DrAwkward wrote:

Gramsci wrote:So people should stay unhappily in a relationship, even if they meet someone else they love or may come to love, just because upsetting someone else for a couple of months is "selfish"?

That doesn't seem very sensible to me... especially considering you will come to resent your current partner.

It seems that the general consensus of the thread is that he should not stay with his current partner because the relationship is unhappy, regardless of whether or not he fucks this other girl.

At least, that's my take.

The banal reality is that most of the time, people aren't really that unhappy with their partners when this kind of shit happens. They've just gotten lazy and disconnected as a result of being lazy.

Then new pants come along, and holy shit, it's true love.

If one isn't happy in a relationship, then make a decision and break it off. If the other thing is for real, it will feed on not having any obstacles in its path.

Trying to have it both ways is inconsiderate, and it's also a tactical error. It won't work any better than making a clean break. It's not a good way to do things for anybody involved.

STF wrote:...If I can't I'll stay with my girlfriend, who I care about but am not head-over-heels for anymore. You don't have to be crazy about your partner all the time. It's more important to get along, enjoy each others company, and be attracted to them....

You are wasting your time with your current girlfriend. You don't have to be crazy head-over-heels all the time, but it sounds like you're not even in love, if you're considering an affair.

I'm speaking from experience here. Yeah, stuck with my wife for our ten years together. Had fun together, were great friends, had similar outlooks and worldviews, found each other attractive, etc... But we were not genuinely "in love" even though we truely love each other. There was a lack of the "chemistry" or "sexual compatability" or what-have-you. Either way we tried to ignore that and enjoy each other's company, but this does not make for a fufilling romantic or sexual relationship.

Why not break up with her and be friends? Since that's what you really are anyway. If you're not truely satisfied, chances are she's not either. Why prolong this until it does get ugly?

Wow. All of this discussion on a public forum.

Ummm... what would your 'girlfriend' say if she saw this thread?

Sounds to me like your game has already been played. Don't hurt your girlfriend by being a coward... because it sounds like you're about to do that, for sake of your own convenience or just waffling on the fence.

Grow a spine. Get off the fence and make a decision. And don't be a fucking wuss about it. I have been cheated on, and fucking hurt, because the cheaters were cowards, and wouldn't come out and be honest with me. It sucks. It's a horrible thing to do to a person.

STF wrote:Now I am prepared to take steps necessary for having a relationship with her. If I can't I'll stay with my girlfriend, who I care about but am not head-over-heels for anymore. You don't have to be crazy about your partner all the time. It's more important to get along, enjoy each others company, and be attracted to them. But this other girl is, in my mind, a once-in-a-lifetime-type girl. So of course I want to try and have her.
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Dude, I feel sorry for your girlfriend....seriously. You make it sound like she is a co-owner in a business with you, rather than being in an actual relationship. Nice severance package you cooked up for her (An HDTV for a broken heart). You already sound like a 40 year old suburban Dad. Cut it loose, no matter what YOU may think, you can't have your cake and eat it to. Sorry, this is the real world.

As for once-in-a-lifetime-girl, what happens when after you're with her for a year she just becomes a Partner like your last lady? Open your eyes. I think you should probably just be single and fuck around for awhile or something, anything, to get you on that train out of Fantasyland.

-Jeremy

Think about you would feel if it was yr girlfriend cheating on you, not the other way around.

Crap.

Also, this new relationship, if she cheated on someone else what's to say she won't do the same later on to you?

People aren't perfect, people.

We fuck around, eat too much, vote for morons... at the end of the day, hurting people is a shit thing to do, but sometimes, as we all know, the thrill-of-the-new is one of the best feelings in life.

So, fuck around for a little, if you must, but be super, super damn careful. In the end a short affair may make you realise how much your current partner means to you.

Do it, get it over with quickly and get back to your regular life.

Gramsci wrote:People aren't perfect, people.

We fuck around, eat too much, vote for morons... at the end of the day, hurting people is a shit thing to do, but sometimes, as we all know, the thrill-of-the-new is one of the best feelings in life.

So, fuck around for a little, if you must, but be super, super damn careful. In the end a short affair may make you realise how much your current partner means to you.

Do it, get it over with quickly and get back to your regular life.

heh heh... i don't think cheating on someone is in the same league as eating too much. also, the thrill of the new is one of the best things in life. that doesn't mean you have to enjoy this thrill in the context of a lie. as for the whole notion of having an affair to realize the importance of your initial partner. this leaves you living a potential lie (unless you hurt them and confess) for the rest of the relationship. i personally think this is wrong, but again, who am i to judge. i'll just say that my guess is that this could get in the way for some people.

STF wrote:

grangle wrote:if you want to fuck someone else, end your old relationship first.

I could have quoted other things, but that'll do. And BTW I didn't intend to talk about my problem, just to start a discussion. How sanctimonious some of you are.

1. I call bullshit on your accusation of sanctimony! Show me one example of sanctimony! One dictionary defines sanctimonious as "affecting piousness : hypocritically devout; also : indicative of affected piousness". Assuming that's an adequate definition, can you point to any cases of it in this thread?

2. It appears from several posts in this thread that you have no problem talking about your problem. Perhaps when you said "I didn't intend to talk about my problem" you meant "I didn't intend to listen to other people talk about my problem."

3. You don't get a say in what people here talk about. If you don't want your problems discussed, there's an easy way around it. You'll notice no one here has ever made fun of my chronic ass-itch. Know why?

There are very good reasons for not ending my present relationship. We own a car, an HDTV, and two cats and a dog together, and are renting to own our current residence (--a good deal, actually). If I leave my girlfriend--which I will probably do eventually, regardless of what happens with my co-worker--I will let her have all of this stuff. (Except the cat that I found and paid for his vet bills and love dearly.) I will have nothing. Of course I would gladly give this stuff up if I were sure my co-worker and I could have some sort of relationship. But for now I will wait and see.

If it weren't for your long-ago join date, I would assume from this passage that you were a waltermalling-style "character" pretending to be a giant asshole. It hurts my head to think that these were words sincerely written by a human being.

Banal as it sounds, we think we're in love. I have no problem with fucking a few times to see if the addition of physical affection confirms or refutes this feeling. Afterwards we can decide what to do next. I liked my girlfriend just fine before this, and figured we'd get married. I've never cheated before, nor have I ever been an accomplice in cheating. This, in my mind anyway, is a unique situation (for me). This other girl is 100 times smarter, prettier, and cooler than my girlfriend. And I'd be crazy about her under any circumsatances. These just happen to be the worst possible.

This sounds better. But you can't have it both ways, and if you try, a bunch of people are going to get a bunch of hurt. Break up with your girlfriend. Hey, is one of these girls named Kate, and the other one Edith? Because, you know...

And bullshit about marriage. If you're 22 and you get married because it seems like a sweet thing to do then two years later you realize you've made a mistake, so be it. It's not the end of the world if a marriage ends. We just want to be more sure about us before we go and fuck everybody's lives up.

I don't think it's the end of the world if a marriage ends. It sounds like this lady's marriage is bound to end. I think divorce is better than staying in a bad marriage. But I think even better is not getting married at all. Too late for this lady. Anyway, it's one thing to say "marriages end, it's unfortunate but that's life, and it's not the end of the world," and quite another to set out to fuck another man's wife. Life is shitty. We have a responsibility to try to make it less shitty, not more shitty.

Also, it's not going to fuck your girlfriend's life up if you break up with her. To be fair, it won't exactly fuck her life up if you cheat on her, either, but it's a lot worse. People get broken up with. Relationships end. It hurts, but it's okay. It feels bad, but it's not a bad thing. That's why you're not married. Sure, it will fuck your life up if you break up with her, if you define "life" as "car, HDTV, etc." But that's the way it goes. Suck it up!

I've said too much already.

geiginni wrote:It would seem that if both of you have the capacity to be dishonest with your current partners, that dishonesty might be endemic to both of you in your future relationship together, and create an atmosphere of distrust. Would it not?

On the other hand, if you two are honest with your partners now, and enter into a relationship, you can do so knowing that you can trust each other to be just as straightforward.

Read this over a couple of times and really think about it. I can tell you, from experience (unfortunately), that this is a very important point.

I ended up in a year-and-a-half relationship with a girl after we were both constantly cheating on our significant others to get together. This all seemed cute during the early "fuckfest" phase... but once we got serious and actually moved in together - oh did it suck. I knew this girl very well, and I knew how easily she could be lured into cheating, as I had taken advantage of that myself. And she knew the same about me. As soon as either of us suddenly had to "work late" or "go to a class" or "go out of town on business" or "go visit some friends/relatives" there was immediate suspicion from the other party. We even tried to have "that talk" were we agreed that we would absolutely not cheat THIS TIME, in THIS RELATIONSHIP. Bollocks. And the worst part about people in denial, who can't 100% trust the other person and think they may be cheating is the sudden 'revenge' desire to cheat 'right back at them' - like you won't feel like a foolish cuckold if you've also had some on the side(?).

I'm kind of saying more than I intended to, but trust everyone on this, not just for the sake of your current partners even - if you have to have a selfish reason, then seriously do it for your own sanity - make sure you both end whatever first before starting up the new thing (if you want the new thing to be something real that you can trust) - DIG?

That's not being sanctimonius, or shoving morals at you... that's just me telling you from experience you might want to avoid that hassle and bad feelings.

grangle wrote:heh heh... i don't think cheating on someone is in the same league as eating too much...

I dare you to say that to a French person!