Suppose you have an exclusive relationship with someone who had a FWB relationship. Suppose further that the person you are dating wants to maintain the friendship without the benefits.

Would you be ok with that?

What if the former FWB lived far enough away that an overnight stay might occur in order for them to visit with each other?

Would you still be ok with that?

First question, yes. I would be OK with them maintaining the friendship.

Second question, no, I would not be OK with an overnight stay.

Thinking of myself, and my long-distance friend whom I've been intimate with. I would not want to give him up as a friend. But I sure would not go and visit him overnight. I certainly wouldn't expect my BF to understand. Well.... OK, say I had a business trip to his town, then I couldn't help that, and I would do anything I could to reassure my BF that I would be faithful. But I wouldn't go JUST to visit.

So, you are saying that if you stayed overnight with your friend you would have sex with him? Might have sex with him?

(((TheBigGuy)))

What I really love about your line of thinking here is that it's said with the presumption that you've first been Radically Honest with partner.... Applause..... That gets the issue on the table for y'all to POJA, which promotes a win-win situation.

That being said, I, myself, would have problem with friendships that "I" deemed to come for an unhealthy situation. Since "I" view that as unhealthy, yes "I" would have a problem with it. HOWEVER, there are circumstances that would put those problems at ease for me to where I wouldn't have those problems. Those circumstances revolve around my religous beliefs which I won't expand upon unless asked.

As to the overnight thing.... Whether it was a friendship or a FWB proposition, I would have a problem with my wife staying the night at pretty much any single man's house.

Again, I think there are parameters in which I could feel OK with this "friendship" continueing and that would have to start with open and honest communication with my spouse.

In the military we did "Risk Assessments" before manuevers. If it was deemed that a mission was too risky, we aborted the mission. As our odds increased making some assumptions of the unknown, so did our chances of completing a successful mission.

Discontinueing that relationship would leave 0 risk so that's at one end of the scale. Staying overnight at a former sex partners house would probably be at the other end of the scale. But there are also several other factors that go into it. Where is your relationship with your spouse at? Are you two at a place of security or at a place of untrusting? Will there be outside factors such as drugs or alcohol present? etc. etc......

This is a very difficult thing to compare to your situation. I have NO idea what your new GF-prospect is like, or what her former-FWB is like.

For ME, in MY situation, I would NOT go and visit my former friend overnight, because the temptation would be there. Long-distance, the safety is there, and there is no flirting or anything. We are just friends, and therefore I don't even see a NEED to visit each other, especially if we are in dating R's with other people. If we aren't seeing others, there is a little more flirting and such. So visiting in person, especially overnight, woulod be a HUGE temptation. So, while dating someone, unless the commitment were very strong, I wouldn't open myself to the temptation, because yes, I might give in.

Why would she NEED to visit him? Why wouldn't you be able to go with her? You don't have to answer - it's probably too soon, but these are the things that make the difference.

Oooppppsssss, with all this talk over the past couple of days, I kind of mis-read what you typed, even though my opinion still applies.

So two questions for you:

1. What power do you have in the situation?

2. You obviously have feelings on the matter, what are they?

Ha! I don't disagree with y'all. AND, I'm not so naive to believe that you put a man and a woman alone together and there's no possibility for sex. (although when I'm alone with a woman, that never seems to happen <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

The question I am exploring is...

Does POJA allow you to dictate who your SO is friends with? Does it allow you to dictate what your SO does with these friends? Does it make a difference what type of relationship your SO has had with these friends?

My question is, what is a reasonable request? What is a controlling request?

If your SO says they will not have sex with anybody else do you trust them? If you trust them do you restrict their activities so that you don't allow them to put themselves in tempting situations? Isn't THAT controlling?

BG,
I don't know why I find this topic so interesting, but I know you have been thinking about this with the threads that have been going on...it seems to be an issue with you, right? Can you share more as to what's going on with you to see if we can offer more help?
I'll tell you my deal (and hopefully I won't be labled insecure, but if I am, so be it! To me, it's a respect issue!)
Here's me: I would NEVER EVER cheat on anyone. If I've told you I'm committed to you, then I am. I don't need a piece of paper, it's what I do, and I expect the same in return.
I'm a VERY outgoing gal and I have LOTS and LOTS of friends and lots of occassions to go out and hang with all of them. I've never had a FWB, because I don't want one. I want the whole thing or nothing. I can keep my sex needs under control enough to live without until I find that someone special.
Anyway, when I DO go out, I get looked at, talked to, approached, whatever you want to say...and I take great pains to act in a respectful way to my man...whether he is around or not. I don't ever want him to feel that I would want anyone but him! Although now writing this I wonder if I should ask if he cares about it like I do?!
I take the effort to be this way because it's how I want to be treated in return. So to sum up my long explanation, I would NEVER think of going to see someone I had been intimate with at one time. I wouldn't want my man to feel like he would ever have to worry, be unsure, whatever. And like I said, to me, it's a respect thing. There are too many people out there who are so flippant with their SO's feelings. I, for one, want to feel like he would never have a reason to doubt me.
So...if YOU had, at one time a FWB, would YOU go see her and expect your SO to be okay with it?

Oops, I was writing when you posted, so I want to address that too!
I don't think you can ever dictate who your SO is friends with. That's their life and their deal.
I think in your situation you are obviously struggling with trusting this gal, and I don't know what the reasons are, but I DO think you need to talk to her about it. If, like I said in my earlier post, she has any respect for you she will take it under consideration and not go see this former FWB.
Only you know if you can trust her or not...and I get the feeling, as I said, that you are struggling with it. But if you are exclusive, if it's come to at least talking about that, then I think you have a right to express your concerns...
I think it's controlling to try to restrict or request who they see or talk to. You have to find someone that you trust enough to know you don't have to worry about it!

Once you become exclusive, its a reasonable request that they not stay with an out-of-town former-FWB without you. "Dictate", "demand", and "restrict" are all controlling words, and surely you don't mean them that way. All you can do is make requests, POJA, and either decide if you live with the results, or not, right?

Trust is built over time. If she makes promises to you and keeps them regularly, or... if she hasn't given you a reason to doubt her, then you should be able to trust her on most things.

Yes, if we were exclusive and I promised you I was going to have lunch with a former-FWB, but nothing would happen, and if I had gained your trust, I would hope you would allow me the freedom to do so, and I would fulfill my end of the bargain as well. And if I was in an exclusive R with you, I would NEVER ask you to allow me to stay overnight with him, and would never put myself in that tempting situation. It leaves too much doubt and is unfair to everyone.

Last year, my BF at the time, and I travelled to the city where my FWB lives. He knew I was going to try to see him for lunch or something while he was in his seminar, and he was fine with it. It never worked out - I never even reached him on the phone. (I think he was avoiding me! LOL) I was having some doubts about my BF at the time (we broke up the next month), but had I actually met the friend, and if he had pushed me into something physical, I'm sure I would have said no. But an overnight stay alone is different, and every situation is different.

I don't KNOW if your GF-to-be would be in a sitch like that... but the potential (temptation) is always there. YES, you have every right, if you are exclusive, to request it. If she's not understanding, I think you have problems.

"Does POJA allow you to dictate who your SO is friends with? Does it allow you to dictate what your SO does with these friends?

No, POJA never includes dictates; it's about negotiation and compromise -- uh, joint agreement.

"Does it make a difference what type of relationship your SO has had with these friends?""

No. Not to you it shouldn't. Your only concern is your relationship with her. As long as she is maintaining adequate boundries, you must respect her right as an individual to make choices for herself. She's your SO, not your child, ward or slave.

"My question is, what is a reasonable request? What is a controlling request?"

Reasonable: "I appreciate that you wish to see your friend, but I have to admit, given your history, I am very uncomfortable with his staying in our home while he is here. Wouldn't it be better if you put him up in a hotel?"

Unreasonable: "You may not continue being friends with someone you were once sexual with. Break off all contact with him immediately."

After marriage, all opposite-sex "friendships" must change! Because [whether it will ever be admitted and/or recognized] in every such case one and/or the other will have feelings/emotions/motives that are more than "just friends". And given the right mix of negative/positive experiences for both, those "feelings" will at some point cause action to follow.

This can happen in a purely emotional level from afar (email, phone, etc.) and/or it can happen in a physical way.

Need proof: How many affairs happen between "just friends"? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

FR

Well, let me give a little more personal perspective on the whole thing.

When I was first married, I knew my H (now XH) had a girlfriend before me, and they were intimate. It so happened that a trip for his work came up where he was going to be in the general area where she lived at that time, which was not near us. He wanted to take a couple of extra days for that work trip and go up and see her and her daughter. Doing so would mean staying with them.

He asked me if I would be all right with this. I talked to the ex-girlfriend, and we were friendly. I trusted him completely, and had no problems with it. Yes, I was VERY naive.

Fast forward to the past few years. Once I started becoming suspicious about his activities and wondering if there were affairs going on, I started wondering about some of those past instances such as that one where I had trusted him so much. Once I found out about the affair, plus a whole lot of other questionable circumstances, I started questioning early things like this trip to visit the old girlfriend as well. (I claim there were multiple affairs - he still claims there was only one. Sorry, but if you say "well, it was supposed to be that, but we decided we worked better as just friends," it was an affair. And there was more than just that.) He was greatly offended that I would suspect there was more than just a visit there - after all, her young daughter was there, and they were in the same room, and blah, blah, blah....

Now, bottom line, he lied so much, so often, and about so many things, it didn't really matter. I just assume that the trip to see the old girlfriend was one more lie, because it probably was, and it doesn't matter if it was or not anyway. I'll never get the truth about it all from him anyway, and since he is now my XH, it doesn't really matter.

But let's say there weren't all those multiple circumstances and lies. Let's say he tried to mostly come clean. But then I had one or two things hanging around in the past like the visit to the old girlfriend, where I trusted him, and where I have no way of telling what really happened now, other than what he tells me. And I know he's likely to lie about it. What would this have done to our recovery?

Worse yet, say some crazy woman at his work wanted to have an affair, he turned her down, and she decided to cause him problems, so she started telling me stories. And his visits with old girlfriends then started popping into my mind, making me question things even more.

No, aside from the fact that under the right circumstances anyone can be tempted, I would think that the potential for trouble far outweighs any benefit there might possibly be. And if an SO insisted this kind of visit was important, I would start wondering about the SO's priorities.

This is, for me, one of those lessons learned the hard way.

I’d just like to add that early on in our “exclusive” stages, my now wife and I talked about opposite sex friendships as a whole. Now my history did not include any women that I had done the dirty deed with but there were some with varying levels of either physical or emotional intimacy. We talked about each person and together came to an agreement on what level of comfort we’d have citing different circumstances. In doing so we also examined the strength and health of the friendships. We did this all very openly and honestly. Through that process a level of comfort and assurance was provided with each person. Another thing that came out of that for me, was a better understanding on not only my now wife but also the serious health of some of my friendships. Funny thing is that by the end of the conversation, pretty much all the ones that she had problems with, I realized that I also had problems with.

But again ((BigGuy)), how we feel about this is pretty much useless, the serious question is how do you feel about it and what power do you have over the situation?

For the record....

No, she is not asking to do this specifically. She has in the past had guys ask her to break off the friendship completely. In the 42 page Agreement of Exclusivity document I had her sign, the only thing I really required is that she stop having sex with him. Now I'm wondering if I need an addendum for sleepovers. (j/k)

I trust her. She has never given me any reason not to. Besides, if I didn't trust her, why would I want to be in a relationship with her.

Maintaining the friendship, sure.

Overnight stays, no.

Before we assume I'm backpeddling, let me say that once you enter into an "Exclusive" relationship, I think out of respect, and a gesture of good faith, the "exclusive" relationship takes precedence.

To be perfectly honest, my former FWB and I rarely, if ever, will be found alone together. It's just a very uncomfortable feeling for both of us. It's not temptation or anything like that, just to us, it feels inappropriate. But we've also been the victims of an A, so we're really mindful of the implications. Like I said.... alot of tending, and honesty required, not only with each other, but everyone.

So do you trust her enough and believe enough in the exclusivety of the relationship to take down the matchdotcom addy and stop the window shopping?

"In the 42 page Agreement of Exclusivity document I had her sign"

Say what? TBG, you're joking, right?

Part of this too is questioning how good MB really is?

Do you really trust MB to work?

Is it really possible to build an affair proof relationship? I mean, if a person wants to have an affair, then they're going to have an affair. If a person's ENs are being totally met by the person they are with, why would they want SF with anyone else? Irregardless of who, when, where, and why.

If I'm meeting all of her ENs to the point that she doesn't want anybody else, then why should I care if she sleeps overnight with a former FWB?