End the affair/keep a friendship?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2004
End the affair/keep a friendship?
26
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 8:41pm
I would like to know if anyone thinks its possible to stop any sexual involvement with a person and eventually return to just being friends. The "affair" has been over for only a few weeks. We both agreed it had to stop. We are both middle aged, I am married and he is long been divorced and also a recovering Alcoholic. Honesty is a big part of their program. He wasn't being honest with himself or his family (children from a previous marraige). Of course as a married woman I wasn't respecting my marraige vows and was feeling like a terrrible person to have let this go so far. This was a very serious relationship with Love being a big part of it. It started 2 years ago as a friendship and as a just a couple of months ago turned sexual. Long story short we agreed to end it but have both agreed to try to go back to being good friends. We can't imagine life without atleast being able to remain friends,

Is that even possible?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 2:40pm
Yes, it is possible, but not the easist of undertakings. I had to see my xMM everyday at work after we ended the sexual stuff (mutual agreement). We had such a strong friendship though, that we were able to get back to where we were B4 sex, as unbelievable as that may sound. I think all solid relationships begin as friendships anyway. You will have to be very strong and keep all the physical memories out of the conversation. There will always be some uncomfortableness, but if you really care about one another, you will eventually get past it. Good Luck. T.

**Terri**

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 3:00pm

Sorry, froggy, I have to diasgree with the disgruntled females remark. I stated that it would take a long time before it could be just a friendship. GB (my last affair) couldn't handle a mature friendship w/o sex. AS NRE said, he continued to think with his little head. It was an ego thing for him. It was even hard for him to keep it a business-only relationship.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 3:05pm
Really Disgruntled Females?????? Geez.

mo 7-18-10

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 9:08pm

True, I left my first marriage, HOWEVER, there was no guarantee last OW would be there if I left. And I left when I reached a point where I knew I could do no more without dying in the process. My heart condition at age 42 remains a testament to tha fact. I was very reluctant to end my marriage and did so because my ex could not bring herself to listen to her own counselor about being willing to change the parts of her actions that contributed to the demise of the marriage.


In fact, it was the advice of my ex's counselor to end the marriage unless I wanted to spend the next 40 years of my life in a marriage accepting that I was "wrong" and ex was "right.


This outside professional assessment of the marriage was the final breaking point of the

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 9:11pm

Disgruntled? I don't think so.


More along the lines of women ( and a few men) who have experienced tremendous betrayal at the hands of someone that they've loved deeply and thought had a real connection with.....


jmo,


cl-nre

Avatar for shescomeundone2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 10:10pm
I'm sorry NRE i have to disagree with you (the first time ever!...LOL)..this isn't just about sex...even if a man isn't thinking with his "little head" (how little is little btw?)there is still emotion involved. I couldn't go from sleeping with a man that I loved to slapping him in the back, having a few beers and talking about his new love interest.

The definition of "friend" should be defined also. What is an appropriate friendship to have with your ex-lover ...(or better yet, ex married lover?),,,lunch, a movie, an occasional phone call, email, IM list buddy..by best friend do you mean confidante? Because honey let me tell you something, if my husband is confiding with another woman about all his feelings and gooey mushy crap while I'm stuck cleaning his toilet and doing his laundry then there's gonna be trouble! That just doesn't fly with me AT ALL.

Every situation is different, everyone has a different definition of "friend". A man and a woman can be friends (my best buddy in college was a guy and he was like a brother to me)...but being friends with someone you used to screw is kind of tricky, messy and most of the times just inappropriate. An affair is wrong, can we all agree on that? So why try and turn something good into something that was so wrong? Why continue and hurt someone else? (i.e. the person's spouse). Being civil to someone is very differnet then being "friends".

Jazzdiva

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2004
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 8:19am
NRE, I just want to make sure you know I was not at all meaning to be judgemental about your choice to leave your marriage; I admire you for doing the right thing for YOU and do not think you need to explain or defend that. I was just merely trying to point out why your experience with the whole "Friendship after an affair" is not the whole story, as you didn't just remain "friends" with the OW, you married her!! Much different situation than most of us are experiencing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 10:07am
Katie, I have several xOW/MW's that I remain friends with, not just my current wife.......
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 10:40am

"I couldn't go from sleeping with a man that I loved to slapping him in the back, having a few beers and talking about his new love interest. "


Notice that this is your opinion about yourself and your own capabilities. And I believe the original question was whether or not it is possible to be friends after the affair is over.


Since each situation is unique with its own set of dynamics, I believe it only fair to take the position that in some situations it is possible to be friends after a romance and in other situations you wonder to yourself why you ever got involved with this loser in the first place. And BTW, loser is a generic term here, not solely a reference to the predominantly male jerks out there.


For me, my CW knows of the former GF's. Since they preceded her there isn't any direct emotional conflicts. I'm sure the situation would be different if CW was a BS. ANd then again, there are those situations where the OM is your H's friend and it gets a little wierd if you try to end H's friendship because of past history with the friend. Particularly if you've chosen to not disclose your affair with your husband.


As I said, each situation is unique. The possibility to remain friends remains an option if the situation is conducive to it. Only the individual participants can answer the question completely for themselves.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-02-2004
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 12:35pm
I guess the bottom line for me would be whether I felt that the romantic part of the relationship had run its course. While thinking about this issue, I remembered a very good friend that I dated for a short time and was intimate with. We never even talked about it, but before long we were just hanging out together, no sex involved, and he's now one of my favorite skiing buddies. But...I think this was possible because neither of us felt really seriously about wanting to date the other one and a friendship just seemed to work better for us.

This situation, however, was very different than being in love with someone and enjoying the everything about the relationship, including sex, and then just deciding to cool things off to become just friends. In addition, I think that the very nature of an affair makes it so addictive it's hard to change the "definition" of the relationship.

Having said that, I have no doubt that I could eventually be just friends with xMM but for me it would take either a)my heart being committed to someone else or b)a long cooling-off period where I didn't have contact with him.