The Seventh Commandment

Q.  When you're married, when does a relationship with someone of the opposite sex become adulterous?

A.  At least as soon as you ask that, and probably before!

See, one of Satan's tricks is to put across two lies that work well together.  

The first lie is that it's okay to do everything short of sex with someone of the opposite sex, because it is "just" talking or "just" a lunch or "just" a friendship or "just" a close friendship, etc. and ever growing etc.

The second lie is that none of that gradual growing of a relationship from simply seeing her and not knowing her to the first kiss counted as towards the relationship, rather the "love" that is some how now there "just" sprang into being from nowhere!

Truth is, it is never the case that a person "can't help falling in love" or that love "just happens".  Love actually takes time and effort, and a person has to be trying for it to happen.  

Lust now, that's instantaneous, and great at getting you to pretend that what I just wrote isn't true.  That you can look a second time.  Then "just" arrange to be wherever she is the next day.  And find a way to meet.  And find a way to swap numbers.  And etc.

This goes for online friendships with the opposite sex, too.  And for that matter, any current friendship with the opposite sex.  Is it possible to be "just" friends with the opposite sex?  

Hmmm....best that such a "friendship" be couple to couple, with he more your friend and she more your wife's friend.  Here's the trouble with having a "buddy" of the opposite sex - it tends to start to take from your wife what is hers.

Your day that you want to share?  That is to be shared with your wife - it's hers, she has first claim!  When you share it with your online "buddy" or offline buddy, and get her listening and nodding and affirming you, you're then getting from that other woman what was your wife's to give.  

And no, it doesn't count that you'll share your day with your wife next - you won't share it as well, if you do share it at all.  

This stuff also tends to grow.  It won't end at being sharing your day with her.  You'll go to her first with problems and concerns - and it was your wife you were to go to.  You'll have secrets with her, that your wife is not privy to.  You'll have jokes and in-jokes and laughter that you - for reasons you do not care to think about - won't share with your wife.

And you'll be making yourself increasingly vulnerable.  The other woman can afford to "there, there" you and be nothing but sympathetic to your complaints and concerns, because you're not with her all the time so she's not tired of it.  You're thus starting to make unfair comparisons between her interest and your wife's interest, when really, if you were to ever be married to the other, her interest would fall off after time just as your wife's has.

And conversely, you can afford to "there, there" the other woman, if she is married, as you're increasingly interested in being "the man" sought after for manly advice - in which case you're now stealing from the other guy that which was his.  

You each, without noticing - or caring - have entered into the "honeymoon stage" of a relationship where you're each putting your best face forward (the face that you each stopped showing to your spouses long ago) and overlooking any flaw in the other because the other is new and shiny.  

All this can happen on or offline, but it obviously happens more online where things aren't as "real" at first and you can take the first three or four fateful steps while telling yourself that the net doesn't count and she's in another state anyway!  

But it does count.  At lunch at the office or online in the evening. Adultery does not start with a hotel, it ends with a hotel.  The start of adultery is the flirting and the companionship that you withdraw from your spouse and give to the other.  

Like with the cats, it's the grooming and affection and purrings that start it off, not the procreation later.