I found Isle Dance's comment on my last entry interesting....because I've been dealing with that issue a little bit myself. Not so much in terms of my own behavior, but someone else's.....
I have a few male friends. Mostly old friends from high school. I am not friends with any old boyfriends....most of my relationships didn't end amicably enough for that. I keep in touch with one of my guy friends on Facebook. We used to email quite a bit then he switched to a job where he wasn't in an office and I didn't hear from him for probably a year until he looked me up on Facebook. My other high school guy friends are not ones I get together with or even hear from very often, but when we see each other we usually hug. I am also pretty good friends with a male neighbor. DH knows and likes him too but neighbor and I talk a lot more. He does nice things for me but he does that kind of stuff for everyone....it's not just me.
I have never felt the need to pay attention to my behavior around the opposite sex at all. I have never ever been tempted to cheat, even now. Well...that's not true. I sometimes would like to do it for the hurt factor but there are so many other things that play into with me. I could never do it because of my kids, even if they never found out. I just think my kids deserve for me to be a better person than that. And if I were not married, I still think they deserve for me to be better than to become involved with a married man. I had a friend in high school whose mom was dating a married man. It was common knowledge....my friend knew, the other kids in her family knew, we all knew. It was disgusting to me, even then.
But with DH....I am much more possessive and jealous than I used to be. There are things that didn't bother me previously that bother me a lot. Here's the issue I've been dealing with: DH has a friend he's known for years and years. I'll call her Josie. Josie lives in another state, a state where DH lived in the 80s and they knew each other from work. They have stayed in touch, though not excessively. Josie sometimes emails him stuff at work (usually stupid forward things), she sends Christmas cards to the house, they will occasionally call each other. I don't think he's actually spoken to her in years. I know about all this....it's no secret. I have even met Josie. We travelled to where she lives once and I met her, her DH, her kid. Sometime in the last 4 months or so, her emails to DH have increased. They are not JUST to DH, which is what keeps me from getting TOTALLY pissed off about it....they are to a bunch of other people, both male and female. She sends pictures now....lots of them. Mostly of herself, and most of the time it's pretty obvious that she sends them because she thinks she looks good in them. I told DH several months ago that I think she must have gotten divorced. There are NO pictures of her husband, no mention of him whatsoever.....then a Christmas card came with just her and her kid's name. So DH called her (told me he was going to), got her voicemail, then she sent him an email saying she'd call him sometime when she had a chance. I told DH that it didn't used to bother me that she sent him emails and called every now and then, but the new wave of pictures is just too much. It bothers me. I told him that I don't think you can "own" a person, but he is MY husband....and it's inappropriate to send pictures of yourself, obviously in an attempt to show off and possibly garner compliments, to a married man, no matter what your intention is. And I don't think there is ANY intention there on either of their parts.....I just feel like it's inappropriate and insensitive. She doesn't know me....doesn't know anything about me, anything about our situation, doesn't really even know DH much anymore. I've tried to imagine what led to her divorce. Perhaps Josie's husband hurt her like mine has hurt me......and this is her way of trying to scrape her self esteem out of the gutter.
I DO think men and women can be friends....I am just much more leery than I was in the past.
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Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm realizing that I'd like to watch my behavior more closely, so as to ensure I'm emulating what I'd like to see in my (future) guy. I worry I've been quite lax about it lately, but that's no excuse. I tend to think gabbing with the guys as friends makes it obvious that it's just friends. Or that I'm accomodating the chummy way people already communicate (instead of always putting up my extra cautious boundaries). But part of me now thinks that someone with good morals and values and boundaries would interpret it otherwise...and I'd lose out on a great guy, just from my laxness. Don't get me wrong, because if/when they share something inappropriate, I always support the wife/girlfriend/kids (which they hate) as I think that's imperative - it sends a message to them that I'm not going to allow them to talk to me about their personal issues...because they need to direct that at their family, not me. But still, I cringe sometimes that they are too friendly, and I know how that feels to those of us who have watched our partners behave that way to the opposite sex. So it's important to me to be much better about this (once again). Even though I know my intentions have been to do the right thing. Because I really do think it's important to be extra cautious/considerate here. ("Emotional Infidelity" by M. Gary Neuman discusses some of this, though I can't say I agree with all of it, there's some IMPORTANT stuff that is right on.) Of course, I know I can't control what others assume, and even when I am being extra cautious, it seems there's always something that I can't catch and prevent. Does this even make sense?
It's completely understandable you would be more sensitive. And I do agree. It's crossing the line somewhere to send pictures of herself, especially now that she is divorced. It's one thing to send a pic of "me and the kids" but quite another to send more than one pic (majorly) of just herself.
Does it bother you he called her? I know she's been through a divorce and all, but just doesn't seem like great timing for a phone call. Not to mention it's an inadvertent reinforcement of all those pics. I'm sure your dh has no intention, just being friendly and supportive, but I think ::I:: would mind. I'm cab be rather small minded that way, sometimes.
LOO... when I sent that last comment, the "word verification" was forpharc.
Oh For Pharc's sake, quit sending so many damn pictures of yourself.
Oh and I email with a few mail friends. I never send pics of myself. Then again, I've done the steady weight gain over the years and I"m not in that big of a hurry to be seen. Still, even if I dropped 30lbs, I wouldn't. I'd be afraid it would send the wrong message.
Ok, I really am going to shut up now.
PHD - no need to shut up. I totally understand what you're saying.
I really DON'T think there's a thing to it....AT ALL. Like I said...she is sending these emails out to a number of people, both male and female. I think she is fishing for compliments....which is not something I understand much, nor do I think this is the best way to go about it. But whatever. I think if she were sending these messages & pictures ONLY to DH I'd really wonder what she's up to. I think it's mostly a lack of common sense and maybe a lack of self esteem....which I can totally understand.
For the record, DH thinks the pictures are weird too. They aren't suggestive at all...just odd that she'd send pictures of when she went to X, but the pictures aren't of X, they are of HER....sitting on a couch or something nondescript.
i have another friend who has told me she and her husband have separated ... i asked if they were working towards reconciliation and she said she would but he wasn't ..... she said she wasn't strong enough to give any details ... but it certainly sounded to me like he must be having, and still in, and affair .....
made me sad for them ...
made me sad for you all over again ....
I'm sorry for you friend, e. Sounds to me like he is involved with someone else.
Never once has DH said he didn't want to be with me. As weird as this sounds, though, I almost think it would have been easier if he had. I could have been done with this months ago.
We are back to the counselor together tomorrow. Don't want to go, really, but I think I just need to do it. He doesn't want DH to be away from it too long.
hoping your counseling went ok ...
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