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Text Flirting, Sex & The Credit Crunch

 

The Joy of Text - is SMS Contributing to Extra-Marital Affairs?


With the credit crunch looming over us as we tighten our belts, what better way to get the feel-good factor than to receive or send a text to someone?  Over 100 million texts are sent every day in Britain.  The peak times are between Friday and Saturday nights.  This can only mean one thing - Text Flirting!
 
 
We can’t imagine lives without our mobiles and text messages have become an integral part of our lives. But is the short messaging service, or SMS, paving a way for us all to manoeuvre around deep-rooted barriers to pre-marital and/or extra-marital mingling?
 
 
 
Encouraging a Lack of Decent Manners
 
There are many pros and cons to texting. It makes communication within a new relationship easier, more controllable and more unobtrusive.  Over 80% of modern relationships start with text messaging!  But does it encourage us to be cowards? We’ve all heard of people who’ve had dates cancelled by text or – even worse – people who’ve been texted to say ‘it’s over’. OK it’s easy, but it does strike many of us as unkind and impersonal.

Is Texting Making it Easier to Have Affairs?
Few of us think that sending a few texts will lead to an affair and can’t envisage the potential damage they might eventually cause. The text exchanges can start off fairly innocent but people don’t bank on the increasing rush of adrenaline and excitement they feel when they get those texts. Suddenly you may start to feel down if you don’t get a text. Soon you won’t let your mobile out of your sight and you’re not sleeping properly because you’re waiting for that text to give you a lift.  It’s quite incredible to what extent a few text words can  impact on our everyday lives. It’s worth bearing in mind too that, being brief, texts can be misinterpreted, dependent on the state of mind of the person who receiving the text. They may read more into your ‘innocent’ words than you think!
Boosting your love life
 
We’d all love the excitement of feeling like a teenager again when we get the ‘I miss you’, ‘You are everything to me’…  messages. Texting is such an easy flirting medium with no embarrassing face-to-face contact. It's all too easy to get carried away. People who might struggle to utter the words ‘I Love You’ in person may find it far easier to do so in a text.
Text ‘flirting’ gives you something to look forward to. Somebody somewhere likes you for yourself, not for being a mother, father, husband, wife, etc.  An arms-length text-relationship can seem so perfect. You don’t have to deal with their bad moods, their dirty washing or argue about how you’ll pay the mortgage.  
 
Texting and the hurt it can cause
When we receive or send that first flirtatious text we’ve no idea what it’s going to lead to. We think only of now, we don’t realise the impact it can have on lives or our partners. We’re not embarking on a texting ‘relationship’ with someone, we’re just having fun with the other person and giving each other the ‘feel good’ factor. Aren’t we?
But text flirting can cause a loss of trust that may take a long time to heal or even sufficient damage that relationships may break up.   Although its addictive to get that buzz from ‘text sex’ it’s better to deal with the real situation we have at home before we embark on something that could end in hurt and upset for all those involved. We all get a kick out of text sex, but before it causes chaos it’s time for it to stop? How? BY TEXT!
 
Useful Sites

Relate offers advice, relationship counselling, sex therapy, workshops, mediation, consultations and support face-to-face, by phone and through their website. Click here to visit.

 

The BBC website offers excellent advice on all aspects of managing your relationship.  Click here to visit

Have YOU had a relationship by text or had your relationship damaged by text flirting?  Why not share your experiences?  Click here to visit our forums or why not post a quick comment below.....


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jackie_walker's picture
Submitted by jackie_walker on 11 September 2008 - 7:57am.

Excellent article, it's amazing how many distractions can be found to stop you addressing the core issues affecting your current relationship - and it can even get as far as thinking about divorce/separation before individuals or couples wake up to what has really been going on. 

I'm The Divorce Coach and in the work I do, one of the most consistent problems is that women are not feeling loved, respected or supported.  Together we find out what it is that makes them feel like that, address the core issues (which are only highlighted by the symptoms) so's the client gets what she (or he and I wish there were more of them!) wants and needs.  My adage - No more putting up with!

There's a free Personal Relationship Audit on the site which you can download, and my Ebook - 7 Steps to Stress Less Relationships.  These will both give you a great head start to finding out what's really going on.  I'm always at the end of a phone for a quick chat and there's a September offer of one month's coaching (2 sessions) for £100.  You can even contact me through the private messaging service of this site.