InfinitePossibility
New member
See, in my view, there's nothing immoral about marriage, or poly, or any promises, in any kind of relationships, because, 9 times out of 10, people have every intention of keeping that promise when it is made. IF they can't, there's always breaking up and divorce.
But hey, if that's not something you are okay with, great. Everyone is different.
Totally. I'm used to being very much a minority anti-marriage voice. Loads of my friends are married. I've been a bridesmaid several times and been at loads of weddings. I just wouldn't choose it myself.
Hey JayneQ - I very much approve of the way you approach marriage. Maybe if it was more generally like that, I would feel differently.
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Ok - since I derailed the thread loads. It isn't my life now but FWB type relationships have featured heavily and very positively in my life in the past.
In my younger days I was massively a fan of fairly casual sex and slightly creeped out by relationships. I also had lots of groups of friends and very much liked to spend my summers working away from home in a series of waitressing and cooking jobs.
It was a lifestyle that lent itself very well to FWB relationships and I had lots of them. Two really stand out.
One was with Art - my now partner. He and I grew up in the same town. We share a mutual friend who both of us have known since we were very young.
Anyway in spite of this long mutual friendship, Art and I didn't actually meet until I was in my late teens. As was my habit back then, we had sex the first time we met and then struck up a friendship. Art became one of the people that I would go to with problems for advice. He was and is smart and compassionate - people absolutely love him.
It was an easy friendship. We'd have sex if Art was single. If he had a girlfriend we didn't. I didn't have boyfriends then - or at least not ones that lasted longer than a few weeks.
Art tended to have lots of girlfriends and FWBs. I mostly got on with the ones I met. I have a very good friend to this day who was one of Art's FWBs. The first time I met her, we spent ages laughing about Art's women - it was both of our experiences that whenever we met a woman who knew him, we tended to assume he'd had sex with her.
Until I met somebody and fell deeply in love. Art and I lost touch. Although I knew how important he was to me, I had no idea how important I was to him. I didn't think he was all that bothered about me and so we drifted apart when I started a serious, house buying, life entangling relationship. We both agree now how important it is to tell the people we care about how much we care - partly because of that.
When we next saw each other, it became clear that the years had changed things between us and our relationship now is very different. Still supportive and loving - just more serious and involved.
My other significant FWB was a guy who lived in the village where my family, friends and I holidayed for years and where I had a summer job for a few summers. We knew each other as children and when we were older, we started a fairly casual FWB type relationship.
He had struggles from a very early age and lives in an area where alcohol abuse is common. He worked and earned lots of money from an very young age, had a car and cash for booze before the rest of us. This made him very fun to hang around with but wasn't great for him. He has a real problem with becoming violent when he has been drinking. He periodically stops, then starts again.
It is sad. He's one of the smartest people I know and very driven to do things but struggles with life.
I think warmly of him. He once I'm pretty sure saved me from a nasty experience. I was living in a caravan at the time while I worked in the village. Everybody there knew my preference was not to have boyfriends but to go out and maybe take a friend home at the end of the night. This was all fine and then I was approached at work by a man from the village who I didn't know.
He talked about how he was working hard, going to escape the village, how he tried to stay away from the drinking culture. He asked me out for dinner. I said no - that sort of thing has always given me the creeps.
He turned up at my caravan late that night and invited himself in. He left again quickly afterward because I had one of my friends with me who was sleeping off a shed load of alcohol.
A couple of weeks after that he turned up at my work and told me he had a night out that night but would stop by and see me after he was done. I lived in a very isolated spot, the door didn't lock, I didn't have a phone - I didn't have running water or electricity - and it was the days before mobile phones.
I was a little concerned. Not at all sure what to do so I went out and walked around a bit to think. I met my old FWB on the road and I told him what I was worried about. He told me he had no plans for the evening and said that he would head out to the same place as the worrying bloke and look out for him, said he might stop by later and make sure I was okay.
That was the last time I ever saw the guy who'd wanted to take me to dinner. I suspect he got thoroughly threatened and I hope it taught him a lesson about stalking women on their own.
Anyway - I don't have FWB type relationships right now but I do have lots of fond memories of them.