Love vs. Sex

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
Love vs. Sex
18
Wed, 09-17-2003 - 10:26am
I've been thinking about something this week and I wanted to bounce it off of you all. MM and I haven't had IC yet, just a few kisses. When we get physical, he gets scared and backs off for a while. But he has no problem saying he loves me. (Points to eye, then heart, then me...doesn't actually say the words.) I can't even insinuate it back to him because I'm trying not to admit to myself I'm in love with him. Yet kissing him didn't make me feel guilty... Telling him I love him would. Is that normal? Is it harder for women to say those words in this situation, yet not as hard to get physical? Or is it just me...

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
In reply to: lilah_iv
Wed, 09-17-2003 - 4:14pm
Well, I'm conflicted. He's hurt me twice now and I'll never forget the pain of those days. The long weekends of wanting to cry but not being able to because H was around. When he gets the guilts, it's usually been when I'm 100% in the R and giving him my all. But I've learned that my behavior seems to be irrelevant in this -- the guilts are going to come whether I pull away or not. It's HIS behavior that causes his guilt. It's him wanting me, him KISSING me, him sneaking away when his daughter was with him to kiss me that sends him into a panic. Every time he's gotten guilty it's because of something he's done. I even told him NOT to kiss me when he first started trying to talk me into it. I told him I knew it would send him into a case of the guilts and it wasn't worth it. But he assured me he was ready and he could deal with it and, guess what? A week later he was pushing me away. He has a habit of jumping in and facing the consequences later, and I'm just not that type of person. I thoroughly think things through and by the time I do them, I've usually already dealt with them. He pulled me into this -- I didn't even find him attractive at first, but it really boosted my ego to have someone telling me I was beautiful and over a period of about two weeks of him telling me he couldn't stop thinking about me that I started to feel an attraction to him. I honestly think I talked myself into it -- that he talked me into talking myself into it. But over time, my feelings grew deeper and deeper and I honestly thought I wanted to leave my H for him. That was when he started doing this thing of not calling when he was supposed to and treating me distantly. He went back and forth between being romantic and being distant, but my emotions just don't jerk back and forth like his do. I can't be in love with him one day and not care whether he calls or not the next. He expects when he's finally through his guilty spell and ready to jump back in that I'm going to be right there with him and I'm not. I'm still back on thinking about saving my M and having a baby and escaping from this mess! Then, he finally gets me into things again and POOF, here come the guilts and we're back where we started...
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-12-2003
In reply to: lilah_iv
Wed, 09-17-2003 - 4:15pm
To answer your orignal question it is so much easier for me to have the physical part of the realtionship. OM and I have had IC three times. For me it works as a wall. One, because it is so freakin' great in bed and two I can lie to myself and say it is only for the sex if something goes bad between us...even if it wasn't just for that. Of course it's a double-edged sword. I feel like I have given and risked a lot for this person..not that he is to blame...but if it was to just end without any explanation I would feel used a little in that department.

I understand how your feelings have changed a slightly. When you don't see the person for a while or the intimate contact has stopped, it seems like your mind kinda switches over. For me, the longer I am apart or don't talk to OM, the more I give up on the A. I think there are two kinds of people in this world....those that are "outta sight, outta mind" and those that are "absence makes the heart grow fonder"

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-12-2002
In reply to: lilah_iv
Thu, 09-18-2003 - 11:08am
Lilah, I don't think the question is love vs. sex. The two can be wonderfully intertwined, but they may also have little to do with each other.

A person should never say "I love you" to someone else until they're sure that is how they feel. It's also helpful if it doesn't matter to you if the other person doesn't love you back. Love is an act of self-giving.

OTOH, if you feel giddy, excited, infatuated, that's not grounds for saying ILY, in my book. Not when marriages and families are at stake. There has to be more than just a sense of fun. My OM told me early on that he "had a great affection" for me, which was reasonable since we'd known each other for so long, and a nice way of expressing that he liked me, with a little extra warmth. It also didn't create any pressure.

BTW, why does the physical aspect of a relationship have to suddenly go from kisses to IC? My OM and I took 3 months to get to anything intimate and another 4 to get to IC. For us, physical and emotional attachment have gone hand in hand, deepening along the way. I'm not saying that's the way it should be for everyone, by any means, just pointing out that an affair can progress like any other romantic relationship - with conversation, growing affection, and closer contact.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
In reply to: lilah_iv
Thu, 09-18-2003 - 11:46am
It doesn't have to go straight from kisses to IC; I'm just thinking down the road. We aren't kissing right now. He cooled things off a few weeks ago and we're just now heating up again, but I think we're both afraid to go back to kissing. It got pretty intense right before we cooled down. His hands were roaming and the kiss was really passionate and it terrified him because he knows what's at stake. He adores his DD and says he couldn't live with himself if he did something that made her hate him. The problem is, we're in an office and when we aren't here, we're with our spouses generally. There's really not an opportunity to be alone for any sort of makeout session, so I'm not sure I can see it heating up gradually as most Rs do. We just grab kisses where we can and if we do touch, it's quick and always looking over our shoulder. But each time he "cools things down" and comes back again, we go a little further, so I'm figuring IC is inevitable and probably by the time it happens I'll be more than ready. I just wish we could hold it at the kissing stage for a while without the guilt. Just kiss every day once. I'd be happy with just that for a while, I'm sure. But I'm sure in no time I'd be ready for the next step. It has only been four months (almost five), so the fact that we haven't had IC isn't unusual...it's just that I can't see it ever happening. I'd be too scared to meet him outside of work and IC inside my office building would be EXTREMELY risky. What if someone walked in? I can't even imagine...
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-12-2002
In reply to: lilah_iv
Thu, 09-18-2003 - 1:11pm
I work with my OM as well, and we both have families and long work days. We went at a glacial pace - what's the hurry? - and it gave us time to decide all along the way if we wanted to continue. There was plenty of time to just talk and get to know each other better before kissing or anything else.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
In reply to: lilah_iv
Thu, 09-18-2003 - 3:53pm
We go slow, but it's not the way I'd like to go slow. Instead of gradually going from friends to lovers, we jump to the next step, then he gets scared and we go back to friends for three weeks. Then we start up again, go a little further, then he's scared again. It's very frustrating. We're playing show and tell this week... Mostly I show, he watches. How did you ever get to IC? How did you find a way to be alone together once things started getting heated up?
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-12-2002
In reply to: lilah_iv
Thu, 09-18-2003 - 4:34pm
Well, mine clearly got a different start from yours. Any time we took it a step further, that was where we both wanted to be. We kissed once at first, and then the opportunity didn't naturally arise for a while, so we talked a lot until we both felt comfortable kissing again, but that was weeks later. We would talk by cell phones while driving (hands-free cell phones, of course) and then eventually we'd stop somewhere on the way home for a kiss. It was months before we had an opportunity to be intimate. Not going to give details, but we are lucky that we both have a lot of autonomy in our jobs and our family lives, so we are able to carve out time to see each other for maybe half an hour a few times a week and for a couple of hours every month or two.

My own feeling is, if he'd been uncomfortable at any point, I would not have pursued it. If he'd indicated he wanted to pursue it but then retreated, my nature is to say, "Hey, what gives - " and then if he says he feels guilty, to drop it. I'm not going to make someone do something they know is fundamentally wrong. Had I ever said I wanted to stop, he would have done the same. I mean, we both had great lives to start with - having an affair would be pointless if it wasn't going to make a great thing even better.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
In reply to: lilah_iv
Fri, 09-19-2003 - 9:56am
It does sound like yours progressed differently, but similarly to how ours probably will progress. We'll probably take just as long to get from A to Z...we'll just go about it differently. I told him once that I'm the type that likes to dip my toe into the pool, then gradually let the rest of my body go in whereas he's the type that jumps right in, realizes it's cold, then jumps out again! Being on these boards has helped me a lot. Was talking to him on the phone yesterday and I said, each time you go through one of your guilt spells, you come back and we go a little further...is this how this is going to progress? He said, without hesitation, YES. It's as if for the first time I'd put things into the right perspective and guess where I got that perspective? Here. Partly through advice from others and partly through just hashing things out as I'm typing them out here. He was also talking about what we'd do if we could be alone and I said "Everything," but then I remembered what I read here and told him that once we've taken that step, things are going to get a whole lot more complicated. I think he knows that...and I've always kind of instinctively known it, but reading it here reinforced it. I think it's hard for him, being married to such a great woman, but that I'm a weakness for him, so he allows himself to give in just a little, then he finds the strength to pull away again. He's discussed us meeting up somewhere after work, but right now that's just discussion. There's also a little bathroom here that locks that's kind of isolated from the rest of the building. He talked about meeting in there, but it IS a bathroom! How unromantic. Still...anyone see "Unfaithful?" I guess it could be really sexy! There are also a bunch of conference rooms that lock that he has access to, but our luck, we'd get in one of them and someone would be coming in to have a meeting! It's just risky, all of it.

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