Involved in the marriage?

[frozensprouts]

In one of my classes we were discussing the bombing of Hiroshima and the introduction of certain kinds of technology and how that changes how people feel about culpability. We talked about how dropping the bomb for some of these soldiers was not "hands on" as they simply had to press a button. Later, when some of them had to confront these Japanese people face to face, who were disfigured because of the bomb, they started weeping because that is when they realized that while they were thousands of feet in the air, in an airplane and pressed a button...what happened to these people was a DIRECT RESULT of their actions and involvement. Before that, they felt far removed from it and had no real faces to put to it.

 

Perhaps some OW feel this way, which is understandable to an extent. Some soldiers could probably argue that they were just following orders from superiors...while this is true, they still make choices. We all do. An OW cannot control what a MM does...but her choice to be his OW definitely comes at a price and it has an impact on the M. When we choose a certain course of actions, often things we do not intend become part of the choice, so maybe that is also what some are missing. That while you may not choose to actively be "involved with the M", your choice to be in a triangulated affair joins your life with that of a woman you don't know and who doesn't know you, like it or not. Then some OW, like the ones who seem to know down to what sex acts the BS doesn't like, to those who plan trips, take involvement to a very tangible level...but others who do no such thing are also involved.

 

 

re:collateral damage....

 

i highly suspect that the view of the ones causing the damage may be very different than the view of the one who has been hurt by it...is it for the pilot to say " I just flew the plane that carried the bomb...I did no damage...it was the bomb, it was my superior officer who told me to do it, it was for "the greater good"....

meanwhile, ask someone on the ground who's life has been devastated how they feel...it would probably be very different, they may very likely not feel as though the ends justified the means...all the rationalizations and explanations would do nothing to make them feel any better...

 

as for whether or not the other man/woman is involved in a marriage...

I think of it this way...

were it not for the affair, would the betrayed spouse still be being lied to, would the wayward spouse still be sneaking around, etc.?

 

who knows? but i will say that I find it ironic when an other man/woman says " we didn't mean to start an affair...we just developed feelings for each other", then says "if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else"...

which is it? Option A, B or a little of both? I don't know. if it were not for that particular affair partner, would the married person still cheat? ( please note...this is not saying I am blaming the affair partner for the wayward spouse cheating...he/she made up their own mind to do so...rather, I'm saying if that exact set of circumstances were not there, would the married person still cheat? I don't know)

 

but if the affair really is about love for the affair partner , and this is leading to the married person hurting the betrayed spouse, the yes, the affair, and the two people in it, are involved in the marriage if for no other reason than having an overall negative effect on it...

[cocorico]

Simple couple of questions.

 

1. Would your relationship with the WS have proceeded differently had he/she been single or divorced, instead of married?

 

2. Would the marital relationship be different had he/she not gotten involved in the affair?

 

1. No. What determined the logistics of our R was the physical distance, not the M. We'd have conducted our R and ourselves exactly the same, with or without the M.

 

2. Ultimately, no. It did speed up his exit from the M, but if the A had not happened, he'd have left her when the kids left home anyway.

[cocorico]

I think the confusion between *involvement* and *impact* is at the root of much of this.

 

Involvement relates to inputs, impact to outcomes. The two are not necessarily linked. You can be involved with no impact, or have an impact with no (or minimal) involvement.

 

For example, a father can spend every weekend coaching his son on the finer points of spin bowling, yet his son remains a terrible cricketer. Perhaps he has no coordination, no interest, no focus, whatever. Massive involvement by his father, but did his father have an impact on his bowling? No. Involvement, without impact.

 

Or, following a ONS a woman falls pregnant and raises the kid as a single parent, with the bio father completely uninvolved (even unknowing). The kid happens to inherit the gene for colour blindness, and discovers during testing that his hopes of becoming a commercial pilot have been dashed thanks to "dad's" biological legacy, so he becomes an engineer instead. Was "dad" involved in his career decision-making? No, but he did have an impact nonetheless. Impact, without involvement.

 

Does the OW have an impact on the WS-BS M? In many cases, yes. Is she involved? In most cases, no.

 

(Does the BS feel her impact and ascribe involvement? That's up to her...)

[beenburned]

coco,

 

I agree!

 

I think all the different types of affairs also impact whether there is direct involvement or whether there is just impact without direct interference.

[woinlove]

I hope with all that I have that during the A I was irrelevant to the EMR. I understand that, in the same way I understand that after D Day the OW and A was totally irrelevant to our marriage. Much the same thing I think.

 

 

Seren, a very kind and thoughtful post as always. But I don't understand the part above which is key to the idea that the BS is irrelevant and, so, there isn't any involvement in the M. I can understand why the OW is irrelevant to your M, because you can and do have exactly what you want, a strong, loving M and it doesn't involve the OW.

 

I will try to explain my reasoning, it might not make sense to most, but maybe it is because of the nature of my H's A. H had PTSD after a number of very nasty incidents during back to back tours in Iraq, he was a very broken man. This manifested in him becoming totally alien to me, I didn't recognise my lovely H in the nasty, self absorbed man he appeared to be during the A. Had the A happened for no other reason than he could or for sex, I was going to say for love, but I would have understand if he had loved (not an A though).

 

Had I been relevant during the A, it would have meant, to me at least, that his actions were calculated, self seeking and with total disregard for me, so not my H in usual circumstances. I understand the OW feeling I was irrelevant, in her world there was her marriage, which was dreadful and the escapism of her relationship with my H. Compartmentalising enables dissasociation, it enables people who would usually be caring people to become very self centred and to dismiss other's feelings or make excuses - it is why BS are often almost demonised IMHO, or the marriage seen as a loveless wasteland with both WS and AP feeding the illusion to justify the hurting of another or others. Not all are like this, but the A I am describing was.

 

That H was so screwed up with self loathing at that time saw him push, push, push me, our child, his family away, he truly was a grade A horror, but I thought it was all down to me (gaslighting, the gift that keeps giving) despite asking why he was so changed. I don't want to have been relevant to the truly sordid nature of the A, I want to have not been in his head at all while they did what they did, there was no love from him, TBH I wonder what the hell she stuck around for. Of course at times I saw glimpses of my H, but in the main he would verbally lash out and it is that, that the A involved itself in my marriage - the trying to provoke a reaction to justify his actions. So, in that respect I can see that the OW enabled this, but the blame sat on H's shoulders.

 

Had there been love, had it been about us then maybe I would think differently, but I don't think so. I do understand OW who view their relationship as separate from the marriage, I may not have that mindset, but I get it. I don't expect my H to love me just because we are married, I expect him to love me because I am so dammed worth it! If he didn't then I would want him to leave. Not sure if I have explained myself very well and have rambled, the OW and the A is irrelevant to us because we don't allow it to have more importance than it has/had, much the same I think as some OW have tried to explain. Maybe if I was a fly on the wall and could see into the dynamics of a romantic A I would feel different and maybe if the tables were turned and a AP could see inside a marriage that still had love, like and togetherness going on they too might understand why the BS is always relevant to the WS, otherwise they wouldn't give a stuff about hurting them or keeping them in the dark. IDK

 

Thanks, Seren. Your post explains very well your own feelings and I understand why you would want to be irrelevant in the A.

 

If I understand correctly, even though the OW seems to have wanted more than a secret A with your H, maybe the man she wanted wasn't the same man you loved and had been married to. And the M she imagined was not your real M. So that maybe is why you and the M would be irrelevant to her. Also, you mention compartmentalization, which may allow one to want more than an A yet not think of the BS or M as an impediment to having more because one simply doesn't focus on the reality of how one might get more. Or perhaps I have misunderstood -- these are complex feelings/issues, particularly when trying to get into the head of another who you don't necessarily know well.

[seren]

Thanks, Seren. Your post explains very well your own feelings and I understand why you would want to be irrelevant in the A.

 

If I understand correctly, even though the OW seems to have wanted more than a secret A with your H, maybe the man she wanted wasn't the same man you loved and had been married to. And the M she imagined was not your real M. So that maybe is why you and the M would be irrelevant to her. Also, you mention compartmentalization, which may allow one to want more than an A yet not think of the BS or M as an impediment to having more because one simply doesn't focus on the reality of how one might get more. Or perhaps I have misunderstood -- these are complex feelings/issues, particularly when trying to get into the head of another who you don't necessarily know well.

 

Yes, H was so not the man I had lived and loved for all the years i had known him and yes, the man that he was during the A time was not who I recognised as H, nor who he recognised as the man he had pride in. had he stayed that way, quite frankly I doubt we would, could or even wanted to reconcile. I know my H as a funny, quite staid, thoughtful, snuggler type of man, after D Day and my conversation with the OW the man she described had been none of these. TBH, I wondered why she had loved him, he had not been particularly kind to her and in my very odd way, told him so and said he had been quite cruel to her and taken advantage of her vulnerability.

 

The OW H described was outgoing, loud, sarcastic and so not like the sweet man I knew and now know again. The sexual side of it sounded very sordid, this from what both have told me and if it had been what she wanted I would understand and maybe thought that this was an unresolved need of H's, but it wasn't, it was symptomatic of the way he felt about himself, the not good enough feeling and the OW being all he felt he deserved. This is not how I know my H and so not how I think any woman should be treated. This saw him coming home after meeting the OW and being so full of self loathing that it impacted even more upon our marriage, so in that respect she was involved, as her acceptance of his behaviour just added to him feeling crap and so it went on.

 

I wouldn't want to be involved in the A and I so wouldn't want what the A was to be relevant to my marriage, I think what the OW had seen was that when our marriage was good it was dammed good, but no, the man she knew was not the man I knew. H compartmentalised himself, he was not capable of being the man who he was, he hated himself far too much, the A was his hair shirt so to speak, which is not fair to the OW, but it was what it was. he had to push me and our son and everyone he loved away as he felt he wasn't good enough and could hurt us (figuratively) in much the same way his colleagues had been hurt and he could do nothing about.

Hope this makes sense.

 

The work he has done via combat stress counselling has covered all this and it is quite common in returning veterans. I am just sad that we all got hurt and I include the OW in this.

[woinlove]

Yes, Seren, that all makes sense to me. So glad your H got the counselling he needed and deserved and came back to loving himself. When one feels unworthy, their loved ones (and sometimes others) will almost certainly get hurt too.