August 2006 Weddings
Brookles
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
NER: Flirting & marriage
Just for discussion's sake... how much (if any) flirtatiousness is appropriate in a marriage? Hypothetically or in your own. I've just been thinking about this a lot lately, as I have a friend whose marriage is falling apart due to her repeated inappropriate flirting and crossing lines in friendships. Nothing major, but her spouse has found texts and emails that have gone too far (via snooping), and she's continued to make promises about stopping but hasn't. So the marriage is disolving.
How much flirting is too much? Conversations, phone calls, texting, etc?
Also, do you feel that snooping through your spouse's emails and/or phone is justified? What level of privacy do you maintain in your marriage?
Re: NER: Flirting & marriage
I think actual flirting is too far. I guess it depends how it's defined. I relate to male friends (and female friends, actually) with joking, which may come off as flirting, though I don't consider it that. I figure I should never relate to males in a way I wouldn't be happy to act in front of my husband. That's a good rule of thumb.
As to snooping, I used to have a big problem with it (as in, I tried to do it a lot). We both keep separate e-mail accounts, computers, etc., but we both have agreed that either can have all the passwords at any time. I don't check up on his e-mail, etc., but I feel like we have a good amount of trust because I know I could at any time. He knows the same.
I do think it's bs that people get all indignant that they were found cheating via e-mail snooping. How dare you go through my e-mail? Um, hello, how dare you cheat? That's the worse sin here.
ditto. We don't do things we wouldn't do in front of the other person.
hmmm - this is hard for me because people (or people in the past) think I am flirting through body language and not because of certain actions or what I say. About a year after we were together and was around a lot of his friends more (we moved closer) and I realized i didn't knoe how to interact with guys w/o feeling like I was "flirting" - but again - it wasn't anything I out right did.
SO - to me - what some people call "flirting" may actually be a come on, which is obviously inappropriate. I think childish stuff is annoyingly flirtatious. This one girl took DH's visor off his head once and put it on hers and she is lucky I froze because if I moved it would have been with my fork plunging into her eye.
I think in general both people need to come up with an agreement on what is and isn't flirting and respect the guidelines. I am sure everyone has different thresholds.
IMO - anything over text messages or phones is a come on - unless its a very well calculated joke.
I think individual marriages get to set the standard for what is acceptable behavior. This marriage has determined that the level of flirting this woman engages in is inappropriate. So therefore, it is very wrong that she continues to behave this way. It doesn't matter what anyone else subjectively believes to be okay/not okay, only what her marriage and partner says is okay/not okay.
All I know is that my husband is virtually incapable of flirting. Lol. He doesn't have a smooth bone in his body. Ha!
Edit: To answer the Qs I don't snoop through my H's email, phone, etc. But I don't do this b/c I have no reason to suspect infedility. If I had a reason to suspect inpropriety, I propbably wouldn't be above snooping. I don't really have a benchmark for unacceptable flirting. I guess it's like pornography, I will know it when I see it.
I had an experience with this recently. Friend and her hubby were with me and DH at a pub, friend and I go to the bathroom, come back, and two obviously drunk women that DH went to high school with were sitting at our table. Friend goes batshit crazy on her DH, but I don't really care because 1) they had just sat down 2) they were obviously intoxicated 3) DH had already pointed out that they were both married. I'm pretty secure that my DH doesn't "look" at other women, other than that he's really personable and wouldn't be rude when he doesn't know how to react to drunk women sitting by him.
I try to be un-private. I always think that it can look suspicious otherwise. My Bf from HS has emailed me and I have nothing to hide, and we come up to each other while on the computer (no laptop) so Dh will usually see it if someone like that has contacted me. I think it dissolves the feeling of needing to snoop if the both of you are open like that. But i do also try to respect his privacy. DH is a bit high maitenance so it would be a trick to hide a bunch from him!!
I could totally snoop through his phone/email but I don't and honestly hes a pretty open book as well and our house is small so I can pretty much hear everything he or his cellphone does, lol.
Honestly, I don't think that my husband should be flirting with anyone. He has friends who are women that were his friends long before he met me and they talk on the phone, email and text each other. I'm fine with that as I have male friends that I communicate with in the same way. But flirting is a no-no.
As for checking emails and phones and all that, not doing it. If my husband decides to cheat, nothing I do is going to stop that. No amount of me checking behind him etc. is going to stop it.
I think casual flirting is fine - that guy at the bar when you're out with girlfriends, etc. If it's more than a one-time flirting thing with the same person, then it's crossed the line. Of course that's just a generality, but you get the picture.
Regarding snooping, I do not feel any snooping is justified. Period. It symbolizes a level of distrust that IMO, means the relationship is otherwise doomed. Personally, I'd be p!ssed if I found out DH was reading my emails, even though in all honesty, most of them are from him... and when I send texts to people, about 60% of the time I accidentally type in his number instead of the number I mean to text, so my texts aren't really "secret" due to my own ineptitude.
Ditto others and LMW - What's inappropriate is anything you wouldn't do in front of your spouse, because the reason you wouldn't do it in front of them is because they would have a problem with it/be hurt by it/whatever - and that's the whole problem. Flirting in and of itself is not.
This woman in the OP is deliberately continuing behavior she knows her husband feels betrayed by. That's why her marriage is falling apart, not simply because she's flirting.
Mr.P and I are pretty open with phone/email/etc. - we don't go snooping, but we know the other could stumble upon anything. We really haven't ever had a reason to make it an issue either way. We haven't had any problems with snooping or lying. I'll occassionally log into his email, like if I need the password for the cable account, and I know I wont find anything there and he knows I wont find anything there.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I think this really hits the nail on the head:
This woman in the OP is deliberately continuing behavior she knows her husband feels betrayed by.
Sigh. What a bad situation.