On the way home one night, my wife asked me an interesting question...
HER:
"Let's say you were a woman..." (I was a bit disturbed, but intrigued nonetheless.)
ME:
"Um, weird...but okay."HER:
"You are a woman, and a married man tells you that he's in love with you. What do you do?"(I had a sneaking suspicion that this was one of those double-meaning, roundabout, trick questions that women ask when they want to know something else, but would rather ask indirectly.)
ME:
"I'd ask him why he's telling me this, since I'm never going to participate in cheating on his wife." HER:
"But he hasn't cheated. He's just in love with you."ME:
"Hmmm... yeah, but he's in love with me? There's a line that he's obviously crossed. I mean, to a certain degree, being in love with someone almost implies that there is a desire for sexual intimacy."HER:
"Well, let's just say that he doesn't want to have sex."(A man in love that doesn't want to have sex??
ERROR - ERROR - DOES NOT COMPUTE)
ME:
"I'd tell him he's still wrong. When you're in a committed relationship, I believe that you've made a promise not to give your heart to another. Plus, you simply can not be in love with more than one person without someone being deeply hurt. Um...exactly why are you asking me this?"HER:
"I was watching Oprah..."(At this point I tuned out. Oprah is the bane of men's existence. She is the cause of many of the uncomfortable discussions between men and women. Her influence infiltrates every area of our lives that we hold dear.
)
"...so would you tell his wife?"ME:
"Not initially. I'd tell him he needed to talk to his wife and give him the opportunity to address it with her himself first."It seems there's been a lot of that going around lately with some of the people we know. Married men who have a "friendship" with a young woman that they "unintentionally" fall in love with. I don't know... to me, if a man is accidentally falling in love with another woman, there's something broken in the marriage that desperately needs to be fixed. Dre was of the opinion that some men see the young beautiful woman-friend as an object of fantasy that is more of the "look but don't touch" variety. And it's only when things get difficult in their marriage that they begin looking to the other woman for comfort and satisfaction. I am of the opinion that it's best not to have these types of friendships in the first place.
Why even put yourself in a compromising position? I don't know... what do you think?
True 
Comments (28)
Yeah, wife's obviously cheating on you,
sorry.
Sounds like a poor excuse for abandoning a marriage that's going through a rough spot, just like you said. A successful relationship isn't just based on love, but it can be based around it. If communication is lost, then yes, viably, a relationship can collapse, and that centerpoint for the relationship could realistically leave or crumble.
Is it right? No.
To answer the first question, "why put yourself in a compromising position?", if an individual feels that the situation wouldn't be compromising, then they would potentially act on these feelings. To willingly turn your back on someone you married I would imagine would take either some immense willpower, or the absence of emotional attachment to that individual.
@vampuke@xanga - ...You're an idiot. It's not often I say that right off the bat because reducing myself to petty namecalling never really gets my point across. Communication and trust in a relationship go beyond the bounds of "So I was watching Oprah..." so really now? Grow up. This conversation isn't one that indicates the removal of trust. Once again, you're an idiot.
i  think its wrong lol!! the only person that guy should be in love with is his wife!!
Hahahaha, you are one entertaining conversationalist. I agree with your points. If I were in your position [answering as "the other woman"], I'd probably also distance myself from him, especially if he doesn't have that talk with his wife.
Oh, Oprah. How you distort our minds so...
This is another great reason why I don't watch Oprah.
@vampuke@xanga - heh, i wouldn't be certain, but i'd be suspicious.
women only ask that sort of thing for very specific reasons. the oprah* ploy was to get you to dismiss it. but then again, i have no idea how smart your wife is and whether she'd be capable of such deception.
as for your question, i'd say you're right....people should avoid putting themselves in that kind of position in the first place.
*i do not like oprah at all.
Unless you believe in everyone having a "one true love" then it's entirely plausible that a person could fall in love with someone outside their marriage. I'm not saying it's right, only that it happens.
i disagree to all those people who says your wife has cheated on you. it's just a fun, interesting conversation. women loves to ask these what-if questions... and see how men would react, and to understand her man better
actually, I think you're a very loving husband. i'm sure you have sugared your wife by your response (despite she might not show it on the outside)
See, this is why divorce exists. People make mistakes, sometimes big ones. But it seems like everyone here is of the opinion that if you get married, then holy shit, you'd better stay in that marriage no matter what because, dammit, you've committed yourself. How many other commitments get broken every day by everybody? Sometimes people change and grow apart and it's not fair to punish those people by making them stay together.
As the younger female friend of a married man, I have to say, it doesn't have to be a compromising situation. I think it's possible to be friends with a member of the opposite gender without falling in love with them.
Yes, it has crossed my mind that it could turn into an inappropriate situation if either of us allows it to. But I know I don't want anything inappropriate to happen, and I really don't think he does, either.
I'd be an idiot if I believed there was no possibility that things could go wrong, and if I ever thought our friendship got in the way of his marriage, I would probably leave the band we are in together. And knowing that stuff can happen helps me to keep my head on straight and not put myself in a situation that could lead to things I don't want it to.
In your situation, he should have never told her he was in love with her. Crushes happen, but it's when you act on them in an inappropriate way that affairs happen. Telling her was just asking for trouble.
Bottom line: as long as neither person crosses the line toward flirtatious behaviour, it's okay to be friends.
It's true.
When the marriage is somehow broken, the man or the wife tends to seek comfort elsewhere. Sometimes they intentionally develop feelings for another. Sometimes it's unexpected. But then again, there are marriages where everything is all fine and dandy and the man or the wife cheats. It really depends on the person and how he or she handles it when the problem present itself and how much their marriage means to them at hand.
@IfIWereAchilles@xanga - I agree that people change and grow apart from one another and we should not punish them by making them stay together but if the man or wife wants to leave the marriage, I hope they do it the right way. Not because they meet someone new or are leaving their marriage for someone else.
That's crazy, his wife is not cheating on him.
But I do believe it's a type of cheating...
I think that when a person is cheating in a relationship; the cheater is not happy in the current relationship and he/she
needs an outside reprieve
@jeezshoua@xanga - Wouldn't that be nice? Sadly, the reason why you wouldn't like somebody to end a marriage IS a common and sound reason. Maybe not entirely justifiable but still it's understandable. There are countless reasons for divorce, but most stem from boredom or displeasure with the spouse. I don't believe a marriage ends unexpectedly; as some serious consideration had to have been considered before thinking about divorce.
Emotional cheating is just as bad as physical acts of cheating. In fact, it's worse because you've stored up those feelings for a long time and after thinking about it to death, he (the married man) decided to act on it vocally. So there's no restraint for this man to consider... he's MARRIED and he's acting out on something that's clearly an excuse he's trying to use in order to avoid the problem in his current relationship with his wife. Instead of doing it the hard way: talking to his wife about his probs, he's taking the 'easier' way out by 'jumping ship.' Whether it ends in separation, divorce or reconciliation, who to say this married man won't do the same thing to the next woman in his life if that new woman was the one he has professed his love toward when he was still married to another?
if the relationship would get the old hags in a small village to wag their tongues, there's probably something behind it or something likely to happen.
why bring trouble on yourself? older married men having friendships with young beautiful women doesn't generally work out well for anyone LOL
oprah is the anti christ.
Yeah, why would someone put themselves in that situation?
-.-
Emotional cheating. Same shit.
I agree. Oprah makes life hard for men. Hahaha
When married, there is, of course, an extremely high committment involved.
(Not that this should go on in relationships anyway....)
But nonetheless, letting yourself be placed into a situation like that is setting yourself up for a FML!!! later on.
Oh, I hate Oprah. Well, not her. But her show.
I used to love her show.
When I was 8.
Yeah. Now I am getting older, I think I have to be careful about married friends of the opposite gender.
The two words "married" and "friends" do not mix very well, do they?
maybe wifey is being passive agressive with you - do you have any new hot friends?
If you're married, you should NOT be confessing your feelings to a
woman other than your wife. It doesn't matter if you made a mistake,
and it doesn't matter if the other person feels the same way. You're
married to someone else, and obviously, before being open about your feelings, you should think about your present situation first (as in, whether or not you even have the right to make that known in the first place). And this goes for both men and women, btw.
For instance, even individuals who are not married but dating fall under the same category. I was the girl who had a close male friend who happened to have a girlfriend at the time (of whose relationship I wholeheartedly supported) but one day, he was having a rough patch with his girlfriend and told me he had feelings for me instead. I told him: 1) I didn't feel the same way; 2) If he really did feel that way for me, that presented a more serious situation about his relationship with his current girlfriend; 3) He wasn't in the right position to admit his feelings for me. In the end, he went back to his girlfriend, and we aren't friends any more.
People like that are selfish. I say this without any bitterness--my theory is that, while they're unhappy with the current relationship, they don't want to leave it unless they have some sort of backup plan. And if they fall in love with someone else and the other person returns the same feelings? Well, lo and behold, they've got their backup plan.
If you are no longer in love with someone, deal with that relationship with integrity and honesty first before eyeballing another person, that's what I believe in.
Ugh. Sorry--I did it again and left an essay instead of a paragraph. Sorry!
Yeah, Oprah is often an excuse and forfront that someone is hiding something. In a situation like this, anyone in any kind of relationship whther it be married or bf/gf, a man should distance himself from any female friends as girls need to keep a distance from any guys friends. I sure as h**l do. Because things like this could happen, though it's never happened to me where I was in a relationship with someone but fell in love with someone else. It still happens and there should be no risk like this to cause any further problems that may already exist in a relationship. That's my two cents in this.