Quote:
Originally Posted by daddysbutterfly
Hello,
1) My fiancee and I have been together for over a year and we just had a baby together. He has never physically cheated on me, but I keep catching him texting other women that he knows and talking inappropriately with them. He asks them things like when is the last time they masturbated, have they had any fun sex lately, etc. He loves swapping stories with them. It doesn't happen every day. Only once in a while. And he never contacts them first. Its always when they text him first. But 50% of the time, hes the one who starts talking dirty. The weird thing is he does most of it while he's at work! Its not even like he's doing it so that he has stimulation to pleasure himself to. It almost seems like he has a dirty boy persona that he feels like he needs to keep up the appearance of. ...
2) I know sometimes he swaps stories to get ideas to spice things up even more with us. But it goes above and beyond that sometimes. And that is where the main problem lies. If it is to spice up things with us, not that we need it, then I wouldn't mind. But that's not always the goal of the conversation. Anyway..... thoughts, comments, and suggestions please. Or should I just let it go because it is ONLY talk?
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(1) I do not think that he has a sex addiction (which is a poorly defined term with very little validated research to back its use anyway). I think your own diagnosis of him - that he has a persona he needs to maintain - is valid. Good catch - you must know him pretty well to pick up on such subtleties.
(2) You are making a claim that swapping stories to spice things up even more between the two of you is a valid usecase for his texts to other women, but in the absence of a need to spice things up even further between the two of you, his texting is wrong.
Your claim makes sense. You are trying to say that his texting other women is justified if it benefits the relationship between you guys. This is one way to look at things. You are saying that only things that directly benefit your relationship are justified, but neutral and harmful things are not justified.
My claim is that neutral things are justified, too. As long as there is no harm to you or to the relationship between you too, and as long as his texting benefits him personally without harming you, it is OK. Neutral to the relationship is OK. He is doing something that he likes and you basically do not mind - it is fine.
Also... you are talking about an intervention, right? Something that needs to be done to change the status quo. Interventions are costly and need to be thought through before you embark on them. He has been doing it for years and it does not impair his functioning (he is working, parenting, etc. - by the way, if you were to go with the addictions diagnosis hypothesis, you would not be able to dx him with a sex addiction since he is clearly high functioning - addictions cause severe functioning impairment). So?.. Let the sleeping dogs lie.
My story:
When I was about thirty, and, living without medical insurance and not eligible for medical due to immigration issues, I once fainted and fell down a carpeted stairs. It hurt.
I was worried but did not have money for medical help.
I had a friend who was a licensed social worker with some medical background. She asked me if it was the first time I would faint. I explained that I first fainted and fell in a similar fashion when I was 16, and would continue to faint and fall from time to time.
She said: "Well, then this is not fatal. You will be alright."
Meaning - since I had been fainting and recovering over the course of many years, I probably could have managed without medical care.
I did not seek medical care.
After several years and one more fainting episode which happened when I did have insurance, I sought medical help and was diagnosed with syncope, and advised on how to avoid fainting and what to do when I feel that a fainting spell is coming. It did help. But had I not sought medical help and not known how to avoid fainting, I still would not have died from fainting. So... how big of a deal is it?