(NSFW) Are you against FWB relationships?
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Yes. That sort of relationship is supposed to be restricted to a man and woman who are married to each other.
Not at all. This is not the bronze age anymore.
No. As long as people as nobody is getting hurt and both parties are fully aware of the limitations of the relationship, I don’t choose to judge other people’s choices. There are times when people care about each other but know they aren’t in the right space for a serious romantic relationship, or they know that while they make good friends, they wouldn’t make good long term romantic partners. As long as both parties are upfront about their needs and expectations – perfectly fine with me.
@ragingloli : Here you are condemning your own offspring for cohabiting with a lover, and yet in this question you’re fine with sexual flings. What is going on?
I have no problem with FWB relationships. Thankfully, sexual mores have changed, and people in many places of the world can now enjoy more sexual freedom than in centuries past.
@Hawaii_Jake
You are misinterpreting my post in that thread.
The Good Riddance in that context refers to finally getting rid of offspring that I did not want in the first place, because I hate children.
@ragingloli : Yes, I was clearly misinterpreting that statement. The truth is worse.
Children grow up to be adults, and I’ve found the relationships with teenagers and young adult offspring to be far superior than those with small children.
I had to google FWB, shows how old I am! But really I don’t care who does what with whom. It’s none of my business!
I have no problem with the concept, but I know I couldn’t handle it. I can’t get that close to a person without getting much closer and more intimate with them. Then it’s going to go from sex to making love and I wouldn’t want to just be friends. Boom, major problems.
@rooeytoo & @bkcunningham Oh, sorry about that. Friends with benefits. In my case, my current sexual relationship with a friend is with a guy I’ve known since High School. We are really good friends and we talk a lot (not just about sex). We didn’t start seriously considering this until 2 years after we met. Even then, I wasn’t sure if I should go through with it because I had assumed all of these relationships were about sex and not caring about each other as friends at all. I made the assumption that anyone who had sex with a “friend” was not a friend at all and was just using the other person, that people who called each other friends with benefits weren’t really friends and were using each other for sex. We had a lot of talks, though, and are pretty comfortable with what we have now. We have extremely good communication and have respect for one another. There are all kinds of friends with benefits. If there’s anything I’ve learned about this type of relationship, it is that it’s not always as black and white as it can be stereotyped to be. Not every friends with benefits relationship is the same…. and yes, despite the stereotype, there are women who can handle it.
Thanks, @AnonymousWoman. I know the many meanings of the phrase, Friends With Benefits.” I just didn’t realize what you meant when I saw the FWB.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like you wouldn’t have been as comfortable with this FWB thing if you didn’t have communication and a relationship outside of just jumping into bed with this guy.
You’re welcome. :) Thanks for clearing that up!
Yes, you are correct. If he wasn’t as honest and open as he is, this likely would never have happened. This guy took me by total surprise. I used to judge FWBs situations so much and be totally against them. Even if I end up in a relationship, he backs off and does not try to break up the relationship. If he says anything about it, it’s not to try to get me to cheat. If anything, if I am struggling with something in an exclusive relationship and he becomes aware of it, he says things that help me understand the guy I am with better so that our relationship can improve. If he even gets the slightest hint I am interested in seriously pursuing another guy, he will suggest backing off because he doesn’t want to keep me from true love/happiness and he doesn’t want to hold me back from someone I would be more compatible with. He also refuses to do anything (like hanging out alone together) that he feels that a boyfriend of mine might be uncomfortable with. I noticed this in my last relationship when I wanted to hang out with him as friends. He was so into the “How would that look to your boyfriend? I don’t think it’s a good idea, even if he says it’s okay” mode. My last boyfriend trusted me and basically said he didn’t care if I hung out with my friend because he knew I wouldn’t cheat. It helped that both of these guys had helped me out with my relationship before that one where the guy cheated on me and I didn’t view it as acceptable for me to cheat back. That could be why he knew I would have never done that to him – because not only do I believe cheating is wrong, I also believe that cheating to get revenge is wrong. I find that female FWBs aren’t taken seriously all of the time and I find that frustrating, but at the same time, I feel that it is unfair for me to judge people harshly who don’t take them seriously because I have been in their shoes before and didn’t used to take FWBs seriously myself (especially female ones).
I have trouble accepting FWB for children. It’s pretty common around here with 14 year olds and up. With adults, particularly over 50, it’s a solution to a lot of problems.
Why the hell should I care who has sex with who and what their relationship is outside of the sex? Of course I’m not against them. I had one myself, and it was awesome and worked out perfectly. I don’t desire that type of relationship with someone forever though. It isn’t satisfying except on a sexual level. Sometimes that’s all you need/want, but for me, not usually.
^ One of the reasons I wondered about people’s thoughts in the matter is because there are people who view finding out someone has had a FWB in the past as a deal-breaker.
@AnonymousWoman I don’t see it as any kind of deal breaker. My partner’s past is just that. The past.
Ironically, the last guy I was in a committed relationship with was against this type of arrangement, then wanted one with me after dumping me after trying to convince me not to be in one before I was with him…. some people! I guess it’s okay for them, but nobody else… So, I had 2 for a time. They both knew about each other, though…. and one of the reasons I went back to the guy he tried to convince me not to be in a FWB relationship with was because he (meaning my last boyfriend) turned out to be a hypocrite…
It would be nice to be with someone who doesn’t judge me negatively based on my past…
Not against it at all, and have in fact had more than one such relationship (with my SO’s knowledge and approval).
Nope, I’ve done it before, and what’s more, it’s probably all I’d have time for for the foreseeable future, haha.
@anyone, do you think that someone who would not have a problem with a FWB relationship has more interest in the carnal or physical aspects of life than they do in the spiritual or intellectual?
I’m just trying to understand what it would take emotionally for me to have a FWB or for my husband to say that it is okay in his mind for me to have a FWB or vice versa. I’m not judging, just curious.
@bkcunningham : I am not like that at all, FWIW. While it’s true that I am quite libidinous, I am also am painfully spiritual, emotional, and intellectual and I have to tone it down sometimes, haha.
@bkcunningham no. They may just be in a place in their life where they don’t want the complication a committed relationship can bring but they do have physical needs. They do want to feel safe and care about the person they are with. If two friends, who both don’t want a committed emotional relationship with each other, but do have a mutually caring relationship and a need for sex and a mutual attraction, they may feel this is a good outcome for them.
You wouldn’t be in a FWB situation if you are married I would say. You are most likely single, too busy for a relationship, recovering from a broken relationship or perhaps a single parent who doesn’t want the complication of introducing a new partner to their children. You still need sex though and want a safe, caring outlet.
The only time in my life when I was in that place, @Bellatrix, was when I was hurting and I wanted physical contact without any emotion. It was an escape for me. A way to distract myself from life by being carnal. I was just curious if it is like that for anyone else. The physical, sexual part was very nice but kept me from actually looking inside myself or anyone else for that matter.
I certainly don’t mean to reflect my own experience on others. That is why I was asking. The only way I can relate is through my own experience and I just wondered others reasons.
I think your experience is very common @bkcunningham. I have certainly been there myself. Everyone’s reasons for choosing a FWB situation are likely to be different. There is probably another question there, when have you or would you consider a FWB relationship?
I don’t conduct my own life in that manner, but I have no interest in how others live their lives.
For myself, yes. I tie emotion with sex far too much to be able to do a FWB situation. I don’t have a problem with others who can pull this off though.
No. I don’t see the problem. If everyone involved is mature about it, then why not? If they know what they’re doing…and even if they don’t, brings me to another point.
I dislike how such issues are always singled out as something potentially bad or immoral, when perfectly normal relationships which adhere to society’s norm are always all fucked up, full of pain and deceit and crap, anyways.
@bkcunningham In my case, I have tried out committed boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and ended up hurting every time. I feel that this guy treats me better than all of my ex-boyfriends combined. I’m sick and tired of finding out that I was lied to about being loved by a boyfriend, so I find this guy’s honesty refreshing. I have also found that I have more freedom and don’t feel as trapped as I have in boyfriend/girlfriend relationships. He has also made more of an effort to get to know me than ex-boyfriends, who didn’t always care about me and seem to have made it my job to make them happy. I have been with guys who seemed to care about their friends way more than me and treated them better than me on top of that. I have been lied to in certain cases and found out things about them through the grapevine (such as from friends of theirs). With this guy, I do not have this problem. Even if I find something else about him out, it doesn’t really matter… because chances are, he’s already told me. And even if he hasn’t, he laughs about it and confirms the other person’s story and tells me his own side of the story. He is a very consistent person and I find it comforting that he will tell me exactly where I stand with him. I don’t need to worry about him cheating (after all, he is free to see whoever he wishes), which takes a lot of stress off right there. I have been cheated on in the past. I have also been sexually assaulted by a boyfriend. He goes out of his way to make sure I am comfortable with everything we are doing and we do talk about how certain things make one another feel. He takes my feelings into consideration, which I like. He treats me with more respect than certain ex-boyfriends have…. and best of all, he doesn’t lie about himself in the hopes of impressing me. With him, he is very much a “What you see is what you get!” type of person. I find my sexual/emotional relationship with him extremely fulfilling without a lot of pain when I focus on just us, not people’s disapproval who are against it. There is emotion involved in this particular arrangement, although it may be different than emotions associated with a traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Our friendship isn’t only about the physical. We are also good friends and are able to talk about a wide variety of topics that have nothing to do with sex or physical intimacy.
@Symbeline Definitely know what you mean! One of the relationships that hurt me the most was a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. The guy cheated on me, pressured me for sex, and sexually assaulted me. Another one was with a guy I trusted 100% who later dumped me because he felt he wasn’t being completely honest about loving me. With yet another, he dumped me and later told me he never truly loved any girl (despite telling me he loved me when he was my boyfriend). There seems to be a belief (not with everyone) that FWBs are dishonest, manipulative, and controlling. In my experience, it was actually certain ex-boyfriends who were more dishonest, manipulative, and controlling than my current FWB is. Besides, one of the reasons I even considered him in the first place is that he said he didn’t want to get into a relationship and pretend to love a girl just so that he could have sex because that wasn’t his style. I remember having respect for him as a result of this.
I love the concept of FWB, though, much like “hook-ups”, what exactly they are varies rather greatly.
Apparently, there are people who would not date you if you had had a FWB in the past? I mean, obviously, since some people think sex should only happen in a hetero marriage. But are there any people who would judge me for a FWB that I’d ever have any interest in cuddling/dating/fucking?
^ Likely. I guess one of the ways I rationalized all this away is that I was taught that sex without being married is wrong in the first place. So, I took a look at this and figured “Well, according to what I was taught, even having sex in a committed relationship that is not a marriage is wrong…. so what’s the big deal? If I can be okay with unmarried people having sex who are in a committed relationship, why not extend that to a FWB relationship? One of the only differences seems to be the ‘label’ anyway!” Also, a FWB doesn’t necessarily equal no cuddling. I’ve had two and cuddled with both of them. I only have one now and we cuddle a lot. He was unsure of this at first, but I feel like he gets something out of it himself now. Also, it helps that I don’t have the “OMG, this is totally going to lead to a romantic boyfriend/girlfriend relationship now!” mindset. I used to hate cuddling and think guys hated it as well, but have found that guys seem to like cuddling more than I thought. Heck, the other guy I was FWBs with practically begged me to come over to cuddle because it made him feel safe. People might judge you negatively, but there are other people who would understand.
I couldn’t handle it. Far too emotionally complicated for me. Same goes for hookups or dating/seeing/fucking multiple people. Were I single again, I would simply be thankful for porn and move on.
For other people… fine with me, as it ain’t none o’ my business.
Personally, I prefer FWC (Friends With Cookies)
Friends with cookies? Haha. That’s awesome!
It’s great that you get something out of porn, yet also recognize that other people may have different needs at the same time.
People go through stages and phases as well. What would people be like if monogamy was practised at the start of youth? It would be and is chaos. It’s a lot of crushed expectations and hurt feelings.
Monogamy is the most convenient, but it’s also evidenced by it’s rate of failure that it’s not the perfect solution.
I think people generally should do what they want instead of picking one thing. Life is fluid like that. You have the ability to walk away from a 10 year relationship and you really want to end it? Why suffer? Rip the band aid off and continue to enjoy your existence.
There’s nothing that says we have to live one way, and once you choose that you’re finished.
I was reading an article about medical personnel that recorded the various opinions of terminally ill and dying people.
One of the top 5 regrets were people wishing they lived their lives how they wanted to, instead of how others wanted them to.
Another one was also wishing they had stayed in touch with friends over time.
I’m not against them for other people but I know from experience I can’t do them. My thumbs-up to people anywhere who choose to find companionship if they feel like it.
I’ve had plenty of casual sex in my life as a younger woman, but FWB’s is not my cup o’ tea. I can have great sex with myself and save the hassle. haha
I’d rather have a happy brownie, crank up the turbo jets in my hot tub and bliss out without the energy expenditure of hostessing a night of seduction. Too much work. lol
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