I was having girls night out with another heterosexual, female, Dimmer. She was speaking about various interactions with men and brought up the notion that some people will lie about circumstances or withold important facts in order to draw you into a relationship.
I mentioned that I was in love with a married man who had initially lied about his relationship status. I told her the story and she said something along the lines of "Well I can understand because I went through something similar." We compared situations and discovered that we had both fallen in love with men who were in long term relationships with other women. In each case, these men went on to marry the other woman but over a very long period of time (more than five years in each of our cases) these men kept up contact with us. Additionally, in both cases while our relationships had elements of sexual intimacy, they were not in any way what could be termed affairs or either of being in a mistress/concubine situation.
The prime similarities we discussed, and were jointly interested on getting insite on were these:
1. Initial meetings happened when the males were in long term relationships and this fact was lied about.
2. Successful attempts by each man to create emotional ties, essentially what one would do to develop a relationship such as talking about personal matters, spending time together, communicating about private feelings, etc.
3. Strong mutual sexual attraction but in these cases, the relationships were not primarily sexual. IOW, these were not cases where we were seen just for sex or had the males engage in sex with us and then go home to the wife.
4. In each case, we met these men while they were unmarried but in LTRs. During the years that we knew these men, they married the women after very long courtships over man years. In each case these men had balked at marrying their partners, and yet had done so. In each case they returned to us, absent the promise of sex, and professed deep regret over their marriages.
We sort of hashed out back and forth how we felt. Neither of us feel guilty, as we were lied to. Both of us were honest about still being in love with these men--it's hard to just cut somebody off but impossible to cut off your feelings. Both of us had strong blows to our self esteem at feeling, for lack of a better word, targetted for this long term other woman status.
I specificed both our genders and sexual orientations, as we did not want this thread to become male bashing, or to exclude the idea that a male or female might behave this way in a long term homosexual partnership. We allow that it is possible this behaviour is more common in heterosexual males, but did not want to exclude a possible broader look at all relationships.
Neither of us is looking for advice as to how we should have handled this; what we are interested in are stories or observations from other posters along these lines:
1. Why would somebody lie to a person clearly looking for a relationship when one is not available?
2. Why would somebody go on for years returning to another, "alternate" partner despite the presence of a LTR?
3. Do people enter into marriages (or civil unions) that they truly don't want? Do people feel guilted into staying or committing? Do people weigh two situations in the balance (this one or that one?) and choose the long term 'official' partner because it's too hard to break up?
We are also interested in hearing from anyone who has been the protagonist in a situation such as this. i.e. somebody who may have been married or cohabitting or engaged and yet continued to pursue another person on an emotional level. We are not looking to judge anyone or their behaviour, nor to have our own judged, but rather for an open and honest discussion of cheating, dishonesty, and affairs and why these things take place. This thread was our joint attempt to gain a greater understanding of human behaviour in relationships and why certain behaviours come about.
I mentioned that I was in love with a married man who had initially lied about his relationship status. I told her the story and she said something along the lines of "Well I can understand because I went through something similar." We compared situations and discovered that we had both fallen in love with men who were in long term relationships with other women. In each case, these men went on to marry the other woman but over a very long period of time (more than five years in each of our cases) these men kept up contact with us. Additionally, in both cases while our relationships had elements of sexual intimacy, they were not in any way what could be termed affairs or either of being in a mistress/concubine situation.
The prime similarities we discussed, and were jointly interested on getting insite on were these:
1. Initial meetings happened when the males were in long term relationships and this fact was lied about.
2. Successful attempts by each man to create emotional ties, essentially what one would do to develop a relationship such as talking about personal matters, spending time together, communicating about private feelings, etc.
3. Strong mutual sexual attraction but in these cases, the relationships were not primarily sexual. IOW, these were not cases where we were seen just for sex or had the males engage in sex with us and then go home to the wife.
4. In each case, we met these men while they were unmarried but in LTRs. During the years that we knew these men, they married the women after very long courtships over man years. In each case these men had balked at marrying their partners, and yet had done so. In each case they returned to us, absent the promise of sex, and professed deep regret over their marriages.
We sort of hashed out back and forth how we felt. Neither of us feel guilty, as we were lied to. Both of us were honest about still being in love with these men--it's hard to just cut somebody off but impossible to cut off your feelings. Both of us had strong blows to our self esteem at feeling, for lack of a better word, targetted for this long term other woman status.
I specificed both our genders and sexual orientations, as we did not want this thread to become male bashing, or to exclude the idea that a male or female might behave this way in a long term homosexual partnership. We allow that it is possible this behaviour is more common in heterosexual males, but did not want to exclude a possible broader look at all relationships.
Neither of us is looking for advice as to how we should have handled this; what we are interested in are stories or observations from other posters along these lines:
1. Why would somebody lie to a person clearly looking for a relationship when one is not available?
2. Why would somebody go on for years returning to another, "alternate" partner despite the presence of a LTR?
3. Do people enter into marriages (or civil unions) that they truly don't want? Do people feel guilted into staying or committing? Do people weigh two situations in the balance (this one or that one?) and choose the long term 'official' partner because it's too hard to break up?
We are also interested in hearing from anyone who has been the protagonist in a situation such as this. i.e. somebody who may have been married or cohabitting or engaged and yet continued to pursue another person on an emotional level. We are not looking to judge anyone or their behaviour, nor to have our own judged, but rather for an open and honest discussion of cheating, dishonesty, and affairs and why these things take place. This thread was our joint attempt to gain a greater understanding of human behaviour in relationships and why certain behaviours come about.
