Do you think saying "let's skip the lunch and just go to a hotel" is like cheating in a relationship?

[onezzz]

I started another thread here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2084550-What-do-you-think-is-cheating-when-married but took a while to get to my point and didn't really ask what I meant to properly.

My best friend basically accused me of being border line having an affair with a friend.

I hadn’t seen him for a while and we were arranging meeting for lunch and he text ‘let’s skip the lunch and just go to a hotel’ - that’s just what he’s like and we both know he is not serious at all. My friend saw this message and said it was out of order when he was married. She said with that and ‘everything else’ that he’s basically cheating on his wife with me. The ‘everything else’ is that she knows we email most days and chat on the phone a couple of times a week. We both work from home so it’s a bit of company for both of us but nothing more, nothing physical has ever happened, i’m not attracted to him and I rarely see him in person as he lives a couple of hours from me.

He is married, I live with my boyfriend, my boyfriend is aware of him and has never had a problem.

My friend has trust issues with her partner so I think a lot of it is because of that but I don’t know do you think the rest is ok?

Ah, you're one of those 'I'm so uber cool because I have male friends that just love to flirt with me and other women just hate it' women.

It's so tasteless.

If you're sure your DP would e cool about his, why didn't yo share this 'joke' with him?

Perhaps because it's not particularly funny? And perhaps DP wouldn't be happy about it.

Would this married man's wife be 'cool' about it? You don't know.

Your friend is, rightly, pointing out that this would be deeply hurtful to many if their DH/DP was texting an OW in this way. It's not a funny or witty line. It's sleazy.

Now if you like having a friend like this, and your DP knows everything (including what is actually said in typical texts), then there's no particular reason why not.

But as AF said, starting multiple threads seem to show you are having some difficulty with this.

Listen to those doubts.

I don't understand what's so funny about it, it isn't a joke? How is it funny?

onezzz, you just crack on. When jokes such of this become an issue in a relationship then there is no relationship. If I had a partner that took umbrage at such it would be a red flag to me. Sadly the walls of our world are crumbling around us because everyone is too PC or too soft. This world is forgetting what life is really about because too many extremists want to ruin it for everyone else.

If i found those texts on my DHs phone then I would be very upset and he would be dumped. At the very least you are putting your friends marriage at risk - you dont sound like a good friend.

Its just such a tacky, cringeworthy thing to say. Its also disrespectful. Why would a person feel the need to do this? I think Cogs right and he's sounding you out.

Occasionally, i might need to tell a male friend that they are clever and handsome and generally marvellous - say if they are feeling down about something, but bringing a sexual element to it just wouldnt occur to me e.g. "never mind about your divorce Keith - i'd give you one! fnar...lol..." It makes me think that your situation is not really a true friendship and more of an EA or naughty frisson. I'd pack it in soonish if I were you.

It's sleazy or it's flirty or even both. But if you pose a suggestion like that, there is a chance the other person might say yes and then it's definitely cheating.

I know, Covalone. Us PC extremists expecting fidelity and honesty in our relationships. So unreasonable! So out there! So over the line! Tschuh! What are we like, eh?

It's bog standard jokey banter between male and females. It's not cheating nor was it an invitation to.
You and your friend knew the score, others may jump to conclusions which is more to do with their own issues.

I would go nuts if my partner sent one like that. Your friend is right.

Jokey banter between males and females...

Why not between males or between females, then, if it's only jokey banter?

It really just sounds as trying it on, perhaps with suggestive replies, all joking, of course, until the joke stops and then it's open cheating.

I do think it pays to keep clear boundaries when at least one of the friends is in a committed relationship. It's only to easy to cross the boundaries.

But you do what you like. And accept what you like.

Your friend 'saw' the text (accident, or did you show her?) and identified a slippery slope to cheating.

You haven't shown your DP the text. I think you should, as you say you're 'unconcerned'.

Then you'll know in RL whether it's OK in your relationship (and for some, it could be, but it's your DP's views which matter here).

"...more to do with their own issues."

Finding the text sleazy and tacky isn't having "issues"! After all, it was not as if it was an original or apposite line. Rather it's a tired old cliche. And not likely to be sent as a joke, because lines as old as the hills just aren't funny.

Oh for heavens sake, I've worked in an all male team for years and this banter is normal between men and women who have an easy going working relationship. Both know the other would run a mile if one of them actually thought it was meant seriously.

Some of you are so uptight you are like prison warders not wives.
It may not be the funniest comment or the most tasteful but it is only banter. Lighten up!

"Sadly the walls of our world are crumbling around us because everyone is too PC or too soft. This world is forgetting what life is really about because too many extremists want to ruin it for everyone else"

'What life is really about' these days is an awful lot of private communication methods which seem almost designed to facilitate infidelity. When I was a kid (pre-mobiles, pre-internet) the house had one fixed phone and conversation could be overheard. If you wanted to whisper sweet nothings to a boyfriend without the whole family rolling their eyes, you saved up and called him from a phone box or waited until they'd gone out. Quite difficult to have even a jokily suggestive exchange with a friend under those circumstances.

It's therefore not an extremist/killjoy stance to point out that if someone wouldn't be happy saying something out loud in front of each other's respective partners, it's probably inappropriate. I also don't think it's extremist to point out that the OP is being very naïve.

Some of you are so uptight you are like prison warders not wives

That is so very very true (all, of course, in my own personal and humble opinion). I also think much stems from basic insecurity, there is not a hint of infidelity or dishonesty unless of course you are desparate to find some......

Cogito - I do not disagree though would probably state that communication methods today make infidelity easier to conceal. I too grew up in an era of cups and string (there was however a way to make free calls from phone boxes so saving-up wasn't an issue!).

The thing I find offensive, on Mnet in particular, is that too many posters make poor judgement and observation whilst having their own, own somewhat ambiguous, morality

Funnily enough the thing I find offensive on Mnet is people who make sweeping, and usually incorrect, generalisations about other posters based on incomplete evidence or assumptions in order to fit their own agenda or prop up their own straw man argument.

I'd be insulted tbh.

Both in relationships & he thinks it's funny to hint at having sex.

I don't get the joke.

It's a bit if a naff joke over the age of 25 but a joke all the same, it wouldn't worry me in a normal friends relationship. If you're worried about it there must be other indications in his behaviour that he's not joking. So it's not the words he used which are the red flag but his general behaviour.

"agenda"! "argument"! .....I rest my case!

Of course you do dear. Bye bye then.

I worked in a really heavily male environment right through my twenties and thirties. I enjoyed jokey banter. I worked there single and married.
The line between jokey banter and testing you out to see if you are up for it is the difference between jokes broadly based on the premis 'he/she/they/the world would like to give you one' and 'I would like to give you one'

Of course there are exceptions - sometimes a really funny line is worth pushing it. Sometimes in a group it is way safer to say things because there is no intimacy in a crowd of people joking.But this wasn't funny really, was it?

And honestly, every single bloke that made 'shall we just go straight to it' type comments, in private, meant it.

I think Cognito makes a good point about the nature of texting so I may well be wrong.

But saying 'you lot are like jailers' about anyone who thinks this sounds like a try on really is guff.

I think it sounds like you are having an emotional affair

What do you talk about on the phone/text/lunch?
Is it all jokey flirtation or is it humdrum normal stuff that you'd chat about with other friends (whether male or female)?