Category: Dating and Relationships
For those of you who don't know what friends with benefits are, it is when
you are really good friends with a member of the opposite sex, you get
attached, and you do dating-like things such as true intimacy and the like.
I was in a situation with a friend and we had "benefits" as it is called. We
began getting really close. I don't really want to go into too much detail
as to respect our privacy, but we were in a semi-dating relationship which
meant we weren't dating but we were doing things that dating couples do
such as a lot of intimate activity. We came to a mutual understanding
that it was just a friendship thing, but feelings developed. Before this all
began, he explained to me that he can't give me a commitment. I went
into everything with good intentions and I didn't know how I would feel.
We were in a physical relationship for over a year. He recently found
someone he wanted to date. I feel betrayed and hurt. This is why I don't
agree with friends with benefits. It's fine until feelings develop. I don't
want him dating anybody and I want to break them up.
You had an FWB arrangement with someone, which means you were not committed to one another; yet you seem to be jealous that he's found someone who he wants more with. Sounds like you've got your own issues to work through.
Sorry, but if you had feelings, it wasn't an FWB situation. It was you dating
him, and him being friends with you. While I have the utmost sympathy for you,
having gone through this yourself, you have to accept responsibility. If he said
he can't give you a commitment, you shouldn't expect a commitment from him.
He was entirely honest with you.
That being said, I know it hurts, and I'm sorry. Feelings can sometimes be
difficult to resist. That's why I don't think FWB situations should be long term.
I have to agree with both Cody and Chelsea.
Also, your last sentence does make me wonder. I can imagine you must be hurt, but "I don't want him dating anybody and I want to break them up", quoting your own words, just doesn't sound right, for lack of a better expression. Never been good with those.
Maybe it's just a feeling you are having at the moment out of anger and pain, but be careful before it gets destructive and ends up damaging both you, him and their relationship.
After all, do you think if you somehow manage to break them up there will be any chance of you two being the same as before, or even friends at all? I don't know the person, but I wouldn't want to be any closer to someone who purposefully ruined a relationship I was happy with.
Sorry for the bluntness, but that's how I see it, while I have sympathy for you and your feelings being hurt.
...yeah. FWB is touchy at the best of times. For some people it really works, and for most it just doesn't. Most people these days are fairly hard-wired to be monogamous, and when you start doing couple-type things with someone, then it will be difficult not to see them as a partner.
Don't do anything rash. That's about all I can say. I am sorry you're going through this, though. Probably you thought you'd be okay, and you weren't. You got ambushed by the feelings you now have, and it's not pleasant. Well, now you know for next time. It sucks that you had to learn the hard way, but at this point the best thing you can do is move on. Try and stay friends if you think you can, but that should pretty firmly put an end to friends with benefits for you, I think.
I've never been in an FWB position myself, but I know I couldn't handle it well I'd get attached, knowing me, and that's disaster waiting to happen.
I don’t mind these sort of relationships. They can be comfortable and not complicated.
I agree with 2 3 and 4, but will add.
What if you had been the one that found someone you wanted to date? You’d have wanted the agreement honored, right?
I know that people agree to these types of relationships, because they want to be with the other person and think they can change him or her.
It isn’t fair to make your friend, feel bad, or try to ruin your friend’s new relationship.
Even when people say “I love you” that is conditional.
I believe, and I understand I’m in a small percentage or people that believe this.
If you love someone, you want the best for them possible. If that means they feel someone else will be better suited, it is good.
We don’t like rejection, but we have to understand we didn’t have what we thought we did, so it’s not rejection, we’re facing, but a change in our friend’s needs or desires.
Yeah, I went into things with good intentions. I can't handle fwb and
unfortunately I learned that the hard way. I think if I found someone, it
wouldn't bother him because it meant more to me than it did to him, our
relationship that is because it was my first time takings really far while he
was in those kinds of relationships for several years. I also feel that him
dating someone is making us drift apart and I don't want that as friendships
are important to me. We usually spend New Year's Eve together and we
won't be able to this year if he spends it with his girlfriend, and his
girlfriend does not allow him to have friends which proves she is a control
freak. He thinks she would be uncomfortable if I spent the night at his
house, but people can be in the same house together; it doesn't mean
they are dating. This girl he is with is a complete control freak!
Ah, but if you spent the night at his house, she knows you had the relationship you had right?
What's to keep you from enjoying some intimacy that evening?
A few drinks, some relaxation, and you are comfortable with him.
She's not controlling, she's protecting her ground.
Time to start looking for your New Years Eve partner too.
Smile.
Always a chance that he'll need your company by that time.
But remember, if you go back in to it, you need to set the bar higher and come to the agreement that you are his one on one girlfriend. If he agrees, you can expect that.
But. Even with that set, relationships can end. It is the human plight I guess.
I tend to feel relationships only work for long periods of time if both people want them too.
So, I just enjoy what I've got today, tomorrow. When the relationship ends for me, I can look back and say, well, I enjoyed her, she's really a lovely person. She'll still be my friend if she wishes to be.
I agree that friends with benefits type relationships are probably not the right kind of arrangement for you. They can be fulfilling and rewarding for some people, and some people just need a real committed, hands-on romantic relationship. That's a hard lesson you had to learn, and hopefully now you won't make that same mistake. I understand that your feelings are hurt now, but you'll get over it. You'd be surprised how resilient you are.
As for this breaking them up because she's controlling business, stay out of it. Don't get involved if at all possible. If she's really that controlling, he's a big boy and he can take care of himself. It's not your responsibility to look over him and make sure he dates the right person (A.K.A. you, apparently.) It's possible that you are projecting horrible character traits onto her due to your jealousy, which you've already admitted to having. She's probably not a control freak, and probably is not trying to stop him from having friends. She in all likelihood is uncomfortable with you being alone with him, because you obviously and expressly still have strong feelings for him. I would be a little uncomfortable too if I knew that the person who my significant other used to be in a relationship with still wants to be with them, and is vindictively jealous of me.
What I would suggest is stepping back for a minute and taking care of yourself. Nurse your wounds, admit that he never had the same feelings for you which you did for him, and try to move on. You both agreed that this was not a monogamous committed relationship, and he did nothing wrong to you by finding someone who he does want to be in a monogamous relationship with. If she's an insane controlling bitch, let him figure that out. You just focus on you and your mental wellbeing.
Good luck,
Jake
Must agree with the others. That said, if I put myself in his shoes for a second, I wouldn't want to be even your friend anymore if you tried to destroy my relationship with whoever I committed to. Friends don't do that to one another, I mean, if they really care about the person they call their friends. As for the new girl on the block being a "control freak", could that mainly be your own feelins of him exercising control by entering the relationship? And, if it were me in a new relationship, and I knew the person was a former FWB, unless there were going to be others around, I wouldn't exactly be comfortable with that either. I mean, people are ultimately going to fuck around or they're not, but if that is what he wants, whether it's her idea or not, you have to respect that if you are actually a friend. You entered in to an arrangement that has now ended, most FWB things do, and now you have to deal with the fall-out. It sucks, I'm not trying to deny that, but as was said before, it's a learning experience. I've walked away from FWB situations in the past with no ill will toward the other person who eventually entered a relationship. It was a bit sad on some levels but I knew that they would potentially be much happier in a long term committed relationship, so it was more in their best interest to move on.
I'll start with saying this. I do understand your feeling the way you do. I was once jealous as all hell of a man I loved when he started a new relationship, and I too desired to break them up. I had no right to feel that way whatsoever, as I wasn't tied to this guy at the time, but the feelings were there whether I had a right to have them or not. So I get the irrational jealousy thing. Been there, done it. But take it from someone who felt all that, and made the mistake of trying to accomplish it, it does you absolutely no good. It only hurts you, and your friend too. It will also ruin any chance of a friendship with this guy. In your desire to break them up and get him back, what you very well may end up doing is pushing him away entirely. If you care about your friend at all, if you want any friendship with him eventually, don't try to interfere with this relationship now. Whoever told you to step back and get through your own emotions had it right. Trying to stay in close contact with your friend may just make it worse, so the drifting, hard as it is, is not a bad thing. I know you can't control your feelings, but you can control what you do or don't do.
I doubt the GF is a control freak. She's probably not uncomfortable with him having friends, she's likely uncomfortable with his and your friendship specifically, and I don't blame her. Were I in her position, there's no way in heck I'd be comfortable with you staying at his house or vice versa, because of the prior relationship between you, and the feelings you so clearly still have for him. The harsh reality is that when a person gets into a new relationship, their friendships with others often do drift apart temporarily, as the relationship goes through the novelty stage. At least, this has been my experience both when I have been in new relationships, or when my friends have. Sometimes they drift away a little bit, but the mark of a true friendship is that it becomes close again. This happens frequently even when there was no FWB arrangement beforehand, I can only imagine it would be much more likely to happen when there was. He may need to distance himself from you right now, especially in the light of your jealousy and desire to break them up. I'd be distancing in his place, too. I know it sucks, but it is probably best for both of you.
Hmm so take my advice or leave it, I've never done one of these relationships.
The book The Ethical Slut, and Sex At Dawn, both available on Bookshare, may help you in understanding this type of situation.
I think there's probably wisdom in what Cody's saying about these kinds of relationships being short-term.
The exception to that rule is probably people who have gotten a little older and aren't looking for someone to settle down / play house / fulfill a role with.
But feelings and thoughts are not wrong, no matter what certain congruent if opposite ideologies might try and tell you. Thoughts and feelings are just that. provided you don't do anything with them. Just let reason and rationality be your guide for any action taken, including if you've figured out these sorts of hookup arrangements can't work for you.
I myself have never been in a FWB relationship and I wouldn't want to be in one because it just wouldn't work for me and I'm sorry to hear things didn't work out but what I have read makes me think is that a FWB relationship is just not suitable for you but I would advise you to sit down and take away from what has happened and not do it again.
Also jealousy will cause you to have problems and then you'll push any one away whom wants to be close to you whether it be a friend or any thing else so I suggest you sort that out before even thinking about getting into a relationship with some one because if you don't then any relationship you enter will not work out, in the way you would like it to.
I know for myself FWB is not for me, but as many have said you've had to learn the hard way. Good luck.
I agree that FWB is definitely not for everyone by any means. It might work for some, but not for others.
Groundbreaking statement. LOL
Also, everyone has to explain how FWB is not for them. When you see that kind of signaling, you know deep down people believe they're supposed to support it sort of, but also that there's a taboo against it. I forget the anthropological term for this, but it's a thing.
Me? I don't actually know. I'm a married guy now, not because I hate FwB or want everyone to be positively sure that they know I'm fitting in / FWB is not for me, but just ... I got married before FWB because a more openly recognized notion.
Would I do a FWB if I wasn't married? I don't know. I'm not politically correct enough to repeat the current mantra. And I'm not morally superior enough to assert ath I just wouldn't, just so I can make my moralist friends happy. I simply don't know, never been there.
I know, for instance, that I don't want to live in Antarctica. Not that I have ever lived there, but I've lived in some really cold places, and some really isolated places, both of which I'm not into. But I've never done anything close to FWB, so technically I don't know. Sure, it's counter-cultural. Other than that, it's not terribly mainstream enough that tons of people under 40 have done it yet.
I like Wayne's ideas mainly because they're so incredibly well thought-out.
I think the only other person I've seen so well-thought out is Bernadetta on this topic, because she actually did something similar and has described how it didn't work for her, though they were teenagers at the time. I personally put rather little stock in how I felt as a teenager, mainly because at that time so far as I remember it, everything changes so drastically from week to week, month to month, let alone year to year. But maybe some are the exception at that age.
All relationships should be Friends with benefits if you think that over.
Smile.
Explaination.
A good relationship starts as friends.
If you add the benefits to that, it is now a good and healthy relationship, not a slap dash sort.
Even if the benefits part doesn't last, you will have and have learned general liking and respect for the other person.
Understanding perhaps.
Relationships, in my opinion that start out, so seem to in the love zone aren't given enough time to grow.
You are learning the person, and that can be you learn you really don't like them much, just were infatuated.
Smile.
A quick question. How long into a friendship before the benefits become a factor. And don't you think that it is necessary to work out the ground rules first before introducing benefits into a friendship? Frankly, I personally cannot deal with a friendship with benefits unless we both agree to the rules we will play by. Doing otherwise is, in my opinion, in most cases a sure recipe for failure and loss of friendship.
Friendships are delicate and must be nurtured. Love affairs are also delicate and must be nurtured. I'm not sure rules of engagement ever work with either. Setting rules only states intent, it cannot control how feelings, love, hurt, whatever, develops. We just aren't that predictable. Better to workthings out as you go, communicate with each other. Treat them as you want to be treated, and hope for the best.
I have odd thoughts about all this.
However, my post was just to see what reactions I'd get.
I understand it is difficult to put a limit on how long it might take someone that needs that specific connection to decide to move the friendship on to benefits.
Might be a week, could be several months.
Rules can work fine. People just have to admit before the fact, they can't go by them is all.
If you say you can, then I say do it.
Once you understand you can't, don't wait until you've broken one, just admit you can't, and work that out with your other.
You may not win, but you'll not be a liar, or cheater, or whatever.
Most of my friends are guys. I hardly ever hang around girls. A story I will not get in to. So I'm introduced to FWB a lot. Mostly by my ex boyfriends. Friends as well. But not very often. But I do think it's ok as long as both people want it.
It's not for everybody, but for those it works for, more power to them.