Here’s the thing.
Who’s doing the counting and for what purpose?
You know what’s in your heart. Are you living in the marriage of your dreams? Clearly not if the question comes up.
What counts, what doesn’t count are childish questions. An adult would ask, why isn’t my personal life working? How can I improve the situation? Where am I failing and why? That you even formulated the question this way is a huge red flag. This is not how adults think about themselves.
I highly recommend looking into what keeps you trapped in the childish persona. That is probably the root of the problems, be they personal or professional.
There is a connection between these “emotional affairs” and psychological immaturity. The participants need to feel that they have transgressed the mandate of a strict adult. It’s a teenage rebellion of sorts. There’s no strict parent any more but they still need the dynamic because they don’t know how to manage their lives as adults, without fear of punishment and occasional clandestine sorties into the freedom they see as forbidden fruit.
Clarissa's Blog 
No. Flirting aint sex.
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I thought this was about Olivia Nuzzi. She’s a reporter who was recently put on leave because her relationship with her subject (RFK Jr) turned personal as she put it, but not physical. She supposedly sexted him.
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I have to say that a woman who jumps on an old, weird-looking and sounding dude like RFK is definitely not happy in her official relationship. If her husband or boyfriend doesn’t take this as a gigantic red flag, he deserves the relationship collapse that awaits him in the future.
If this isn’t a cry for help, I don’t know what is.
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Her fiance broke up with her.
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Good for him.
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“Olivia Nuzzi. She’s a reporter who was recently put on leave because her relationship with her subject (RFK Jr”
Then that’s not about relationship dynamics at all (well it is but…..).
That’s a basic failure/breakdown of professionalism. By the time sexting happens she should recuse herself from covering any story that he could be a part of.
I have no idea of her relationship status besides …. sexting (ugh)…. with RFKrazytown Jr but unless he’s single… she’s trouble and her boyfriend/fiance needs to walk off the lot and a husband should be looking for a lawyer.
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I agree that this is probably the wrong question to ask if you think your spouse is seeking companionship outside the marriage…….I also think that ossues come up like this because people (maybe it’s an American thing) frequently deny that a powerful physical attraction is necessary for a happy and satisfying relationship. And its not just about thinking someone is good looking. Its truly about sex at some level. (One reason I think its important to have sex before marriage.) Physical attraction is not everything. But it has to be there or people start acting out in all sorts of strange ways.
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I particularly love the traditional American discussions of what counts as sex. People go into quite a lot of very physiological detail to figure out “what counts ” It’s so bizarre to a non-American.
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I totally agree.
“It’s truly about sex at some level. (One reason I think its important to have sex before marriage.) Physical attraction is not everything… “
Honestly, I would say physical attraction is almost everything. If the sexual connection is really strong (assuming the two people are generally decent people and not abusive etc.), the couple will be able to weather a lot of the life’s storms together. Two decent people can build a solid friendship around the strong physical attraction as they share various life experiences, but you cannot will a sexual connection based on friendship if the spark just isn’t there. When life slings shit at you, when patience and empathy are in short supply and it’s easy to cast blame or grow resentful of the person next to you, sex is the type of resilient connection that resides in the body, it gives pleasure and comfort at a very base animal level, which is why it endures when the more cerebral connections break under pressure.
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Yes, and while it may be relatively easy to understand the effect of the hormones, that spark truly remains a mystery ;-D
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100% true.
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I totally agree, to the point where this can be dangerous. I think people will tolerate indecency/abuse/all sorts of bad relationship dynamics because the sex is there and it does provide comfort to get through life.
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