How the BS often feels. Just try to imagine this.

[Spark1111]

In an effort to promote healing amongst the two, often warring factors of LS,(BS, OP) let's envision this:

 

You are madly, deeply in love with your partner, and you are given every indication that they are madly, deeply in love with you.

 

You are weathering tough times together and your love grows only deeper.

 

Now forget about their W or H. It is not part of this hypothetical imagining.

 

Let's say you discover by accident that your lover has another OW/OM, one they are treating exactly like you; speaking words of undying devotion to EXACTLY like they do to you; having sex off the charts with them as they do with you; talk of a future with them, exactly as they do to you.

 

How would this make you feel? Would it devastate you? Would your world, as you know it come crashing down around you?

 

If we all empathized with this one basic feeling of betrayal and devastation, we could really develop understanding of the two opposing camps at LS.

 

Any thoughts?

[NoIDidn't]

I understand what you are trying to do, but it doesn't include those of us that were in absolutely sucky marriages prior to the affairs.

 

But I totally get the part about what is being said to one and finding out that it is being said to another.

 

My H didn't tell me sweet nothings. But he did promise his undying fidelity over and over again. When asked directly if there was someone else, he lied, denied, obfuscated, and purposefully misdirected me to other women that he wasn't seeing to change my focus - it didn't work.

 

For some reason, your OP reminds me of the Defense Attorney in A Time To Kill when he told a story in his closing arguments and then added at the end "imagine if she was white" to show the pain of the family transcended race.

 

And the pain of affairs is a little different. I'm not saying who hurts more, that's a fruitless discussion that we've had here many times. But the person that is caught off-guard in the discovery of their mate's cheating doesn't have the luxury of time and knowing about it all along. I think it is this part that will ALWAYS differentiate OPs from BSs.

 

The betrayal part is what differentiates the pain of the BS from that of the OP. The BS is betrayed by someone/s. The OP betrays mostly themselves.

[TogetherForever]

In an effort to promote healing amongst the two, often warring factors of LS,(BS, OP) let's envision this:

 

You are madly, deeply in love with your partner, and you are given every indication that they are madly, deeply in love with you.

 

You are weathering tough times together and your love grows only deeper.

 

Now forget about their W or H. It is not part of this hypothetical imagining.

 

Let's say you discover by accident that your lover has another OW/OM, one they are treating exactly like you; speaking words of undying devotion to EXACTLY like they do to you; having sex off the charts with them as they do with you; talk of a future with them, exactly as they do to you.

 

How would this make you feel? Would it devastate you? Would your world, as you know it come crashing down around you?

 

If we all empathized with this one basic feeling of betrayal and devastation, we could really develop understanding of the two opposing camps at LS.

 

Any thoughts?

 

He'd be out on his ass in a flash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Owl]

TF, I'd have to tell you that this is exactly what most of us said...

 

My wife and I had always said the same thing...I'd mentioned years ago that if she ever cheated on me I'd be gone so fast there'd be a hole in the air where I was standing.

 

Turns out that when it DID happen, I fought to save our marriage tooth and nail. Now, she's darned happy that I did...we're doing great now.

 

But it's really hard to guess what you would do until you're actually there. Heck...I was surprised that I fought so hard to save our marriage.

[Devil Inside]

 

 

If we all empathized with this one basic feeling of betrayal and devastation, we could really develop understanding of the two opposing camps at LS.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Good point. In the end, whether the M or A are good or not...the betrayal is what hurts. I have been a BS as well. The pain is deep.

[TogetherForever]

TF, I'd have to tell you that this is exactly what most of us said...

 

My wife and I had always said the same thing...I'd mentioned years ago that if she ever cheated on me I'd be gone so fast there'd be a hole in the air where I was standing.

 

Turns out that when it DID happen, I fought to save our marriage tooth and nail. Now, she's darned happy that I did...we're doing great now.

 

But it's really hard to guess what you would do until you're actually there. Heck...I was surprised that I fought so hard to save our marriage.

 

I understand!!

When my exh cheated on me I packed up the kids & left.

Never to go back!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jj33]

Spark I appreciate your motives are good. But the only reason that there are "camps" is because of posts where BSs come to the OW/OM board (which is meant to support OPs) bash the OPs or otherwsie make snide rude or hurtful remarks.

 

Noone doubts that a BS is devastated when their spouse betrays them. I think that is a given.

[MistyK]

Spark,

Try to imagine this: You have a friendship with a man you like very much. You are at a vulnerable point in your life and he makes you feel good. In an effort to feel better, you spend more and more time with him. You talk about deeply personal things together and you feel very connected. You fall in love with this man with a pit in your stomach because you know he is married.

 

He tells you how terrible his marriage is and how his W is nasty to both him and the children. You love this man and you feel protective, so you develop anger towards a woman you don't even know. As time goes on, you become increasingly attached to this man and want to believe his promises of a life with you, so you put your life on hold and make him the center of your universe. You make yourself available whenever he is because his windows of availability are so small and infrequent.

 

More time passes and you start to wonder if he'll ever make good on those promises. Your friends and family tell you that he's a liar amd he's playing you. He tells you he has undying love for you, will be with you soon and can't wait to start a life with you. He says that he feels like you are his W and he is living with what feels like just a roomate.

 

Then imagine after you've given years of your life to a man who gives you nothing but false promises and fleeting moments of happiness that you see him out at a restaurant with his wife. They are holding hands, laughing together, and you see him kiss her. You feel betrayed and shattered.

 

I know it's hard for BS's to understand, but OW still feel betrayed. It's weird, but it's there. The "advance notice" doesn't really cushion the blow, it just makes us feel even worse about ourselves in the end because we knew what could happen.

[Spark1111]

Spark I appreciate your motives are good. But the only reason that there are "camps" is because of posts where BSs come to the OW/OM board (which is meant to support OPs) bash the OPs or otherwsie make snide rude or hurtful remarks.

 

Noone doubts that a BS is devastated when their spouse betrays them. I think that is a given.

 

JJ, I have seen it work both ways on both boards and so have you.

 

There is a lot of self-righteousness and value-based justifying of the "rightness" and "wrongness" of all actions from both sides.

 

Interesting how everyone can relate to the pain of betrayal a BS feels, but that is not what I asked for.

 

I asked others to imagine their lover betrayed them with.....another lover.

[TogetherForever]

And I'll add that I WOULD NOT have hatred towards my guys new lover.

HE would be the one that I hate;).

 

TF

[Spark1111]

Spark,

Try to imagine this: You have a friendship with a man you like very much. You are at a vulnerable point in your life and he makes you feel good. In an effort to feel better, you spend more and more time with him. You talk about deeply personal things together and you feel very connected. You fall in love with this man with a pit in your stomach because you know he is married.

 

He tells you how terrible his marriage is and how his W is nasty to both him and the children. You love this man and you feel protective, so you develop anger towards a woman you don't even know. As time goes on, you become increasingly attached to this man and want to believe his promises of a life with you, so you put your life on hold and make him the center of your universe. You make yourself available whenever he is because his windows of availability are so small and infrequent.

 

More time passes and you start to wonder if he'll ever make good on those promises. Your friends and family tell you that he's a liar amd he's playing you. He tells you he has undying love for you, will be with you soon and can't wait to start a life with you. He says that he feels like you are his W and he is living with what feels like just a roomate.

 

Then imagine after you've given years of your life to a man who gives you nothing but false promises and fleeting moments of happiness that you see him out at a restaurant with his wife. They are holding hands, laughing together, and you see him kiss her. You feel betrayed and shattered.

 

I know it's hard for BS's to understand, but OW still feel betrayed. It's weird, but it's there. The "advance notice" doesn't really cushion the blow, it just makes us feel even worse about ourselves in the end because we knew what could happen.

 

Misty, I so get your pain because you are describing my scenario as a BS, and I have only empathy for his OW. I know he, in his unhappiness and confusion, lied to her to. I understand, I truly do.

 

The scenario I'm asking other women and men to envision, is your lover having another lover while professing love to you.

 

So many OP have all sorts of tales of unhappy marriages that may, or may not be true. I know my husband portrayed himself as unhappily married and I have no doubt, that was his perception of us at the time. Did he lie? Well....no, not on what he felt was true at the time -- for him!

 

I often grow weary of all the interboard self-righteous bashing of each other's stance. I've probably been guilty of it myself as I tried to heal.

 

I thought if people could remove their particular MM's or MW's spouse from their own personal reasons for the affair, or as a BS, the OW and OM, and just imagined the scenario above, we'd all have greater understanding of the pain a triangle can cause all.

 

I get it. But some people do not and never will, I guess.

[Mino]

In an effort to promote healing amongst the two, often warring factors of LS,(BS, OP) let's envision this:

 

You are madly, deeply in love with your partner, and you are given every indication that they are madly, deeply in love with you.

 

You are weathering tough times together and your love grows only deeper.

 

Now forget about their W or H. It is not part of this hypothetical imagining.

 

Let's say you discover by accident that your lover has another OW/OM, one they are treating exactly like you; speaking words of undying devotion to EXACTLY like they do to you; having sex off the charts with them as they do with you; talk of a future with them, exactly as they do to you.

 

How would this make you feel? Would it devastate you? Would your world, as you know it come crashing down around you?

 

If we all empathized with this one basic feeling of betrayal and devastation, we could really develop understanding of the two opposing camps at LS.

 

Any thoughts?

Spark111, If the marriage were as you described, there would be no OW/OM...

[Devil Inside]

It doesn't make sense to try and compare which hurts more. When you think that you share something with someone...and you love them...and you find out later it was all a lie...it hurts. Does not matter who you are OW, BS, WS, OM...whatever...betrayal hurts like a knife in the back.

[fooled once]

Spark111, If the marriage were as you described, there would be no OW/OM...

 

She never said marriage, she said lover

[fooled once]

And the pain of affairs is a little different. I'm not saying who hurts more, that's a fruitless discussion that we've had here many times. But the person that is caught off-guard in the discovery of their mate's cheating doesn't have the luxury of time and knowing about it all along. I think it is this part that will ALWAYS differentiate OPs from BSs.

 

The betrayal part is what differentiates the pain of the BS from that of the OP. The BS is betrayed by someone/s. The OP betrays mostly themselves.

 

totally agree

[SouthernLady]

Spark,

 

I am new here, but have been lurking for well over a year to this forum and several of the other forums available to help myself heal from the pain I caused myself from being the OW. I read about all the pain and devistation on all sides of the story and use the experiences like you are describing to help myself realize that the most loving thing I can do is to maintain NC and move on with my life and let him move on with his and hope he can restore his relationship to a better level with his W.

 

So, I really do agree with your thoughts on looking from the other side!

[whichwayisup]

Spark111, If the marriage were as you described, there would be no OW/OM...

Someone can still have a good marriage, but be broken inside - Hense the choice to cheat. Has nothing to do with the wife/husband, or the marriage itself. Could be the person is just broken. Hense NS9's situation..

[Mino]

She never said marriage, she said lover

ok, take "marriage papers out of it, The relationship, if it were as "whole as you stated" there would be no other OW/OM. Better?

[Mino]

by the way, I went by the title of the thread, The "BS", my bad..

[SidLyon]

by the way, I went by the title of the thread, The "BS", my bad..

 

I understood what you meant Mino.

 

I don't think I have ever seen on this board, an OW acknowledge that her own MM might genuinely love and be in love with his W. I suspect it is one thing that OW just do not "get".

 

At best OW might agree that he loves his W but is not "in love' with her.

 

Perhaps it is understandable as maybe not many OW would be willing to enter into an A with a MM if they think he is deeply, passionately in love with his wife. There is no point saying if he truly loved his W he wouldn't be having an A because we all know that rings just as hollow as saying if he truly loved his OW he would leave his W for her. Basically a MM who wants an A not a divorce, is looking out for number 1 but it doesn't seem to mean he can't have genuinely strong love for both women. uggh.

 

S

[NoIDidn't]

I understood what you meant Mino.

 

I don't think I have ever seen on this board, an OW acknowledge that her own MM might genuinely love and be in love with his W. I suspect it is one thing that OW just do not "get".

 

At best OW might agree that he loves his W but is not "in love' with her.

 

Perhaps it is understandable as maybe not many OW would be willing to enter into an A with a MM if they think he is deeply, passionately in love with his wife. There is no point saying if he truly loved his W he wouldn't be having an A because we all know that rings just as hollow as saying if he truly loved his OW he would leave his W for her. Basically a MM who wants an A not a divorce, is looking out for number 1 but it doesn't seem to mean he can't have genuinely strong love for both women. uggh.

 

S

 

I totally agree with this post, SidLyon!

 

And you hit on the reason for the bolded line - the MM basically tells the OW this because what woman is really going to get into an A and all of the emotional entanglement if she doesn't feel she has a chance to be the person he really IS in love with.

 

But I will add one more part to it. Most MM don't think that their W's are in love with them either. So, of course, they aren't going to articulate that to the OW.

 

An aside - I am not a romantic. I am not in love with my H anymore. We are WAAAAY past that. I love him so deeply that the insanity of needing to *feel* something for him or because of him is pretty much gone. There is a reason that psychiatrists and others in the mental health field feel that being "in love" is a mental disorder. LOL. But this is just me. There is no doubt in my mind or my H's about my love for him. Maybe I am "in love" with him, but just don't call it such?

[SoAddicted]

 

Perhaps it is understandable as maybe not many OW would be willing to enter into an A with a MM if they think he is deeply, passionately in love with his wife. There is no point saying if he truly loved his W he wouldn't be having an A because we all know that rings just as hollow as saying if he truly loved his OW he would leave his W for her. Basically a MM who wants an A not a divorce, is looking out for number 1 but it doesn't seem to mean he can't have genuinely strong love for both women. uggh.

 

S

 

I have to disagree with some of this. I feel that you can not be passionately in love with someone and have an affair, but then again I also agree with if he loved you he would leave. I have been w/ my MM for over 2 yrs. I know that he loves me, is it the love and devotion he has for his W? I don't think so. But we have the passion that I believe his marriage is missing. We entered into our A months after they had their son and I'm sure that played a major role in why he wandered in the first place, it was no longer about the 2 of them and their lives had changed. I believe he loves us both but in different ways.

 

To answer the original question I can definitely see the other side. I can't imagine what it would be like to find out MM had a OW on the side (I'm not going to make this about his W b/c I knew about her going in), I would be devastated. However I would never take that out on the OW which is what I feel a lot of BS does, that pain and anger would be directed at him.

[fooled once]

Each person has their OWN belief's.

 

Each person feels sorrow differently than someone else.

 

There is NO right or wrong answer here. It is an individual belief.

 

Unless we have stood in the respective shoes, I don't think anyone can say what they would or wouldn't do; would or wouldn't feel, who they would or wouldn't blame.

 

I can totally see why a BS "blames" the OW.

 

But have no fear, I bet she blames her spouse more.

 

But in order to heal the marriage, the anger has to get directed at someone - which is usually the OW. She as a woman wonders how another woman could "go after' "be involved with" a man who is committed to another person.

 

But I think most women compete with each other - whether it be academically, physically, mentally, etc. I think that society likes to think men are the ones who compete with each other, but I firmly believe women are much worse at this than men.

 

I can relate this to a 1st wife vs a 2nd wife - how the new wife is loved so much more than the first one; how she is younger, prettier, thinner, smarter, blah blah --- how the 1st wife trapped him, made him marry her, etc. There is none of this "girl power" stuff; it is more in MY mind of women competing against each other.

[SidLyon]

I have to disagree with some of this. I feel that you can not be passionately in love with someone and have an affair, but then again I also agree with if he loved you he would leave. I have been w/ my MM for over 2 yrs. I know that he loves me, is it the love and devotion he has for his W? I don't think so. But we have the passion that I believe his marriage is missing. We entered into our A months after they had their son and I'm sure that played a major role in why he wandered in the first place, it was no longer about the 2 of them and their lives had changed. I believe he loves us both but in different ways.

 

To answer the original question I can definitely see the other side. I can't imagine what it would be like to find out MM had a OW on the side (I'm not going to make this about his W b/c I knew about her going in), I would be devastated. However I would never take that out on the OW which is what I feel a lot of BS does, that pain and anger would be directed at him.

 

You disagree - that's no surprise to me!

 

All I can say is that I would be astounded if any OW could bring themselves to agree with what I said -I really do believe it's something that most OW do not and will never "get".

 

The more OW who disagree with me the more it proves my point.

 

S

[NoIDidn't]

I have to disagree with some of this. I feel that you can not be passionately in love with someone and have an affair, but then again I also agree with if he loved you he would leave. I have been w/ my MM for over 2 yrs. I know that he loves me, is it the love and devotion he has for his W? I don't think so. But we have the passion that I believe his marriage is missing. We entered into our A months after they had their son and I'm sure that played a major role in why he wandered in the first place, it was no longer about the 2 of them and their lives had changed. I believe he loves us both but in different ways.

 

To answer the original question I can definitely see the other side. I can't imagine what it would be like to find out MM had a OW on the side (I'm not going to make this about his W b/c I knew about her going in), I would be devastated. However I would never take that out on the OW which is what I feel a lot of BS does, that pain and anger would be directed at him.

 

Boy does your situation open a can of worms: the MM that cheats because he is no longer the sole focus of his W's affections.

 

When a BW finds out about this kind of A, it really is much worse for her than if it happened further out from the child's birth.

 

But I do agree with your point. My H told me that we had "no passion" too. And based on my post above yours, you can imagine he was correct. We didn't have that kind of passion, especially if he was directing his elsewhere. LOL.

 

But seriously, passion really does begin to wane in relationships. Its a natural occurence and a MM that's seeking passion will cheat every time it starts to wane in any relationship he is in. Passion continues in spades in affairs, though. Different dynamic.

 

Has anyone welcomed you yet? Welcome to LS.