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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU not to be offended by being called a 'cool wife'

236 replies

PiperRose · 21/07/2014 23:21

discounting the fact that I am not and in no way a wife AIBU to think that this label, which is so often bandied around here as an insult, isn't that much of an insult.

OP posts:
PlumpPartridge · 22/07/2014 16:19

Ok, that's interesting. But what about emotional affairs? What about 'cuddling in our underwear'? Where is the line drawn?

I'm curious now Grin

PiperRose · 22/07/2014 16:44

Good point Plump, I need to know this too.

OP posts:
PlumpPartridge · 22/07/2014 16:57

By the way, setting, I am not being facetious or taking the piss. I am genuinely interested in where the lines get drawn when you have relationship 'rules' like this. One of the most interesting things about human behaviour is watching the unofficial lines evolve:

  1. start with 'no intimacy'
  2. which is interpreted to mean 'no shagging'
  3. which is interpreted to mean 'anything but shagging is ok'
  4. which is interpreted to mean 'hand jobs, blow jobs and emotional affairs are ok'

Do you see what I mean? The original rule has been eroded by line 3, in my head.

settingsitting · 22/07/2014 17:39

I realise that posters are posting in good faith.

The line is drawn in the bible at lust.

DownByTheRiverside · 22/07/2014 17:42

Shades of Bill Clinton, and his declaration of 'I did not have sex with that woman'
Because a blow job wasn't sex in his opinion.

pictish · 22/07/2014 17:44

The line is drawn in the bible at lust.
Can you define 'lust' for us?

MBT1987 · 22/07/2014 18:08

WILL YOU LOT STOP TALKING ABOUT COOL WIVES' CLUB? Brad Pitt made it VERY clear that this was the rule, and even went as far as making it rule 2 as well.

On a side-note, I was one flesh with DP this morning. After that, I wore mixed-material pants with a single-material top to my job, ate a sandwich with two meats in it for lunch, used the loo for number 2 and LIED saying it was just a number 1, didn't stone the openly practising homosexual in the hairdresser's over the road, drove home, ate pizza with DP, shared a tub of ice-cream, and once the washing up is done, I'm off for some of that hot "one flesh" malarkey again.

I'll probably blaspheme a little during our playing Doctor, and a whole lot more during our playing Clinton/Lewinsky.

In the words of Lord Flashheart, WOOF.

settingsitting · 22/07/2014 18:55

Bill Clinton was definitely lustful.

I would have to look up the dictionary definition of lust.

TheBogQueen · 22/07/2014 19:40

I have been hedging my betswith DP fir about 20 years now.

We are planning on getting married though because we have three children and we like a party

It's funny - dP and I never really thought there would be any judgement about not bring married but some people really seem quite shocked.

According to Scots law I am a common-law wife -which means I get to
Be a cool wife and a hot girlfriend!

louwn · 22/07/2014 19:50

So glad to see I'm cool. Must have a cool husband too as I have stayed overnight on my own with male friendsand colleagues and he is fine with that! : )

QueenTilly · 22/07/2014 22:16

settingsitting

There is a legal difference between being married and living together. This legal difference isn't relevant to every couple.

The emotional relationship depends on the couple. Not on whether they got married or not, but on the couple.

But a christian marriage is most definitely not the same as living together.
Christians get married very carefully. Because unless the other person commits adultery, or dies, that is it. You do not have the option of marrying or sleeping with anyone else.

  1. Actually, devout men and women (whatever the religion) sometimes do not get married very carefully, due to a belief that extra-marital sex is sinful.
  2. Um, not precisely. All Christians have the option of civil ceremonies after a divorce, and Church of England divorcés and divorcées are sometimes allowed to re-marry in church. That change was instituted in 2002.

Here's the application form, if it could be relevant to anyone you know.

settingsitting · 23/07/2014 09:03
  1. That is not what God allows. I have no intention of going against what God says.
[I only know of one christian marriage where they are not together. And they seperated, never went with anyone else, because they know what is in the bible].
  1. I am talking about christians, not other religions.
DownByTheRiverside · 23/07/2014 09:07

I'm always fascinated by how many different interpretations of the Bible Christian sects and factions come up with, all completely sure of what God wants.

PiperRose · 23/07/2014 09:11

So if your partner is abusive, you can seperate, but you cannot get married again?

OP posts:
settingsitting · 23/07/2014 09:12

That is why I always tell people to read the bible themselves. [NRSV is quite easy to understand, and is often used in church services].

But actually the bible is quite clear on the points I have mentioned.

settingsitting · 23/07/2014 09:14

Correct PiperRose. Unless or until he sleeps with someone else.

You also cannot have sex until that happens.

So you really do marry for life.

pictish · 23/07/2014 09:17

"It only takes one person to sleep with someone else to break the marriage. You are then free from it completely."

So you can leave your abusive partner, sleep with someone else and voila...right?

settingsitting · 23/07/2014 09:23

You can pictish. But if you are a christian, you will know that you are sinning. Which is not the point of christianity. I personally would feel so guilty that it would ruin my life.

pictish · 23/07/2014 09:27

I see...so, hypothetically you (generic you) are subjected to years of abuse say, take the decision to flee for your own safety, eventually meet someone else kind and decent, sleep with him...and then feel so guilty about sinning your life wouldn't be worth living?

QueenTilly · 23/07/2014 09:42

setting

  1. I did not say you were talking about other religions. For my own conscience's sake, I took care to say it was not an issue unique to Christianity. That does not mean it is an issue devout Christianity does not carry. It means it shares it with other religions.

Marrying one's first boyfriend/girlfriend because extra-marital sex is sinful is not the same thing as choosing carefully. Some people meet someone who is truly right for them that early on, but not all.

  1. It's a pity the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't have the same connection to god that you do, isn't it?
settingsitting · 23/07/2014 13:09

pictish. I personally wouldnt take years of abuse. No way.
Might meet someone else but could not sleep with him so I probably wouldnt go down that road at all.

fwiw, I had boyfrieds before my husband. But I made them all aware of the score that I couldnt sleep with them.
[that sent one away but not the others]

  1. A person's relationship with God is private and up to that person. But we do all have to account for what we have done and said and thought at the end. I am always mindful of this.
LurcioAgain · 23/07/2014 13:24

I think it's fair to say settingsitting's view is indicative of a very literal, fundamentalist version of Christianity and not held by all Christians. (Of course she is at liberty to say that those who do not adhere to her particular interpretation are not "proper" Christians, but I hope she won't go down that line). My view, back when I did go to church regularly, was that it would be crazy for God to take the view that any other sin/mistake you made, you could repent, honestly say you would try to do better, "be washed clean in the blood of the lamb" or whatever other metaphor you want to use for forgiveness, and start again - and that sin could be anything from fibbing about your maths homework to your teacher through to murder - but choosing the wrong partner in marriage - nope, no fresh start on that one! A crazy interpretation in my opinion.

I think it makes much more sense to see Christ's views in the gospels as being aimed at a particular historical and social situation, one where men could easily divorce their wives if they just got tired of them, leaving them penniless and social outcasts, while women had no such right to divorce (NB, as far as I understand this is still the situation in ultra-orthodox interpretations of Judaism - religiously, a wife has a right to a separation, but not to a divorce, only the man can instigate divorce). And it was against this particular social and cultural background that Jesus made his pronouncements, not as a "for all time and in all circumstance, including when your husband's beating the crap out of you" pronouncement. But then I was a liberal Christian, and my views were probably coloured by the fact that my mother had left her emotionally abusive first marriage, and then spent 46 happy years up to her death in her second marriage to my father - if you're going to try to tell me the first one was a holy sacrament and the second one was simply an adulterous liaison, I'm going to tell you you're talking crap.

settingsitting · 23/07/2014 13:42

I wouldnt dream of saying that other christians are not proper christians. We all come from different backgrounds. Plus, to become a christian, it is only a matter of believing that Jesus was risen from the dead, and saying that Jesus is Lord.
We are all christians with x number of sins. None of us are perfect. Far fromit.

Plus, I try not to judge anyones' behaviour, christian or non christian
[God say that the judgement we give, is the judgement we get, so I am always aware of this]

settingsitting · 23/07/2014 13:43

[I will try and remain on topic op]

PiperRose · 23/07/2014 16:59

Please don't apologise, this is very interesting

BUT, you do judge, you have judged.

On this thread you deemed un-married couples relationships less important than married ones.

OP posts: