Crushing, and Keeping it Secret
Dear Maxwell’s: I am in a long term relationship (married) and have developed a “crush” on somebody else. I don’t plan on acting on it, but do I still need to tell my partner? Also, does this mean that something is wrong in my relationship?
Dear Reader, thanks for your question. First off, having a desire for somebody other than your partner at some point in your relationship is completely normal and to be expected in a long term intimacy. How far you take this crush and what you make it mean about you and your partner is where things can get tricky. Let’s unpack this.
We’ve written at length in previous articles about this notion of a “romantic ideal” that we have all been subconsciously programmed to buy into throughout our lives by culture, our parents, our friends, heck even the fairy tales that we used to read and watch as kids. This ideal says that “true love” means never having a desire for somebody or something else. This ideal in modern culture also carries with it other expectations like being passionate lovers, best friends, even each other's therapists where you process everything with each other and do everything you can to support one another in all aspects of each other's lives. These are beautiful and well meaning expectations but they are also quite unrealistic given that it’s impossible to be everything to somebody else, and certainly impossible to be close to everything all the time. Additionally, as modern medicine and technology continues to advance, so will our life spans. So the idea that we will be able to fulfill these expectations indefinitely is one of the reasons why so many modern relationships suffer from infidelity and divorce. Throw in the confines of monogamy (also a topic we’ve written at length about in previous articles) and you have a recipe for creating a narrative that something is “wrong” in your relationship as soon as you start to engage the idea that…”hey…this other person (not my partner) is pretty great…sexy…fun etc.” Or even “this other person (not my partner) possesses some amazing traits that my partner doesn’t possess. Hmmmm…I wonder what it would be like to be with them?”
The good news here is that nothing is wrong with you for feeling this way. In fact, it’s completely and utterly normal for anybody in a long term relationship to desire others at some point and in some capacity whether it’s sexual or emotional or romantic. The problem arises first when we make this completely normal phenomenon, “abnormal” and subsequently feel like we have to lie about it. This is usually when something becomes a “crush” versus just a normal part of being a human in a relationship, living in a world full of other attractive humans.
The fact that you use the word “crush” means that it has become enough of a constant part of your inner dialogue, a regular enough part of your daily fantasy life to warrant that title. Part of the reason this happens is because you have been keeping it secret. Anything we keep secret we give our power over to. We tell ourselves that whatever we are feeling must be so bad, so shameful, so unable to be brought out into the light that it has to be kept in the dark corners of secrecy and thus, the longer we keep it secret, the more powerful our emotions about the secret feel. This makes the crush even more potent and seductive and the cycle repeats until you force yourself to either stop thinking about it, act on it, or best case scenario, tell your partner.
Telling your partner brings the secret into the light and it will then immediately lose some or all of its potency. Then you and your partner can have an honest discussion about what it means and what, if anything you’d both like to do about it. There are an infinite amount of solutions here, but ultimately and most importantly, the power of the crush, created by the secrecy of it, will diminish greatly and only then can you gain clarity on things. Clarity on if you need to fix or change something in your relationship, change something in your monogamy arrangement or if nothing needs to change at all now that you’ve told the truth. If you have a strong relationship and foundation, this will only make it even stronger and if there are weak points in your relationship, this can be an opportunity to openly and honestly address them. Win/win!
Lastly, remember that whoever you are crushing on or fantasizing about comes with their own slew of baggage, traumas, sexual hangups, bad habits, bad breath and farts while they sleep… without knowing it...just like your partner…and just like you! Understand that the fulfillment of your desire for them is only fleeting because a desire fulfilled is no longer a desire. Hope that helps!
