When is friendship TOO intimate?

Ask Jeff Anything Series:

Jennifer:
Hi! May I ask you an intimacy question?
I guess I’ll ask about your experience first… Did you have close friendships before you got together with Kelly that – once you were together with Kelly – had to become much less close? Because otherwise they were inappropriately intimate? Not in a physical way, but emotionally?

AskJeffAnything:
I went through a phase after my divorce (before Kelly) and while I was at healing school where I was emotionally inappropriate with several people at once … in addition to my primary relationship. It was exhausting. It allowed me to appear intimate but in actuality I was unavailable … because I wasn’t being completely honest.

Jennifer:
Right. And were those peripheral relationships also of a romantic nature? Or headed that way? Were there any that were platonic?

AskJeffAnything:
Half were platonic and half had some degree of physicality. All of them had emotional attachments, some percentage of my capacity that I reserved for them.

Jennifer:
And eventually, in order to be fully committed to and intimate with your chosen mate, did you feel the need to give up those platonic relationships as well?

AskJeffAnything:
I am still friends and in contact with most of them. They transitioned as I matured (for lack of a better word). By the time I got together with Kelly, I was transparent. They all knew about Kelly and Kelly knew about them. I shared with them how much I loved and respected Kelly and I shared with Kelly my history with them. I was overtly honest and it was very liberating. I also shared conversations with Kelly. If they called when Kelly was with me, I always took the call. I never tried to hide texts or be surreptitious. It was amazingly empowering. And it was easy. None of them felt rejected or had any demands that things revert to the way they were.

Jennifer:
That’s very helpful…thank you. Thomas has two friends with whom he’s very close…and essentially he’s getting some of his emotional / intimacy needs met through his relationships with them (or thinks he is), and it’s allowing for him to be less intimate with me. They are both platonic and I have no concerns they’ll be anything other, although one of them is a woman he dated very briefly 20 years ago.

AskJeffAnything:
My experience is that the emotional connection is much deeper and more intimate than a purely physical connection. Like I said, it allowed me to maintain a distance.

Jennifer:
I believe you’re right…

AskJeffAnything:
Gift him a session or two with me (no charge to you). It might be enough to get the ball rolling. I had one client that did exactly that for her husband and he was on-board after the first session. I showed him how much energy he was wasting trying to control his environment and gave him tools to increase his energy, self-sufficiency and fun without giving anything away.

Jennifer:
Oh my goodness…you are amazingly sweet! Thank you! Wow…ok, I’ll offer that to him.
He’s just not seeing what’s happening. It’s frustrating.

AskJeffAnything:
He is seeing it, he just doesn’t want to admit it. That is EXACTLY where I was.
I had a girlfriend (before Kelly) and several other women across the globe I “communicated” with. I tried to convince myself that I was just being “spiritual” “a deep friendship” or “getting in touch with my emotional body.” It was all shit. I was cheating and diluting my connection to my primary relationship.

Jennifer:
I know exactly what you mean. What was it that convinced you to make the shift?

AskJeffAnything:
My relationship before Kelly was catastrophic. It reset my entire system. Looking back on it, I realize that I was so afraid of being abandoned, I kept several options open. After the reset, I no longer feared being alone or being abandoned. I came to the conclusion that sex and companionship wasn’t worth the pain I was inflicting on myself. I also discovered just how powerful I am. Unfortunately, I had to feed myself through the cosmic sausage maker before I figured it out.

Jennifer:
You do so have a way with words…
That gives me a good insight into what he’s doing…I think it’s a fear of abandonment for him, too…
“Better maintain these just in case Jennifer goes away..” These are each very old friendships. Their roots run deep in his psyche.
And it IS draining his energy.

AskJeffAnything:
It was amazing to me how quickly I devalued my “friendships” when I admitted my pattern. They were no longer interesting to me in that way. It was an addiction that no longer had any draw.
It drains his energy in several ways. He spends energy on each of them, he spends energy hiding it from you, he spends energy trying to convince himself he is within his integrity and he has to maintain his vigilance so that you don’t see his mechanizations.

Jennifer:
EXACTLY!
It’s not cool. But I think he feels stuck.

AskJeffAnything:
Yep, he needs support. He needs an advocate for his self-reliance and a guide to self-sufficiency. I am free most of the day tomorrow. Let me know if and when he would like a session and we’ll get the party started.

Jennifer:
Will do. Thanks for helping me hash this out. I appreciate your time, energy, and friendship.