Do you tell pretty girls that they're pretty?

Umbran said:
I don't think he's doing any such thing.

I don't always tell my wife what I had for lunch, or the details of every conversation I had with my coworkers. But that's not keeping secrets, it's just not cluttering up what little time we have together with irrelevancies.

A spouse is allowed to have interations with other human beings without discussing them in detail with their partners. So long as Rel has no intention of doing anything more deep than give the complement, then there is no "secret". That interaction does not infringe upon the husband-wife bond in the slightest. It is a non-issue.

Or, it should be a non-issue. If there's such a lack of trust between a married couple that a complement would be an issue, then that lack of trust is the problem, not the "secret".

I disagree that he's "not keeping secrets". You don't tell your wife what you had for lunch because it doesn't occur to you to mention it, therefore it is not a secret. But If you are talking to your wife and you think about something good you had for lunch then think "She would get mad if she knew I was breaking my diet" and thus decide to omit that peice of info that might have come up naturally, you are now keeping a secret.

Of course he's "allowed" to not tell her. But if the interaction is weighing enough on his mind to post about it here and has made a consious choice not to mention it to her, that qualifies, to me, as a kept secret. Throwing it onto a percieved lack of trust on the wife's problem or her making it an issue misses the point. His wife, as a girl he considers pretty, is the perfect person to ask how she would have felt in such a situation. But he has instead decided to keep it from her. Whether this is "ok" so as not to hurt her feelings is another subject. But its definitly a secret.
 

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I don't bother unless I am trying to start something romantic with the woman.

Mostly, becasue it would likely send the wrong message.

Just about any version of "you're pretty" is what most people would be using if they were trying to pick a woman up. how is she expected to distinguish between "harmless" complements on her appearance, and "meaningful" ones?

She can't. They're identical.

There is a reason you are leary of telling your wife about this Rel, it's because "complements on appearance" are a subset of a larger group of actions most people know as "flirting".

I will occsionally complement someone on their hair, but that's in a professional capacity.
 

Joshua Dyal said:
Either it's flirting and means something, or it isn't and it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. Which do you think?

I think that the same words can mean rather differnt things to different people. It happens all the time - It is called "miscommunication". Perhaps you've heard of it? :)

Rel not intending to flirt has very little bearing on whether she thinks he is. How she takes it depends on exactly what he said, how he said it, and innumerable things going on in her life and in her head. If he's a really good communicator, he phrased his words and took a tone of voice that would minimize the likelyhood that she misunderstood. But there's no guarantees, you know.
 

Kahuna Burger said:
Throwing it onto a percieved lack of trust on the wife's problem or her making it an issue misses the point.

Stop right there. Go back and re-read what I said. I specifically chose my words carefully there - I did not say it was the wife's problem. I said the distrust was the problem. There's a world of difference there.

I don't know the ultimate source of the problem, so I don't lay it at the feet of anyone in particular. I just know that paying a damned compliment shouldn't be an issue for healthy adults.
 

Interesting responses.

Maybe I'm guilty of making a distinction that isn't a difference but my wife would not actually be angry or hurt by knowing about this. I don't think she'd be thrilled or encourage it either. And I suppose that when I think about it, many decisions I make in life are based on this (to my mind) important distinction.

I'll use a great example from GenCon that at least a couple people posting in this thread are familiar with: The Red Garter (that's a strip club for those of you not fortunate enough to have been there). My wife is not wild about the prospect of me going to a strip club. Nor does it infuriate her. I'd rather go and have a good time watching mostly naked women dance around while I have a few beers and some laughs with my newfound pals. So I do.

Since it falls into the category of "I'd rather you didn't but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it", I didn't give her a blow by blow description of it and volunteered nothing about it unless she asked me. No need to rub her nose in it. But I made no big effort to conceal it either.

I guess I'm saying that our marriage (like most I suspect) has been negotiated on a set of rules for various sorts of behavior. Some are banned and will get you booted. Some are considered ideal and win you brownie points. Some are mildly frowned upon and might cost you a point or two. How you want to manage your points is up to you.

Trust me when I say that I'm pretty far in the black on the brownie point scale.
 


Umbran said:
I don't think he's doing any such thing.

I don't always tell my wife what I had for lunch, or the details of every conversation I had with my coworkers. But that's not keeping secrets, it's just not cluttering up what little time we have together with irrelevancies.
But Rel has made it clear to us that relevance is not the thing inhibiting him telling his wife this otherwise charming story of how he made a portly pallid corporate representative's day.
A spouse is allowed to have interations with other human beings without discussing them in detail with their partners. So long as Rel has no intention of doing anything more deep than give the complement, then there is no "secret".
He's willing to share this story with us and not his wife. What does that tell you?

I'm all for omitting information from one's spouse based on relevance but not based on concern regarding the spouse's reaction which is Rel's clearly-stated motive.
That interaction does not infringe upon the husband-wife bond in the slightest. It is a non-issue.
What was his motivation for posting it here if it is a "complete non-issue"?
Or, it should be a non-issue. If there's such a lack of trust between a married couple that a complement would be an issue, then that lack of trust is the problem, not the "secret".
It's not about trust (correct me if I'm wrong, Rel); it's about not wanting to hurt his wife's feelings. Her insecurity does not have to be about not trusting him. It can just be about her insecurity.
 

The question, then, is why post here? Did/do you feel guilty?

IME, I've found that women who get upset or jealous if you compliment another woman usually have a poor self image. If I did this and came home, here's how the conversation would have gone:

Me: I talked to this really interesting person today.

Wife: What about?

Me: Subject X. She worked in a X store and we just started a conversation. She had very pretty eyes and I told her that.

Wife: Cool. What did she look like?

Why? Because I'm an honest person and my wife knows I mean nothing but "you have pretty eyes" when I say that. She trusts me enough to know that I didn't mean anything else.

And, yes, she's sitting right here and I asked her what she'd say. ;)
 
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reveal said:
The question, then, is why post here? Did/do you feel guilty?

No I do not feel guilty. I voilated nothing within my own personal moral codes nor did I do anything that I feel was a transgression against any agreement I have with wife.

The reason I posted here was because I had done some moderately lengthy examination of my own feelings (mostly because I was captive within my automobile on the hour and a half ride home) and I was curious as to how others felt about the same issues. I thought I'd made at least a modicum of effort to pose my OP in that way and not as a "Did I do the right thing?" I understand that if it is interpreted that way then I look like too many other threads I've seen here asking for advice and then looking for any way to avoid taking whatever advice is given.

I think there is a valid question to be asked and that is, "If your wife doesn't approve of this behavior, no matter how mildly, why did you engage in it?" My answer to that is that it made me feel good to give a compliment and it seemed to make the recipient feel good. My wife doesn't know about it and probably never will. If she found out then she might raise an eyebrow and that would probably be the end of it. Looks like a net gain in warm fuzzies to me.

Perhaps on some level it gave me a sense of freedom and rebelliousness to do something I think she would not have much cared for. Juvenile and petty? Most certainly. But if this is the most harmful manner in which I ever express my urges for freedom and rebelliousnes then my wife ought to get down on her knees and thank the sweet Lord.
 

Umbran said:
...I just know that paying a damned compliment shouldn't be an issue for healthy adults.

It shouldn't be,and in a perfect, platonic ideal of a relationship it wouldn't be.

But like I mentioned earlier, fidelity is a bit of a touchstone in our society.

If there is no appreciable difference between the way you initiate contact for a romantic encounter (and your wife will know--from experience--that it likley starts with compliments) and the way you "innocently" compliment a "girl you think is attractive" (which is what is happening since, you know, this is a compliment on looks that is being talked about), well to quote Red Foreman..."What good could come of it?"
 

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