I’ve written before, but I didn’t hear back from you—probably because my e-mail didn’t contain flogging or santorum or whatever. But I won’t be IGNORED, Dan.
I’m a 32-year-old female. Second marriage, two kids: one kid with my ex and one with the man I cheated on my ex with (my current husband). My problem: A year ago, I found my “first love” on a social network. I’d been looking for him off and on for more than 16 years. This person was a jerk who left me for one of my friends back in high school. But he was and still is the love of my life. Always has been. Always will be. He is not married, has never been married, and has no children. We began an affair about seven months after finding each other. My marriage, my second marriage, had been rocky before this. My second husband, of three years, stopped having sex with me after I became pregnant, and this continued after our child was born. We tried counseling. It didn’t help. In no way am I using this as an excuse. I know what I’ve done is wrong. But I also have a pretty bad track record and have cheated on every man I’ve ever been with, except for my first love.
This man, my first love, is the worst person in the world for me. Yet I’m in love with him. I have ALWAYS been in love with him. He wants me to leave my white-collar husband for him, a very blue-collar guy. I live in a nice home in the suburbs; my first love lives in a small apartment in the city. Five months after we began having sex with each other, my current husband found out. Instead of leaving me, he has turned into a different man: extremely loving and attentive. He says this experience has made him realize how much he loves me and that he doesn’t want to lose me.
My other problem: I didn’t begin this affair to get my second husband’s attention. I began it because I’m in love with my first love and always have been. My husband knows of my deep feelings for my “first.” I mention divorce often, but it falls on deaf ears. I want to do what is best for my kids—and that would be staying right where I am. But I feel my only chance for “true” love, if there is such a thing, is passing me by. I’ve never felt for anyone as I do for this man. Every man who has come into my life AFTER him knew about him and knew that if he ever came back for me, I was gone. This includes my current husband. Dan, pull out all the stops on this one, as you famously do, and please tell me what to do.
Serial Cheater In Love
I’ve read what you’ve written before, SCIL, but I didn’t respond because I didn’t have much to say to you and I still don’t. I had the same reaction reading your e-mail today that I had reading all the other e-mails you’ve sent. My reaction is a little selfish, and I’m a little embarrassed to share it with you. But you keep pressing me, SCIL, and so here it is:
THIS BITCH CAN GET LEGALLY MARRIED AND I CAN’T?!?!
Sorry, sorry, sorry. That was cunty of me—nowhere near the level of respectful professionalism that people expect of me—and so now I’m going to have to make amends by scrounging up some of that advice shit you’re after. But I’m going to offer you my advice on one condition: You don’t write to me ever again.
Okay!
You say you’ve cheated on every man you’ve ever been with, with the exception of your “first love,” SCIL. You seem to be engaged in a little circular reasoning/magical thinking here—you’ve concluded that he must be the love of your life because you didn’t cheat on him, and you didn’t cheat on him because he’s the love of your life. No. You didn’t cheat on him, SCIL, because you didn’t get around to it. You two broke up when you were 15 years old. If you’d been with him a little longer, you would’ve cheated on him like you’ve cheated on everybody else.
If you leave your current husband and break up your first child’s second home and your second child’s first home, it won’t be long before you get around to cheating on the love of your life, too. Because you’re a cheater, SCIL, a habitual, serial cheater. You’re precisely the kind of person who shouldn’t make monogamous commitments.
Or get married. Or have children.
So what should you do? Stay? Go? Frankly, SCIL, I don’t give a fuck what you do. Stay or go, it’s not going to make a fuck of a lot of difference. Your personal life is a mess, SCIL, and it always will be. Because, you see, wherever you go, there you are.
That said: If your current husband doesn’t mind being cheated on, if he can put up with your affairs and wants to put your children first, then I think you should stay with him for the sake of your kids. They deserve whatever stability and continuity you can provide for them between infidelities. Again, if you leave your current husband for the love of your life, SCIL, it won’t be long before you’re cheating on your third husband and preparing to uproot your kids a third/second time. I know it, you know it, everyone out there reading this knows it, even your current husband seems to know it.
So just stay put, okay?
My girlfriend of two years, my first real relationship, broke up with me a month ago. Although I felt like shit for most of that month, we somehow managed to struggle through to a close friendship. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely over her, but I understand why it happened and that we won’t be getting back together. All in all, I’ve felt like we’ve both been pretty mature and things are going well.
The complication: We still find each other attractive and we work very well together sexually. So she proposed an FWB arrangement, and I said yes. We laid down ground rules—we are not together, we are just friends who fuck, so no “I love you,” no commitments, no expectations—and we started having hot sex. Is this foolhardy? We both know that I’d prefer something more. So the question remains: Should we keep fucking?
Can’t Recall Acronym Procedure
How are you going to feel when your ex-girlfriend/
current-fuck-buddy finds a new boyfriend and ends your FWB arrangement? If you can honestly answer, “I’ll be happy for her,” then keep fucking—but don’t forget to ask for your balls back when she dumps you that second time.
If you can’t say that and you decide to keep fucking the ex anyway, CRAP, you wouldn’t be the first lovesick dumpee who agreed to enter into an FWB arrangement with an ex. If the short-term rewards (all that hot sex) and the potential long-term payoff (getting back together) make the risk seem worthwhile, then keep fucking.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
This week on Questionland.com: Relationship in the toilet? Ready for divorce? Want to try to save the thing? An army of divorce lawyers and couples counselors answers your questions about “Making Up and Breaking Up.”
regarding crap, i participated in fwb after our relationship ended, and i moved out. it was fun while we both dated others, and created a necessary release. rules: a la seinfeld- no overnighters, no i love yous, just sex, and leave. be protected from std’s, and above all have fun.
SCIL should not be with anyone, she has no respect for others and deserves nothing until she stops putting herself ahead of all the others in her life.
To anyone with SCIL. I say DTMFA.
@ 38 – Meditation is to be done ALONE and yes, indeed, it is helpful for every single person on this Earth. Sure you can do yoga in a group and some even meditate, usually for guidance – but to achieve a heightened sense of clarity, being at one with “all there is” does not need the presence of other people. So, yes, it could be VERY helpful for this woman and people like her.
Wow the lady in the first letter is a real piece of shit. This woman should have had her vagina filled with concrete years ago. I feel bad for her kids.
@ 40 – bitter much? It’s a big ol’ world and just because you sit around bitching and spewing your misogyny doesn’t mean the world actually operates like that.
Like yourself and then love yourself and then you will see that “women” are the LEAST of the “problems” you’ve created for yourself.
Geesh.
Anyone who doesn’t normally read SLOG and thus never saw the first letter a while back in Savage Love letter of the day, here’s the link with all the comments… no punches were pulled there either:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
40: You are treated poorly by a gal careless of your feelings. Get out.
Frederica: “It’s a big ol’ world and just because you sit around bitching and spewing your misogyny doesn’t mean the world actually operates like that. Like yourself and then love yourself and then you will see that “women” are the LEAST of the “problems” you’ve created for yourself.”
Right. (Said in soothing tone)Frederica, you need to stop drinking so much coffee. It makes you stupid.
@27, CRAP, one thing you might try is to propose sexual activities you didn’t dare bring up in the relationship. If she shoots you down, so what? And just getting used to asking for what you really want in bed (and encouraging your partner to ask for what she wants) — that’s always a good exercise, good practice for when you’re in a serious relationship in the future.
@40: right on. great job of painting a very clear picture of how things might look farther down the line. sure it’s all fun and sexy now, but something is being compromised. “don’t be that guy”- good advice. didn’t realize it till now but the two letters, although radically different, and from opposite perspectives, are about the same issue. advice to CRAP is also advice to SCIL’s current husband. DON’T BE THAT GUY.
Disagree, Dan. SCIL didn’t cheat on “the love of her life” because he cheated on her first. That’s also why he IS the love of her life. My advice to the husband is to cheat like hell, and then this cheating bitch will find you wildly attractive.
To all the complainers about the SLLOTD recycling: remember, between the print newspapers and the websites Savage Love is featured in, the readership of the regular column is vastly larger than the readership of Slog, Blogtown, and the Savage Love app. I wish I knew the numbers, but this woman just got humiliated in front of many, many, many more readers than she was a few weeks ago.
I’m not in the habit of rejoicing in other people’s public humiliation, but she – and every other person out there just like her who reads that and thinks, “Oh! That’s just like me! I wonder how many people I know will think I wrote that.” – justly deserves it.
SCIL needs to take a hard look at what “in love” really means. Whattawhore.
Hey CRAP, take it from someone who’s been there, this arrangement is a bad idea. What would be an amazing boost for your self-esteem and emotional health is for YOU to break of this relationship with HER. That’s right YOU are the DUMPER. I know you want her, but don’t you want someone who wants you back? Forget the friend thing, you’re too close and needy right now. Break off the FWB arrangment, tell her you don’t want to see her for 6 months at ALL. And, I agree with @1 that making her jealous is a VERY satisfying bonus. Now… you just have to be strong enough to do it.
All I can say is SCIL must be one hot piece of ass for guys to put up with her crap…
Anyone also notice that in SCIL’s case husband no. 2 is the “mistress” (not sure what the word for a guy is) from her first marriage. Sounds like he’s getting a little “what goes around comes around”.
I’m always mystified by people that start relationships off with cheating and then are shocked that their co-cheater later cheats on them too! Yeah, you didn’t see that in their character.
Sure, SCIL is a selfish bitch, but I’m not so sure that husband #2 isn’t getting exactly what he deserves as well. The only real victims are the poor kids!
@ 27 – Personally, the only thing I’m worried about is that you didn’t give yourself more time before entering this FWB arrangement. Like 6 months. Enough to get over her first.
As it is, it does sound a lot like 41 says, using your ex as your rebound. That can lead to a lot of trouble and heartache, which you might not be aware of since it’s your first serious relationship.
My advice: Cool it off a bit. See her less often. And as others have said, date/fuck other people, suggest whatever fantasies you have when you’re with her that you didn’t dare to do before, talk together about the rules and limits you’re confortable with (no one can decide that for you) and always be honest with yourself about how you feel.
Word.
for crap.
your relationship isn`t over yet, your still in the process of breaking up, It`s still going to end the same way though, with you being heartsick, so you might as well getting started moving on now and find someone else to take your mind off the somewhat selfish ex
CRAP — So long as you’re still wishing/hoping for more from your ex — that you’ll get back together, even if you logically understand that you won’t or can’t, FWB is a BAD idea. Whenever one person wants more, FWB is a bad idea.
It could work out that you find someone else to date/fuck and end the FWB relationship, but more likely since you’re not completely emotionally over her, she’ll find someone first and break off the FWB. Then you’ll feel rejected, like being dumped over again, but you’ll probably beat yourself up for it too because you agreed to the FWB relationship in the first place.
Unless you can get to a point where you don’t want anything romantically from her, FWB is always going to fail. It will just postpone the break-up sorrow/mourning and make you feel stupid and used all over again.
CRAP, you’re better off without the FWB situation with your ex. Use this time to find someone new, not wasting your energy on a realtionship which you already know is a goner.
Frankly, given that your ex knows your emotional needs, it’s a little cruel that she still wants to maintain a FWB arrangement. She’s not all that, man- find someone better for you, who cares about what you want too.
@ 27 — I’m not saying this to be antagonistic, but I think that entering into a FWB relationship with you is pretty selfish of your ex, considering the breakup is so recent and you weren’t the one who wanted it. This is just textbook messy breakup stuff. She really didn’t give you time to get over her before jumping back into bed with you. Right now you might feel like you’re over her and everything is fine, but you’re probably still going to have good days and bad days dealing with this. I agree with 67 that a bit of distance is a good idea. It’s not the end of the world if you fuck a bit more and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for it, but I wouldn’t pour a lot of time and energy into developing rules for the FWB arrangement. I think it would be better to focus more on yourself right now.
@27 ” what rules do we need to ensure that things don’t go sour?”
There is no magic bullet for this, but communication comes close.
First off, would you two be friends if you weren’t having sex? If the answer is no, start by dropping the friends part and if you’re still interested concentrate on setting up a purely sexual relationship, probably on a series-of-one-night-internet-hookups model.
I disagree that overnighters are necessarily off the table, just that it should be about either friendship (too drunk to leave) or sex (too busy).
It is also important (especially with an ex) not to date, unless if you are changing your relationship status. Anything you do as friends should be with your circle, something you’ll realistically continue to do together once one of you has coupled off, and preferably both.
That said, make sure you actually are friends. Often times, other romantic entanglements are off the subject list, but if you can’t outline the current status of work and family for each other, then you need to catch up or admit you’ve just become a booty call.
It is best if you are both looking for the next thing at the same level.
I personally recommend early evening sex, followed by definite plans to meet someone new or to go out trolling with a buddy that night. Schedule adequate time but keep to your other commitments.
If you can swing it, she could be the ultimate wingman and consolation prize should you both strike out.
I also think it is best to avoid the concept of using each other for sex. Friends is what you’re trying to be, sex is an activity you happen to do together, until such time as it is not. On the other hand, you do have a leg up on other FWBs, because you can sum up with “we used to date”, should you ever need to describe your history.
Oh CRAP! I have had a FWB situation with the woman that helped break up my last relationship. I’ve been “with her” for two years and while realizing I was in love with her and couldn’t stand the fact that she would date other people I still put up with it. Within the past month and a half she started dating someone fairly seriously and we’ve only been together twice since. I know this is ending for me and I am in terrible pain with a broken heart. If given the opportunity to do it all over again, I’d say no fucking way! Get out while you can!
@ 60
good pick up… Dan does have a little bit of the ‘watch out for fickle bitches’ theme going this week.
as far as CRAP goes, being the guy that is used for sex isn’t all that bad, better than being the guy who is used for weed and emotional support and gets none…
not that I have any experience with that…
*coughs uncomfortably*
God – 4 words that make me want to vomit when I read it in these kinds of columns: “Love of my Life”.
And usually its some dickwad that they’re still holding a fuck torch for making the lives of everybody currently in their lives a living hell.
Uh, everybody, I’m 99% sure that SCIL’s “But I won’t be IGNORED, Dan” is a joke. As #47 pointed out, it’s a paraphrase of a line from Fatal Attraction, but the other half of the joke is that Michael Douglas’s character in that movie _is named Dan_.
SCIL may be a self-centered twit who doesn’t know the difference between love and drama, but if we’re going to condemn her, let it be for that, not for making a funny joke that went over most people’s heads (and Dan’s too).
Re: SCIL
Am I the only person with the intellectual capacity to reason that unhealthy people are attracted to unhealthy people?
Staying with her current husband isn’t going to help her kids. I’m pretty sure he’s as retarded as she is, otherwise he wouldn’t have been attracted to her in the first place, and vice versa. As was pointed out–wherever she goes, there she is. Staying in a situation that was unhealthy from the beginning isn’t somehow magically more healthy for her or her kids.
On a side note, I may be giving her too much credit, but I thought she was joking with the “I won’t be IGNORED” line.
Yes, she’s an asshole, but she needs professional help. She’s not a “cheater”, she’s screwed up emotionally. I’ll take a zany guess and say that her parental figures were probably as fucked up as she is.
Maybe some advice to see a therapist and stop romanticizing idiots (including herself) would have been better advice.
I was almost SCIL. My “true love” was someone I’d been close friends with in my early teens and we shared a kiss once when I was 17. Pretty innocent but as I ventured into the dating world as an adult, and we kept in touch as friends, I was increasingly convinced that I was supposed to be with him and everyone else was just filler. We no longer lived in the same city so it was easy to imagine him as the perfect man to whom no other man could possibly favorably compare. Ever. I married, cheated, divorced, dated some more. All the while believing that if he showed up at my door, I’d drop everything and go anywhere for HIM. The few times in the years after my divorce I did see “true love” guy, he was cautious to let me know he thought of me as a friend, even a little sister and to spell out to me the kind of guy he ACTUALLY was and the kind of women he was ACTUALLY interested in. Thank goodness he didn’t take advantage of my obsession and let me break my own stupid heart some more. Eventually, 24 years after we met, he invited me to his wedding on another continent, even insisted on paying the fare because it was so important that I attend. I again played the dumb school girl and convinced myself that I couldn’t bear to watch him marry someone he’d only known a year and made every excuse I could think of to get out of it. He never spoke to me again. I met another man and, for the first time, didn’t have the specter of the imaginary “true love” figure I’d created pretty much all on my own lurking in the shadows. Now I know myself and have, thanks to my “true friend,” who I’ll never see again, am able to find out what I’ve been missing all these years.
Is it going to take another decade for SCIL to snap out of it? Well, since her “true love” is fucking her, it’s going to turn out so much worse.
The only reason SCIL believes here “first love” is perfect for her and that she’ll be in love with him no matter what is because she never hooked up with him. A lot of people like to imagine that the “one that got away” would have been better for them than any of the later ones that didn’t, solely because that relationship never got the chance to end up exactly as disappointing as all of the other ones. There’s no way this guy could ever live up to the romantic fantasy she’s been spinning for all of her adult life.
Wow. I don’t really care whom that stupid bitch in letter #1 fucks or fucks over for the rest of her pathetic life… but I do have one thing to tell her:
Get your fucking tubes tied, you selfish twat.
Good lord, what an awful woman. She’s so fucking narcissistic that she can’t even just wreak havoc in her own life–noooo, Dan fucking Savage to acknowledge what a stupid cunt she is.
Also, what the fuck kind of person marries or even dates somone who keeps talking about her stupid true love who, if he shows up, she’ll dump you for in a second? I call some bullshit there. Seriously, if I were dating some asshole who said, “you’re nice and all, but if Mindy from sophomore English, who is my ONE TRUE LOVE, ever turns up, consider yourself dumped,” I rather think I’d say, “speaking as chicago girl from RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, make sure the door hits you on the way out, you pathetic childish fuck.” I imagine everyone on this board would say something similar. The “true love” dude must be more amused than any anything else–he dumps her when they’re kids and somehow she’s his slave for life! He should to rob banks for him or something.
Oops, I meant to write he should get her to rob banks for him. Sheesh.
Spot on, Dan to your comments to SCIL–and, uh, heh-heh…over the years, to me, too.
This is one of many reasons why I love your column! You’re straight up front, take no bullshit, and no prisoners! Rock on!
I haven’t eaten dinner yet, so my mind may be too fuzzy to write about SCIL, and yet I just have to. I can’t believe this woman has been pining over a guy who dumped her half her life ago and she made sure everybody knew she’d never gotten over him. I won’t even call him a douche because I assume he was also around her age. So, hey, a fickle teen. Not surprised.
She sounds like a human version of a dog that really needs to chase a car. Oh, lookit, I want that red one. When the dog manages to catch up to the car, all the fun is gone. It’s just a stupid car. Until a blaze of a different colour speeds by and the dog is once again distracted and compelled to chase it, to win the prize, leaving the car the dog had been so wild over moments earlier.
Yet, all along, the dog can’t give up hope that it’ll find the One. True. Perfect. (Love) Car, the one that ::shnuffles with sad puppy dog eyes filled with mock tears:: ABANDONED THE DOG all those years ago. But, wait, what’s that turning around the corner. It’s — it’s — THE CAR. And it stops to let the dog into the car. The dog is beside itself with excitement. And just to emphasize how it must be TWU WUV, the car never let anybody else ride in it (okay, so I’m really stretching it to include the lack of marriage), which means that it was meant to be all along.
Still, the dog isn’t completely over the abandonment, calling the car a “jerk”. And, to make the decision to stay with the car now more awkward, the car doesn’t even sleep in a pretty, properly heated garage (this is a VERY important thing to the dog, twu wuv or not). It’s more like a carport. How will the dog ever cope. Can the dog allow itself to be subjected to such a rough existence. And what of the other cars, including the last one the dog had caught. There are pretty collars and leashes and puppies that the dog is going to abandon. But, no, that doesn’t matter, not where THE CAR is concerned.
Yeah, TL:DR (and awful crack!fic on my part), but OMFG, SCIL needs to GROW UP. High school was 16 years ago. This guy was no prize then and he’s no prize now. Which makes me wonder if he’s using her obsession over him so that he won’t seem like a loser who’s not able to attract or keep a woman. As for her current guy, he seems to be behaving as if he’ll be seen as a loser too if he can’t manage to hold on to her, so he’s become a sweetheart instead of dumping her. Both guys are delusional because she’s NO prize.
Even worse, in the front row seats are the poor kids who are witnessing this. Who knows what kind of whacko behaviours they’re going to emulate when they grow up. SCIL needs to face reality. She has children and responsibilities. But somehow I don’t think she will. Until the next time (oh, I can see Dan groaning, “Please shoot me now”) when she writes, demanding that Dan read the latest craziness in a mockery of marriage, etc., etc. and fix it to her liking.
SCIL is crazy. She looked for her “first love” on the internet so this crisis in her 2nd marriage was totally precipitated by her. I think she needs drama to exist.
I don’t think the problem is monogamy, either. I don’t think this is about the sex, it’s about the crazy. If she were openly poly she’d also find a way to create drama.
She really needs to grow up, but that is unlikely to happen. Whatever she does, she’s always going to be in crisis, and I don’t envy the men she screws around with in the future.
It’s amazing how SCIL deceives herself into believing that the lost first love is The One when she admits that he’s “the worst person in the world” for her. If so, what the frak is she looking for? She’s lying to herself AND attempts to do the same to Dan and us, readers. In my opinion, she should just top pretending and jump into maturity by restraining herself and remaining into her marriage.
As for CRAP, I don’t think it is healthy to remain in FWB arraignment with his ex. She’s using him and would not hesitate to break his heart again. He’s better off looking for someone else who really loves him. He should feel good about himself since his ex decided to stick around, only she’s not The One.
RE: SCIL – Why didn’t you just block her email, Dan? Was she using multiple ones or something?
Perhaps I’m too old-fashioned, but I’m a little surprised at the number of people suggesting that CRAP date other people while continuing to screw his ex. Is this some kind of polyamory thing? It’s one thing to casually date multiple people without actually having sex with any of them – but he isn’t “single” by most people’s standards. (I’m a guy, but most women I know are even more militant about this.) If I go on a date – not “hanging out”, not “as friends” – with someone and found out later that she was still sexually involved with someone else, I’d feel deceived and offended. If I’m interested in dating a girl in the future, but she mentions that she’s still “friends with benefits” with her ex, I’m waiting until she dumps the ex for real before I pursue her.
Bottom line: if you’re advertising yourself as romantically available and dating people under that premise, be honest and tell them that you’re still “seeing someone”.
Re: CRAP–Why does everyone assume this woman is a heartless using bitch? There could be countless reasons to stay in a sexual relationship after breaking up. I know if my boyfriend and I split we would likely stay together as dom/sub, so who knows the circumstances of their sexual relationship. It sounds like he is pretty pleased with the sex they are having, he did say they are having ‘hot sex’ now, and at least if you are kinky it can be intimidating and pretty overwhelming to get out there and build a whole new sexual relationship with someone else. I say if you are pleased with the sex, feel she respects your emotional state and you two have regular check ins, fuck all you want.
CRAP: What EricaP said in @59, but I would up it a notch…
Fuck the woman this way and that. Do all of the dirty, nasty, verboten things that you wouldn’t do before. If she won’t go there, leave the friendship as well as the sex. What the hell do you have to lose, your unrequited feelings?
Move on in any case, and fInd a new partner who you can bond with romantically. If your FWB will let herself be used in the meantime, then use her. She’s using you as an emotional crutch while she searches for someone new…
For CRAP, check yourself emotionally. Only have sex when you are horny and NOT emotional, because you have to distinguish the sexual bond from the love bond… I’d keep it infrequent, actively go out apart from her and seek other people, even other FWBs, instead of her… and be ready to dump her as soon as a good sex partner comes around, regardless of whether the sex partner is a good emotional fit… she is only there to theoretically fill one role OR the other, not both, so if someone else fills even the sex only role, bam, ex is useless to you in any skin to skin way. If you wouldn’t dump her for a casual sexual encounter with someone else–when that other someone could turn into a relationship (who cares if it starts with sex or emotion if both ultimately get satisfied? We’re all wired differently and cross wires in sloppy ways every time)… if a casual fuck buddy in another girl is in any way less appealing than “what you know,” I’d definitely get out, because you can NOT expect new people to match what took the two of you a lot of time and energy and emotion to develop into… so while I don’t condone just fucking the first thing that comes around, I do embrace fucking the first thing that you’d fuck if she were permanently 5k miles away, which is sort of how FWB has to work since ultimately, the minute one hooks up with someone else, boom, the other is made very scarce if not non-existent. When one of you DOES find someone else, and it’s probably going to be her since girls have far less trouble finding willing mates, it will be very awkward to just casually talk, so expect that whether you do it now or later, you’re going to need a time to officially and entirely sever the connection to cleanly move into your future partnership(s). I can’t do FWB if I’m emotionally vulnerable, and I agree on the no sleeping over (apart from inebriated, one on the couch, no cuddling type) idea… if I still had feelings for my exes–and of course plenty of times I did–I couldn’t stay around them–I can’t even see FB statuses about “is in a relationship with” or “went to this spot with this person that could be competition” without it making me itch, but if you can, color me impressed. I would hope she’d be nice enough to have a separate list with you on the “block” list so anything involving dating doesn’t get advertised to you in a bright bold knife face font.
CRAP,
Don’t call it FWB… call it what it is: breakup sex.
You can go ahead and fuck eachother as long as you both feel good about yourselves and the experience, but it is way to early post-breakup (especially for you) to try to flip the switch and take all feelings out of the equation/make it only about the sex. There *are* still feelings, and if you try to fit your feelings into the FWB mold you’ll end up regretting it because it “shouldn’t hurt” and you “shouldn’t be upset for no reason sometimes”…
Don’t make it long term, and don’t seek out reasons or excuses to see her.
Re the first letter: I dont agree with Dan mostly. I can’t believe he missed on a very important clue: her current husband stopped having sex with her. Her serial cheating apart–she is obviously unhappy in her marriage. I can’t believe Dan didnt suggest personal therapy for both the serial cheating and the decision about marriage instead of calling her all sorts of names. the OP definitely needs it.
Also the woman is honest about her serial cheating and that her first love is no good for her– which does speak well for her insight about herself and her situation. she will probbaly greatly benefit from some long term therapy about herself and by spending time alone coming to terms with her own problems.
Re the first letter: I dont agree with Dan mostly. I can’t believe he missed on a very important clue: her current husband stopped having sex with her. Her serial cheating apart–she is obviously unhappy in her marriage. I can’t believe Dan didnt suggest personal therapy for both the serial cheating and the decision about marriage instead of calling her all sorts of names. the OP definitely needs it.
Also the woman is honest about her serial cheating and that her first love is no good for her– which does speak well for her insight about herself and her situation. she will probbaly greatly benefit from some long term therapy about herself and by spending time alone coming to terms with her own problems.
ps–im not a therapist so im not writing this for any promotional benefit. 😛
Here’s a memo to SCIL’s husband: if someone cheats with you, they will cheat ON you. So I hope her husband wasn’t SHOCKED, SHOCKED that she cheated on him. And if she is already noticing that Mr. True Love is blue-collar and doesn’t have the nice home in the suburbs, you can imagine how thin and how quickly that lifestyle is going to wear if she actually leaves white-collar hubby and moves in with Mr. True Love.
The point with serial cheaters is the grass is always greener, and there is no relief when you move on, there’s only something new/different. As soon as you move in, it’s no longer new/different, and so the search begins again.
Wow, I feel for those poor kids though. Hard having Drama Mama in your home life.
Don’t you wish you could secretly give birth control to people in their food or while they sleep?
@96
Someone needing therapy does not mean they are totally absolved from their bad behavior. It’s obvious that she knows she is a destructive person, but it sounds like she enjoys it.
I’ve worked and had temporary friendships with versions of SCIL several times – narcissistic, self-loving and very destructive to the lives of all of the people around her. While she is engaging in her ‘What should I do?’ navel-gazing, the lives of her current husband, friends, children and co-workers (if she works at all, which seems doubtful) are thrown into chaos trying to compensate for all of the fucking instability she injects into environment around her. She may cut out at any time, but she isn’t for now, but she might very soon. Having been on the co-worker/friend side of this type of crap, it gets old really quickly.
Frankly, her husband should have kicked her ass to to curb as soon as he discovered this. Her ‘first’ should never have entertained resuming this relationship. The red flags (two kids from two marriages, serial cheater) are huge. How could he, or anyone else, possibly benefit from having this person in their lives? Oh, but wait, “This man, my first love, is the worst person in the world for me.” So of course he doesn’t have the insight to see what a wreck this woman is, because he is a wreck himself.
SCIL is looking for ‘true love’ – but will never, ever have it. What a fucking mess. Don’t every marry again…Please!!!
@ 99 – “Self-loving?” I think you meant “self-loathing.” When a person loves themselves, they treat others with kindness, dignity and respect (real respect and not what you see “on the TV.”) People who love themselves know the difference between the confused behaviour of this woman and the self-denial, self-loathing and probably self-hatred they feel AND the contrast of what it feels like to love one’s self. There is a big difference and until one knows the difference, one doesn’t understand the contrast in behaviour.
People who love themselves operate with more clarity in their minds and with more efficient minds. Hatefulness, jealousy, self-doubt, self-denial, anger, resentment and any other negative way of being is on the other end of the scale from love.
Narcissim is the opposite of self-love. Narcissistic people are “making up” for genuine feelings of worthiness in their existence.
Big difference.
Thanks for your response to SCIL, Dan. It was dead on, and it quelled the fury I felt reading her letter. Look, SCIL: stop fucking your children up. One day they will be adults and they will remember (believe me, I know). You’ll end up alone: the men you date will finally catch on and look for love elsewhere, and your children won’t even want to come home for Christmas.
Get your head on straight, woman.
No, Dan, it was not “cunty” of you to react with “THIS BITCH CAN GET LEGALLY MARRIED AND I CAN’T?!?!”….it was an obvious and rational response to this irresponsible, soulless slut’s utterly self-serving, so called dilemma….and I wish that all the anti-equality assholes out there would catch a clue that it is “people” like this from whom marriage needs protection not you, not two of my dearest friends who cannot marry- I introduced them 14 years ago and they’ve been together since about a week later- faithful, steady, supportive of one another, everything spouses should be and yet without access to the legal and financial benefits or the social acceptance that comes with that piece of paper that this horrible woman is using as a trick towel.