Does it matter how your xMM/xMW think of you now?i

[stevie_23]

I have this theory I made up to help myself through in terms of my own relationship with my ex-MM.

 

I see people as having 2 boxes in life. One is the “survival box” and one is the “happy box”.

 

The survival box consists of things like financial stability, domestic stability and security, obligations, employment, health security, and such other things. Basically being able to live comfortably enough with a roof over your head, decent health and basic happiness in life. Fairly boring, but required, you know?

 

The happy box consists of love, fulfillment, excitement, feeling alive, passion, doing fun things you enjoy that satisfy and stimulate you spiritually, emotionally, sexually, mentally, whatever else. Inner peace. Contentment. That sort of stuff. Also required for a higher level of happiness, but also a luxury if the basics aren’t met.

 

SO!

 

Ideally, a person’s survival box and their happy box can come together and combine into one day to day life. And I don’t mean necessarily that someone has to love their job or their family life in order to be happy, but I mean if what brings them stimulation and fulfillment they can experience alongside what they need in terms of stability and security on the basic level, then the boxes can co-exist in relative harmony.

 

But if a person’s survival box gets in the way of their happy box, like in the case of my ex-MM, it’s just really difficult and eventually maybe impossible. His survival box unfortunately stands DIRECTLY in the way of his happy box. I am in his happy box. His wife, his life where he lives, his job, his home, even though none of those things make him happy, they’re his survival box. If he could move the stuff he needs into a NEW survival box that fitted with me and his happy box, he would. But it’s not always possible, and it’s not in his case.

 

As I said, I am his happy box, together with making music and having quiet peaceful time to think. These are things in his happy box.

 

Unfortunately, in order for him to continue living with this happy box, he would be completely jeopardizing his survival box. He’d lose his home as his wife would eventually leave / kick him out, he’d have no stability and he’d be alone. And it’s not just my part of the happy box that his survival box stands in front of. It’s also the music and his quiet time too. His survival box requires him to live with his wife’s 3 adult kids, who are very loud and always home. So he has only a few minutes a week to make his music and have alone time.

 

So anyway, hopefully the boxes theory makes some kind of sense. It’s not that your ex didn’t love you enough to be with you in the end. It’s about the survival box. Sometimes it’s not too hard to imagine (and then take) the leap from your current survival box into your happy box (and then you build a new survival box based on your new situation), but sometimes it really IS too hard.

[fooled2manyX]

Greyhound, it's been 2 months & one week. (yeah) So, the writing is on the wall. I can't lie and say I don't hope that one day, he comes back. At the same time, I shouldn't hope for that. That is where closure & establishing no contact was/is important. Had I heard him say it, or read the words, it would make it easier. I practically begged him to tell me it's over. I wanted to hear it, take that punch in the gut and feel it all at once. And know I heard it from him. Still don't know if part of it is he can't bring himself to say it, or if it's just all his wife saying "not a word. not even goodbye." I know if it were me, I would want to know he said it's done & not to contact him anymore. But, that's just me. But, I am not contacting him anymore. I can't force anything. The times when I reached out & asked for it, came at very low times from being left in the dark to wonder.

[waterwoman]

I have this theory I made up to help myself through in terms of my own relationship with my ex-MM.

 

I see people as having 2 boxes in life. One is the “survival box” and one is the “happy box”.

 

The survival box consists of things like financial stability, domestic stability and security, obligations, employment, health security, and such other things. Basically being able to live comfortably enough with a roof over your head, decent health and basic happiness in life. Fairly boring, but required, you know?

 

The happy box consists of love, fulfillment, excitement, feeling alive, passion, doing fun things you enjoy that satisfy and stimulate you spiritually, emotionally, sexually, mentally, whatever else. Inner peace. Contentment. That sort of stuff. Also required for a higher level of happiness, but also a luxury if the basics aren’t met.

 

SO!

 

Ideally, a person’s survival box and their happy box can come together and combine into one day to day life. And I don’t mean necessarily that someone has to love their job or their family life in order to be happy, but I mean if what brings them stimulation and fulfillment they can experience alongside what they need in terms of stability and security on the basic level, then the boxes can co-exist in relative harmony.

 

But if a person’s survival box gets in the way of their happy box, like in the case of my ex-MM, it’s just really difficult and eventually maybe impossible. His survival box unfortunately stands DIRECTLY in the way of his happy box. I am in his happy box. His wife, his life where he lives, his job, his home, even though none of those things make him happy, they’re his survival box. If he could move the stuff he needs into a NEW survival box that fitted with me and his happy box, he would. But it’s not always possible, and it’s not in his case.

 

As I said, I am his happy box, together with making music and having quiet peaceful time to think. These are things in his happy box.

 

Unfortunately, in order for him to continue living with this happy box, he would be completely jeopardizing his survival box. He’d lose his home as his wife would eventually leave / kick him out, he’d have no stability and he’d be alone. And it’s not just my part of the happy box that his survival box stands in front of. It’s also the music and his quiet time too. His survival box requires him to live with his wife’s 3 adult kids, who are very loud and always home. So he has only a few minutes a week to make his music and have alone time.

 

So anyway, hopefully the boxes theory makes some kind of sense. It’s not that your ex didn’t love you enough to be with you in the end. It’s about the survival box. Sometimes it’s not too hard to imagine (and then take) the leap from your current survival box into your happy box (and then you build a new survival box based on your new situation), but sometimes it really IS too hard.

 

I really don't think it's that simple or neat. I think both boxes can contain elements of happy and survival.

 

H's affair was with a coworker - she contributed a great deal to his work, she was a very competent classroom assistant. In that way she was part of the 'survival' box as well as the 'happy' box. Conversetly there were a great deal of things in H's non-affair life that made him happy - me, kids, his friends for example. If we had seperated he would have lost a great deal from his 'happy box' - including quite a few friends who would have had nothing more to do with him. I suspect in most cases you can only really box things up in to 'affair' and 'non-affair'.

[waterwoman]

Or more precisely 'affair' and 'everything else'. At least in H's case.

[Got it]

I disagree Gotit but of course you think as you do, you had an affair and rewarded your MM for his affair as well.

 

My definition of a good person is one with sufficient conscience not to do anything more than ordinarily hurtful to another human being. By definition a cheater is not a good person when they cheat. I believe though they may have once been good and they may be again. But it's a long road to regain your character.

 

What is ordinarily hurtful? Don't you think that may be a huge grey area from person to person? How and who defines it?

 

My job in life is not to reward or punish people like I have some dog biscuits to give them if they do what I want or approve of. I don't feel that it is any person's responsibility to do that with others.

 

It is not my place to punish others either as if I am some minor deity to pass judgement upon them. I do not have to approve of their actions, I may pull back from interacting from them if they are doing things that I find harmful to myself or others but I do not seek to pass judgement upon them. I understand that we are all human, that we all make mistakes and that it is only God's place to judge (if one believes in God).

 

I used to be more like you, back in my early 20's, when I knew everything, things were black and white and people needed to do, say and act in the boxes that I felt were appropriate. I matured and realized that life didn't work like that. I realized that people I love are going to disappoint me, that my parents were going to disappoint me and do things that I may not like. I had to come to terms with my childhood hurts, and forgive them so I could be free. I realized that my parents are human, wonderfully fallible human who actually know little more than I do. They are just older versions of the fumbling me. I forgave them for making mistakes, I forgave them for doing things that directly or indirectly hurt me, I forgave them for focusing more on their issues, at times, than me/the kids. I forgave them for having good intentions but bad execution.

 

I forgave them so I could be free and at peace. And that is where I am with most people. It doesn't mean I don't hurt, it doesn't mean that I don't lose people that I care about. I do have more boundaries in place now than the codependent, people pleasing, please love me and pay attention to me younger version of me. I just got tired of always being angry. It only hurt me.

[Got it]

Nice try Gotit. Look of course you think it's a gray area, you were an OW. How could you think otherwise!?

 

It's actually very simple and very black and white. Being grumpy in the morning or forgetting someone's birthday or being careless about your tone or snapping at your kids or letting someone down by not turning up on time...ordInary life.

 

Actively doing something morally wrong that you know a priori will hurt them but f$&@ doing it anyway. That's the black. Drink driving. Abuse. Being in an affair. Road rage. All things a normal conscience doesn't do no matter the provocation.

 

Im perfectly willing to accept that people with a deep character flaw or ignorance of boundaries or who are simply morally weak can wind up on a slippery slope leading to the A. But at some point they knew and they could have stopped. The ones I can respect are those who try to make up for that and become good people again. The ones I cannot respect wrote it off as aww shucks I'm human it's not that bad.

 

Road rage huh? Have you seen the stats on the people who exhibit that? It is a large part of the population. If you polled people here, I think you would be surprised by how many can say that they had it at least one time. Those of us in densely populated areas more often than not.

 

There is so much with ordinary, putting your job before your family. Is that in teh same category? Many men especially do that but with good intentions? If you miss little Susie's games, but providing for your family? Where does that fall on your spectrum?

 

Having a spouse who keeps losing a job, not having enough money, fighting over bills, saying mean things to each other? Is that ordinary or is that now outside of the spectrum? Said in front of the kids? Where is that? Badmouthing your spouse to your kids? But it was just that once! Inside or out?

 

MFH, I really pity you. I have never not owned that I hurt others. I have never not owned my actions. I just having thrown myself on your pyre of self pain, rendering my garments from my body in the appropriate amount of written medium despair to meet with your approval. But again, unless people pass your standards they are bad.

 

You list alot of people as bad. I pity you. I hope you don't make any bigger mistakes than snapping at your kids. That is high June Cleaver bar to set for everyone even excluding affairs.

[Barrsitter]

So many beautiful messages on this thread. It really is a process. I am 1.5 years away from the end of my A with xMM b/c he decided to stay with his W. I have had contact recently and received a charming message that I gave he and his wife a second chance b/c he went to the edge and realized he loved her more than he had acknowledged. Thanks, Pal. So glad I could be your marriage counsellor. Jerk. Well, serves me right for getting in touch with him. I wish there was some potion that I could drink that would cause me to forget every single moment I spent with him. Somehow it would make things easier.

[veryhappy]

Barrsitter, that's horrible. I'm so sorry he's such a pos. It's exactly the kind of thing I can see exMM saying. If only they kept their mouths closed...Nothing changes, right? They hurt us once and they'll do it again.

[Barrsitter]

cutedragon...you are so right. In my xMM's case, I just don't think he's smart enough to realize that I might now want to hear how I helped him reconnect with his wife. But as I say, it serves me right. I went into the A knowing that someone and likely all of us, would be hurt. I just really didn't think it would hurt this much. He told his wife immediately that he was seeing me and she started crying and didn't stop for 2 years by the sounds of it. But she ended up with him and now I am the one hurting. Karma.

[veryhappy]

Barrsitter, do you want to open your own thread? I'm curious what made you contact him after all this time. Wow, this is a nightmare scenario and yes on one hand you put your own hand into the fire, but he didn't need to be so insensitive. I think a thread on breaking NC would be good. It seems time and time again that no contact means no new pain. ExMM sent me a cryptic message last month after he swore to God in October that he'd never cotact me again, and I have to fight the urge to lash out at him. I think NC is the only way, isn't it?

[notthemrs]

MFH, those who express such black and white, holier than thou, overly sanctimonious attitudes are sometimes the ones who have the darkest skeletons in the closet.

 

You're strangely eager to prove how virtuous you are...to a bunch of strangers online.

 

Interesting.

[wanting more]

Oh I've done plenty I'm not proud of. I've made amends and apologizes countless times in my life. I'm human and not perfect. However I see that as a reasonable response for ordinary transgressions. It doesn't cut it for a murderer to say "I had to forgive myself for being flawed." And I don't think it excuses affairs either. I think they are way closer to the murder end of the spectrum than snapping at your kids.

 

And yes, right v wrong are black and white in the big stuff. That's why you teach right v wrong not "how to justify your actions"

 

Really??? Murder is closer to affairs. Did I read that right.

You've never had someone murdered that you cared about?? Taken away to never see them again. Never have a choice on ever wanting to see them again. They're gone!!!

 

You do have some serious issues you need to deal with.

 

You really need to stay off an OW supportive board. You are NO help to anyone on here that I've seen.

 

(I'll just wait for your reply now on who you know that's had someone in their life that has been murdered and how they deal with it)

Edited February 6, 2013 by wanting more

[stevie_23]

I really don't think it's that simple or neat. I think both boxes can contain elements of happy and survival.

 

H's affair was with a coworker - she contributed a great deal to his work, she was a very competent classroom assistant. In that way she was part of the 'survival' box as well as the 'happy' box. Conversetly there were a great deal of things in H's non-affair life that made him happy - me, kids, his friends for example. If we had seperated he would have lost a great deal from his 'happy box' - including quite a few friends who would have had nothing more to do with him. I suspect in most cases you can only really box things up in to 'affair' and 'non-affair'.

 

Well, it was just a theory and analogue I guess.

 

Both boxes are separate in my opinion though. Basic survival doesn’t make anyone particularly happy beyond being ok and keeping your head above water, so to speak. It’s the other stuff that goes beyond it that’s in the happy box.

 

And of course, yes, ideally both boxes should overlap greatly in order to be happy. But this doesn’t always happen. As I said, in my ex-MM’s case, he has got little happiness and fulfillment in his current life situation, but if he left that situation his survival box would greatly suffer.

[promises]

I think that there is probably a huge swing of feelings about how the xMM feels about me now. Just like there is for me.

 

His W absolutely hates me, rightly so, and, I know that he goes along with this as he is working on his family unit. Maybe part of him hates me as well.

 

But, from his actions I think that there is a part of him that feels the opposite. And, that part he will never be able to express to anyone or himself truly again. He'll suppress it and I will too. It'll become this little place inside as almost a memory of a dream- good or bad- eventually it won't seem that real.

 

I don't know really.

[stevie_23]

His W absolutely hates me, rightly so, and, I know that he goes along with this as he is working on his family unit. Maybe part of him hates me as well.

 

I think if he does feel any sort of negativity / hatred towards you, if he looked deeper that hatred would actually be directed at himself.

[promises]

I think if he does feel any sort of negativity / hatred towards you, if he looked deeper that hatred would actually be directed at himself.

 

You're right. I think he hates that he ultimately hurt two women he 'loved'.

 

Because he did.

[stevie_23]

Yes, that's correct. My ex-MM is likely the same in terms of those feelings, if he even lets them enter his mind (which mostly, he wouldn't because it'd be too painful).

[BrokenPrincess]

It doesn't matter and I shouldn't care, but I still do. Some days I feel indifferent & don't think about him much, others I feel sick to think he's happily reconciled with his W and considers me a disgusting mistake.

[Lillyfree]

It doesn't matter and I shouldn't care, but I still do. Some days I feel indifferent & don't think about him much, others I feel sick to think he's happily reconciled with his W and considers me a disgusting mistake.

 

you don't really know how happy he is and what he really thinks...

and i hope the day will come for you when you just don't care.

 

big turnaround for me is when i've realised how much i had to offer to him, yet he wanted just a portion of it ... and we know which one

 

once the fog cleared and i could think straight, i realised that he wouldn't have much to offer me even if we were to end up together - he's negative, whiny, never happy. an emotional parasite. i was there as his dumping ground - why would i want to carry that?

 

i do feel sorry for him at times. i know he's unhappy, and his relationship with his gf isn't perfect, and they're only really starting their life together. but that's all his problem now.

[ow9]

Broken, I couldn't have said it better myself. I just drove 30 hours to "start again" in a new location. During that painful, lonely journey, I thought of my exH the most, finding someone new next, but the exMM crept up a lot as well. I don't want to be with him. It's been long enough that I know that... but I miss his face...

Even if it's only every once in a while. I know that I miss his touch.

[fooled2manyX]

Oh god, I am so in touch with this. Too in touch...and I'm not there yet. Meaning, I still ache for him everyday. Some parts of the day, I am ok. But at least a couple of time per day I am a crying mess like right now.

 

I do struggle with if his views of me have changed. Part of me think "why would they?" He chose to be with me & love me. He was talking about marrying me one day and spending the rest of our lives together. He said he was sorry that it wasn't different (meaning that we hadn't lost touch and went seperate ways so many years ago. That he married someone else.) UGH.

 

I was so confident in his love for me, that I was blindsided by this. Even though it's said men never leave their wives, I was SO confident in his love, I thought for sure we'd be together. But, in the back of my mind, I knew he was struggling with leaving his kids. Maybe deep down, I always he he couldn't do that.

 

Now though, yes. I struggle with how he thinks of me everyday. His silence is hate to me. I know he is doing right by his wife. I know it's the right thing to do for his family. But that doesn't make this hurt any less.

 

I keep thinking of how he would tell me he missed me when we were together & that when we weren't, it was a thousand times worse.

 

So it kills me this is my reality now. Because it is a thousand times worse.

[stevie_23]

I know how this feels. That THIS is your reality now.

 

I used to feel so sad and unhappy when we weren't spending time together because I missed him. But looking back, I had his LOVE then, at those times when we weren't together. It was SO different to now, when we are over for good.

 

You said his silence means hate to you. Try not to think this way...I do know how it feels and everyday I have to try to keep my mind guided in a way so as to not feel my ex-MM's silence = hate as well, but I know it doesn't. His silence = necessity, sadness, disappointment, regret of what could have been and should have been. There's no hate involved, as hard as it is to keep believing that.

[Catplates]

Oh I've done plenty I'm not proud of. I've made amends and apologizes countless times in my life. I'm human and not perfect. However I see that as a reasonable response for ordinary transgressions. It doesn't cut it for a murderer to say "I had to forgive myself for being flawed." And I don't think it excuses affairs either. I think they are way closer to the murder end of the spectrum than snapping at your kids.

 

And yes, right v wrong are black and white in the big stuff. That's why you teach right v wrong not "how to justify your actions"

 

OMG!!!

 

Revelation... here was me thinking you were perfect. I thought that was the reason you see fit to preach sanctimounious crap to the OW when you admit you have no idea what it would feel like.

 

Cat

[ComingInHot]

I probably won't get a-lot of BS brownie points for writing this and I disclose that it Could be feeling down the last couple days that I write this;

 

I have to believe from what was disclosed to me by both OW & FWH, that he WAS being honest w/her in his attraction to her. I can even see why he was! She was fourteen years his junior, had super model hair (albiet w/extensions), she was talk & super skinny and not hard on the eyes. Most of all she was similar to him in that their goals for wealth at any cost and the want/need to be viewed as the best thing "Ever" were a big deal to them. She has done this before so she knew how to work it and he wanted it.

He told her things I knew he probably would say because I know how he thinks. And he meant those things.

I have to believe that he Could see himself w/her or someone like himself so he Did think and talk about it.

He had it all worked out to the amicable end of the A so he'd have nothing but "fond" memories of what he "knew" he could have had should he had chosen.

 

He didn't even "hate" her when she outed the A to me. I think he was, in a way, proud of himself & wanted me to know what he Could have if he wanted it.

 

It was when she got continuously ugly towards me & refused to leave me be that he realized his error &misconception of her as she was mean and there is not enough room in his world for a person like that.

 

Sorry, went off there a bit.

Bottom line, he Did care.

[LFH]

But of course! He should hate both you and himself. I think that's quite common actually that the one who breaks it off hates himself and the person who encouraged him to make such a mess. It comes back to yes, he cheated, but she wanted him too so she is just as bad.

 

As to whether Promises xAP has enough awareness to get there, none of us know. Not even she.

 

We get it. You hate the OW. How many times are you going to say it?

Maybe you should vent your hatred on your "brother in law" or "neighbor" or "dad" or "guy down the street" or your husband, or the person you are actually angry with. Whichever one that ACTUALLY is.

I am sure I speak for a lot of us when I say that it's getting very tiresome to have you venting on us.