When Active Friendships With Former Lovers Become Infidelity ...

Article by Penny Anne Weurtzel

In a previous article, I covered the potential for infidelity with previous spouses and significant others. We noted that some divorced couples may need to maintain a working relationship if children are involved, and that contact between some former spouses without children may be required due to social or professional obligations. In still other cases, former spouses manage to maintain cordial, even affectionate but distanced friendships with one another.

If you marry someone who maintains a friendship with a former spouse or significant other, it?s important to understand the full nature of these relationships so that appropriate expectations about them are set. If your spouse has child-raising responsibilities, you should come to an understanding of what this means before you marry. Similarly, you also should discuss and resolve how you and your spouse-to-be will deal with contact an ex- in the workplace.

But what about instances when there are no other ties between your spouse and a former partner except the past relationship?

In some cases, this can be harmless. The ex-partners have shared experiences, may know or understand each other on some level, come from the same country or culture, and choose to remain friends or confidantes.

This may be more common today than in the past. Today there is far more informality, fluidity and nuance in the way men and women meet, mix and mate. Partners often meet as part of social groups or friendship circles and both may return to the same group after a relationship runs its course. Friends morph into lovers and back into friends again.

While marriage (or living together) is still the bright line denoting an exclusive, monogamous relationship, younger people are more likely to carry active friendships with former lovers into married life. In most cases involving responsible adults, this too can be harmless.

I make that claim with a few caveats. It?s only likely to remain harmless provided the new spouse is both aware of the past relationship and comfortable with it, there are no obvious ?sparks? between the former couple, and the old partner-turned-friend has no designs on his now-married former partner. Infidelity risk is further reduced if the partner-turned-friend finds a new mate of his or her own.

These sorts of friendships can be maintained at whatever level of activity the primary couple is comfortable with. But boundaries must be set in terms of the amount of time devoted to such a relationship, lest it become interfering, competing, or worse, a threat. It must be clear to former spouses and partners that the new marriage (or household) has primacy.

So when do such relationships present an infidelity threat?

Under certain circumstances, these types of friendships can become a threat. Now before you panic, take a good look at the ex-partner-turned-friend. For instance, has this person remarried or become involved with someone else? Does he or she seem happy in that relationship?

While I don?t want to over-generalize, an ex-spouse from a long-ago marriage who has re-married and is expecting a third child should present a significantly lower threat than may a single ex- who still has strong feelings for your spouse.

Also, take a good look at the nature of the friendship between your spouse and his or her ex-. Look specifically at the tone and character of contact and interaction for indications of the potential for sparks to fly. You should be comforted if dealings between them are always in the open, especially if you are included and nothing about them is secret or hidden.

This is not a call to drop your guard or to be na

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Source: http://www.akiranews.com/2012/09/21/when-active-friendships-with-former-lovers-become-infidelity-threats/

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