“HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU'RE BEING UNFAITHFUL?”
She’s laid down the rules. I can look but not touch.
If i touch, anything that touches the other woman has to be burned off before i go home.
“Consider your own personal relationships:
- When you hear a funny joke or good piece of gossip, do you first tell other colleagues?”
That’s usually who i hear it from.
“By the time you get home, have you chewed it all over so much at the office that you don't feel like telling that joke again to your spouse?”
No, I email her from the desk.
"Do you discuss all of your work problems (or issues involving volunteer work or other important things you are involved in) so thoroughly with colleagues that you're all talked out by the time you return home?”
No.
“Do you feel like it would take too long to review and explain the entire issue from scratch to your spouse?”
My wife was military for 11 years. And she’s worked for this company for 5 years.
She already understands most of the backstory and source material.
"Do you go out alone to lunch or after work for drinks with members of the opposite sex?”
No.
“Do you enjoy harmless (by your definition) flirtation with someone of the opposite sex at a cocktail party?”
No.
“Do you believe that getting emotionally excited by flirting with someone of the opposite sex is helpful to your marriage? Do you think it helps educate you as to what you need more of from your spouse? Do you tell yourself that the juice you get from flirting brings more vitality to your marriage?”
No. Are you okay?
"Do you spend as long buying the "right gift" for a colleague of the opposite sex as you do for your own spouse?”
Is that advice or a cry for help?
“Do you share intimate issues about yourself or marriage with a member of the opposite sex?”
Yes.
“If you're doing any of these things, you're being emotionally unfaithful to your spouse.”
I don’t know how to burn my emotions off.
“You have only so much energy. If you're spending it with coworkers or outside the home and then getting home and feeling too tired to spend any more on your spouse, that's emotional infidelity.”
I reject this entirely.
Who the fuck are you to determine my infidelity?
A coworker on the tender when my wife and i met, his wife considered it infidelity if he looked at porn mags. My wife does not. That’s our relationship. Your input is neither desired or required.
“You may be shaking your head and disagreeing.”
Yes. i suspect you fucked things up, once or twice, and have gone zero-tolerance on the behavior.
But your experiences are not mine.