The Justifying Zone is that slippery slope that a lot of women find themselves in, especially after they have sexual contact with a guy. Many of us feel that we need to justify our emotional and sexual investment and this justification is effectively attempting to close the door after the horse has bolted.
The Justifying Zone will always appear when a man fails to live up to the initial promise that he first exhibited or does something inappropriate or that raises a major red flag that could potentially scupper the possibility of the relationship. If for instance, he’s a Mr Unavailable and the ambiguity increases along with all of his other core behaviours, the potential to stay in the zone and cling to it for dear life becomes even bigger.
As women, we tend to look for the smallest of things to make ourselves feel better about sleeping with our guys or just plain ‘ole liking/loving them, and this often causes us to spend more time on a relationship than is necessary. We see gold when in actual fact it’s brass, or even rusty ‘ole copper, and often we use the Justifying Zone as the launch pad for betting on potential and basically hoping that a cockroack will turn into a frog, and then eventually into a prince.
Why? Well to be fair, who wants to feel like they’ve had Yet Another Dubious Dating Experience? But women who habitually live in The Justifying Zone do so because they tend to already have unhealthy relationship habits and measure the value of themselves based on their interaction with their men. They don’t want to have another Here We Go Again Moment and they like to bet on the potential, even if he never shows an ounce of decency ever again.
Sex of course, is the biggest booby trap. You will definitely find yourself in this zone if you sleep with him too soon, or sleep with him and things don’t prosper and develop as expected. Many women still equate sex with someone as a signal of a bigger, deeper connection and if we’re left feeling empty, unfulfilled, confused, and a whole host of other negative feelings, we’ll remind ourselves that there must be a strong potential if we slept with him in the first place. We don’t want to feel devalued by the experience even though the subsequent lack of return on investment that we experience by being in The Justifying Zone, actually only serves to deplete our self-esteem anyway.
The reality is that The Justifying Zone is an excuse and if you find yourself there, it means that there is something wrong with the relationship. We spend a lot of time agonising over what is behind a man’s behaviour - He didn’t turn up/He spoke to you inappropriately/He doesn’t show affection can easily turn into He’s got a lot going on/He’s deep and complicated/I need to not be so needy so that he’ll be more comfortable.
If you feel the need to start rationalising and justifying his behaviour, you need to step back and examine your investment into the relationship because after a while, a justification for staying with the wrong type of guy eventually becomes you believing that you’re madly in love with him and you measuring your self-worth based on how successful (or unsuccessful) you are at getting a return on your investment.
You deserve to be in a relationship that doesn’t need a justification for you being there.
Your thoughts? Have you ever spent time in The Justifying Zone?
Also read: Return On Investment In Relationships
My new ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more.
Related Posts
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Stumble it!
15 responses so far ↓
1 Different Opinion // Feb 27, 2008 at 11:53 am
“we’ll remind ourselves that there must be a strong potential if we slept with him in the first place. We don’t want to feel devalued by the experience”
That’s quite insigtful, I find some women are not ready to realise, that sometimes a guy just wants sex. nothing else.
2 NML // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Exactly! I’ve come across women who say that they “just want sex” and then when he behaves like it’s “just sex” they feel upset. Sometimes it is what it is.
3 Alicia1973 // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:14 pm
The last guy I dated wanted a “sex buddy” but we also spent a lot of time talking and going out together. After about 8 weeks of this I told him I thought it was more than that and he agreed. We dated another couple months and it was a total disaster. As soon as things started getting too time involved I rarely heard from him. Of course in my no self esteem mind, when he did call and we went out and had sex, I took it that he liked me. It has been a very hard road but I am cutting him off and that actually means not going to some of my favorite hang outs and getting new ones. Looking forward to it and glad that I found this site, cause I love to make excuses for people’s bad behavior, except my own. Listen to your friends when they tell you your making excuses, they are right. Take time off from “men” in general cause you will keep that cycle going to you figure out YOU!!! Peace and Love yourself.
4 Lance // Feb 28, 2008 at 3:31 am
Why is sex a booby trap? Intrinsicially, sex is just…sex. It’s the value you place on it that changes the experience. There’s nothing wrong with having sex just for the sake of having sex. You just need two partners that are mature and confident enough to get past the social stigma that sex MUST equal love or else. Sex can be fun. Sex can be passion. Sex can be many things.
ALSO, I know for a fact that women enjoy and want sex just as much or more than a guy does. So why are we working so hard to prevent men and women from having it with things like Justifying Zones?
@Alicia: Cardinal rule of fuck buddies is to NEVER get romantically involved after you’ve started the FB relationship. Those never work. You’re either a friend or a friend with benefits, and nothing else.
5 Paula D. // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:54 am
Very interesting! Yep, I have been in the justifying zone before. I have gotten a lot smarter & realized that if it is just going to be sex & I can deal with it…..then that’s just what it is.
6 Brad K. // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Lance,
Think of it this way. Say you are on a school team, and you play the cross-town rivals. Are you going to play to do your best and *enjoy* what skills you have - or are you going to be yelling and working hard to ‘beat those guys’? What about the weakest team in the conference, the ones that haven’t won a game in 4 years - how much interest do you put into preparation? After all, it is just a game, right?
Unlike what the magazines, locker room conversations, and beer ads tell you, sex is *never* just about sex.
Any intimate encounter, where you spend time with someone at a personal level outside work, community, or family interactions, is a gift of your time, and a gift of your partner. Whether there is conversation, cuddling, or sex, your bodies exchange breaths, maybe even more intimate exchanges - and your bodies react. Implied social obligations and possibilities of pregnancy or disease aside, your body changes with the exchange of pheromones and hormones to accept this person you share time with as a ‘friend’ or as ‘family’.
On the other hand, wherever you found this person, they are likely to know others. Keep fishing in the same stream, and you are likely to find someone that has heard about you from someone else. You would likely find it difficult to mix casual encounters and longer-term relationships, both because of reputation, and the emotional and physical habits you acquire.
And I think you missed the point of the ‘Justifying Zone’. This is a broad description of a common reaction - disappointment and denial - when people realize that they have made a mistake. NML is writing about the occasions when a sexual encounter was the mistake. This article started out with “man fails to live up to the initial promise that he first exhibited or does something inappropriate”. This isn’t about dealing with the aftermath of a planned casual encounter, although many ‘casual’ encounters create the same kinds of problems.
The odds that after a casual encounter one or the other wants something more with a person they enjoyed time with are pretty high. The problem is that sex is properly a portion of a larger relationship. People looking for marriage or other life mate relationship find it easy to include sex within that framework. When you take sex out of context, there is an assumption that you are playing a role in a larger context of interdependence and mutual nurturing. A relationship is a much larger commitment than a casual encounter, but to many the sex is a ‘promissory note in the wedding march’, as Christopher Stasheff put it in “A Company of Stars”. Perhaps especially if the encounter is highly enjoyed, the desire to repeat the joy and satisfaction, of wanting to sustain good feelings with the partner(s), can redefine expectations.
After all, it is just a game..
7 Sex – When Sex is Just Sex: It is what it is but how about the guys speak up! // Feb 29, 2008 at 4:25 pm
[...] .recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding: 0 !important;margin: 0 !important;} ← The Justifying Zone: when a woman needs to justify her emotional or sexual investment [...]
8 lisaq // Mar 1, 2008 at 1:19 pm
yep…i spent a lot of time in the zone…i dated a guy a couple of years ago that really had me there…i had these crazy conversations with myself about how if i broke it off, i’d be alone…and yet i was alone most of the time even when we were together…thank goodness i left that crap behind me…these days, sex or no sex, if it’s wrong or he’s wrong for me, i can walk away…go me!
9 cheekie // Mar 1, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I think it really really boils down to this.
Be clear about what you want, be confident enough to stand by that.
And most importantly, if you do go ahead and get emotionally involved (this doesn’t take sex to happen btw) make damn sure he is on the same page.
If not, I agree with Lance, if you want just sex, then don’t justify, don’t try to hide it.
Just do it. But be really clear and honest with YOURSELF! I think we as women sometimes feel guilty for just wanting sex, and sometimes even when we want it and go for it, if the guy then pulls away - it’s a matter of pride more than actual desire for a relationship with that particular guy.
Been there, done that, stole his tshirt
10 Jess // Mar 2, 2008 at 1:36 am
Thank you so much for this great post! I’ve recently been in a string of different relationship dilemmas, one after the other, and eventually all ended by me because I’ve had enough. Right now I’m feeling very anti-relationship and to be honest, quite scared of commitment, even when yet another great guy has showed up in my path. And I’ve found myself distancing myself a lot, and a lot of these type of thoughts and rations going through my head based on past relationships, but it has never been explained (even to myself) as well as you have. I completely understand why I feel this certain way, and why.
11 Mel // Mar 2, 2008 at 12:57 pm
In my experience some men will disguise their ‘only wanting sex’ agenda under a veil of wanting a relationship and telling you all the things you want to hear. They get the sex and don’t really care that you believe in the bull**** they feed you!
12 cheekie // Mar 2, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Hey Mel, that’s why I think it is best to be honest and confident in what you want. If you get taken it isn’t your fault, and there is no need to play ‘victim’. We all get taken by pretty words and actions, and there are some guys who will put a lot of effort into making sure they get into your pants. It can even last weeks and they don’t give up.
But, if you are clear about what you want, and he is aware of this, then he is the knob, not you.
Chalk it up to experience, knowing the red flags and move on…
btw, 99% of guys, even nice ones, will try something if they are attracted to you. maybe not right off the bat, but certainly by the second date or so. so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater - just stand firm for yourself, he’ll figure it out and if he’s worth it, he’ll stick around….
if you do find this guy, let me know if he has a brother would ya?
13 Mel // Mar 4, 2008 at 10:20 pm
If I do hun, you’ll have to get in the queue! lol
14 Red Flag Relationships and Behaviour for Drama Seekers! // Apr 28, 2008 at 10:59 pm
[...] We’ve already slept with them and are already in the justifying zone, that place we go to where we keep finding reasons to stay with the person to justify sleeping with [...]
15 The No Contact Rule - The Get Out Plan // Apr 30, 2008 at 6:04 pm
[...] all for getting laid but sex clouds judgement and puts you in the Justifying Zone. All of those happy hormones flying around may convince you that the huge orgasm is a reason to [...]
Leave a Comment