships than women than vice versa.


    It's highly insulting. If he's married, and making himself available for nights out, knowing I have to do the same, then turns around and tells me - despite our friendship that men and women can never be just friends? Who does he not trust? Me? Himself?

    I could 100% understand why a woman would go mad over that. I'm not the jealous sort usually and even I would lose it over that. How can you expect a woman to trust you when you don't even trust yourself


  • #50
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    It's highly insulting. If he's married, and making himself available for nights out, knowing I have to do the same, then turns around and tells me - despite our friendship that men and women can never be just friends? Who does he not trust? Me? Himself?

    I could 100% understand why a woman would go mad over that. I'm not the jealous sort usually and even I would lose it over that. How can you expect a woman to trust you when you don't even trust yourself

    Any spouse, male or female, who would turn around and say "I can't just be friends with my opposite sex friends" deserves everything they have coming, and would completely break the bond of trust. Of course that would provoke jealousy, and rightly so. That's not some generality, that's an admission.


  • #51
    Mr. Incognito
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,798 ✭✭✭Mr. Incognito


    An emotional affair equals friends

    If you told your wife no friends"........war


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  • #52
    HardenendMan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 583 ✭✭✭HardenendMan


    Only gay men have girl friends that they don't fantasise about during a Tom hank.


  • #53
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Candie wrote: »
    If you have a partner but fall in love with someone else and become intimate friends, share confidences, become very close and have an intense attraction, even if not acted upon. Intimacy without the athletics I suppose. It would hurt pretty bad if I had a partner who was emotionally interlocked with someone else, even if the rest of them wasn't interlocking.

    This exactly. I had one myself and it was far deeper than the usual physical connection.


  • #54
    HardenendMan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 583 ✭✭✭HardenendMan


    Surely if you get that close to someone then there is something lacking in the relationship with your spouse?


  • #55
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    HardenendMan wrote: »
    Surely if you get that close to someone then there is something lacking in the relationship with your spouse?


    Absolutely agree with this


  • #56
    HardenendMan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 583 ✭✭✭HardenendMan


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    Absolutely agree with this

    I just couldn't imagine allowing something to go that far. Like I understand to some extent physical affairs. That's a sexual thing. Primal if you like.

    But the one thing that I can't understand is developing a deep bond with someone that is not the wife.


  • #57
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    HardenendMan wrote: »
    I just couldn't imagine allowing something to go that far. Like I understand to some extent physical affairs. That's a sexual thing. Primal if you like.

    But the one thing that I can't understand is developing a deep bond with someone that is not the wife.


    I can only talk about my experience with it but when I found myself involved in one, he's actually my oh now, he was in a long term with someone else. I was a bit younger, bit more naieve and was free as a bird, no intention of that changing and I was all about partying, going out, not coming home - typical 17 year old nonsense. He was basically the male version of me, partied a lot but wasn't as free. And was a bit older.

    We were not attracted to each other AT ALL. He was too tall and not my type and his current gf was a lady and I was most definitely not. It felt good having a male friend who I knew didn't look at me like that, I felt safe with him, there was no pressure there, didn't care how he saw me because feck it, I wasn't out to impress him.

    Just a few months into our friendship, my mother died and I guess that was another side to our friendship. It wasn't 100% carefree anymore, I was a little bit more vulnerable and I guess he looked out for me because I was completely unpredictable and was drinking a lot. Still, he rode the party train with me still and tried keep my spirits up (my glass and my emotions!)

    Like I said in my last post, things started to change. He stopped encouraging me to meet guys, he favoured dropping the girlfriend home by 10pm so he could go home and come on msn to talk to me most of the night. This was back in the day before laptops had webcams so we bought those big ugly ones so we could have msn sessions together - ie blowing off college friends and his girlfriend so we could stay in and get smashed together even tho we were in both ends of the country. I was semi involved with a guy from college, and he wasn't overly happy like a friend should be.

    So at weekends we would lie to our other halves, that we were going home that weekend, or we had something planned with home friends - and we would go on road trips and just hang out. We went so many cool secret places and we had such a great time. He would confide in me, how she wanted to get more serious, they were 6 years together and she wanted to take it to the next level.
    I'd tell him secrets, stuff I could never ever say out loud to another person.

    2009 - it all changed. I went to do my j1 that summer. He stayed with her. I got myself into a horrible situation, was so miserable and upset and stressed out. He was willing to leave her and come fly out to where I was to meet me and to make it better. Obviously that was a bit dramatic but we went from being tight (before I left) to being inseparable while I was away.

    Just before I came home I went out and got really really drunk. I called him, left him a voice mail and apparently told him I was in love with him. I have no idea, that was a very messy night.

    He text me the next day asking how my head was, I'm worried as I didn't remember what I said to him, didn't even remember talking to him, so I asked him what I said. He told me he didn't know, I was so drunk he couldn't understand me. In and around the same time he text me to tell me he was freaking out because he'd gotten so drunk the night before he didn't know if he told the gf about me (there was nothing to tell) or if he just dreamed he had told her.

    I came home, and we met up to catch up. We both got drunk and he was being mean or tickling me or something I didn't like - so I told him I hated him. He got all serious and told me he knew I didn't. I ask how he's so sure and he tells me I dropped the L bomb. I'm obviously mortified - he had a gf and that was inappropriate so I told him I was so sorry. He told me not to be sorry, he was glad I said it and that he felt the same. I left and he rang me and he asked me to tell him again, so again - I said it.

    That was the beginning of the end for him and her. The following day, or the next day I'm not sure he broke up with her - and straight away told me he loved me too and that it killed him not being able to say "I love you" when I said it to him because he had a girlfriend at that stage and now he didn't and it was a major relief.

    So, that's basically it. 3 years of us building up a connection, getting close, closing off from other people and telling each other we loved each other before we had so much as kissed.

    I do feel bad for her, I do feel guilty, 6 years of a relationship, she thinks an engagement was on the cards and then boom - dumped.

    I do know though, he would never ever cheat on me but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be worried wbout him finding another me, another girl he wasn't initially into, and being her best friend


  • #58
    HardenendMan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 583 ✭✭✭HardenendMan


    Wow some story Lexie!

    I guess it comes down to he didn't love his ex.

    I had an ex who I thought I loved, I cared about her alright. But when it came to the crunch and breakup was happening I wasn't too upset!

    Now the wife. My god the thought of breaking up with her is unimaginable!


  • #59
    Saralee4
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Saralee4


    Sierra Creek wrote: »
    I love my wife but breaking up with her wouldn't bother me too much, considering it at the moment.

    Huh???


  • #60
    joollyparo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 57 ✭✭joollyparo


    My girl having long hour chats with her "male cousin or even uncles " sets me on edge. Not to talk of her "male friends". I trust my girl but i do not trust a man's intentions.
    All this emotional affair issue is plain BS.


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  • #61
    TheBeardedLady
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,086 ✭✭✭TheBeardedLady


    joollyparo wrote: »
    My girl having long hour chats with her "male cousin or even uncles " sets me on edge. Not to talk of her "male friends". I trust my girl but i do not trust a man's intentions.
    All this emotional affair issue is plain BS.


    I don't get this. If you trust your woman, then nothing can happen without her consent bar something awful happening to her. I don't buy it, tbh. If I don't trust my boyfriend's female friends, then I must lack trust for him on some level then there'd be nothing to worry about, surely?


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