Having a crush could save your relationship/ marriage

[jhonny9546]

Hello friends!
This article discusses how, in marriage and in stable, LTR's, it's normal to have crushes (emotional distancing), that at least 80% of all men and women do so on an ongoing basis, and that, if this crush remains platonic, the marriage itself has the opportunity to grow and become stronger.

You can find the text in English here, and the original article is here.

Having a crush could save your marriage, and no, it's not true that those who get married or move in together don't fall into the crush trap. In fact, a study from the University of Vermont tells us that married people, like everyone else, get crushes.

To be precise, 98 percent of men and 80 percent of women regularly fantasize sexually and/or romantically about people other than their regular partner.

The problem isn't having a crush while married; the problem is believing that the moment you meet "your person," all others disappear from the face of the earth.

That doesn't happen. When you get married or move in together, you don't lose your senses or the ability to feel attracted to other people. So the crush that develops after you've said "I do" is one of the most common (and rightly so, due to stigma, least confessed) experiences of adult life. The crush, as we know, mostly happens in the office, but it can also happen at the gym, at a bar, or on a train.

Crushes during marriage aren't escape plans.

But the point is this: according to some therapists and sexologists, harmless crushes can be beneficial to a marriage because they rekindle desire, vitality, and self-awareness, and because they can act as a warning light. They remind people what they desire and what they've stopped cultivating as a couple.

In fact, a small crush, if it stays platonic, can even save a marriage. Not a betrayal, mind you, but a crush, which in most cases means absolutely nothing but still provides a moment of emotional diversion and proof that you're still alive, alive. And keeping in mind that you can love your partner and, at the same time, feel a little thrill for someone else.

According to this interpretation, a crush—we emphasize platonic—can be good for a marriage because it momentarily breaks the anesthesia of routine. In long-term relationships, people love each other but get used to it, conversations are less lively, and the couple's dimension coincides with that of home, and home is beautiful, but rarely remains erotic.

A crush, on the other hand, is all non-domestic energy and seduces because it's lively and imaginative. In fact, of a crush, we practically only see the positive aspects, because the negative ones are unknown and ultimately don't even matter.

A crush can "save" a long relationship as long as it stays that way.
This is where Esther Perel, psychotherapist and author of Mating in Captivity, comes in. She's one of the most cited voices when discussing desire in long-term relationships. Perel has argued for years that desire also requires distance and mystery, that love seeks security to exist; but desire seeks adrenaline to exist. And within a marriage, love is presumed to exist, therefore stability, not adrenaline.

We know that some therapists suggest not reading a crush as a threat, but as information. What is it saying? What's missing: attention? play? feeling attractive? or just the excitement of the beginning?

The solution isn't necessarily to chase the crush and file for divorce, but to ask how to bring that energy back into the marriage. And here, perhaps, is the central reason why a platonic crush can be beneficial to a couple if it becomes a trigger for awareness: the presence of a secret crush isn't a problem, but rather a warning bell and a possible cure. Naturally, the line must be clear between what remains a lucidly managed fantasy and the initiation of practices such as secretly sent text messages, emotional intimacy, constant contact seeking, explicit flirting, and casual dates. In this second version, "crushes" are no longer just that, but the construction of alternative paths (which is fine, too, as long as people are aware of it).

When someone gets emotionally disconnected, many things can happen, such as a change in behavior on the part of the woman, who will also start to act like a b1tch and show a lack of respect, or just change her behaviour or her routines with new interests, going out, etc..

In this case, you all agree to end things.
Yet, as the article says, I've seen with my own eyes when this happened in couples and they didn't cheat, but it remained platonic, their bond becoming even stronger after.
It's as if they've discovered a new "boundary" through this, and now both understand when they're touching it and shouldn't go beyond it.
Also, they now start to use those crushes as a fuel for thei own marriage, maybe they will use them for the s3x, or actually to make fun, etc...

Desdinova wouldn't agree because, in his opinion, we all have preferences, like someone in the number 1 position, and it's just that we didn't catch him/her.
Therefore, the fact that we have crushes on others would mean that the person we're with is only number 2 or 3 on our list, or even less.

That said, what is your experience with this, and what do you think?