How to cope with desire for the forbidden?

December 1, 2008 11:53 AM

Give me advice on how to deal with desire for men that are not my husband.

The situation is that there are currently two male friends of mine who I have found myself really wanting to mess around and/or sleep with. I’ve been with my husband for ten years, married for almost seven. Prior to our marriage, our relationship was fairly open. I had a few flings with people with his permission. Even after our marriage, I had a friend who was also a lover. But it’s been at least six years since either of us have been with anyone but each other. Recently I’ve been really attracted to my husband’s best friend, whom I have known for 11 years and who introduced us originally. We are all very close friends and have been very casual about flirting and touching for years. I’ve also recently met a new friend through my husband’s best friend and I feel myself and this guy really click and are mutually attracted.

Things came to something of a head this weekend at a party when everyone got pretty drunk. There was a lot of wild behavior on everyone’s part, but a lot of flirting (and more) between both of these guys and myself. My husband got drunker than the rest of us and either wasn’t around or doesn’t now remember everything that was going on. The only reason things didn’t progress to actual sex with one or the other was because my husband hadn’t given me explicit permission, although he made several confusing drunken statements on the subject. I brought up the subject with my husband yesterday and he didn’t remember almost anything that had happened and got a little angry about some of it. It was a long conversation, but after expressing my side (I love you but I’m also interested in other people and I’d like for that to be ok on occasion like it used to be) he pretty much made it clear that he’s not ok with me being with anyone else. Flirting, pretty much including everything that went down Saturday is still cool.

So, this leaves me in my current situation. As much as I’d like to be able to have sex with one or both of these guys, if my husband is just really uncomfortable with it, I’m not going to do it. I’ve seen too many relationships brought down due to situations like this. We have a good, strong, happy marriage and I don’t want to risk that. However, I’m in a jam because I’m very distracted by my various feelings for these guys. Even more difficult for me to deal with than just physical attraction and desire is the feeling of infatuation I have developed for this new friend. I imagine that part of it is the excitement of meeting someone new and it will fade in time, but I’m really a bit overwhelmed by the feeling of instant connection I’ve felt with him. And I want to be able to still flirt without it either leading to sex or driving me crazier than I already am. How do I cope with these desires I cannot act on while still maintaining all the friendships, without making myself crazy? I can’t stop thinking about the whole situation, to the point of it keeping me from sleeping for the last two nights and (obviously) driving me to post this. Any advice or reassurance welcome.

posted by anonymous to human relations (14 comments total)

Let me highlight the sentences that jumped out at me:

However, I’m in a jam because I’m very distracted by my various feelings for these guys. [...] And I want to be able to still flirt without it either leading to sex or driving me crazier than I already am.

Let me paraphrase your words back to you:

You admit that flirting with these guys has been distracting you, but yet, you don't want to stop flirting with them. That seems to me to be the crux of your dilemma -- you want to stop feeling what you feel, but you don't want to stop doing the very thing that is making you feel that way in the first place. It's kind of like you're saying, "I want this fire to burn out, but I still want to stand here and put kindling on it."

So, I hate to break it to you, but stopping the flirting with them -- at least until your distracting feelings are under control -- is the only way to make those distracting feelings go away. Sorry.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:04 PM on December 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

Well, first perhaps you might e-mail the admins and set up an anonymous GMail account where people who might not feel safe posting publicly can e-mail you private replies. I know there are some things that I would put in this post if I could reply anon, but since I cannot, I'll say what I can.

First, as a man and a husband, let me applaud you saying you are not going to just cheat on your husband. Too rare a feeling that virtue these days.

Now, as for the feelings, there are two options. The first is to discuss again with your husband ways you can satisfy your appetites. The other is to remove the appetites together.

First the former: if he is not okay with an "open" relationship, have you suggested perhaps some middle ground? The swinging lifestyle of the 70's is making a big comeback these days with couples fooling around to varying degrees with others. It all depends on your level of kink I suppose, but given that you had an open marriage for a number of years perhaps that would be something he would agree to.

Also, one thing I wonder is why he'd be okay with an open marriage early on but not now. Has anything else changed in the meantime? Is he less secure about himself perhaps? Or did something happen to change his attitudes towards it (with you or perhaps with another lover?)

If finding sexual release with these guys is non-negotiable, not gonna happen with his permission, then the trick is to just get them out of your head. And a trick that is. But it's vitally important--when someone is in your head like this, you are bound to bring them up in conversation and given the recent conversations your husband may be sensitive to this and not like it.

The first step is to remove yourself from their presence. The term "out of sight out of mind" truly works in cases of lust. While not immediate, pretty quickly you find something else to occupy your thoughts and your passions. You want to maintain the friendships, well the friendship dynamic needs to change. So the immediate situation, the Band-Aid, is to remove their presence. Then when you are more in control of you and your emotion you can reintroduce their presence into your life.

Next is to STOP THE FLIRTING. It's like if you were on a diet but keep visiting the desert cart...it's only going to make you hungrier for the cheesecake. (OK, that metaphor went weird places and I apologize). And especially stop doing anything more than flirting, giving you a taste of what you want but not satisfying you in any way. And I'm not just saying stop with them, stop overall. It is allowing your mind to entertain thoughts to a degree where they cannot go.

Third, try to do romantic things/sexual things with your husband. If you have all these feelings...well, husbands usually love wives who can't keep their hands off them. Take out your passions on your husband. Fantasize about him being whoever he needs to be in the moment, he won't mind (given the rules you've established), plus he'll be getting all the benefits. Perhaps even a romantic just the two of you weekend will allow you to connect to him again emotionally and physically and make the one-night stand alternatives less attractive.

Good luck to you. Your head's in the right place, so just keep in mind what's truly important in life.
posted by arniec at 12:08 PM on December 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

It's normal for married people to be attracted to other people. The ones who want to remain faithful avoid people who they find tempting. If you can't avoid them altogether, try to keep your husband (or other people who would disapprove of inappropriate behavior) in your presence, don't flirt, and don't get drunk around them.

If necessary, explicitly ask for your husband's help. Ask if he's ever attracted to other women, and he'll probably say yes if he's being honest. Tell him that you're attracted to other men but don't want to walk further down the road to temptation. Ask if you could avoid socializing, drinking, etc., with whichever guys for a while.

I agree with Empress Callipygos. You have to decide which is more important to you: flirting with men you're attracted to or your marriage.
posted by espertus at 12:10 PM on December 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm going to suggest that there might be other problems with other things in your life which are making this issue more difficult than it is. First the issue is distracting you when the people are not around, indicating that your mind might be going towards it when it doesn't want to deal with some other problem.

Take this statement: I can’t stop thinking about the whole situation, to the point of it keeping me from sleeping for the last two nights and (obviously) driving me to post this.

Second, you want to continue the drama without crossing the line as evidenced by these two statements:

And I want to be able to still flirt without it either leading to sex or driving me crazier than I already am.

How do I cope with these desires I cannot act on while still maintaining all the friendships, without making myself crazy?

So your first step might be to ask yourself if you are being bothered by something that you aren't really acknowledging. Its likely this problem is far removed from the marriage, because people who are doing this are trying to get away from something. I'd suggest every time you have one of these feelings, you ask yourself what you were doing or thinking about right before you had the feelings of desire. Look first at your work, then other family issues not related to the marriage. It may be possible that this is related to your marriage, but I doubt it for the reasons above.

What you want is to metaphorically continue to smoke a cigarette while carrying a bucket of gasoline and a bottle of nitroglycerin while walking on a superslick surface. You can do it, but it is very hard and if it goes wrong you are really, really in a big mess of a situation.

My aunt is a psychologist and told me once that obsession is what you do when you don't want to think about something else. I'd start by looking at what it could be. If you deal with that, the frequency will go down.

Second, you need to realize that this is all you. These feelings are yours and since you control your own actions, you don't have to do anything. Don't tell yourself you *have* to do what your hormones are suggesting you do. You do not have to do it.

Third, you can't maintain these friendships in this form. New guy is gonna have to get cut off completely. Seeing a person makes it worse. Saving your marriage requires that you do not see him or maintain a friendship with him. The best friend will have to be treated with kid gloves. I suspect that if you even fool around with him again, this will blow sky high. This would be a double betrayal for your husband. Frankly, if I were him, I wouldn't be friends with the "best friend" anymore. If a friend's wife were to come on to me (not saying you did but I wouldn't initiate), I would run like hell.

Treat this situation as the threat to your marriage that it is. Any enjoyment you might get isn't really worth the global thermonuclear war something like this can be for a loving relationship.

Marriage is a choice to maintain a relationship by mutually-agreed upon rules. Attraction to others while in a relationship is nearly inevitable. What you do about it is not.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:26 PM on December 1, 2008 [6 favorites]

Up the kink in your relationship. It'll distract you and hopefully bring the focus back around to your man. nthing out of sight-out of mind.
posted by kristymcj at 12:28 PM on December 1, 2008

Try to realize that the reason you're attracted to this other guy is because you can't have him. If you could sleep with him and move on it wouldn't have been a big deal but now that he's forbidden fruit you have to have him. He's nothing special, he just happens to be in the right place at the right time to make you go crazy over him.
posted by valadil at 12:44 PM on December 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

I agree with Empress Callipygos.
posted by languagehat at 2:43 PM on December 1, 2008

It's normal for married people to be attracted to other people. The ones who want to remain faithful avoid people who they find tempting. If you can't avoid them altogether, try to keep your husband (or other people who would disapprove of inappropriate behavior) in your presence, don't flirt, and don't get drunk around them.

This.
posted by davejay at 3:00 PM on December 1, 2008

My husband got drunker than the rest of us and either wasn’t around or doesn’t now remember everything that was going on.

OK, the very simple solution is not to be around these guys when your husband is a)drunk; b)not around; c)all of the above. Your friendship with them is not dependent on your husband's absence.

And I want to be able to still flirt without it either leading to sex or driving me crazier than I already am.

Yeah, and I'd like to make a bunch of money without having to work or engage in illegal behavior. Oh, and can I have a purple unicorn as well? Sorry, this line of behavior is obviously not working well for you. It's dancing close to the edge of temptation and it has the potential to damage both your marriage and your friendships with these guys. I'd say it has damaged them already since you can't think straight. You can't have everything. You're looking for a way out here, and continuing the same thing you've been doing is not it.

I would read Women, Sex, and Addiction and see if it resonates with you.
posted by desjardins at 3:32 PM on December 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Keep this idea in mind, "Out of sight out of mind."
posted by philosophistry at 5:12 PM on December 1, 2008

The lady with the great arse has it with the first answer: you aren't going to be able to fool around with these guys without either further frustration, or without cheating.

If you had a drinking problem, would you deal with it by mixing cocktails and not drinking them as a hobby?
posted by rodgerd at 6:37 PM on December 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

So this junkie's got the spike in her arm, she's burned the junk in the blackened, bent, filthy spoon and sucked it through a bit of cotton into the rig, the entire ritual has been walked through, she's got the wrap held in her teeth, and now she's just sucked some blood back up the syringe to make certain she's in a vein, and now she's released her teeth on the wrap and -- Watch this! -- she just now shot just a little bit of that shit into her arm. And just that fast it's hit the pleasure centers in her brain and her soul is warmed and opened and dancing in the sunshine of junk, that familiar joy is upon her, it's ecstasy is what it is, except that it's only the start of ecstasy, and her thumb is on the plunger of that rig that's in her arm, and foolishly, for fun, and for excitement, she hits just a bit more, and now she's beginning to melt, she's fading into the experience, she moans soft, her eyes are wide, she's falling into it. She knows of course that if she runs that goddamned thing home she's going to lose everything dear to her, she knows that her life is going to be a fucking wasteland, yet she can't -- won't -- give up this clearly insane practice of taking these small tastes, this going through the whole ritual and then pulling out (so far). And each time she does it the obsession is again clawing upon her, she's set up the craving, she's twisting in the wind, she can't think of anything else, she cannot see straight, she cannot in fact see anything other than the hunger she's opened again.



They're not his friends and they're damn sure not yours. Get the fuck away from them. Cut them off. Hard. I'm not saying to cut them out of your life but quit this dangerous, dangerous game, unless of course you're willing to lose your marriage over some meaningless fucking. It feels huge, but it's meaningless fucking. You're married and it's good and you're willing to risk that for some fucking? You maybe didn't fuck around enough before you got married to discern fucking from love and where they lie in magnitude of importance.

You're playing with fire.

You're willing to toss the dice with your marriage laying there on the table -- these are high stakes. You're absolutely gambling, with a hell of a lot on the line. Thus far your luck has run good. Walk away from the table.
posted by dancestoblue at 10:36 PM on December 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

I am going to take a different tack on this than the above commentators. For me, what stuck out about your question is that you and your husband used to have a somewhat open relationship, but now he is not comfortable with that. The rules of your relationship changed, and you are unsatisfied with the change. This has to lead to a deeper conversation between you and your husband. Some things to consider / ask him:

1. What changed in his mind so that he is no longer comfortable with you being with other guys? Is he feeling less secure? Sometimes in longer-term relationships, the passion dies down somewhat and this can make your partner feel more vulnerable to losing you to a newer, more-passionate relationship.

2. What was it about your previous involvements with other men that made it work for your husband? Were there certain things you did to communicate with him and respect his feelings that you are not doing now? Fooling around with other guys while your husband is drunk has the potential to feel like you are deceiving him, maybe that's why this is so upsetting to him.

It is possible that you and he will not be able to see eye-to-eye on this one. If your husband can't agree to an open relationship, then you either need to walk away or stay monogamous, or you are going to hurt him terribly. The way you describe the situation, "coping with desire for the forbidden," sounds a bit like you are romanticizing your crushes on these men. I've definately been guilty of that in the past, and it has never led anywhere good. You need to take a clearer view on the harm this could do to your relationship with your husband.
posted by mai at 12:20 PM on December 2, 2008

One of my questions is, how clear was this prior open period? A little more detail would help us, OP. I'm wondering how much he knows.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:58 PM on December 2, 2008