Can someone explain this to me please?

[CastIronFire]

I'm going to start by saying I'm autistic in case it makes a difference.

I don't very often 'fancy' someone. I never have. I rarely feel sexually attracted to someone unless I've got to know them well first and then they become attractive to me. I've never been attracted to more than one person at a time.

I don't fancy actors or famous people. I never fancy someone on a night out. I can appreciate if someone is good looking but I don't fancy them.

Because of this, I find it very difficult to understand how someone can be in love with someone but 'fancy' someone else. Like an actor or something.

I don't really understand how it is any different to fancying their best mate really. It feels like a betrayal.

It's making it really difficult for me to have a relationship.

I was at work today with two of my male colleagues and they mentioned an actress in passing who they both said they fancied. One is married and the other lives with his girlfriend. I don't understand how they can desire her and also love/fancy their partners.

That doesn't really help.

I suppose I want to be with someone who lusts after me. Why do I have to be the safe, comfortable, good for you option at home while they're lusting after other women?

I had a friend when I was younger who was quite 'sexy'. A man in our friendship group told me that she was the sort of woman men wanted to fuck and I was the sort they wanted to marry. It really upset me at the time and his words have haunted me and even now over 20 years later they still do.

It's just horrible.

I'm just worried that if I talked with him about it, he would also say something that would also be in my head years later.

I'd rather just be on my own.

You lust after the home food too! Mmm a delicious roast or something. That's your very favourite food. Or maybe it's cake too, just a different flavour.

You can't turn off hunger . You can't turn off lust.

That's just a dick mysthing

All films have attractive women in them. Normal women don't count do they?

I don't watch stuff with excessive sex/nudity when I'm on my own either for the same reasons. I don't believe they make him see me any differently to it makes me see myself.

That's just a dick thing a misogynist "friend" said to you years ago. You don't have to take it on board. It's not truth.

Don't compare yourself to others. He wants to be with you. Most of us don't look like models or film stars, but being in love with someone is fancying PLUS all the rest.

Fancying is just lust. It's nothing. It doesn't mean you want to be with that person.

That’s not really my point. My point is that with the way you’re currently feeling/behaving, your relationship won’t survive anyway.

No, it won't. I know that.

@CastIronFire

i really want to help you, because both you & your bf sound like nice people.

I've read all of your posts , but not all of everyone else's.

I understand that you can't change your thinking, but maybe you can try accepting that your thinking isn't terribly common & your bf is more likely to be thinking like the majority??

your bf loves YOU, he wants YOU, he's not thinking you're 'comfortable, steady, at home second best'. & he'd really prefer to be with miss whoever from the 80's/90's. It's not about not being able to have her, it's about knowing he doesn't even know her. She's just a remote pretty face/sexy arsed/whatever. It doesn't mean you're none of those.

it's a rare person that feels they are the prettiest/sexiest/brightest person on the planet & has never wondered if their partner won't think someone else is 'better' but we are all Our own individual packages & we just have to trust that's what our partners have chosen.

You clearly have put a lot more thought into these things than most of us do, for most of us it's just instinctual.

you love your bf, he loves you. I know you say you'd be happy to be single & wouldn't want him to be with you if he was really wanting to be with someone else.

but he doesn't want to be with someone else, or he would be.

I think you're using your complex thinking to try to mask an insecurity. Would you consider some counselling??

You would be silly to bin off your bf before you've tried to get your head around this as he sounds lovely & sounds like he loves you & wants to be with you, not like he's remotely wanting any one else. That's your thinking, not his.

Fancying is just lust. It's nothing. It doesn't mean you want to be with that person.

It does to me 🤷🏻‍♀️

And I still don't see how you could choose one person if you're lusting after others.

It still doesn't make any sense to me.

If I saw a nice cake in a shop, I'd buy and eat the cake.

I can see that I'm on my own but it doesn't mean I can see it any differently.

I understand that you can't change your thinking, but maybe you can try accepting that your thinking isn't terribly common & your bf is more likely to be thinking like the majority??

I understand that is what a lot of people are saying but that just makes me feel like I can't go anywhere with him now because everywhere we go, everything we do and everything we watch I'll just be sidelined in bis head because he's preoccupied with passing fancies. I'm just going to be in the way and spoil his night

I have previously dated men who had many passing fancies but who would be really obvious about it. Staring, trying to get their attention and ignoring me because I was an irritation and in the way. One told me to 'go away' when he was talking to a woman who'd caught his eye on a night out. All I'm getting from this is that my boyfriend has the exact same thoughts and feelings but isn't so impolite. Which is partly why I've cancelled nights out.

She's just a remote pretty face/sexy arsed/whatever. It doesn't mean you're none of those.

But I'm not. That's the point. If I were maybe it wouldn't matter so much if I genuinely felt that was the case. I'm from the bargain bucket physically.

If we watch films or whatever, I sit at the other end of the sofa with no physical contact because I don't want to be touching him in any way if he's lusting after someone else.

I think you're wilfully being obtuse. You saw a nice cake in the shop, you bought it to bring home and eat it. You then might see 7 other cakes in different shops, you can look at them and admire the icing, think how good they look, imagine how they might taste. But you don't buy them, because you're happy with your own cake that you're going to eat later. You can look at other cakes and think about how good they could have been, but you don't actually want to buy them or eat them because you've got good cake already.

Of course there's always the possibility that you might decide that another cake is better, and throw your cake away and buy the new one, but that's the case whether you've seen 1,000 cakes or none.

You're pretending that because you've already bought your cake, you can't see any other cakes at all, and that you can't for a moment imagine what another cake might taste like. I don't believe you. You're also acting as if someone does see another cake and appreciate it, they've done something wrong.

“I have previously dated men who had many passing fancies but who would be really obvious about it. Staring, trying to get their attention and ignoring me because I was an irritation and in the way. One told me to 'go away' when he was talking to a woman who'd caught his eye on a night out. All I'm getting from this is that my boyfriend has the exact same thoughts and feelings but isn't so impolite.”

No...

That is something else, what you’re describing there is not being impolite - that’s much much worse than that.

You’re absolutely right that if that’s how you think, feel and act in a relationship, they shouldn’t be in a relationship.

Nobody is saying that’s what your boyfriend, or anyone else is wanting to do and having a partner stops them.

What we’ve been trying to describe to you is absolutely not that, it’s much much less significant than that, it’s literally a passing thought.

If you truly can't get past this, then I think you're better off alone.

You're pretending that because you've already bought your cake, you can't see any other cakes at all, and that you can't for a moment imagine what another cake might taste like. I don't believe you. You're also acting as if someone does see another cake and appreciate it, they've done something wrong

My point, i suppose, is that people have been using false equivalences to try and explain it.

The equivalent, i suppose, would be buying an iced bun because it's cheaper and your buying power at that moment is about 80p (or whatever cakes cost), but reregretting it afterwards because you really wanted the red velvet cake with the icing but didn't have the extra 30p to pay for it so you're stuck with the cake you got all the time wishing you'd been able to get the red velvet cake and eating your perfectly adequate iced bun whilst thinking about eating a red velvet cake.

Except that the iced bun doesn't give a shit and wouldn't prefer to be eaten by someone who loved iced buns more than they desired red velvet cake.

So do I.

Sounds to me like it's more that the iced bun has a massive inferiority complex and is assuming ridiculous things.

He bought the iced bun because he wanted the iced bun. If was that bothered about the red velvet he would have waited for one, or found some way to get one. He's happy with the iced bun.

Well, until the iced bun tries to make him feel ashamed of the perfectly normal occasionally thoughts about a red velvet/eclair mash up.

Do you know how harmful it is to make someone feel bad about normal feelings and thoughts? How cruel? If you honestly think he shouldn't ever think about other women, or have fantasies or an inner life, and you're going to punish him for it, you need to let him go. It's an awful way to to treat someone. It's the worst kind of thought policing.

You’re also suggesting that everyone who does experience ‘fancying’ someone outside of their relationship, or has feelings of lust for someone, is somehow ‘wrong’ and shouldn’t be with their partner.

The equivalent, i suppose, would be buying an iced bun because it's cheaper and your buying power at that moment is about 80p (or whatever cakes cost), but reregretting it afterwards because you really wanted the red velvet cake with the icing but didn't have the extra 30p to pay for it so you're stuck with the cake you got all the time wishing you'd been able to get the red velvet cake and eating your perfectly adequate iced bun whilst thinking about eating a red velvet cake

Except when I fancy someone else, I don’t wish I had that person over my partner. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to leave my partner for them. So yours is the false equivalence… even if I had the extra 30p I wouldn’t want the red velvet cake, because I’m happy with my iced bun. Fancying someone else doesn’t mean I fancy them more than my partner. Doesn’t mean I’d rather have them than my partner. So I don’t recognise my feelings in your example at all.

Do you know how harmful it is to make someone feel bad about normal feelings and thoughts?

Yes and that is why I haven't said anything to him.

I wanted to understand how other people reconcile the two because its not something I experience.

I understand the words people have written but it hasn't changed how I feel about it

I suppose if both people in a relationship are still lusting after other people it doesn't really matter maybe. Although I would wonder why so many people were with someone who didn't sufficiently meet their needs. Because that's what it would be for me if I fancied someone else.

But you refuse to sit next to him or touch him at times when you think he might possibly think about someone else?
Things are said without words.

Fancying someone else doesn’t mean I fancy them more than my partner.

It would for me because if I didn't fancy them more I wouldn't even have noticed them.

Because for most other people, fancying other people doesn’t mean that their partner doesn’t meet their needs. My husband meets my needs. Which is why, despite having had passing ‘fancies’ over the 13 years we’ve been married, I’ve never acted upon them. Because I love him and fancy him more than anyone else I’ve met.
But this is pointless really. You say you want to understand how other people feel about it, but nothing anyone has said has made you think ‘actually other people feel differently to me, and to other people fancying someone else doesn’t take away their feelings for their partner’. You are insistent that other people must be unhappy with their current partner if they have any feelings for anyone else. Which isn’t true.