FWB relationships - your opinion?

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Hi BOO,
I enjoy reading your posts. I would like to reply to this by saying that I don't believe you can actually "use" someone for love. How is that even possible? I don't use anyone for love. Love is never selfish nor evil. It is compassion and beautiful. It is loving a person for their true being, not loving them for the pleasure they give you. So I disagree with you here. But I would also say that I agree there are people who fool people into loving them and it's not mutual in order to get certain benefits(money,gifts, etc), which is perhaps the type you are reffering to? In situations like that, then I belive it is wrong. In that situation is when a person is being used for the "selfish"(personal) benefit of another.

I stopped it because I wanted to have a monogamous marriage. After 24 years or so of me being faithful but him not being faithful, and on top of lots of other really bad marriage problems, I ended up with a sort of relationship with another guy. It started out as a one night thing when I was at my wits in and seriously thinking of leaving my husband, then was a FWB thing for a while, then we both ended up with feelings for each other. Hubby found out and just doesn't seem to mind in the least. I still see him, we are still friends and sometimes still have sex, but it's got potential to be more than FWB but since I'm not getting a divorce it probably won't ever be, or it will just gradually fade away, who knows.

By practicing do you mean the guy that me and my friends made over, took out and finally got him laid or my first FWB who was a good friend and I could try stuff out with? I didn't practice anything of any type of a sexual nature with the guy who we took out. Just flirting and talking and dancing and such.

Just a reminder that everyone is welcome to post their own views on a subject however you have to be careful about some things.


For example those welcome to post their views include people that will most likely not share your views/think that your views are outdated or you are plain crazy.

If you start making a point to reply to every person that disagrees with you in a lengthy manner people will feel threatened to post in this thread and the discussion will not evolve/continue because nobody will want to go into a lengthy argument with you.

I dont think any of us wants a thread that we are pasionate about dying so I thought Id post this

Hi CAKEY,
Only parent's love to children is that unconditional and the closest to what you're describing, but romantic love is very conditional based on attraction and "give and take", partly subconsciously and partly is consciously calculated.

The feeling of love might feels like what you described but it's the result of finding a match who fulfills your emotional/physical/companionship/whatever needs.


I don't believe in the concept of soulmate or first sight love.

FWB is not less conditional than romantic love.

A context point: people in US or Canada are usually very focused in modern history, for obvious reasons. And it's easy to lose track of the big picture.

Love is a modern thing. It didn't exist during the dark ages, neither during the Renaissance nor even the Age of Enlightment. Romantic love, as we understand it today, was not 'discovered' until the Romanticism, and we're talking about only 200 years ago, and only in the Western world. Romantic love has not been a rule all along history. On the contrary, it's a late exception.

Marriage and love never were meant to be together until last two centuries, and only in a portion of the world. Most of history, marriage was meant to be a brick of society structure. People were not supposed to marry because the loved each other, but because they fulfilled their role in society.

Love, as it was intended in the Christian New Testament, had not a romantic meaning, even when talking about marriage. Romantic love didn't appear until almost 2000 years later. The meaning of "Love" in the New Testament was equivalent to what we understand today as compassion, sympathy or empathy. And why is that? Because those concepts didn't exist in the Ancient World where christianism appeared. The real Ancient Rome society lacked completely of compassion or empathy. It was the most savage jungle you can ever imagine. Wild West, as wild as it was supposed to be, would look as a Hello Kitty movie in comparison.

When the christianism says 'love your husband' it was not supposed to have a romantic meaning, despite that many people think. Its meaning was much closer to a 'be empathic with him'.

We could say that Christianism invented empathy. But Romanticism, two centuries ago, invented romantic love. The 'sacred bond', as christian traditions have understood marriage for centuries, is not a bond of romantic love. It's a bond of two people working together to fulfill their role and form a solid family, the brick of the christian society. "Love" in christianism is about working together for a greatest good, about collaborating, about team playing, not about romantic love.

So when it comes to christian values and FWB, the problem that underlays is not the lack of love, but the lack to social project. Sex, as it's intended in a FWB, it's just pleasure, it has not further meaning. So it finds no place in the christian social structure. When somebody brought before the homosexuality issue, it has relevant in some way: romantic love does happen between people of the same sex, but they have no place neither in this social structure. So at the end of the day, romantic love is not what matters. What matters, what defines how acceptable are subjects as FWB or homosexuality or abortion from the point of view of the christian traditions, is their capacity to find a place inside the social structure as it's understood by christianity.

The love I speak of is also unconditional. If a family member does a horrific crime, of course we must let them go to be punished, but that won't mean that the love is gone. Same thing with romantic partners. They could cheat, be a compulsive liar, and all these other things that could cause a break-up, but that wouldn't mean that the love that was there would go away. It just means they weren't compatible. When you love someone, you don't expect anything in return except you want them to be happy. I just don't consider wanting another person to be happy a way of using somone at all. I think using someone for sex, money or any other superficial/physical thing is to disregard their personality and being.

I don’t understand the idea of using someone for sex. If both want it, it’s sex in exchange for sex; otherwise, it’s rape, so I wouldn’t consider them friends. Besides, in the former case, why assume it’s the man who uses the woman for sex, and not vice-versa?

When we say using someone for sex it means using someone only for personal fulfillment, without regard to anything else. So if I was in FWB situation, I would use him for sex and he would use me for sex.

Oh, the love can and does go away sometimes. I was in love with my ex and I'm not anymore at all.

Does that mean that you use your friends for personal fulfillment without regard to anything else?

You do realise you can get an STD even if you sleep with only one person?

On the original topic, I have no problem with FWB as long as both parties are honest about their intentions.

This is how I view love. My love doesn't go away. If it happens that I belived I was in love and it "vanished", then it wasn't love at all(But this is for me personally). I thought I was in love many times in mylife and I was mistaken afterwards since I did forget and not care about them anymore, it was mere lust/obsession to me.

Well, if they beat the crap out of you on a daily basis and cheat on you with everything that moves and steal from you, the love can go away even if it is real love. It is possible to kill someones love for you. I love my husband now, the one I've been married to for 26 years and I know I loved my ex, but I do not love him now at all. He killed that a long time ago.

I don't use anyone. BTW, I'm an introvert. True friends care about each other and feel compassion for each other. I would also like to add that a person isn't a friend if they use you for personal gains. Also, I view FWB or one night stand things as though someone asking to copy my homework. They don't care for me at all, but they just want their grade higher for their personal fulfillment. In this way too, I'd feel used. Obviously having no friends is better than fake friends. I never said I used anyone btw if you read my posts, I am not comfortable with FWB.

Yes I realize it. However, condoms do normally work pretty well. While of course the safest sex is no sex, condoms are the next best thing.

That's your personal idea on love,not mine. I don't belive love goes away. It's more of an inner experience for me. Love is not conditional.