Is my friendship with a married woman too close?

[Pottering About]

Had some sympathy with you right up to your sentence “But it’s pretty amusing”

So you think it is “amusing” that someone’s marriage is on the rocks, that a family could be devastated and split up and that she is using you as part of not facing her problems?

How do you think her husband is going to react if or when he finds out about her discussing her marriage with you, her telling you she loves you, you and her meeting outside of work? 

Looking at your profile, it looks as though you have been cheated on by your ex wife and subsequently divorced. You know how that feels, you know the pain it causes, yet you appear happy to find yourself in the potential Other Man role.

You know what to do here, just get on with it.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Pottering About

[elaine567]

29 minutes ago, Pottering About said:

You know how that feels, you know the pain it causes, yet you appear happy to find yourself in the potential Other Man role.

It seems to me it is not that uncommon for the Betrayed spouse to dive back into the murky waters of affairs as the Other Man/Other Woman.
It is like they are drawn to it. 
I guess they derive some twisted pleasure from messing up someone else's marriage.
As the "Other Person" they may feel they have more control as at least they are at the centre of the cheating, they are no longer the unaware, trusting, blindsided one.

[Starswillshine]

I think maybe you are reading more into it. It sounds like she just likes to talk to someone about her marriage issues, etc. But she has boundaries and to make sure you are aware of your place, she always brings a friend with her. 

IMO, she is using you for a shoulder to cry on. Nothing more. 

[josedelamuerte]

11 minutes ago, Starswillshine said:

I think maybe you are reading more into it. It sounds like she just likes to talk to someone about her marriage issues, etc. But she has boundaries and to make sure you are aware of your place, she always brings a friend with her. 

IMO, she is using you for a shoulder to cry on. Nothing more. 

I'd go with this one 👆🏻

If she wanted to sleep with you she wouldn't bring a chaperone.

She's enjoying the attention she gets from you and keeps you turned on by having these little intimate talks about her sexlife. But you'll always be kept at arm's length.

I had a similar thing going with a friend's girlfriend of 5-6 years. I'd be over at their place once or twice a week, mostly when he's gone. Sometimes I'd sleep over, even when he was out of town. She was always very suggestive. I think we were both enjoying the sexual tension and taboo of it. I eventually phased it out, and when they finally did break up she got into another LTR so quickly I realized I wasn't even considered as a romantic prospect.

I moved away since, so I haven't seen her in maybe 2 years, but she still texts me every few weeks. It could be a nice friendship, but I doubt it's anything more than that to her.

[merrmeade]

On 1/23/2021 at 9:49 AM, Myasylum said:

Have to ask the stupid question of the week... why not be alone with her?

Blows my mind that there is a first time for so many people to consider this question. My mother gave this to me as one of those things good girls just don’t do - be alone behind closed doors with a guy. Her only explanation was that people would gossip and everybody is vulnerable given the right circumstances. Obviously since then, I see it with my own experiences and insights and think that.... well, she was basically right. 

I know firsthand how it can go south. My husband lived in my parents’ ‘cabin’ while I was abroad. Because he was there, my sister-in-law stopped staying there when she visited my brother who had become paralyzed from the neck down and decided to stay in a nursing home in that town to be near my dad (mainly the nursing homes where they lived were terrible). Anyway, at some point my father said -

Nonsense, nonsense, my dears!  You are upright people of impunity who know right from wrong and will never do anything to bring shame upon yourselves or our families. Please disregard all social norms (which my wife would have my hide for dismissing were she alive) and stay in the cabin together alone overnight for as many days and nights as you want to invent reasons to do so. Never mention it again, my darlings! 

Well, long story short - they got close, co-dependent even, and in about a year became intimate (ie, cheated on me and my brother).

Nasty business, yes; quite trashy, but this is but one example. There are SO many on this forum of friends becoming lovers. It’s not a rule, of course, that people will commit adultery because they are alone together and heterosexual. It’s not a rule that people will become romantically involved because they are opposite sex and sharing intimate, personal details about their lives. Obviously, the question of whether to allow the friendship to start in the first place OR whether it’s going in a direction that might cause one or both to lose control of the wheel - that question has no single, hard and fast answer. 

I’ve thought about both these questions and the being-alone-together question is pretty much just as my mother posed it. Just better not to.