Author dobler33 Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 must be brief, as my snide and defensive and generally pissy arse is about to be running late, but the reasons you state above are the reasons i strayed. i never said they were excuses, but they were the reasons. what i was feeling at the time that both left me vulnerable to and absurdly rationalized accepting the OM's love and attention. hopefully my attitude improves by the time i log back on. Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 JW, A little pout on the lips, a little toss of the hair is as good as a starters pistol to a man like me. " Eleanor", couldn't be anything but a wicked lovely woman. Not if there is any justice in the world. Link to post Share on other sites
herenow Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Maddiesue, couldn't agree more. It is normal to develop feeling for another person. Afterall, we are all human and ....it happens. It is the secrecy of the affair, which forces the WS to lie and sneak as they betray their spouse that is sooooooo despicable. That betrayal of trust is what remains so hurtful. I mean, own your feelings and your choices, communicate them honestly to your SO and stop justifying, justifying, justifying. IMO, it's the secrecy of the affair that is what drives it in the first place. Once an affair is found out, even in cases where the MM does leave, the spark of the affair is often gone. In cases where there is true love between the MM and the OW, IMO he will leave and they will be able to keep that spark IRL. But, in most cases once the cover is blown , the affair ends until there can be secrecy again. Had my H told to me he wanted to have sex with an OW, I would have showed him the door. Truth is, it was the high of doing something in secret that gave him his fix. It had nothing to do with his love (or lack of it) for me or the OW, it was all about the fix. Which is why he now goes to his 12 step meeting at least twice a week. No matter haw many issues we may have had in our marriage there was no way anything I could have done would have stopped him from his destructive behavior. Even if our marriage was perfect (which I'm not sure anyone's marriage is perfect), there was something inside of him that caused him to make the decision he did. He takes full responsibility for his actions. He has never blamed me, our marriage or the OW. Our marriage problems were a different issue all together. Thankfully we had a great MC that helped us worked out our individual issues as well as problems in our marriage. The affair was a symptom of my H's addiction. No more than that. Not having an addictive personality myself, it was hard for me to understand. After hours of therapy I finally get it. Unfortunately, the OW will never understand where my H was coming from. Not because she isn't capable of understanding, it's that she doesn't want to believe the we (the OW and myself) were not as important to my H as his fix was to him. She wants to believe that he loves her Something he never told her. I know this to be true because he let me read all of her emails and she was very frustrated that he never told her he loved her. She believes that he is only with me because he is a "good guy". Even my H admits at the time he wasn't such a "good guy" and he has no desire to ever be that guy again. If the OW would accept that, I think she would get the closure she is looking for. But, I guess it's easier for her to believe what she wants, so who an I to tell her anything different? Now that she has stopped calling my H, I'm just fine with however she has decided to live her life. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 owl - i believe you are talking about capitalization, for which your admonition is entirely correct. i am a shameless and unreformed non-capitalizer. as for material on sudden love, you might check out some of freud's writings on cathexis, which is defined as the process of investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea. this process can happen very slowly or very quickly, depending upon the emotional state of the subject. i'll dig through my collected works and see if i can find a particularly concise article, although he tended away from brevity (as do many of his followers, in case y'all haven't noticed;)) it's been my professional experience that "love at first sight" is a real and observable phenomenon, although very, very different from the kind of long-standing, well-founded love one finds in a healthy marriage. and my personal experience was something of an odd and muddy mix: i had become close friends with the MM over time and was more or less repressing my love and desire for him, until his confession of his own love and desire blew it all out of the unconcious for me. looking back i think i'd been in love with him for a while but couldn't really cope with the implications of that, but my experience of it at the time was an all-of-a-sudden thing. so, experientially it "just happened", but in retrospect it had been built of all the emotional intimacy couched as friendship that had transpired between us. dex, i think the distinction between emotions "just happening" and actions "just happening" is an important one here; under no circumstances would i suggest that actions are uncontrolled or unaccountable. i still believe the old standby however that one can't help one's emotions, only what one does with them - although many have argued that point. herenow, that is a truly painful story you relate and i'm so glad that your husband has gone into treatment for his apparent addiction. you courage and strength of character must be a great comfort and support to him. good luck with your recovery - to both of you. boldjack, thanks for the back-up. i'm really a kitten, at least until my redhead kicks in; then i'm likely to go eleanor on yer a**. usually only happens on a wrong-side-of-the-bed kind of morning. alright, back to the teen felons. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 Yeah its EASY to say THAT when all of cyberspace is between you and her... I, for one, am grateful for ANY distance between ME and a crabby, grumpy woman. ha! just saw this. you know, it's not catching, JW. i'm sure i'm not contagious. Link to post Share on other sites
Owl Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 owl - i believe you are talking about capitalization, for which your admonition is entirely correct. i am a shameless and unreformed non-capitalizer. as for material on sudden love, you might check out some of freud's writings on cathexis, which is defined as the process of investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea. this process can happen very slowly or very quickly, depending upon the emotional state of the subject. i'll dig through my collected works and see if i can find a particularly concise article, although he tended away from brevity (as do many of his followers, in case y'all haven't noticed;)) it's been my professional experience that "love at first sight" is a real and observable phenomenon, although very, very different from the kind of long-standing, well-founded love one finds in a healthy marriage. We may actually be agreeing here...what you define as "love at first sight" may well be what I consider an attraction. Given that you note that this is drastically different from a "well-founded love", we may be using different names for the same thing. I completely recognize that there are different "kinds" of love...dependent upon what kind of relationships there are (spouse, sibling, etc...). I also would agree that there are several different "stages" in romantic love...and the description/symptoms of those different "loves" are quite different from each other...being "in love" at the beginning of a relationship is MUCH different from that "well-founded love" you describe in a long term relationship. ...and my personal experience was something of an odd and muddy mix: i had become close friends with the MM over time and was more or less repressing my love and desire for him, until his confession of his own love and desire blew it all out of the unconcious for me. looking back i think i'd been in love with him for a while but couldn't really cope with the implications of that, but my experience of it at the time was an all-of-a-sudden thing. so, experientially it "just happened", but in retrospect it had been built of all the emotional intimacy couched as friendship that had transpired between us. And I find this completely possible. You were emotionally investing in the relationship while you still consciously considered it a "friendship"...but in reality, you were likely investing much more into it emotionally than just "friendship". That's why boundaries with opposite sex friends (assuming you're hetero) is key for people in committed relationships. (In reality, it's boundaries with anyone that you could be romantically/sexually attracted to) Not having strong boundaries...not keeping the emotional investments limited...can often very easily lead exactly into this kind of affair occurring. It's exactly what happened in my wife's situation as well. For a long time she claimed the "just happened" idea too. It wasn't until she actually sat down (during MC) and was 'walked' through what went on that she realized there really was a "decision point" at which she intentionally crossed the line from friendship to EA. Being aware of that line is one of the key preventative measures to protect a marriage from infidelity. That's why I focus on the difference between attraction and love. Like any normal man, I occasionally meet women that I am attracted to. Realizing that, and recognizing it when it happens is key...because then I can take intentional measures to PREVENT feeding that feeling...to keep it from growing into anything more. It can't "just happen" if it never gets the opportunity to start in the first place. I'd still be interested in reading those articles if you find them. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 Not having strong boundaries...not keeping the emotional investments limited...can often very easily lead exactly into this kind of affair occurring. It's exactly what happened in my wife's situation as well. this resonates with my experience, although maybe for different reasons. in my case i had probably been overly-boundaried; as an analyst it is my job to maintain boundaries and one can start to feel quite isolated within such fortified enclosures. in addition, my husband (and this is just the reality, not a justification) has historically been a very closed, boundaried person, and more so in the last 3 years as his depression increased. he kept me out, kept me out, kept me out and showed little or no interest in wanting to be let in to my emotional landscape. by the time OM and i started to become friends i was living in a cold, cold place, alone within all my boundaries. the fact that he showed such interest and curiosity and care for what went on in my head, the fact that he so easily shared what went on in his was like water in the desert. he asked me questions - to a woman who spends her day asking questions of others and has to remind her husband to ask her how her day went, this was irresistable. i let my boundaries down in the context of friendship, not even conceiving of the possibility of danger because, hell, he was my H's best friend! i never imagined either of us were capable of transgressing, even emotionally. by the time he confessed his feelings, we had become each other's closest confidants. it really does feel like it happens before you know it's happened. because we had agreed not to have sex (we were trying to act responsibly, as ridiculous as that sounds now) it became all about the penetration of the remaining boundaries. he talked constantly about wanting to get inside my heart, get inside my head, get inside my gut. penetrating those emotional boundaries can feel as good as a physical penetration, especially if you are lonely and isolated within them. i could be angry at him (and i was for a time) - i might never have had to face my feelings for him if he hadn't shown me his own love, so well repressed were they. but i have to wonder how long we'd have existed in that bizarre half-truth, totally depending on each other without being able to admit why we were, slowly icing out our own spouses in favor of the warmth we offered each other. who knows. doesn't much matter now. he is rebuilding with his wife and i am rebuilding with my husband, who is letting me in for the first time in years and now asks me how my day was with a big kiss, pulling me onto his lap when i walk in the door. that feels good too. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 owl, i am chagrined to say that i'm having trouble finding you a good layman's article on cathexis online - the ones i've found are in deep freud-speak. however i am edified to learn that there was apparently a star trek-voyager episode by the same name. who knew? freud would have been thrilled. i believe that his first writings on cathexis were in "mourning and melancholia" if you want to check it out at your local library, although i'll need to check that. i'll keep sleuthing. Link to post Share on other sites
Reggie Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Sounds like you cultivated this "love" for a long time, dobler. It did not just ahppen. You must have seen it happening. Seems there was clear intent to allow this to happen. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 Sounds like you cultivated this "love" for a long time, dobler. It did not just ahppen. You must have seen it happening. Seems there was clear intent to allow this to happen. it does sound like that, doesn't it? here in hindsight it does, i'll grant you. all i can tell you is that it didn't feel like that at the time. it felt like a lightening bolt to the head the day he told me he loved me, like the world i'd been living in at 9am that day was a different one entirely from the one i occupied at 9:15. i'll spend the rest of my life trying to understand it. as i've said, degrees in the workings of the human mind don't defend one from being utterly mystified and overturned by them. i'll tell you true, from one human to another, some days it can feel like a waste of 85 grand. Link to post Share on other sites
schewter Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 I had shut my wife out completely. She told me on at least three occasions in the year prior to her EA that she was lonely and didn't feel like she was married...I shrugged her off. When the guy who she had the EA with came along our marriage was DOA...and ironically, while he was doing all he could to pull her his way I was doing all I could to push her...I made a disaster of our last wedding anniversary and I feel that was the day she gave herself permission to go down that road. Some on here think there is no good excuse to have an affair and I know where they are coming from but the conditions can certainly be right for one and the BS can play a large role in creating those conditions. When I ask my wife "why didn't you just tell me you had a thing for another guy and we'd have called it quits"? she says it was like ice skating...she didn't want to let go of the rail. I take most of the blame for her part in the EA...I left her in a vulnerable place. Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Teen Felon? Didn't he play in all those beach party/surfer movies back in the 60's? The thing about analysis is that you run the risk of stomping deceased ponies. In situations like Schewter"s, the ws obviously put a great deal of thought into whether or not to cheat and whether or not the M was worth saving. The key issue seems to be emotional investment. If the WS has some level of EI still in the R then reconciliation is possible and it's success is directly proportionate to that level of investment. In R's without this EI, reconciling is virtually impossible. The EI level of the BS is also critical. The BS has to decide if the EI of the R is worth the work involved in reconciling. Children are a big part of this investment, they are the concrete evidence that this was , at one time, a positive R. Link to post Share on other sites
OFGnomore Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 I had shut my wife out completely. She told me on at least three occasions in the year prior to her EA that she was lonely and didn't feel like she was married...I shrugged her off. When the guy who she had the EA with came along our marriage was DOA...and ironically, while he was doing all he could to pull her his way I was doing all I could to push her...I made a disaster of our last wedding anniversary and I feel that was the day she gave herself permission to go down that road. Some on here think there is no good excuse to have an affair and I know where they are coming from but the conditions can certainly be right for one and the BS can play a large role in creating those conditions. When I ask my wife "why didn't you just tell me you had a thing for another guy and we'd have called it quits"? she says it was like ice skating...she didn't want to let go of the rail. I take most of the blame for her part in the EA...I left her in a vulnerable place. My H could have written this. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 I had shut my wife out completely. She told me on at least three occasions in the year prior to her EA that she was lonely and didn't feel like she was married...I shrugged her off. When the guy who she had the EA with came along our marriage was DOA...and ironically, while he was doing all he could to pull her his way I was doing all I could to push her...I made a disaster of our last wedding anniversary and I feel that was the day she gave herself permission to go down that road. Some on here think there is no good excuse to have an affair and I know where they are coming from but the conditions can certainly be right for one and the BS can play a large role in creating those conditions. When I ask my wife "why didn't you just tell me you had a thing for another guy and we'd have called it quits"? she says it was like ice skating...she didn't want to let go of the rail. I take most of the blame for her part in the EA...I left her in a vulnerable place. schewter, i'm so sorry to hear this story. it sounds like you feel terrible. i'm sending you love and support. are you guys trying to reconcile? i hope your wife can hear your feelings and gives you a chance to let her in. i can tell you that my husband's decision to forgive me and work on his own stuff showed me, more than anything could have, how much he loves me and how willing he is to make sacrifices for our marriage. i admire him greatly for the strength of character he displayed by understanding that he had pushed me away, for being able to tolerate that both/and: that i did a terrible thing for which i was asking forgiveness and needed to regain his trust, and that he himself had also contributed and needed to regain my trust. i really really hope she has the humility to ask for forgiveness and also the compassion to forgive you. good luck, my dear. boldjack, i do 2 days a week as an on-site therapist at a school for severely emotionally disturbed kids, most of whom have long and illustrious criminal records. i have quite a bit of insight into the socio-economics of corner crack dealing, if anyone's curious.... Link to post Share on other sites
schewter Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 schewter, i'm so sorry to hear this story. it sounds like you feel terrible. i'm sending you love and support. are you guys trying to reconcile? i hope your wife can hear your feelings and gives you a chance to let her in. i can tell you that my husband's decision to forgive me and work on his own stuff showed me, more than anything could have, how much he loves me and how willing he is to make sacrifices for our marriage. i admire him greatly for the strength of character he displayed by understanding that he had pushed me away, for being able to tolerate that both/and: that i did a terrible thing for which i was asking forgiveness and needed to regain his trust, and that he himself had also contributed and needed to regain my trust. i really really hope she has the humility to ask for forgiveness and also the compassion to forgive you. good luck, my dear. Thanks...we are in full-out save our marriage mode and come hell or high-water we're gonna make it. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 Thanks...we are in full-out save our marriage mode and come hell or high-water we're gonna make it. oh good!!!!!! please let me know if there's anything i can do. it's really hard but worth it, i'm finding. and i don't know if your wife is on here but if she is i extend my support to her as well. both of you are hurting so bad and in so many different ways, it can be almost impossible to navigate all that pain without a map. best, best, best of luck and holler if you need anything. Link to post Share on other sites
Snowflower Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Some on here think there is no good excuse to have an affair and I know where they are coming from but the conditions can certainly be right for one and the BS can play a large role in creating those conditions. schewter, I feel like I could have written this part of your post myself and I can understand your pain and regret. I also had to admit that my actions pretty much created the conditions from my husband's affair. What he did was still very wrong but it wasn't like I was the perfect wife either. <sigh> I know how it hurts when you realize how your own actions contributed to what happened. In my case, I had made the decision to place my dream job and own happiness over my marriage and husband-I expected him to "just deal with it" while I pursued my own dream-away from him. I basically in some ways created the circumstances that made him so vulnerable. I take some of the responsibility; it wasn't all on him. I hope you are able to recover your marriage. My H and I are 6+ months out from d-day and we are doing very well-better than we ever have before. A marriage can be recovered successfully! Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Schewter, Best of luck. I think that you accepting responsibility for your part in the marriage disintegration, shows that you have it in you to change. She must also acknowledge her guilt and be willing to leave the EA. The OM must not be involved in YOUR marriage reconstruction. She has to see that. Focus on all the positive aspects of your married life and more than anything , WORK TOGETHER!! Link to post Share on other sites
jwi71 Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Dobler, I don't know much of your background as you refuse to share it - or maybe I missed it. And not sharing is well within your right. Could you share your R with your H. How was it? How long have you been M? Kids? Date long? Live together? A little history would be appropriate. How old are you? Your H? And, uh, I sure hope you're in a better mood today...hate to get upside the head with the toaster ala Scrooged. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 Dobler, I don't know much of your background as you refuse to share it - or maybe I missed it. And not sharing is well within your right. Could you share your R with your H. How was it? How long have you been M? Kids? Date long? Live together? A little history would be appropriate. How old are you? Your H? And, uh, I sure hope you're in a better mood today...hate to get upside the head with the toaster ala Scrooged. no refusal at all, just a certain amount of tiredness cause i've shared it before, or a lot of it anyway. but i am indeed in a better mood this morning so i'm happy to oblige.H & i married 4 years, together 10 (on & off for the first 3) living together 7. no kids yet, unless you count a morbidly obese tabby who is more or less in charge of the entire household. i'm 34 and my H is 42. our R was great until about 3 years ago when he started touring heavily, which was a big stress on the marriage and also the onset of the severe depression when he was home. since then there have been good patches which have gradually decreased in frequency and length until pre-affair it was looking extremely grim. had totally lost all ability to communicate or navigate difficult emotional territory, barely had sex, couldn't see the good in each other any more. i had a really hard time remembering that i loved him, had loved him for a decade. i perceived him as punitively withholding and cruel and he perceived me as nagging and intrusive. i can't remember who coined this phrase but i like it: "ungenerous attributions". the way we project our own persecutory objects onto our partners. we were totally lost in that ugly place. we're working our way out. was that the information you were looking for? Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Jeez Dobie, your H is right on the mark. I ALWAYS knew that you were nagging and intrusive, I just didn't want to say anything and hurt your feelings. Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 BTW, my daughter feels that she is emotionally ready to jump into the political Arena. She may have to lay the smack-down on a couple of the party "good Ole Boys", but I think that she is as prepared as any candidate I have seen for a long time. Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 Jeez Dobie, your H is right on the mark. I ALWAYS knew that you were nagging and intrusive, I just didn't want to say anything and hurt your feelings. oh absolutely, boldjack: "I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled." Link to post Share on other sites
Author dobler33 Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 BTW, my daughter feels that she is emotionally ready to jump into the political Arena. She may have to lay the smack-down on a couple of the party "good Ole Boys", but I think that she is as prepared as any candidate I have seen for a long time. good for her!!!! without disclosing any personal identity type stuff, can you tell me what she's running for? Link to post Share on other sites
boldjack Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 County Commissioner. She's 20 years younger, 100 times prettier, and 1,000 times smarter than Sarah Palin. I'm thinking Senate in 15 years? Link to post Share on other sites
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