Are intense platonic connections always bad?

[starglider]

Hello to you all,

 

So I've had more intense platonic relationships in my life than I have had traditional/sexual boyfriend relationships and these platonic connections tend to be during transitions in life and have tended to benefit both me and the male friend. Sometimes we connect over art, academic subjects, our careers, watching films, learning/reading, food, whatever. They can very intimate and charged, involving deep listening and feeling we know one another and care for each other to become "self-actualized" and make it to the next level of whatever that might be. (Like a creative breakthrough as a writer, applying and going to film school, getting engaged/married, moving to a new city and taking a big promotion). Sometimes the men are married, sometimes they are gay, sometimes they may be very much older than I am - like on the verge of retirement, and occasionally they are single but for whatever reason, it has been easier for me to turn off or ignore any potential for a sexual relationship with the men I care about in this way.

 

But there is a longing and I feel special and cared for/cared about in these encounters. Sometimes, I enjoy feeling more cherished than their wife or girlfriend, I hate to admit, but that is rare and fleeting. Classic example was my professor got a call from his wife and choose to stay with me during our private tutorial time rather than go home to her where her building was on fire, in part because the fire department told the top floors to stay put. ("He chose me over his wife who is in a burning building!" I thought in disbelief.) But I know it is temporary and that my staying power is short-lived, and that they'll go back to their life with a bit of an ego boost (I get one too) and hopefully they are the better person and partner for it in the end. The lows come from the longing for them when I'm not near them, and the desire for some sort of narcisstic merger of each person feeling elevated by the connection with the other, I guess, but again, the connections are short lived, usually only a few months. Then, poof, they are over as quickly as they escalated. No drama, they just end.

 

Then I've had a few boyfriends with a sexual component (first one involved a breakup with my boyfriend that hurt a lot followed by a few flings) Eventually I got married to a sweet and kind guy that I chose in part because it seemed more mainstream and normal - flirtation, fun, sex, caring, love, etc, but it wasn't on this soul-level that many of the intense platonic relationships appeared to be. So I married my "mainstream" boyfriend and we have a daughter and we're quite happy--nice and supportive to each other and both want to be together forever. I don't experience the intense highs and lows of the platonic connections - it is all pretty straightforward and stable with him.

 

But my former, intense platonic bonds have, however, been strange and upsetting to experience a few times during my 10 year marriage. Same pattern of it happening during transition times (becoming a mother, after a big move to a new city, during a big construction, and now opening a new business). I love my husband and he loves me. He accepts me, he wants me to be happy, he wants to be there for me during the tough times, he wants me to pursue my dreams. I want him to be everything he can be and to feel proud of himself and confident in the world. But we've never had a lot of interests in common so it is this intense connection of art and life that often makes me feel alive.

 

So the few times I've felt a connection like this (now that I'm a married woman) it has been destabilizing and luckily it has been like a fever or illness and has just gone away on its own without things getting too intense. I can't tell how much the other men felt the connection to me - probably a fair amount, who knows as we'd never have a meta conversation about it.

 

Now I'm in one again and this time I can sense my friend (married too) is feeling equally caught up - a bit of that deep caring about each other and self-actualization. (By the way, when these end, I still stay friends with them and occasionally see them, but the intensity is gone, so it is just like seeing any other friend).

 

Now there is the term "emotional affair" and when I do the online quizes or check-lists, it says I'm "definitely in an emotional affair" and these sources say this is very negative. It is equally bad, if not worse, according to the articles I read, than a physical affair.

 

I don't know if I agree. I searched now because of the depth of my feelings for him, wondering if this is wrong and harmful because we are both married, and to get insight into why I do it. But ultimately, I think he'll transition into the better job he should take that will support his family better, and then this will probably go away. I like encouraging him, listening to his concerns about the new opportunities. I do feel alive and connected and appreciated and smart in a more intense way than I get from my husband, but again, the need is like a fever and it is short lived and life goes back to normal for long stretches of time - maybe 3 or 4 years. My husband knows I care about my platonic friend and that I want good things for him and that I feel sad when he is sad. "I know you are with me because you want to be," he says, "and I want to be with you." And I feel this is true.

 

Does this type of platonic connection I've described always have to be a bad thing when people are married?

[howcouldInotknow]

I like to think these people are brought into our lives to teach us something. I have a friendship with a guy that is similar. I would never date him because it wouldn't work. It's not worth throwing away our friendship for. I also think a lot of these kinds of relationships it is necessary to let go of them. It's not fair to compare your relationship with your husband to this friendship I think the "unknown" tends to make things a lot more desirable than it really is. I hope this all makes sense

[MTmama]

It sounds like a harmless "friendship". But without boundaries in many areas of our life, can we really guard against the dangers that come? When you chose to get married, did you not commit to him alone? Have you thought that having a mutual friendship with your husband involved would protect your marriage as well as give you the opportunity to have a community?