How common is “overlapping”

[Highndry]

I also never met many women that admit they cheated. If they are mentally out of the relationship, to them, it is ok to see others without mentioning it.

 

 

Women are much sneakier than men.

[Nicklb]

Women are much sneakier than men.

 

True. It’s different.

 

I never heard a woman in my life say “I was having sex with other men when I was in a relationship”.

 

It would be more like. “I was in an abusive relationship and had to leave”. Or “I wasn’t happy”. So neither of the above are “cheating”.

[alphamale]

Women are much sneakier than men.

and, they are more full of sh*t

[Nicklb]

Guys monkey branch as much as gals do. Starting a new fling or r/s with another person while still in a r/s is not just something women or something men do. Both genders do it.

 

I found a 2014 discussion in LS about monkeybranching aka rebounding in case anyone's interested.

 

https://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/breaks-breaking-up/495387-rebounds

 

I think rebounding is quite different than what I am talking about.

 

A rebound would be if I dump someone, or am dumped, THEN with zero romantic prospects , go out and meet someone new so I am not alone.

 

Overlapping would be how I met my ex gf. I was friends with her off an on for years. She started texting me a lot in December. It led to getting together. Sexting. Etc. then she broke up with her boyfriend in March , because she said she liked me so much. During this entire time I had no clue she even had a boyfriend, and her boyfriend assumed they were having problems, but together.

 

So my gf at the time did not have sex with me during December thru March, so she never considered herself a cheater. I was “just a friend” at the time.

 

I think with smart phones, dating apps, this is far more common these days.

 

The overlapper then thinks of how funny, fun, and how well they get along with the new guy, without trying to fix the relationship problems in the main relationship as that is much harder. Then the overlapper encounters the same types of issues in the new relationship, although further down the line.

[smackie9]

Maybe there isn't any "problems" to fix....maybe they are bored, and not interested anymore.

[5x5]

I also notice these are the types with several short relationships.

 

They never take time to fix or notice what went wrong once in the later stages of a relationship. So when they are with the new person, it is a totally different dynamic.

 

Attention. Fun. Dates. Until it gets to a certain point, and the same problems surface.

 

Except all the times when that isn't the case.

 

MY wife of 20+ years who I have been with for just over 23 years. Met me at work. where she thought I was rather arrogant. Yet she quickly started talking to me, then started asking me to have lunch with her.

 

Which led to her asking me out on a lunch time date, followed with another date that evening. Where we spent the night kissing, fondling and talking at her place. Which was quickly followed by sex on our third date. Which was then followed, with her dumping the guy she was with.

 

At the same time when we started together, I was non-exclusively dating a woman who I had briefly been with, when I was separated from my ex-wife. Who I ended up no longer calling or dating her, after my wife and I started playing together.

 

As to the guy my wife was with, there was nothing to fix. They weren't together for that long, and according to her; he sucked at sex and was too limp-wristed for her tastes, so she grew tired of him.

 

Neither of us were looking for anything other than some sexual fun/lust for a while with each other. Yet more than two decades later we're still having lots of frequent and lustful sexual fun together. If things are still lots of fun, it's a good reason to keep going. When it sucks and you don't like who you're with, it's a good reason to reconsider.

 

In my experience great relationships are a pleasure to be in, the ones that require hard work are the ones that are best ended.

 

At the end of the day I don't see how ending sexual relationships and immediately starting with someone else or even having a degree of some cross over is a big deal.

 

Sometimes sexual relationships end, if someone no longer wants to be with me they're welcome to get on with their lives without me. At the end of the day I don't ever want to be burdened with, having a stinking dead albatross wrapped around my neck. Which is exactly what being in a relationship with someone who doesn't want to be with you is.

 

Plus if people aren't married, they ought to dump others with abandon, if they turn out not to be right for them in a sexual relationship. Seriously it's pretty sad that some people mire themselves in misery, even without being married. To pursue the mistaken belief that great relationships are founded upon sacrifice.

 

The way to tell you're in a great relationship even through the long haul, is it actually feels like a great relationship and it doesn't feel like hard work at all.

[Nicklb]

No relationship is perfect. There will be hard times, ups and downs, you name it. The problem these days is that everyone has a dozen admirers waiting in the bullpen for their turn to play. Instead of investing in their relationship, people just check out their orbiters.

 

Yes. To me it seems cowardly when they start checking others out before telling their partner. Then play it off as “I didn’t cheat. There was no sex”. Then as you start to seem them less they are already in a new relationship.

 

As for my situation, my ex gf has a pattern of this.

 

A. Have a boyfriend. She isn’t very emotionally invested right away. So things are great. She is fun, light, sexy, great.

 

B. She starts to become possessive, jealous, paranoid etc. thinks she will be left.

 

C. Her partner takes a step back. Tries to talk to her.

 

D. She is already onto the next guy. Repeat cycle. Without saying anything, just disappears.

 

Even for her, new guy often times just wants sex for a while. Then she looks back at everything she ruined with the ex, wondering why.

 

I was on both ends of it with her. I met her while she was in a committed relationship, and saw the progression. Then as we broke up, most likely I was on the other end.

 

In both cases, she felt she was “perfect”, and something wrong with the guy. So she never grew into being able to have a long term relationship and handle the different times, harder times, emotions etc.

 

Not sure what is so hard. If not happy just say “hey let’s fix this” or “hey let’s break up”.

 

If the option of jumping to someone else immediately was not there, they might actually change for the better.

 

How can someone instantly move on from a heavy long term relationship, and then just enter a new one, with zero time to absorb what happened?

Edited August 29, 2019 by Nicklb

[carhill]

How can someone instantly move on from a heavy long term relationship, and then just enter a new one, with zero time to absorb what happened?

They think it rather than feel it. Change thoughts, change partners. It's a math equation. My ex-wife called it 'masking'. The person puts on the mask of the loving partner because that works for them. Pragmatism. Convenience.

[Nicklb]

They think it rather than feel it. Change thoughts, change partners. It's a math equation. My ex-wife called it 'masking'. The person puts on the mask of the loving partner because that works for them. Pragmatism. Convenience.

 

Is that a red flag for a mental disorder? I can't even imagine how that works.

[carhill]

Don't know, not a psychiatrist, but my exW did have a number of years of therapy due to being raped during her teen years. Perhaps a trauma coping mechanism? A lot of women report being raped and molested when young, practically every one I've ever had romantic or sexual contact with. I hope that's changing with the younger generations. I do know the overlapping part was so prevalent it was considered normal behavior, same as married male indiscriminate sexual behavior/affairs/prostitutes, etc. Given lip service as 'wrong' but generally accepted/tolerated.

[Nicklb]

Don't know, not a psychiatrist, but my exW did have a number of years of therapy due to being raped during her teen years. Perhaps a trauma coping mechanism? A lot of women report being raped and molested when young, practically every one I've ever had romantic or sexual contact with. I hope that's changing with the younger generations. I do know the overlapping part was so prevalent it was considered normal behavior, same as married male indiscriminate sexual behavior/affairs/prostitutes, etc. Given lip service as 'wrong' but generally accepted/tolerated.

 

To me it seems even worse with younger generations, with more divorce, broken homes etc..

 

And yes, it seems like a survival mechanism...

 

"I sense things will go bad and it will hurt, so I will find a new supply of love before that happens"

[Nicklb]

Except all the times when that isn't the case.

 

MY wife of 20+ years who I have been with for just over 23 years.

 

How did you end up in this forum?

[5x5]

^^^ I'm interested in how people tick.

[elaine567]

Is that a red flag for a mental disorder? I can't even imagine how that works.

 

No different from men putting on the "mask" of caring in order to get sex or to fool a woman into being his live in housekeeper or nanny or his Other Woman...

People do it all the time.

 

I guess the older people get, the less easy it is to fall into all-encompassing"love", so they make more more practical choices.

When their choice then fails to come up to expectations, then it is a lot easier to look around for better options, and then to walk away.

Younger people tend to be more impulse driven,

"I love you, but wait a minute, who's that over there? They look exciting, in fact, they ARE very exciting...in fact, "Bye, see you later... we are done...""

[Silver_star]

One of my exes did this to me...it hurt and confused me.

 

We were together 8 months, and although we were mostly long distance, we talked everyday and had a plan to close the distance, and I did not have any reason to believe he was not happy or dissatisfied with me as a partner.

 

What he did was meet a girl at a mutual friend's event, and chat her up, get her phone number, hang out "as friends", go to concerts "as friends". Of course I knew nothing about this activity either, because he hid those details from me until after we broke up. This is classic overlapping activity. Innocent enough to have female friends an overlapper would claim. He was checking out of the relationship, not telling me there was any problem, not telling me about this new person in his life, and then BOOM im getting dumped and he is in a brand new relationship (which ended within 5 months anyways).

 

I would consider it cheating, although most people will have their own boundaries as to what they consider cheating. He seems to think it was not cheating because he only kissed her while we were still dating, because he was confused about his feelings. yeah gtfo.

 

I got a sense of what was going on right after we broke up, because I found a girl liking a lot of things on his social media..so I had my suspicions, and then photos surfaced on social media of the two of them so that was confirmed and felt awful. He told me via email because he felt guilty 3 months after the break up that he had started having feelings for someone else, but "didnt understand his feelings", or assumed the feelings would go away, and they didnt so he decided to break up with me to "do the right thing". So all of a sudden he is the hero. He said he regretted not being honest with me, and felt bad for hurting me, and that the relationship was going rocky now and so he just feels he was stupid. YEP. He allowed himself to invest in other people instead of me, so it's his own damn fault.

 

It's cool to have friends of opposite sex, its cool to be attracted to other people, but if you are acting in a way in which you cannot be honest to your current partner about...that's shady, and you know it. If you wouldnt do it in front of them..you shouldnt be doing it.

If you are considering another woman/man, and chatting to them in a flirtatious way as if there is potential, even if you don't ask them out ...if you are allowing them to believe you are available to her, then you are cheating.

[SumGuy]

...

Is this common these days? A red flag for a mental disorder? A cheater?

 

Am I wrong to expect a regular talk in which both partners , or one partner just says “if this doesn’t change, I will reach out to others?” Or “let’s break up and date others”

 

 

 

I don't know how common it is, but it is a bit of re-writing history or may be miscommunication, that is, the "break up" was soft and not as explicit. So maybe cheating maybe not, certainly not forthright.

Not a mental disorder, just normal human behavior avoiding conflict and risk.

I do think the mature and honorable thing to do (when the other person is not dangerous or toxic) is to make clear what is bothering you, and if you can propose steps to make it better. Just don't "complain" but work together for a solution. Never expect someone to read your mind or even your emotions 100% accurately.

Sadly, my experience is that this doesn't work very often, but you can know you tried and did the right thing. Sometimes, there is a just a fundamental difference due to life that can't (it seems) be overcome...those are the saddest situations of all.

[Mrin]

Monkeybranching. As long as we are engaging in gender stereotypes this is what I've observed:

 

Women: They monkeybranch mainly because of lack of attention. They're lonely. Feel unappreciated. Feel like they're not a priority. In order words, they are moving towards something that they are currently lacking.

 

Men: They monkeybranch mainly because they're avoiding some negativity in their current relationship. Maybe it is nagging. Or fighting. Or jealousy. But they're moving away from something they currently have going on.

 

Or for sex. There's always sex. LOL.

[elaine567]

And all she can say is "well it's because you don't tell me you love me enough, and have sex enough, so I am insecure".

Women: They monkeybranch mainly because of lack of attention. They're lonely. Feel unappreciated. Feel like they're not a priority. In order words, they are moving towards something that they are currently lacking.

Sounds like it fits...

[Nicklb]

Sounds like it fits...

 

Yes. Exactly.

 

She stopped over today to get a teddy bear she left.

 

We kissed passionately, groped, and came. But no sex.

 

She sort of apologized, but said she can’t be with me. That it is always the same cycle.

 

I have no proof she is with someone else, but I am 90 percent sure.

 

This is the problem with “overlappers”. She didn’t take the time to actually relax and see that perhaps she did wrong by her actions that pushed me away. Yet she still has feelings for me. And new guy, if he exists, would be upset also.

 

So continues her cycle. When she told me this before, I didn’t totally understand. She said no guy chooses her long term. They just want sex.

 

But, here I am. The guy she “always loved”. And she doesn’t have the ability to work things out. The answer for her is always someone else. Then her crazy possessive side comes out, she gets pushed away or dumped. And she is onto the next.

[I'veseenbetterlol]

I consider any sort of overlapping as cheating. Even if your relationship is bad, that doesn't give you an excuse to chat up someone else. Yes I have been mistreated by guys in the past, I just broke up w/them. Staying in a relationship and flirting w/someone else means you are keeping the person as back up.