Love/Relationships
My Relationship With Another Woman Keeps My Marriage From Falling Apart
It’s a special kind of glue.
My partner and I have peaks and valleys. We have weeks of satisfying relationship moments and weeks of rotten relationship moments. This is par for the course in any long-term relationship whether you’re married or not.
The kicker is, that, most of the time, it’s not my partner who’s getting the brunt of my complaints about our relationship.
It’s my friend.
We walk miles every morning together 5 days a week. And we talk. We talk about everything. We talk about our kids, our bodies, politics, sex, traveling, food, our favorite brand of bra. Anything under the sun, basically.
We also talk about our partners — a lot. We’re pretty close friends and we know one another’s lives, routines, and spouses fairly well. We’re both married to men we love dearly but we also relish dishing about the latest episode within our relationships that may have us fired up on any given day.
Honestly, when the topic rolls around to these two men in our lives, it is mostly a list of complaints about them. What they’re doing, not doing, or how they frustrate our female minds to no end trying to figure out why it is that they think the way they do and why they do the things they do.
Whilst there are certainly those golden nuggets of complimentary chatter about our partners, the majority of our conversation is pretty much sh*t-talk about them.
And you know what? I don’t feel guilty about it. In fact, I think my husband is actually relieved that I have a person to confide in and get stuff off my chest that’s been bothering me. If I don’t get to vent in this way to someone I trust and who understands, I’d have a lot more resentment and negative energy coming back to him.
Generally speaking, women are highly communicative creatures and we thrive on emotional release, at least in my personal experience.
So, my friend and I walk and we talk. And complain. Yet, at the same time, we also express gratitude for our partners and how lucky we feel to have them in our lives. Although we may moan and groan about them, the circle of communication usually lands us back to a place of positive energy — and this is largely due to having that space to expel the negative stuff.
Instead of holding in all of our angst about whatever may be going on within the depths of our marriages regarding our kids, our sex life, our health, our worries about the state of the world, or our intimate, personal struggles, we are able to be a sounding board for one another in an honest and compassionate way that actually makes our relationships with our partners stronger, I believe.
Some people go to therapy and pay someone to listen to their angst. I have my friend with whom I exercise next to every day while venting at the same time. I, in turn, am her venting partner as well.
My partner is appreciative and grateful for the friendship I have with this other woman. I come back from our walks feeling heard and validated. He has even mentioned to my friend that he’s glad I have her to talk to. I’m sure he’s aware that I don’t always say flattering things about him when I’m mad or frustrated.
My partner is not intimidated by this friendship or any of my other close friendships. In fact, he’s relieved that I have other emotional outlets besides him as he is not precisely well-equipped to deal with all my intense emotions all of the time. I’m a passionate person and I understand that it can be overwhelming for him at times.
Sometimes the romantic partners we live with aren’t as good at validating our feelings as our friends are. It’s just a fact.
In the midst of raising a family, working, managing finances, and the chaos of daily life, our partners don’t always stop to say that they understand and hear our concerns or gripes.
This is okay and it’s totally normal. I’m sure my partner wishes he had someone like I do to complain about me sometimes and get it all out instead of being grumpy with me. I get it.
Not all of us are lucky enough to have a friendship where we can bear all about our romantic relationships and come out feeling better about those relationships — or at least feel as though we’ve made progress in figuring certain relationship problems out.
Women who have close friends to talk about their romantic relationships and marriages with are probably in a much better place emotionally and mentally overall. It’s incredibly healthy to be able to vent to someone who not only cares about your overall well-being but who can relate to you in a way that’s genuine.
In the end, it’s also a significant plus for your partner.
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