Anyone successfully stayed friends with a potential OM?

[whomeyesme]

I've name-changed for this and I'm not sure how much detail is neccessary.

I'm in a situation where I have a very flirty friendship with a male friend. We are both flirty people, both been open with our OHs about the contact we have (emails, text, facebook) and DH is ok with it, on the whole. DH & I are comfortable with having friends of the opposite sex, though DH is a bit when I get a text from him on a Saturday night.

Just lately things have notched up a bit and got to the point where we've had a frank discussion about what we're doing and that we need to reign ourselves in a bit as we're on the verge of crossing the line. We both admitted to each other that if we weren't married, we would have embarked on a sexual relationship, but accept that we are married and that an affair will not and cannot happen under any circumstances.

Our view is that you can't help being attracted to other people, but what you can help is what you do about it. We are very aware that by embarking on an affair not only do we risk our marriages and family, but our friendship will have to end as our OHs would not tolerate any continued contact between us.

So our goal is to work through this, without betraying our OH's trust and to remain friends. DH hasn't met him, nor me his DW though this is something we've all discussed trying to sort out as the OHs are keen for everyone to meet.

I know we are dangerously close to the line and that even having discussed what we have has crossed over it in some way, but is it going to be possible to remain friends?

I want to add that I am very happily married with 2 kids, I love DH to bits and he is The One. We have a great relationship and I wouldn't jeopardise that by doing something stupid that I absolutely know I'd regret. However, I do hope that it's okay to carry on being friends with someone whose friendship I value but am also attracted to.

Or am I living in cloud cuckoo land??

(Sorry it's a bit waffling)

So if your DH is so important to you, why do you want to risk staying friends with this man?

I think you should start swapping

get it all out in the open

why not ?

why shouldn't your respective OH's get to cosy up and play pretendy lovers too ?

Yes, meet the OM's wife and he should meet your DH.

When you think about someone's OH, it is often as though they are fictional (in the bubble of your relationship with the OM). Meeting up will cement the fact that OM's wife is a real (and probably very nice) person. It will give you a look at the person you would destroy by having an affair.

Just to add that there is such a thing as an emotional affair. You don't need to actually do anything with this man to destroy your marriage. Be very careful - affairs ruin lives.

Take away all the sexual tension and honestly, what is left?
Is there REALLY a friendship underneath it all?

Anyway, moot point. You cant take away the sexual tension.

Would you be happy for dh to be involved in the same situation with another woman?

How do you kow him?

Well, if this was me in your situation, I would be sure that I was playing with fire, and that is a dangerous game where people can get burnt, and badly.

I hope I would ask myself whether I could have this conversation (all of it) with dh.

Therein lies the answer, whatever that is.

If you truly love DH to bits and he is The One you wouldn't be carrying on the way you have been with this also married OM unless you're a drama queen on a pathetic ego trip.

So, are you a drama queen on a pathetic ego trip and are you prepared to let your supreme conceit and vanity override your commonsense (pre-supposing you have any) and wreck your marriage to 'The One'?

Or are you prepared to forsake your self-manufactured cloud cuckoo land and put the energies you have expended on feeding your ego into your relationship with the man you allegedly 'love to bits'?

As for our goal is to work through this, without betraying our OH's trust and to remain friends words (almost) fail me. Are you so deluded that you can't see that the pair of you have already betrayed your ohs' trust and obviously have every intention of continuing to do so through the thinly disguised medium of 'staying friends'?

You've made its sound as if you and the OM are an established couple with views in common. Shame you can't agree that, if you're married, the decent thing to do when you're attracted to someone else is nothing, zilch, zero, nada.

Organise that meet-up that's been long promised for the 4 of you and, as AF's says, give your OHs' the opportunity to cosy up together while you and the OM make sheeps' eyes at each other - or try growing up and putting away childish things like flirting with other men.

Dont risk it. It is not worth it on any level. Take a step back and reduce contact. The temptation is not worth its while, even though at the time it probably is not seeming like that. Sadly, as possible as it may seem, you could be opening doors that you may never be able to close again.

Step away. Seriously, it is too close for comfort in my opinion. If you are happily married then don't risk screwing it up.

You HAVE crossed the line already. You have admitted to another man that you would shag him, if only you werent married. How disrespectful to your husband.

I'm guessing this is a newish friend then, if you've never met your respective partners?

You're right it's normal to find others attractive and in a lifetime, most of us can expect to make connections with people and think "What if?"

The mistake you've already made is that you've voiced it. That was crossing a big line and you now can't go back to being 'just friends'. You never were though - the attraction is the thing that tends to fuel the friendship. You wouldn't have got so close to a new man if you'd found him physically repulsive. The friendship is the mirage, whereas the attraction is real.

You are kidding yourself if you think you can continue this friendship without it moving up a notch again. So you're going to have to give it up and put those barriers up again and if you're workmates, stick to professional stuff only, or group discussions. Avoid work nights out, coffees for two and any 'accidental' late-night working.

I think your husband is probably quite worried about this, especially as you're texting eachother on weekend nights. Could you talk to him about this and explain you're going to cool the friendship - and why?

If instead it was your DH in your shoes, what would you think?

Ooh no, this is extremely dangerous territory... Stay away, seriously, no good can come of it.

You've already crossed the line by talking as you have, you must know that.

How would you feel if your DH and OW decide to start their own 'flirty friendship'?

How would you feel if your DH was having similiar discussions with a woman like you are having with this man?

Sounds like the start of an emotional affair, which in to me can be just as bad as a physical one.

If you continue this friendship you will cross the line one day, If you love your husband drop the 'friend'.

You've also demonstrated breathtaking arrogance by saying that if you embarked on a sexual affair our friendship will have to end as our OHs would not tolerate any continued contact between us.

Try this on for size: you embark on a full-blown sexual affair, get discovered, your OHs' kick your sorry arses out of your respective homes and, after a decent interval (because, although you're not, they are both decent people), in the manner of poetic justice they get together and live happily ever after.

Frankly, if that happened it would be no more than you deserve and, who knows, you might end up with the OM who would doubtless do the dirty on you or you'd do it on him because you're lowdown underhanded lying cheating deceiful birds of a feather.

How do you manage to look your dh in the eye and tell him you love him while knowing that you're lusting after another woman's husband?

You've provoked an extremely odd response in me, OP; I feel as if I can't be too scathing about your juvenile delusions and witterings. I wish you'd posted this on AIBU but I doubt that you'd have an asbestos suit that will withstand the inevitable fiery furnace of condemnation that would inevitaby ensue.

Our view is that you can't help being attracted to other people, but what you can help is what you do about it.

Exactamundo. And what you do about it is kill the contact. Oscar Wilde said "I can resist everything except temptation" and he was right so don't have the object of your lust on speed dial or it's going to end in tears.

I find it rather unconvincing that you are as attached to your husband as you claim- you talk of you and this bloke like you're a couple, and you've told him you want to shag him. Get real.

You're in cloud cuckoo land. I'm in a slightly similar situation with DH and a female "friend" of his. It's not gone as far as it has with you and your "flirty friend" but every thought of her, every time she gets mentioned, every text, every call, every fb comment is like a knife twisting in my heart.

I would cut all ties that are possible if you don't want to kill your marriage and rip your family apart.

You're already having an affair of sorts as you've confided intimate feelings to another man, other than your husband. You're not the first and you won't be the last.

How you handle it from here will be the making of you. Really, you need to cut it dead. Stop completely. Perhaps even discuss why with your husband. It will be hard as there is nothing so intoxicating as a thwarted love affair (the world doesn't understand us, yada yada) but this is where self control comes in. Especially if you are happy with your husband. You have to wait for the hormonal obsession to calm down, which can take years! At the moment, you're just fizzing with the excitement and the promise both of which could dissipate in 'poof' anyway as, let's face it, most relationships don't work out. It's too big a gamble to place your marriage on. In reality it could be a 3 month wonder (how many of those did we have in our youth) and you'll have fucked up.

I do know couples who have broken up and lived happily ever after with OM/ OW but the divorces etc were not without buckets of pain, for everyone. If you tell your husband that you fancy this guy and see his reaction - you'll be able to guage how bad it'll be if you actually did something concrete.

Thanks everyone for your replies. Of course you are all right, and this has helped me see it all the more clearly. The attraction fuelling the friendship is the key comment, I can see that now.

I don't know how I'd feel if the shoe was on the other foot, we always think we would, but who knows? I think I'd understand it more now, but I also recognise that it's an inappropriate friendship.

I spoke to DH about it last night and got everything out in the open. And I will be cooling the friendship down.

Thanks again.

You sound very sensible and mature and I'm impressed that you talked to your DH about it all. I agree with most of the comments here. To help you and your DH get to grips with everything I recommend that you both read Not "Just Friends" by Dr Shirley Glass. It addresses the situation you are in perfectly.

It doesn't work. Take it from someone who has taken 18 years to see the light.

Eighteen wasted years of my life because, believe me, you will not stay 'just friends' with this man. You've already discussed your feelings for each other. Those feelings will not stay buried for long, and when they surface there is going to be one hell of a mess.

Walk away now. Don't just cool the friendship. Remove the temptation from your life completely.

I'm glad you told your husband. But ,to be blunt, there is something not quite right or missing in your marriage to cause you to look outside it. Excitement, perhaps? Put it right.

Have to agree with SS. The problem is that it's too easy to convince yourself that you're cooling it/it's all purely platonic when you're really not.

Been there. Bought the T-shirt. Been the mug.

OP, I think other people are over-reacting slightly, though I understand the reasons, and think you are right, in the circumstances, to retrench. I also have a close male friend and it's been plain for many years now that if neither of us was married/partnered (as we both are, very happily, longterm), we'd probably have embarked on a relationship together. The main difference with your situation is that, though we see a lot of one another, we've never discussed this, and have never had a remotely flirty relationship. We're just close, and it's a friendship that means a lot to me. The other difference is that our partners know and like one another also, and we have dinner as a foursome and they do things together sometimes, too, which makes me very pleased.

I've never felt this was a dangerous situation - it was simply a coincidence that a good male friend was also someone I found attractive and vice versa, and because both of us are very happy with our partners, it's never been an issue, just a recognition that, were things otherwise, we might have had something together. Emphasis on the 'might have had' - there is zero possibility of this ever becoming a sexual relationship, and we've been friends for about seven years. It doesn't 'steal' anything from either of our partners, and the idea that being close to a man other than my partner is somehow inappropriate depresses me.

It's not the same situation as yours, I know - I just wanted to say that I think there's a difference (in my own case) between a close, mutually-supportive friendship with a prickle of attraction that will never be acted on and, an 'emotional affair'. But only you can decide which category yours fits into, and whether this can survive as a friendship.

When you say 'cool it' do you mean cut contact? If not then nothing has really been resolved has it?