A
male
age
,
*rawldaddy
writes:Here we go on the merry-go-round once again. Our relationship started to go down hill. I had been married before, and I admit to cheating, so I vowed not to make that same mistake again. So when I met V, I took my time and listened, when she said she wasn't the jealous type. Should have known it was a lie the moment it came out of her mouth. Well we dated about 9 months before she moved in. My sons met and liked her, they even helped with the rehab of house we were moving in. I'm not a control freak, nor demanding, and I never tried to tell her what to do. I went to work paid the household bills and always gave her money just because. I did all the cooking and even brought meals to her in bed. One day I came home from work and all hell broke loose; She had gone through my cell phone bill and accused me of emotionally cheating because I talked to my Ex. more than she felt I should. She explained that she didn't talk to her ex so I shouldn't talk to mine. I explained that it was her choice not to talk to him and that I had never made that request or demand. So to address the accusation of emotionally cheating something I had never of I researched the subject and found out that I didn't talk to my ex for any of the attributed reasons to be accused for this type of cheating. So I went to her and explained that I had not cheated in this manner, hell I didn't even know what it was. come to find out this type of cheating hadn't even been recognized until a greater influx of women came into the psychology field. So I explained to her that, not to speak for all men just for myself I could not be emotionally involved with a woman unless I was sexually involved not including blood relatives. Then the tirade started about her feelings and that I wasn't sensitive to her needs. Needs are categorized as air food water and sex. And to the best of my ability I took care of all of those needs and a great deal of her wants as well. The only desire that I would and could not give was her desire to want to control me. So now she is moving out don't want her to go but I can't control her never tried to.
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female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (15 July 2014):
 Crawldaddy,
Men often do not understand emotional cheating. As a woman I would rather my guy physically cheat on me than emotionally any day of the week. It doesn’t make sense to some but it’s how I feel. Just like how YOU feel is that you didn’t do anything wrong.
Perhaps V did not LIE. Perhaps V did not know she was jealous. Remember, JEALOUSY is not an emotion based on love or security. JEALOUSY is totally rooted in insecurity. So clearly there is something going on that made V feel insecure in the relationship you two had. Perhaps it grew over time. We don’t know as we were not party to this relationship and can only go by what YOU tell us.
You say that you went to work, paid the household bills and gave her money. You did the cooking and you fed her in bed. WHAT was SHE contributing to this relationship?
You say she had gone through your cell phone bill and felt you had talked to your ex more than she thought you should. IF your children are old enough to help with the rehab I’m going to assume they are grown or nearly grown. I need to know before I go further HOW OFTEN were you IN TOUCH with your ex. Calls? Daily? Weekly? Texts? What was the gist of the contact? All of this information will be vital to helping you understand where V is coming from and help us to determine if she’s over-reacting or your misinterpreting something.
I find it very hard to accept that you had NEVER heard of or even considered Emotional affairs/cheating. I don’t doubt that you were not familiar with it… but I still find that hard to believe that a well read, well-rounded adult in this day and age is totally unfamiliar with emotional affairs/cheating.
You say you did not talk to your ex for the “attributed reasons” but to me that’s a smoke screen. UNLESS this is the mother of your children and you were discussing child-rearing or child funding or other issues pertaining to your CHILDREN, I doubt I would find your need to talk to your ex regularly acceptable.
When we separate from an ex it is not always cut and dried. We sometimes have to wean ourselves away from old partners that we had a life with for an extended period of time. But after a certain time, moving on means less and less contact. To be honest my son just got engaged and I have not talked to his father about it. I have almost no contact with my ex husband at this point but early on in our divorce we talked daily sometimes more than once a day. Now we go months and months and months with no contact.
Your implication is that WOMEN invented the concept of emotional cheating. They did not. You may feel that you did not cheat and you may feel that this is a “woman’s issue” but IF SHE feels you are cheating then those are HER feelings and right or wrong it’s HOW she feels.
Needs: breathing air, drinking water, eating food, getting sleep. SEX is NOT a need. It’s a want and a desire.
In addition, to my way of thinking you have it a bit backwards… you can’t be emotionally involved until you are physically (sexually) involved. So that means to me you need to have sex with someone BEFORE you care about them. Usually it’s the other way around for most folks.. you have to CARE about them and be emotionally involved before you are physically intimate. That says you had sex with your current partner before you CARED about her. Wow that’s a blow to a woman’s gut.
I am not sure that she wants to CONTROL you as much as let you know how she feels and that your behavior is not acceptable to her.
I do not see the request to have minimal to no contact with an ex to be an unreasonable request from a life partner. I was very close to my ex husband (the one that left me so I could marry the current husband) and we are still friendly. EVERY contact I have with him is mentioned or shared with my current husband. NO contact I have with an ex partner is kept from him. I have nothing to hide. If he picked up my phone right now and scrolled through it (as he can at any time) he would see texts and calls with the ex… but he would have already known about them and it would not be an issue.
If you and your ex were in regular contact and it was NOT being mentioned to your current partner, then it’s a lie of omission. Whether on purpose or by accident, it’s still disconcerting to her.
In addition, while rules usually apply to both parties in a couple, if you are fine with her having contact with an ex but she is not fine with you having contact, then the rules can be different and she can say "I'm not comfortable with you having contact with your ex and because of that I have to leave unless you want to stop having so much contact with her"
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (15 July 2014):
 I'd say it depends , OP. It is true that it is also a matter of subjective perception , but in lack of a scientific, etched in granite definition of emotional cheating, there are common sense, rule of thumb , general social codes , which can't decide irrevocably if what you were doing was right or wrong, but can say if her perception stems from pure paranoia and compulsive jealousy, or if they have a basis in a behaviour of yours that could reasonably be seen as overstepping boundaries.
So, it all depends OP, how much you were talking to this ex, how long, how often, for what reason , about what.
Personally I am not much one for staying friends with exes, yet ther's other people who do. I suppose that if you call up this ex, say, once a month to catch up and give each other the update about social / work / family events in your lives, as you would do with any other social acquaintance, that's just fine. If you rwo were instead talking every day, at length, about personal , intimate iissues, ... if the content of the convos could not, if needs be , be communicated to your gf ... if there was flirting... if these convos were kept very private and secret, and happened at weird hours.. if you were eagerly looking forward to these contacts , and felt disappointed when you missed one... there are so many variables , OP, and if we do not know exactly what bothered your gf and why , I think we can't say if she is paranoid or justified. I must say I find interesting that she had no idea you were talking to this other lady.. that means that " my ex Janet says that ..." never came up in conversation with your gf , while probably y " my barber saud that ..." or " my colleague said that... " did . Often what we omit to say speaks louder than what we actually say...
Let's put it this way : you say you have no emotional connection with this lady. In case you were talking to her every day, or several times a week, ... that would not be quite true, would it. I don't think that you'd bother to speak every day with your CPA or the neighbour upstairs, or other people you do not have an emotional connection with. But you bother speaking to a lady who also happens to be your ex. What you mean, is that you have- as of now - no EROTIC connection with your ex... as for emotional,... again, it depends , from many variables..
As for your gf " needs ", being a big fan of A.Maslow myself, I concur with Honeypie . What you identify as needs are strictly needs for physical SURVIVAL ( in fact, I am not even sure if sex would qualify as such ? plenty of people- priests, nuns, monks,- live healthy lives without sex ).
But a relationship is a more sophisticated, complex organism that just the bare survival of a physical body, and obviously for making it thrive and prosper, many other,and different , needs are involved than those necessary to warrant physical survival.
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A
male
reader, crawldaddy +, writes (14 July 2014):
crawldaddy is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWow Honeypie most of the time you seem so insightful But on this one you seemed to have dropped the ball. Your very argument for emotional cheating belies its validity for one there is no standard rule as admitted by you, but a perceived perception by you and that varies from one woman to another like a plague. There is no why that any man could ever win in that court your accuser is the judge and jury and least for adultery to be proved you have to have witnesses or an admission of guilt, and coincidentally I never told her she couldn't talk to her ex or anyone else for that matter. I'm just sayin!!!
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A
female
reader, daisicaR  +, writes (4 July 2014):
 Let her go, she will bring you more drama and unhappiness with her insecurities. You deserve better than that!
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (3 July 2014):
 I think you are oversimplifying things.
Emotional cheating MIGHT not have come up in the "field" til more women joined, that really doesn't mean EMOTIONAL cheating doesn't exist or didn't exist til women pointed it out. That is like saying that the Earth WAS indeed flat til sailors and Pythagoras came up with the notion and mathematical proof that is was round.
It might not have been RECOGNIZED til more women came into the psychology field. Again, doesn't mean it didn't exist. That is like saying ALL freud's theories are correct because they were made by a man and they were made before women joined the field. Personally, I think Freud was a nutter 85% of the time.
There isn't ONE set of rules or standard for what people PERCEIVE as emotional cheating.
For ME personally, it is when a spouse/partner spends more time bonding, consoling, discussing marital/relationship problems, reminisce of golden days, talk of romantic topic or sexual topics with someone (usually an ex) that isn't their spouse/partner OR a friend. Now that IS a broad explanation because OF COURSE there will be times where these subject can come up with people who are not a spouse/partner and it is not emotional cheating. IF the conversations you are HAVING with your EX are the kind you CAN NOT have in front of your partner, then I will presume it could be conversations you SHOULDN'T be having.
As for need.. LOOK up Maslow's Need Pyramid.
There are 5 LAYERS to this pyramid - sleep, air, food, sex are only the BASIC needs. The FIRST layer. We all NEED a lot more from our partners than that. Even a dog needs more than just the basics.
As for your GF (now to be ex) I think she IS assuming quite a bit here. She is ASSUMING that the conversations you had were somehow inappropriate. Often when people share a child there will be more contact than if they don't (after a split).
I also think she was looking for a way out and THIS was her way out. I don't know HOW much time you DID spend on talking to your ex, I can only guess that MANY of these conversations weren't about your child and quite honestly what else do you NEED to talk about with her? I would NOT be
OK with my husband talking to his ex, ex-wife daily. Usually when people stay in constant contact with an ex, it's not for the child's sake. It's because they WANT to keep that person in their lives and that can be detrimental for a new relationship.
My husband talks to his ex wife maybe 1-2 times a month? Or if she wants money (yes she still thinks he "owes" her to pay for stuff) - their kids are grown and in college so my husband TALKS with/to the kids more than her. There really isn't MUCH need for my husband and his ex-wife to converse. They have been divorced for 25 years. We have been married for almost 17.
I don't have any other kids then the ones with my husband, I DO however occasionally talk to an ex. But it is rare and not at all sexual, sensual or deeply personal. And ANYTHING we talk about my husband can hear/read.
Let her go, give her some time to decide if really done with this, and some time for you to think about HOW much time you spend on the phone with your ex and if you really think it's as OK as you seem to think. Would you be fine with a partner talking to an ex THAT much? If the answer is yes, it's all ok, then SHE wasn't for you.
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A
male
reader, Sageoldguy1465 +, writes (3 July 2014):
 Sooo.... let her go, and chalk this up as your getting attracted to a girl who was insecure and had an agenda that you couldn't tolerate...
Good luck...
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