Boyfriend's sexually charged online relationship with friend...

[Chmleon]

Well, where do I begin. The other night, I was at my bf of a year's house and he was reading to me. (We do that often, it's great!) Anyway, something in the book reminded me of a link I had sent him to an article. SO I'm flipping through his inbox looking for the link, and lo and behold, there's an email from him to his ex-roomate's ex-girlfriend, who he is also friends with.

 

It says:

"I spent most of the day guzzling water. I think I overdid the scotch last night. I thought about looking up our conversation, but decided that I'd better not know what was said. But it brought on an extremely vivid dream about you, so you can't be cute or coy for the next few weeks til it fades."

 

She replies:

"What did you do to me in this dream?"

 

UGH! I threw the laptop in his lap (he was sitting right next to me). He said that it was joking and that the nature of the relationship has always been like that and that he loves me and I shouldn't worry.

 

Here's where I got bad. Looked up his IM's to her. Yep. And lots of them were highly sexually charged. Like, "you can be here in eight hours." and so forth. I feel rotton for snooping around and even rottoner for what I found. I love him, we were starting to talk about getting engaged. Any advice is welcome.

[Olly]

I don't care what anyone says - as far as I am concerned this infidelity. It is a new kind of infidelity that has been brought about with the introduction of email and text messaging. He is not physically involved with this girl, hands on, but he is being unfaithful emotionally and physically (as in arousing himself) with another girl.

 

I would put a stop to this at once. Maybe he does not realise that what he is doing is betraying you and may need it pointing out to him. Maybe there will be a few trust issues to follow (has he really stopped you will ask yourself?) but I think you need to make is clear that sexually arousing himself with someone he knows is infidelity and just because it's verbal, it does not mean it's right.

 

Point out that he wouldn't like it had he found you writing emails to another with sexually explicit comments. Hopefully he is sensitive enough to realise this.

 

This new email thing has created a bit of a nightmare today. People can be more confident on email and therefore it is easy to be all upfront with someone you don't need to look into the eyes of. But all that attention he is paying to her, is the attention he should be paying to YOU. Tell him that he shouldn't be getting his kicks from other sources.

 

Good luck.

[EnigmaXOXO]

Oh...No, No, Noooo!

 

I'd forget the emails and delete the boyfriend!

[mintjulep]

I don't know...I wouldn't be so quick to judge. I have a friend from high school who happens to be my ex-boyfriend's little brother. He is my age, though, and a year behind me in school, so when I left for college, we maintained a friendship. He's also dating my best friend. One night, we were talking, and he started joking about hammock sex, because one time I had mentioned that one of my fantiasies was to have sex in a hammock. The fantasy that I mentioned to him came out in a non-specific way, and technically it was, even though there is only one person I want to have hammock sex with Well, things got out of hand, and pretty soon, over the course of about a month, it became a running joke with him. He's very flirtatious by nature, and he mentioned something about having hammock sex and in context it appeared as though this had actually happened and was not a joke. Because I was completely indifferent to the jokes in a sexual context, I didn't close the IM window and my boyfriend read what was there. I didn't even realize what was there until I saw the hurt look on his face. I can only say that it probably took a lot to regain his trust, but the point is, these IMs were, indeed, harmless, and because I wasn't really responding in kind (merely saying, "haha" or "lol" when he would bring it up), it didn't occur to me that I was encouraging innapropriate behaviour. When I mentioned it to my friend, he stopped doing it, and we now have clean, sex-free conversations that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show my boyfriend, and once we discussed it, he was okay because he trusts me. The point is, sometimes these things really are harmless. If you really do trust him, make sure the conversations stop. Not because it's infidelity, but because it makes you feel uncomfortable. It's not unreasonable to ask him to stop, but it is unreasonable to get mad before you talk through this with him.

[lostforwords]

"you can be here in eight hours."

 

This in itself.... to me.... is WANTING to go that extra step.... they've considered the time frame of how long it would actually take to be in eachothers arms is the way i see it.... Enigma and Olly are right!!! (IMO)

[mintjulep]

But it could still be teasing. You have to know the context, and you have to just trust him. If you don't, get out.

[Arabess]

The whole Internet IM / email thing takes on a life and verbage of it's own. It really depends on the people communicating and how seriously they are taking it. I have said things on the internet I meant totally seriously and a whole bunch of other stuff which is just a big cyber flirt.

 

Would I appreciate my boyfriend, if I HAD one, going there....NO....I would NOT! At the same time, I wouldn't read more into it than what it was.

 

Talk to him....believe the best.....give him a chance to correct it.

[Girlie]

I don't know whether I'd call it cheating, but I'm not sure that sexual bantering with someone else is all that appropriate when you're in a relationship. No, actually I'm sure it's really not. Whether you mean the things you say or not, you should be looking at them in light of how they're going to look to your partner. I have a lot of guy friends, and I kind of banter with them like brothers, but I would never expect that if I crossed the line and started flirting with them sexually that my boyfriend would be pleased. I sure as hell wouldn't like it if he did it.

Maybe try talking it over some more. Try not to get overly emotional as that typically puts the other person on the defensive. But if it really bothers you, let him know that you don't think it's appropriate. Joking or no joking, it's hurting you and if the roles were reversed, you'd probably find that he'd be a bit jealous, also.

[loverhersomuch]

Several months ago and a few weeks after my g/f and I moved in together I stumbled across some emails of hers from a "friend" that were very sexually charged. There was a little more to it than just this but without going into the whole story the situation turned out to be a little of both sides of the discussions that are going on here.

 

After months of painful discussions, almost breaking up, etc. I've come to the conclusion that this was truly just a friend and that my g/f wasn't cheating in the physical sense, nor really even in the emotional sense. The sexual innuendo was part of the way she and this other man, whom she had known before she met me, had always communicated. Also since she had been single for several years, she was used to doing and saying whatever she wanted without worrying too much about how it might affect someone else, i.e. me.

 

A female friend of mine in whom I confided while we were in the middle of all of this said a relationship is where you should be able to feel safe. If there are behaviors going on that make you feel unsafe, then something needs to change.

 

We ended up agreeing that since we are now living together and mutually committed to a long-term relationship the rules of the game are a little different; that it's fine to maintain friendships with anyone we choose but that we have certain increased obligations to each other's feelings. Some of the behavior re: interactions with other men/women that might have been acceptable when we were just dating should be reviewed and might need to change.

 

In summary: While I over-reacted somewhat and read more into those emails than really existed, the emails themselves were also no longer appropriate given the new level of our relationship.

 

Re: cyber-flirting. Distance and anonymity make it easier to say things one might not otherwise say in person. The thinking being it's just email/text messaging/IM/etc. so it doesn't mean as much and thus no harm done. IMHO just because it's electronic, the rules don't change.

 

This quotation sums it up: "Be careful of your thoughts for your thoughts become your words. Be careful of your words for your words become your actions. Be careful of your actions for your actions become your habits. Be careful of your habits for your habits become your character. Be careful of your character for your character becomes your destiny."

[EnigmaXOXO]

We ended up agreeing that since we are now living together and mutually committed to a long-term relationship the rules of the game are a little different; that it's fine to maintain friendships with anyone we choose but that we have certain increased obligations to each other's feelings. Some of the behavior re: interactions with other men/women that might have been acceptable when we were just dating should be reviewed and might need to change.

 

It's a difficult adjustment for any two people entering into a relationship with someone else for the first time. Particularly when one partner, or both, are not accustom to the compromises and behavior changes that are required to maintain a long-term relationship. The first two years are often the 'bumpiest' as two people learn how to adjust, and it requires a lot patience, tolerance, forgiveness and constant communication.

 

..It's what my own partner refers to as: "The Learning Curve."

[loverhersomuch]

You are so right; communication was and is the on-going key to finding a mutually satisfying compromise, as well as a better understanding of how we feel about certain emotional triggers, the way we approach relationships with others and each other, what our expectations are of the relationship and each other, etc.

 

I'm calling those first few months, "The Transitional Phase."

[Chmleon]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Your insight is helpful, and although I feel like I've run the emotional gamut at this point, we have really talked things out and I feel like he understands how upset I was about this. However, I still haven't found a way to let him know about the extent of what know, i.e. not only having seen the email but having seen the IMs as well. I'd like to be honest, but I feel like such a sneak and I'm embarrassed. I've never been jealous or suspicious before, and I don't feel that way now, but a few weeks ago it was a different story...

 

Any thoughts on how to break this?