This doesn't really fit in the main forum so I'm posting it here.

About two years ago my best friends fiance had a few too many drinks at an event and came on to me, and came on pretty strong. Flirty talk, touching, hugging, even to the point of her nibbling on my ear. The following morning she apologized for her behaviour and I accepted, however this event opened up a bit of a sexual aspect to our friendship, nothing very serious and nothing physical, just the occasional mild sexual talk via text message. At the time I knew that what was happening was morally questionable and could be dangerous should my friend find out, however I made a promise to myself that I would not allow things to become physical (sex) or get emotions involved (have feelings for each other).

Things stayed like this for a few weeks, until she went away on a business trip for a week. Just before she returned she said that she wanted to stop the flirtatious talk and return to normal. Knowing that it would be difficult to put this stuff back into the box so to speak (we had opened pandora's box), I stated my opinion but reluctantly agreed that we would stop. When she returned home my friend and I were at her place to welcome her back, I had previously spent weekends with them at her place. Upon her return instead of going right to bed with her fiance she spent the night (to 3 am approx) awake with me watching television, going through old photo albums of her friends/boyfriends from highshool/college and what had happened with them, eventually winding up sitting in my lap in an almost half embrace. The whole time I'm thinking to myself "I could make a move right now and probably bang her" but didn't given the above promise to myself.

Fast forward a few more weeks and I, admittedly my fault, had upset her with a flirtatious text message or two. However one late nite she calls me up drunk (again), we spend hours to one or two am talking. Literally talking about everything, their relationship, raunchy suggestive flirtation, her sexual needs/desires, she compliments me a number of times, even tells me that she had fantasized about me. Again thoughts enter my mind that I could jump into my car drive (almost 2 hrs) to her place and, bow chicka ow wow! But didn't allow myself to. Ugh, again the next morning she apologizes for her behaviour stating that she was drunk. I tell her that alcohol doesn't make you do things that aren't already in your head. From here things progressively get worse to the point where I tell her (and him) that I did not want to spend weekends at her place with them anymore (their relationship was a bit rocky at this point).

Things more or less stayed like this for the next few months. Occasionally she would do something flirtatious towards me the odd time the three of us hung out, followed by completely and utterly ignoring me the next few weeks. They officially broke up a year ago next weekend and I have never told him about what went on between her and I.

I want everyone's opinion.

Should I, or why do I feel guilt for having sexual thoughts about her, particularly after what happened between us? I had never viewed her in a sexual way from the moment I met her until the flirtatious talk began, and I could never/would never allow myself to have sex with her while she was seeing him (in fact sleeping with her after they broke up still feels kind of icky).

Despite this, the moral shadiness of even beginning to have flirtatious conversations with her leaves me feeling like I did something wrong even though I feel that I did the 'best' I could do in the situation, and that both of us were more or less willing participants. Also, the fact is having someone who is receptive to your flirtatious talks, especially being someone who has difficulty with it with other women like I do feels REALLY GOOD.

Should I have allowed the flirtatious talk to even begin?

Post break up, despite how angry I had been with her, I told her I would like to remain in touch with her and possibly hang out. Am I wrong to do this, especially given that there remains some thoughts on my end of making good on the opportunities I had to sleep with her? Should I honour my best friend and cut her out of my life?

you did pretty good overall.
I don't think the flirtatious talk was really morally right. But could have been worse.
Nothing you personally did impacted the situation. It's not like she was doing it because she was able to because you were there. She would have just chosen some other guy otherwise.
I wouldn't feel too bad about starting something with her now. Single is single, if things are settled. However, she doesn't sound like the most loyal type to me.

I agree with Fonduman for the most part. My comment however is if you even remotely valued your "friendship" with this "bestfriend," I would think you would've told him about his fiances tendencies. I mean we're talking about the woman he was planning on marrying and committing his life to. Yet, you didn't even deem it necessary as a friend to warn him his girl was open to cheating? Even more so since that person she was willing to cheat with was you. I don't know, the fact you entertained and encouraged the sexting, with no thought of ever telling your "friend" kinda rustles my jimmies. Cheating with strangers is pretty sleazy, cheating with your friend's girl...best I not say what I think about that.

@CountZero.

Granted I did attempt to drop hints to him regarding other aspects of their relationship trying to get him to see what was going on. Her being unappreciative of him (driving 2 hrs each 3 times a week to be with her, her lack of showing of affection to him, them fighting on a regular basis) etc, but he was blind in his own love for her to see.

I suppose I could have, should have told him right away what had happened between her and I, and in an ideal world I think this is what should happen. However we don't live in an ideal world, and the whole situation developed rather slowly and innocuously that by the time I would have said something far too much would have happened between her and I that I would still have felt guilty. Plus given his blind love would he have believed me, and then telling him likely would have been a major hit to our friendship.

"believe you?"
assumed you had the messages saved.
gotta watch what you say these days. tends to be a lot more permanent than it used to be.

This is why religion exists, to make a more ideal world and to give guidance to people who don't know what they are doing. The bottom line is you should have told him directly. If you two shared a religion/church, you could have told the priest/rabbi/imam who could have told your friend. A decent religion would also have chastised the slutty bitch. But then if you all had been in a decent religion, none of this would have happened in the first place. For example, Orthodox Judaism prohibits a man and woman who aren't related from being alone together.

@Fonduman
Yes I had the "sexts" and could have presented them of evidence of her infidelity to him. However the question of him believing me was more along the lines of would he believe that she initiated the sexting with me vs me being the one who initiated with her. The risk is that he blame me for the situation regardless of what evidence I showed him. Love, I have found, is crazy that way people will trust their partners to no ends regardless of what other tell them, making excuses for their partner, and/or placing blame on others.

@fschmidt
I don't share your belief that faith or religion is the answer. To be quite honest I don't believe that faith is a necessity when making moral based decisions. The fact that I know what the "right thing to do" is and the decision I make really is not affected by whether or not I believe in a higher power. There are many examples of people of faith making poor moral choices as well, so yea. I don't mean to begin a philosophical discussion around faith, just that I don't share your viewpoint.

When did I say anything about faith or a higher power? I don't believe in either. The point of religion is to embody collective historical moral wisdom. Modern Christianity is a deviant religion that has lost morality and only retains a worthless faith. It resembles the paganism of the Roman Empire and will die out soon enough. Good religions include Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Anabaptist Christianity. You cannot make good moral choices without either the guidance of a good religion or a lifetime of study of history combined with high intelligence. Your story is an example of this, namely your failure to inform your friend.

I think you are not wrong at any point although you handle her very maturely. So you must not feel guilty for this.

????

You stated:

and


Which I took to imply that my religious beliefs (or lack there of) was THE CAUSE for the situation. Specifically that, by not belonging to a proper (your judgement of proper) church was the reason that a) her and I engaged in sexting and b) I made a morally cloudy choice by continuing sexting with her.

You say you did not mention anything about a higher power, yet the definition of religion per Dictionary.com:

by definition belief in religion there is belief in a "higher power"

Furthermore you state:

Which as I stated previously. I do not share your belief, or should I say argument, that one cannot make good moral choices WITHOUT the guidance of religion. Again there are a number of examples of religious people committing morally wrong acts despite their religion, across all religions not just Catholicism. Murder is AMORAL and yet some islamic sects promote murder in the name of 'jihad', and on and on. I believe that there are humanistic guidelines that one can follow with logic and reason without resorting to a faith to guide our decisions.

Now in the end did I do the morally right thing? That is the question I posed to the forum. I believe that while I did, in some way, take a moral wrong turn by engaging in sexting with her and not saying anything to my friend that the potential was far greater. Had I even slept with her once that would have been an unforgivable act. I believed I could manage the situation and NOT sleep with her, rather than she wind up one night with a random man who would have had no problem sleeping with her, and that I did it by teetering on the moral tightrope.

Again you are mixing up 2 different things. Your first sentence is about belief but the second sentence is about belonging to a church. There are people with religious beliefs who don't belong to a church and there are people without religious beliefs (like me) who do belong to a church. What matters is belonging to a church, not religious belief.


The definition is simply wrong. There are some religions that push certain beliefs, basically Christianity and Islam. Most religions are not primarily about beliefs including Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc. But it seems that religions with a strong mythology tend to be more successful, which is why I chose one of those.


You are confusing "necessary condition" with "sufficient condition". Religion is a necessary condition for morality but not a sufficient condition. All moral societies are based on a strong religion, but not all religious societies are moral.


I agree that you could have done worse. Women need religion more than men do. While you seem to have some sense of morality which put you on a middle ground, the woman involved has no sense of morality and she desperately needs religion to set her straight.

Than we must disagree. I don't need to belong to a church in order to know what is moral or to make moral choices.

I think the idea is more based on a general model for guidance of the populace in general.
you know, those amoebas that appear on jerry springer, etc, that barely understand the concept of defecating outside their pants.