# breaking a promise?



## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

i promised 'HER' i would never have sex with anyone else.
have never promised anyone i was completely in love with that before.
no longer with her.
ok to break this promise?
i still feel wrong about it.
have to do something soon.


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## SunnyT (Jun 22, 2011)

Break it.


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## COGypsy (Aug 12, 2010)

What did she promise you? How'd that work out?

Break it.

Or I suppose you could join a monastery or something, but I definitely vote for jumping back in the pool! :lol:


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## AMC (Jan 25, 2012)

I would imagine the promise was meant when you were together. If you are no longer a couple and the two of you are not working on a reconcilliation then I don't think you are free to explore other options. Best of luck.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Would she (HER) really care?

If you feel wrong about it and are seeking to get outside opinions with having to frame the issue about some kind of promise, that's a big issue. I guess around here we call it a red flag. It would be a red flag to anyone you proposed to have sex with, for sure, that you couldn't make your own decisions about how you felt about sex with someone you proposed to have sex with.

It seems maybe you don't want to do something unless you can justify it externally, and make sure it's a defensible positon (or you're searching for defensible positions, that other people can understand, how to explain it to people using verbage that people might offer up here...) or vice versa have done things you didn't mean to and then justified it as defensible afterwards. Not even about sex, but your logic just seems really messed up somehow, based on some kind of external validity, but on your own unique framework, that even you don't understand. Like you're a spider who built a web but you're not really sure how to operate it at all, or where your place in it might be, and what it's supposed to be used for.

If you feel wrong about something and choose to do it because someone or group concensus said, sure, go ahead, that's not taking very good care of yourself. A person old enough to be in love and have sex really should have it together a bit more than to have to ask this sort of question on a forum. It sounds like you need therapy, or a few more years of maturity.

A typically mature person doens't refer to some mythical 'her', talk about sex and love as two different issues (especially on a marriage support forum), and then ask permission from complete strangers without even explaining about the third party/ies involved who may or may not even know the issues and who would typically have the say-so about this issue, not yet another third party. Like, do you mean go to a prostitute, or tell this story about promises and sex and love to a prospect and then hope for a sympathy f*ck, and one that was ill-gotten, perhaps, because of the framing of the situation?

This reminds me of some bizarre Japanese story I read about audience participation in a sexual issue of thumbs up/thumbs down where the framework was there, and was theatrical, so kind of a given, but completely based on warped perception, to the point where even the sanity and very identity of the narrator was completely in question.

I guess I can kind of see why 'HER' is no longer with you. Or you no longer with HER, but that again is a sort of framing issue.

I'm sorry but I missed your story.
I would just say if you're in therapy stay there, if not get there.
Not sure why you would want to involve someone else into your confusion by having sex with them under these conditions, anyway. It would seem rude, at best.


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## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

Homemaker_Numero_Uno said:


> Would she (HER) really care?
> 
> If you feel wrong about it and are seeking to get outside opinions with having to frame the issue about some kind of promise, that's a big issue. I guess around here we call it a red flag. It would be a red flag to anyone you proposed to have sex with, for sure, that you couldn't make your own decisions about how you felt about sex with someone you proposed to have sex with.
> 
> ...


im not sure there is all this involved.

not in therapy, but im sure i belong there.

would not tell the other person and CERTAINLY not looking for a sympathy f*ck.

how was i talking about sex and love as 2 different issues?
typically i think of them as the same.

just trying to work this out in my head and sometimes it helps me to write things down and maybe see what others have to say.

and DEFINITELY NOT a prostitute...probably.


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Maybe you're just not ready yet. But you will be.


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## Kurosity (Dec 22, 2011)

A promiss that no longer has grounds to be kept is ok to let go of and move on when you are ready.


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## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

thanks for (almost) all your replies.
i guess it just seems a bit strange right now to think about.
still feel a little funny, almost like im cheating, even just talking with other women and wondering to myself if she is someone i might like to get to know on a different level.


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## bubbly girl (Oct 11, 2011)

2nd_t!me iz_best said:


> *i promised 'HER' i would never have sex with anyone else.*have never promised anyone i was completely in love with that before.
> no longer with her.
> ok to break this promise?
> i still feel wrong about it.
> have to do something soon.


"as long as we're together" is not something that is said, it's just a given.

People promise to forsake all others in their marriage vows. If they divorce, nobody expects them to uphold that promise.

Don't feel guilty. I agree that you just may not be ready yet. In time you will be.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

You're probably okay, generally speaking.
Your partner just needs to be the age of consent and able to consent.
Takes (at least) two to Tango.


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## desert-rose (Aug 16, 2011)

If you're no longer with the woman to whom you made that promise, I'm pretty sure your promise is void now. Move on.


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## desert-rose (Aug 16, 2011)

Homemaker_Numero_Uno said:


> This reminds me of some bizarre Japanese story I read about audience participation in a sexual issue of thumbs up/thumbs down where the framework was there, and was theatrical, so kind of a given, but completely based on warped perception, to the point where even the sanity and very identity of the narrator was completely in question.


You've raised some important points for the original poster. I hope "he" listens to them and thinks about them. The external validation by group consensus is a troubling way to avoid any real responsibility for having made a choice, it seems....

What is the name/author of the story? I think it would be a very useful read for this poster or for anyone who is worried about self-validation vs external validation (like anyone with codependency issues).


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## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

im not trying to get validation for my decisions. mostly just thinking out loud is why i posted it, thats all.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Kobo Abe.
Secret Rendezvous.
But you might also enjoy Kangaroo Notebook.
Or "The face of another" where a guy gets a face transplant then has an affair with his estranged wife...
It's kind of like making scrambled eggs with sexual psyche.
Very post-modern. 
The books are difficult reading if you expect something mystical like Haruki Murakami, which tend to bring physical and spiritual parts of a psyche together. Kobo Abe is really out there, but really, he is not too far out there, when it comes to a 'normal' brain. He is basically a very good tour guide of the sexual map of a typical human in our society. Especially over time. Maybe not at a given point in time, like when you're reading a book, but on sexual evolution of one person...like sped up and going too far down all the different hallways. The buildings or layouts in his books are always very scattered and illogical, whereas Murakami usually has some kind of metaphorical or real tunnel or wall or a building with structure that makes sense, like a library. 
Is my comparative literature major showing yet?
I used to have a lot of dreams about being in buildings, then I discovered these authors, and it made me feel more normal, my building were more like Murakami's, in fact I freaked a few times because specific places he described in his writing, were places I'd already visited in my dreaming, it kind of makes you wonder...


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Of course, we delude ourselves thinking sex is a personal thing between two people. It's not. I worked for a psychiatrist who studied monkey behavior. It's about social positioning and food, of course. So it does make sense to ask for opinions. To make sure you won't get ostracized for your choices. So things like literature put that out there, people say that's outrageous but then they do it anyway. Maybe they don't know that they do it, but it does happen. It can't not happen.

I can see the point in asking if OP has sex with someone and then runs into trouble (even the good kind of trouble) and wants to come here to ask for advice, can it be found under these circumstances? Also testing what will response be here, will be similar 'in real life'. 

Of course sex is social. Even when people aren't having sex, they bond over that commonality. On Monkey Island it was so, and I saw the videotapes over many lunches with my boss, and I believe.


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