Rephrasing My Question

[mzdolphin]

actually, military marriages/relationships have a higher than average divorce/breakup rate than "civilian" relationships, and this is even with the supportive environment provided to many military marriages/families/relationships.

 

Mind you, here are also a lot of other reasons these relationships often don't last. Some reasons are : moving every couple of years, fear for your spouse/partner when they are deployed, separation from extended family, mental health issues in the military member (PTSD), etc.

 

Ummmm....comparing relationships in military families with affairs kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sorry.

 

 

Military, Hollywood, Pro Athletes, etc. Any relationship in which the spouse is not home or available for extended periods of time will lead to relationship problems and divorce.

[mzdolphin]

Your filter is not off. I was reading one of the posts, and I haven't thought about my past situation in a long long time, but it reminded me of what brought me here. I had to shake my head and laugh.

 

We had had an argument, and I mentioned that I needed to find someone or some place that could give me the answers in making the situation better. He said, "Yeah, well while you're at it, be sure and tell them that we live (blank) miles away and that my wife is (blank) and we are locked into this situation."

 

I was furious at the time, but thinking of it today, I just had to laugh at myself, how naive and silly my thinking was. That I was going to find someone to reveal to me the secret to staying in a LD EA with someone else's husband! I'm still laughing at how ridiculous that was.

 

You can laugh it now because you've come out of the fog. I was there too. I remember trying to get advice on how to manage things. Glad I didn't stay in the fog long. I think it's just a process, like grieving. The sudden death (finding out he was married), the denial, anger, bargaining. I survived it all. But we are lucky when we can laugh at this stuff.

[fooled once]

You know.... I was kind of wondering the same thing. Seems weird. The reason is... 1-If you are so happy and fulfilled, why all the time on a forum. I mean, I bet I have seen what...4 threads started today. 2-the method in which you write it. I would think that if you were a happily involved OW with a MM, you would be offering support to people going through it. However, when I read your posts, its very condensending and loaded with sacrasim. Its almost like you are rubbing people's faces in the fact that you are so happy. You will also respond to people in a very passive agressive manner, picking at them to get them mad. By the way do you not get that there are a lot of people on this who are very hurt? And that possibly it doesn't lend a lot of support going about things they way you are? So I would think if you were a OW, you would be very sympathetic to what they are going through and offer support from your end. The site isn't just for people who were in A's that didn't work, NO.... its for both sides. People that are getting out and people that are staying in it. But mostly it is here for support. If you want to just jog down your happy memories, get a diary. Or go tell your friends.

I always hope that people who truly love eachother work it out. I am a advocate for love. And if you are who you say, then I hope happiness for you, and I mean that without the sacrastic tone you have put on others posts.

 

Again, if you are going through what you say you are, I think you need to rethink some things. Get on here and offer support to these people. Tell them how you get through it and why. Don't make side notes of who and who can not post on your thread. Don't make people feel worse. And don't put people down in a passive agressive manner. IMO, you seem to be doing a whole lot of **** stirring, than you are really offering support. If your personality on this forum represents your personality in real life, you seem very much a woman who will stay in a A for the rest of your life. Because to me you seem like someone who just likes to make others feel bad.

 

Really good post Wanna!

 

Guess you mean OW as an AP.

 

Well, I struggled for almost three years with a lot of issues.

 

There was the loneliness... knowing he was at home with his W and hopping into bed with her every night. I guess I blocked that out for a long time. From 5 until 9 the next morning, I rarely heard from him and I was not allowed to contact him.

 

He could never be there on significant occasions. Well, I had other people who were , but I always missed him.

 

Then there were the trips and holidays with his wife.... I simply wouldn't be in contact with him until he came back. It was my way of coping.

 

He used to say we would work around all his ****.

 

In the end I said... It's your **** and you work around it. He chose to walk away from the **** and go back to his wife as though nothing had ever happened.

 

No.. I'm not going to tell you to leave.

 

For me it was leave or go insane with depression and misery.

 

Best wishes,

 

Gentlegirl.

 

GG, I just want you to know I am so glad you are out of the affair. This made me sad and you seem like a very nice woman and I don't like that you were sad. I mean this sincerely.

 

actually, military marriages/relationships have a higher than average divorce/breakup rate than "civilian" relationships, and this is even with the supportive environment provided to many military marriages/families/relationships.

 

Mind you, here are also a lot of other reasons these relationships often don't last. Some reasons are : moving every couple of years, fear for your spouse/partner when they are deployed, separation from extended family, mental health issues in the military member (PTSD), etc.

 

Ummmm....comparing relationships in military families with affairs kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sorry.

 

I was going to jump in and then read your post and wanted to highfive you! My dad did 30 years Navy - flew planes off air craft carriers and served in Vietnam. He missed most important things for many many years of my life.

 

Today's military has more 'access' to spouses than in my mom's day of being a military wife. But you are dead on - sleeping around on a spouse is NOT equivalent to being deployed. Talk about apples vs grapes! Dedication to serving the country vs sneaking around and get 15 minutes in the sack. Yeah, really comparable. Sitting at home crying that the married person is with their spouse is so far opposite of not knowing WHERE your spouse is when they are deployed and when you will hear whether they are safe or not ...

 

 

I imagine the percentages for infidelity are significantly higher in the military too. No sneaking around needed when you know your spouse is thousands of miles away and not coming home for months. There were plenty of wives who would drop H off at the pier in the morning, and pick up BF to move him in on her way back to the house.

 

Or the military man who has a girl in every port I would venture to guess it is the one deployed who cheats more than the one left here, to raise the family and be mom and dad.

 

im sorry, but i am a military spouse, and i find the comparison to be quite offensive as well as inaccurate., but of course you certainly are entitled to your opinion.

 

the downs you refer to in affair are, at least in my opinion, solely due to the nature of the relationship, and the people involved have a choice in how the relationship plays out. They have control over what is going on in their lives. This is NOT the same as being married to a spouse in the military.

 

Excellent!!

[Kitsune77]

Hi there,

to try and answer what i see as a ligitmate question, I havn't read many of your posts, and quite frankly don't visit LS much anymore becuse of the negativity that is sprinkled through here, so I am not sure if you want your man to leave his relationship or not.

 

In my situation, I do not want him to leave his wife....so there isn't an expectation of happily ever after. However recently I have become rather dissastisfied with the level of attention he has been giving me whilst away (we work together) and despite what some others have said about "sucking it up" I told him its not on.

 

That while we have the time to be together, i expect to be made a priority, as much as possibe, and if he want our relationship to continue, thats what will happen. he agreed.

 

I think it boils down to you cannot make them the centre of your universe, which is true for any relationship, more so when they have other commitments. I am still struggling with this myself...so maybe I'm not the best person to give advise.

 

Good luck, and if you want a non judgemental answer, PM me:)

 

I am starting a new thread because my last one was littered with irrelevant answers. I hope I can rephrase my question to receive applicable replies.

 

How do other women manage the ups and downs of their long term relationships?

 

Please, if your goal is to tell me to leave the affair, please pass on this thread.

 

Thank you.

[Kitsune77]

I made a similar point in another thread in which SMO was saying some people are happy with their As but want to discuss issues and my thing too was that they are "Happy but" "Happy except"...there is some fine print!

 

I don't do "happy but"...everything that includes a but has modified the original thing and the original thing no longer counts as how it normally would.

 

If you would rather not be in an A or wish your partner wasn't married or if you're dating a man and wish he had more money or was better in bed or anything...you're "happy but" and the idea of settling comes up. Your values and standards are your own (they may or may not be realistic of they may not be a priority to others) but nonetheless anything less than what would be your ultimate means you're settling or not fully happy. You either learn to like what you've got and not complain about it and not find it to be an issue or you continue to do so and then your happiness becomes questionable...

 

I certainly wasn't unhappy or depressed in my A but I was "happy but" and happy but eventually lead into more and more dissatisfaction until i was like "eff it...this but is too much" and it undermined the entire relationship.

 

yep, Miss Bee, I'm getting to that.