Girl with a problem. What do you think?
 

This was posted as a question in a syndicated colum. I wanted to see what y'all thought. How would you respond to the woman?


DEAR GC,

I'm an attractive 41-year-old woman with a big problem. I have never had a lasting friendship with another woman. All my close friends have been men. "Jack," my husband of 21 years, hasn't been concerned about this until recently.
A year ago, "Jon" began working with me. Jon is witty, charming and great with my children. He is also good-looking, young and single. We have become close friends, and I find myself in intimate conversations with Jon that I can't have with Jack. We are so alike, it's like looking in a mirror. We've never had sex, and I don't think Jon wants it either.

I've told Jack almost everything about Jon. He says he believes and trusts me. I'm not sure I believe him. Jon and I used to stay after work and talk for hours. I could see it upset Jack because he became withdrawn, so we stopped doing it. Now I try to call Jon when Jack isn't home. Or when I'm running errands, I drop by Jon's house. But it feels like I'm cheating, even though I'm not doing anything wrong.

I want Jack and Jon to be friends, but Jack is almost hostile to Jon. I love my husband and my children. I would never do anything to hurt them -- but I need Jon and he needs me.

Please don't tell me to forget Jon, because this is only a friendship. I want both Jon and Jack in my life. --

IT seems to me that Jon is filling a need that Jack is not providing this woman. I have no sympathies for her though. If i was Jack I'd feel the same way and would probably even leave because of the strain I'm sure it's put on the marriage and she admits to sneaking around to keep the friendship........she may not even be aware of it herself, but it sounds to me something more is going on that she's either willing to admit to herself or to others. It's almost obsessive. NOte how she also stated that sex hadnt taken place, because "I dont think Jon wants it." Does that mean that she does? Or that she might/ would if Jon did?

This is just crazy.......

it looks like our own john hammell is quite the stud.

witty, charming, young and good looking?

kind of reminds me of myself.

nice.

HAHAHAHA! :)

James, I read this in the paper this morning! In the answer, the columnist said the woman and Jon were having an "emotional affair".

This may be a whole new thread, but does anyone know what exactly an emotional affair is? Or if an affair is an affair if there is no sex involved??

I hope she uses an emotional condom.

-Rudey

Well call me old fashioned or maybe even disillusioned or whatever never havign been married much less engaged, but as a hopeless romantic I've always envisioned my future hubby to be my best friend, atleast my best male friend, and being able to have deep, intellectual, whatever talks with them , because if you cant share everything with that person why bother?

To me an affair is an affair. Whether it be cybersexing with someone you've never met on the net (which I do consider to be cheating as well as extremely LAME) or emotional wise.

But that's just me.

LOL :)

A physical affair is where you're physically involved with another man. An emotional affair is where you're emotionally involved with another man (i.e., you may be in love but not having sex or doing anything sexual, but the behavior is still affair-esque and causes problems in your marriage). In a lot of ways I think the idea of an "emotional affair" is kind of ridiculous because it's assuming that a straight woman and a straight man cannot have a significant relationship unless it's based on lust in some way. For example, my best friend is a guy, and if I described our relationship to a newspaper columnist she'd probably accuse me of "emotionally cheating" on my boyfriend -- but he's my best friend, and our behavior is nothing out of the ordinary for best friends. Nobody assumes that if a girl has a close relationship with a female, she is having a "lesbian emotional affair."

I think the problem here is not the "emotional affair." It's the fact that she would willingly turn it into a physical affair if he was willing to reciprocate. If it had strictly been about her friendship with this man, she would have never resorted to sneaking around -- she would have just brought him over to her house to hang out with her and her husband in the first place. But the sneaking around is indicative of the fact that she wants to keep him away from her husband as much as possible, maybe so that the two men won't form a friendship which will hamper the possibility of an affair.

I agree!

Re: Girl with a problem. What do you think?
 

I agree with what sugar and spice said.

Also, the quote above is a huge red flag. I think there's a problem when you're a woman and you've never had a woman friend. Why? My guess is that it indicates a severe lack of self esteem -- either she's jealous of other women in some way or she tries to get whatever self esteem she can from basking in the attention of men, friends or otherwise. She has some serious issues.

Emotional Affairs. That's tricky! I learned all about that in my Communication Class. If I hadn't sold back my book for money I could give you the text book explination of what one is...but alas that is not possible.

Basically when one person is disatisfied with the relationship they start seeking ways to make them satisfied elsewhere. Some turn the physical affair while others the emotional. While they seem harmless they can do a lot of damage. Especially to the spouse who is not on the other end of the emotional affair. Emotional affairs tend to give people a false sense that it's OKAY, when in reality they are not giving the attention and time to their S.O.

This causes and creates further problems in the marriage or relationship...and can ultimately lead to unfaithfulness and mistrust.

It's hard not to flirt and such when engaged in another relationship, but given the opprotunity to be in "the other person's shoes" we may feel differently.

Overall I think with the creation of the internet, there is higher risk for emotional affairs and infidelity. It's very sad :( I've experienced this first hand.

I'd be laying in bed waiting for my ex to join me and he'd be on the computer (in the same room) exchanging photographs and conversations with random women on the internet. Yet, it was ALL MY FAULT for noticing.

My best friend, Jen, and I are very close. We tell each other everything. Although I consider my boyfriend one of my best friends, Jen has been there for me since high school. We know everything about each other. We're so similar that we almost always know what the other is thinking. There's so many times when I have something happen to me during the day and I'll think, "I must call Jen. She'll understand." There's some things I can tell her that I could never tell anyone else...not even my boyfriend. When my boyfriend and I are arguing, she is the first person I'll call to get advice.
Of course, there's nothing sexual to our relationship (sorry to all the guys ;) ). We're just best friends.
Maybe this woman has the same relationship with Jon that I have with Jen. The only difference being that Jen and me have a female-to-female relationship which is more common and more accepted.
If it weren't for the fact that this woman said she has never had a close female friend, I'd want to say that her relationship with Jon is perfectly healthy in my opinion. I think people become way too oversensitive with opposite sex friendships; people honestly can't believe that they can be purely platonic. Three of my best friends happen to be male. The thought of being with any of them sexually makes me sick to my stomach. Bleh!
If this woman had said that she's been spending all this time talking to someone named Lauren or Heather, I think the columnist would say that this woman had a healthy relationship with her best friend. The columnist would go on to say that maybe the woman she try to develop that same communication with her husband. Never would the words "emotional affair" be used. Does that mean that all women are having an emotional affair with their best friends? Because, technically, we all do the same thing as this woman except the only difference is that most of us are spending our time with our female best friend.

Wow. Interesting situation. I agree w/ the "emotional affair" terminology. Back a few years ago I cheated on my then-boyfriend w/ a guy I had such an intense and amazing connection with. My b.f. wasn't understanding of my musical life and that's like 80% of my life now, so it was a wall separating us. I met a guy who felt the same way I do about a lot of things and we talked for hours on end. For at least 2 months it was totally platonic, but he was certainly fulfilling my needs emotionally (something the bf almost refused to do). After a while it did become sexual (sorry, but it's inevitable...this lady will probably go there eventually) and that's when things got hairy. Geez I would never ever do that again. I ended up hurting him, the other guy, and above all, myself. It really damaged my psyche for a while.

What did I learn from all that? Don't settle. If you're with someone who doesn't suit your needs you need to do two things 1) See if your needs are reasonable. Some folks are high maintenance like that.
2) If they are, leave him/her. If they aren't, then get your isht together. Cheating just isn't right. It complicates things far too much.
If I had just left my b.f. I would have saved myself a load of hassle. Such crazy times...:p