Sex & Romance
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Can a "friend with benefits" really just be a friend?
Hello All. When I first joined this site four months ago, I was in a long-term relationship and was waiting for a ring. Since then we celebrated our 10 year anniversary in July, and broke-up in August. Although it was a mutual decision, it has been hard on both of us. One of the toughest things about being single, is appeasing my sex drive. I am certainly not looking to be in any kind of new relationship (especially since I'm still learning to be alone), but I have been accustomed, for years now, to having sex with my (now ex) partner regularly. I had a fling with a friend a few weeks after the breakup, and found myself "falling for him." Of course the situation went sour fast, and I later realized that I had gotten back in the game too quickly. Another month goes by, and I make a physical arrangement with another lont-time friend of mine. This has been going on for a while and it is great! We do our thing and then go about our seperate lives as usual. It is fun, easy, and totally no-pressure. My question for the crowd is...Can a "friend with benefits" really just be a friend? Will it ruin the friendship? Does one person always eventually fall for the other? Does anyone else have a similar success/failure story on this topic?
Re: Can a "friend with benefits" really just be a friend?
I think it just really depends on the people involved.
In my own personal experience I have ended up developing emotional feelings for whoever I was hooking up with and then eventually it would end the friendship. I can't say FWB always ends like that because well I am just me and not every single person out there. My husband had those in his past too and while he is no longer friends with them it wasn't the FWB that ended the friendship. Just growing apart did. But anyways he said that with some of them he didn't develop any feelings for them and some of the women didn't develop feelings for him. At least not to his knowledge
I am not a believer in friends with benefits. I think one person always ends up falling for the other and by the time that is figured out the friendship is already ruined.
Also since you recently just came out of a long time relationship I don't know if you think like this or even care to. But down the road when you do find a great man and get serious do you really want to explain to him how your friend that you have now you used to have sex with?
At some point it won't just be about the two of you anymore, if you guys are even lucky enough to not mess up your friendship.
I have had 3 FWB relationships and with 2 of the 3 I developed strong feelings .
The first one I was a 17 year old virgin and she was 16 with a on and off boyfriend.
Whenever they were not getting along she would call me and we would spend hours on the phone talking about everything, but mostly sex.
One evening she said I should come over to her house because she was grounded and also had loss her phone privileges . So I jumped on to my 12 speed (yes this was the mid 80's) and went over to her house.
Her parents were super nice to me because they could not stand the guy she was dating so the plan for us to watch Top Gun on the beta max down stairs was music to their ears.
Well it did not take us long until we started going at it...I thought for sure was going to lead to our being a couple....we had sex every day for a week. Then her restriction ended. I followed her around for a week untile she finally told me that she loved the dirtbag she was dating and only liked me as a friend,,,,,,,,,
Another male input....
I can tell you that it can work well but is better as one gets older,...it takes an intelligent approach by both partners and it helps to have ground rules firmly sorted and agreed upon...........
.........Actually, for people with difficulties in their lives and no other choices it can be a life saver that keeps one sane........
I think it's possible provided you were never in an actual relationship with the friend prior to the new arrangement.
I had 4 FWB relationships. I married one of them. I'm still friends with 2. I have zero idea what happened to the other one but we were never really close friends to begin with.
Yes. There is such a thing as casual sex. It happens every day.
Nobody "falls" in love. It's a decision. If you want casual sex, have it.
I think it can be that easy but a few words of warning;.....
Be absolutely discrete and make it a number one rule that you don't talk about it to ANYONE...especially close friends. Also, make a habit of filing it away in your mind so that it cannot spill over into any other area of your life,..and be brutally honest that it is only about sex and meeting a physical need........keep your fancyman separate from your other friends and circles as the two of you in the same room WILL DEFINATELY give the game away to an observant woman friend,...it takes but one intercepted 'look'......and some people are very sensitive to even discrete signs!...
....Lastly, don't analyse or even think about it while you are not with him,...most people enjoy icecream sometimes but don't get into moral dilemas about that little stolen pleasure, so why be differetn with this?
This... I dont recommend FWB relationships. 9 times out of 10 they dont end well. Speaking from experience.
My Blog
Yes. I've had several where there were no feelings for anything more from either of us. I've also had FWB that I did start to have feelings for, so I broke it off. Stayed friends somewhat but ended the sexual relationship.If the guy starting having feelings for me, I broke it off in those circumstances as well, but those guys didn't want to stay friends.
With all of the successful FWB relationships I've had I wound up ending the benefits once I started dating someone I wanted to be exclusive with. Anytime I started dating someone I'd stop sleeping with FWB until I knew if it was going to go anywhere or not. As long as I was dating the other person I didn't sleep with the FWB.
My H doesn't mind that I have stayed friends with these guys since there were never any feelings or wanting anything more there, but I have drifted apart from them over the years, and we only occasionally talk now.
It seems to be that the secret to keeping it "clean" has been in careful selection of the guy. He basically had to be nice and fun to hang out with, but have at least one major flaw that made me not want to take it any further. Workaholic, alcoholic. mentally ill (and not handling it), immature, disgusting housekeeping skills, lived with his mom, worked on a fishing boat and was gone for months at a time, grew weed in a 55 gallon trash can fitted with a grow light, whatever. They all had some combination of the above. It also helped if we didn't really have much in common other than enjoying sex with each other and neither of us wanting a relationship.