Recently an interesting letter appeared in my email. The pertinent part is below with some slight changes to preserve the author’s anonymity:
Recently I started sleeping with a dear friend. We have discussed it and neither of us really wants to be in a relationship right now. Everyone I tell this to thinks it’s a horrible idea to sleep with a friend because it ruins the relationship or gets awkward. I value the friendship more than I value the sex (even though he’s beautiful and great in bed) and I wanted to know if you think its possible to maintain a deep friendship while still having intimacy. The last thing I want is for things to get weird or hostile and lose one of my closest friends.
Dear Reader,
So Joaquin (we’ll call him Joaquin) and you (your name will be Esme, alright?) are dear friends and have great sex, eh? In my ever-so-humble opinion, if you’re having wonderful sex with a close friend, you’re already in a relationship.
But hey, that’s just me. I consider myself in a relationship with the dude who slathered hot tar all over a broken vent pipe in my roof last week, thereby preventing the rain from dripping upon my upturned bottom during sex. I’m in a relationship with the nerdy-yet-sexy pharmacist who hooks me up with fluoxetine each month, and for whom I perpetually forget to comb my hair until I’m standing nervously before him wondering if I look as random as I feel. I’m in a relationship with the reliable woman who brings my mail each day and her not-so-reliable bi-weekly substitute. I’m in a relationship with my kids’ teachers, my nearly-unseen next door neighbor and the guy who helped set up financing for my mini-van last year who waved at me in the grocery store parking lot last week but whom I didn’t recognize ’til I returned home some minutes later.
If you’re relating to someone, no matter how tenuously, you’re in a relationship with that person. Nevertheless, I get your point. You and Joaquin don’t want right now to be in the sort of relationship that leads in a smoothly predictable path to monogamy and matrimony. I say there’s nothing at all wrong with that. If eventually you want to be in a relationship like that, you can be. There’s really no rush.
People have a tendency, I think, to discount any dating relationship that doesn’t look to be on the fast track to marriage. Don’t make that mistake. Treat what you and Joaquin have together with honor and respect. Give and expect to receive good treatment. The rules of polite behavior don’t fall away once you’ve seen each other naked, although perhaps this is what your friends are worried about. But I don’t see this as a problem for you. If you enjoyed a good relationship (don’t flinch now!) before sex started up, there’s no reason for that to change after sex.
Nevertheless, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Esme, but things will eventually get awkward. Someone will find a reason for hostility, because that’s just what people do. We get cranky. We take offense. We get our feelings and our panties in knots. But the friendship between you and Joaquin should have taught you some skills on how to recover from the inevitable hurts. You’ll share your feelings, talk it through and emerge even stronger for the conflict. Because that’s what mature adults in relationships do.
If one or both of you can’t do that, eventually you’ll need to move on. You’ll feel pain. You’ll need time alone to dress your wounds. And when that time comes to a close you’ll be able to tell yourself that the relationship was valuable while it lasted, that it brought you pleasure, that you learned. Whether you’re just friends or friends and lovers, that’s really all you can ask for from any relationship.
Finally, Esme, my answer is this: You have my complete and unqualified permission to sleep with or not sleep with Joaquin as you see fit without interference from your friends. Go forth and have fun. Treat each other well even though you have no expectations of permanency from him, because really? You shouldn’t have expectations of a permanent relationship with anyone. There are no permanent relationships. Er. Sorry.
Readers, will you please chime in with your experiences and advice in the comments below? Esme might just appreciate hearing from those more traditional and less blunt than your humble blogger.
I actually was in the same situation, and we still enjoy each other sexually on occassion, but we have found a great balance. Friendship first, we learned, and the rest is OK. There were hurt feelings a time or two, where we had to learn to balance the two (he had a harder time than me), but we got there. Be prepared for a learning curve and you should be able to make it work. Also, forgiveness is a gift to yourself as well as him when someone screws up, you will need to remember that.
I was in a similar relationship. We got very close and eventually began having sex with each other, all the while swearing that neither one of us wanted a relationship. Eventually one evening we realized that we were only sleeping with each other and whether we had planned on it or not we were in a monogamous relationship. It was one of the best relationships I had even though I ALWAYS knew it wouldn’t last. Even though it ended badly, I don’t regret any of it. Until it ended it was one of the most trouble free and passionate relationships I’ve ever experienced. It’s been almost ten years and I still think of him frequently.
After years of a strong working relationship, a friend and I made the choice to have some deliciously deviant sex. It’s something we’ve repeated a few times, enjoyed immensely every time it happens, and which hasn’t detracted from the excellent friendship we still share.
I am in a serious, long term relationship, and he (at the time) was adamantly single, and I think that helped make things less complicated. I had no wish to leave my primary partner. Now that he is seeing someone (never say never!) our relationship has gone back to a non-sexual one, but we’re both glad that we played when we had the opportunity.
If it feels right and nobody is being lied to or otherwise hurt? It’s ok, I think.
AAG, please tell me you were not making a Twilight reference (Esme). Please tell me it is just a name. Please?
I’ve never read it or seen it. I was not aware until now that there was a character named Esme in the series?
I was actually thinking of the cab driver in Pulp Fiction. :)
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001800/
Ah, thank you. My fears have been allayed.
Yes, I believe there is a character named Esme in the series. I have not read it either, but I used to work in a bookstore, so I was surrounded by people who had (customers and co-workers alike).
Pulp Fiction is a MORE than acceptable alternative. :)
Oh I’m so glad.
I’ve lived under a rock for the past few years. Twilight? That’s when the kids go to bed. :P
I had an almost identical experience as saythings. Enjoy it while you have it, mourn it when it’s gone and revert back to the “before times.”
I agree with notasbigeasy: enjoy it while it’s happening, but realise that when it’s over, your friendship will not the be the same again as ‘before’.
I see no reason as to why you can’t return to being friends afterwards, if either of you decide to end the sex. People in relationships break up and remain friends, I’m sure you can do the same if you’re mature about it.
But remember: most people say that their partner is their best friend, they know everything about them. And now you’re having sex, maybe you should address the fact that perhaps there’s an attraction, and the possibility this can be more than just fuck buddies.
Hm.
Let’s assume that they share a bed for a year. You say the friendship won’t be the same afterward, but would it be the same if they didn’t sleep together? A year brings lots of changes whether or not two people are intimate. If their relationship is in worse shape after that year, must the sex be to blame?
I say go forth and shag. I’m doing exactly these last 2 years of a 5 year best-friendship. Sure, there have been disagreements that have surfaced over it, but that’s life. I quite solidly believe that if you were going to have issues with a friend that you plan to sleep with, you’d have them regardless, because most of those issues come from the attraction or affection for a friend, not the actual sex. If you’re sleeping with your friend and one of you chooses to date someone else and the other is upset, that was bound to happen anyway because the attraction is obviously there.
“Go forth and shag.”
Indeed!
After years of a strong working relationship, a friend and I made the choice to have some deliciously deviant sex. It’s something we’ve repeated a few times, enjoyed immensely every time it happens, and which hasn’t detracted from the excellent friendship we still share.
I dunno — do as you wish, but don’t underestimate the power of sex and how it can shape your emotions. Because it will, regardless of what your rational mind tells you. Sex is exactly delicious because of its power – discount at your peril.
I wouldn’t discount the power of sex.
Neither would I fear it. :)
“People have a tendency, I think, to discount any dating relationship that doesn’t look to be on the fast track to marriage. Don’t make that mistake. Treat what you and Joaquin have together with honor and respect. Give and expect to receive good treatment.”
I’ve never had sex with a friend in quite this way, but I’ve had several fuckbuddies. Sometimes I get down when I feel like I’m the only one that’s willing to view “casual sex” with respect, so it was very nice to read this!
I’ve done this with four different friends (1 female, 3 male). 2 of the times it’s ended up really bad. Really, really bad. Bad enough that I wouldn’t go there again.
In retrospect when I can see that I was deluding myself by saying, “Only casual sex no relationship” The more I slept with that person, the more I wanted them in my life; not just for sex but on a long term basis.
It really depends on how deep your friendship is with the other person. I found that the deeper the friendship, the harder it was not to want more, e.g. moving beyond casual sex into a relationship.
That being said the other two times it was SO not a big deal. We’re still pals and it’s all good!
“You shouldn’t have expectations of a permanent relationship with anyone. There are no permanent relationships.”
Really, AAG? That seems a bit cynical. First of all, what’s wrong with a little foolish optimism that love, hard work, and luck can pay off with a lifetime relationship — friend or lover?
Secondly, most relationships never end other than by death or the rare estrangement. They just change. You had a boyfriend, then you had a husband, now you have an ex-husband. All one man, all the same relationship, just different stages of it. Your children will always be your children, even if they grow up and you grow apart.
I think that expectations that a relationship WON’T be permanent cause as much problems as expectations that it will.
Having said all that, I think Esme should totes fuck her friend.
You are very right. Perhaps I should have said that there are no static relationships?
:)