Non "Affairy-Like" things you did together...

[Praying4Peace]

I read all the time that the feelings in an affair are not real because you don't get to see the real person. I imagine there is this assumption that AP's are always on their best behavior and doing fun/exciting/new things. Dinners, dates, walks, hotels, etc.

 

If you've done something with your AP that falls outside of this, please share. Something akin to 'washing their dirty underwear' or 'seeing each other with morning breath and no makeup' or another act of mundane everyday life.

 

I'm just curious.

[Goodbye]

Well, I certainly did NOT clean his dirty underwear. Then again, I didn't do that for my H of 17 years either. No thanks.

 

I knew my exMM since I was 19, so we did regress a bit together We'd do some pretty silly and stupid stuff in addition to the more dignified 40 plus stuff.

[Praying4Peace]

I dated a man for almost 2 years, who I didn't know was still very much married instead of stbd. He had his own apt, but he lived a 2 1/2 hour drive from me. Due to my own family obligations and his supposed 2nd job (a lie), we saw each other on average 2 times a week. We did the normal things people who are dating do. Dinners out, sometimes other things. In hindsight, there were some red flags that things were not what they seemed, but hindsight is 20 20.

 

So no, I didn't wash his undies, but what does that matter? Why do the stereotypes given to affairs bother you? What does it matter now that things are over?

 

If nothing mattered anymore I wouldn't even be here. It's part of my own processing. There are a lot of really heartbroken people on here trying to figure out emotions- where did they come from, were they real or due to a fantasy relationship, etc.

 

It is repeatedly said (even by my therapist) that oftentimes you see the good/perfect and not the bad. So that person looks really "rosy". I've seen it referenced countless times that APs don't: take care of kids, pay bills, etc etc.

 

So I don't think it's irrelevant to ask others experiences. It might be beneficial to compare and maybe realize that your A was just two people on their best behavior getting ego strokes.

 

If it was as simple as "it's over- why do you care" no one would be here. And this whole board is a stereotype of affairs. Some true, some not.

[BrokenPrincess]

The second time we spent the night together, I woke up at 6 am and heard this weird humming noise. Finally figured out he had put headphones on & was listening to music. Got all upset inside thinking he was putting up a wall between us (he wore headphones at home all the time so he didn't disturb anyone with music and hated the idea of my H walking around being so isolated all the time).

 

Anyway, so I was laying there getting more anxious, questioning why I was in bed with a strange man that wasn't my H, etc. Well it eventually comes out that I was snoring. He's a very light sleeper & didn't want to embarrass me (too late). I have no idea how in 11 years my H has never told me I snored. I was really embarrassed but then we laughed about it and found a new way to position me that seemed to help. Lol. So yeah it wasn't all affairy-tale when we'd sleep together

 

Also, when his oldest went off to college, we talked through financial aid stuff and some other things in detail going on with his/their finances at that time.

 

Overall, I think we talked about lots of real, everyday mundane things...our relationship was never flowery ILYs, future faking/fantasizing, etc. We'd spend hours & hours & hours talking on the phone, it wasn't all wining & dining & stolen moments. I just don't believe you can keep up a facade through all that time...sooner or later, the real you (& him) comes out.

[Praying4Peace]

I'll add:

 

Changed his nasty, pussy, infected bandages

Helped him with his nightmare of a business

Pushed a broken down car through the rain

Helped me clean up all the blood and nastiness after my m/c

Brought my kids breakfast cereal for the next day at 1am

Morning hair/no makeup visits in the wee hours of the night

Hauling boxes down 3 flights in a sweat with asthma for me

Always being understanding and fighting fair

Etc, Etc.

 

I could go on, but as Lady Grey said...it doesn't matter. I guess he cared outside of any 'illusion' of me being perfect but not enough. Even if there was no 'fog' in our relationship- it's still over.

 

I was wondering bc if anyone else had these types of experiences and 'got over it' then there's hope for me too. That was the point of my thread, not to inflame or anger or attach extra importance to some A's.

[Got it]

I read all the time that the feelings in an affair are not real because you don't get to see the real person. I imagine there is this assumption that AP's are always on their best behavior and doing fun/exciting/new things. Dinners, dates, walks, hotels, etc.

 

If you've done something with your AP that falls outside of this, please share. Something akin to 'washing their dirty underwear' or 'seeing each other with morning breath and no makeup' or another act of mundane everyday life.

 

I'm just curious.

 

For us, mucking stalls, stacking hay, cleaning house, dishes, washing clothes, grocery shopping, shopping in general, just some of the less than exciting things we did that I can recall.

[Its_MEE]

Although a lot of the A with MM was the fantasy life... We recently started doing a lot of normal couple things... He's helped me pick up furniture. Taken me and my son to a book fair at his elementary school. Def many morning breath moments.... I remember the first time he farted in front of me... Lol... Pretty funny... He had kidney stones once and he called me in the bathroom while he puked... I rubbed his back and laughed because "why did u make me come in here for this".... So many intimate conversations... He fell off the bed one time and it was one of thee funniest moments of my life... I had a few asthma attacks and he stayed in the hospital with me the entire time... Also had a P scare and we went to the store together to get a test... He wiped tears when I was sad... Talked me through tough days... I wiped his tears when he was sad... Helped him through tough days. As some if u know, I also met his baby... My mother met his baby also. We played for hours with him. Despicable I know..

I'm f'ed up and broken... I'm not gonna lie guys... This is not.... Getting better.. I am not helping myself I must admit. I won't TJ but those are some of the non affairy things we did...

[Summer Breeze]

We had more non A moments that A moments. We took it in turns working with his siblings nursing his Mom during a long illness. He was by my side night and day for several weeks after I was physically assaulted. We had some business interests together and owned some properties together. He hosted parties at my house with me and we had some great vacations together. He asked me to be involved more in things that directly impacted his kids but after some long difficult talks he realized that wasn't what should happen.

 

I always wondered what all of this non A talk stemmed from personally. My grandparents and my parents never did half the stuff I did with him. They never lived together before M so they probably didn't see anything but the best of each other before they did get M. Didn't stop them from having long lives together.

[cocorico]

We've been M for years now, and what we did together during the A was no different to how we do things now as spouses. I have never had to wash skidmarked underwear - not that there are skidmarks in his underwear, anyway. Nor does the burping and farting that some theirs havens red about as "normal in a M" ever been part of our experience. I guess some people are just more considerate of how they behave around others, than others. We've had a full range of challenges and hard realities along the way, both during the A and since, and frankly, I could not even start to differentiate. If your R changes because the label someone else attaches to it changes, I'd be very wary indeed...

[findingnemo]

Changed his nasty, pussy, infected bandages

 

Praying, did you mean pus-filled? I laughed my head off.

[WakingUp]

We have always been respectful as far as noises in the bathroom, unsavoury messes and things go... but if there is a problem we deal with it together.

 

However we have been together after three days unwashed (the situation we were in) we have been rescued, we have been in some big adventures together... we have been in some pretty challenging predicaments and seen each other under pressure big time. And we both came through strong and secure. So we know each other well in that scenario... we have each others backs covered.

 

I trust this man to be brave and strong. He is as adventurous as I am. We don't really do candlelit dinners and dressing up... or best behaviours... we do adventures and in our down time we cook together and cuddle.

[Got it]

We've been M for years now, and what we did together during the A was no different to how we do things now as spouses. I have never had to wash skidmarked underwear - not that there are skidmarks in his underwear, anyway. Nor does the burping and farting that some theirs havens red about as "normal in a M" ever been part of our experience. I guess some people are just more considerate of how they behave around others, than others. We've had a full range of challenges and hard realities along the way, both during the A and since, and frankly, I could not even start to differentiate. If your R changes because the label someone else attaches to it changes, I'd be very wary indeed...

 

Thank you Cocorico! I have never understood how this somehow means intimacy! I have never had any of this in my first marriage, my affair, or my now second marriage! Ugh, disgusting.

 

Yes we have taken care of each other while ill but we limit unpleasantness as much as possible. All relationships should have some level of mystery and this is definitely one of those areas!

 

I had someone arguing with me here that because I didn't clean his skidmarks I didn't really have a true intimacy with him. Well if that is true intimacy well then I am happy with my artificial one!

[Goodbye]

We'd go to the grocery store a lot. We both liked grocery shopping. Boring, yes...but at the time it seemed nice.

[MissBee]

Am I the only one who doesn't think the "fantasy" of an A has anything to do with fairydust and lingerie? Any relationship can be more fantasy than reality, and As by their nature tend to have a higher chance of that. It's not really about whether or not you do mundane tasks. I can do mundane tasks with anyone. I volunteer a lot and do pretty mundane and not that glamorous tasks with complete strangers and we're intimate for those hours/that day, then they go back to their life and I mine.

 

I take the fantasy as having to do with compartmentalizing and what kind of reality that promotes and not so much on what kind of tasks one does with their A partner.

[Praying4Peace]

Praying, did you mean pus-filled? I laughed my head off.

 

Yes! Pus-filled! Omg...lol....

[Goodbye]

The way I see it' date=' my affair is reality, we have been going through reality since d day with the wipers on - keep cleaning the sht off. However BS is going through fantasy with MM, lliving in lala land, in fact they both are going through it together at home, strange how stuff turns around.[/quote']

 

 

j'adore, does your MM intend to reconcile with BS? What's going on there? I do think fantasy land goes both ways. Sounds like it was a d day enough for her to fully understand what is going on?

[MissBee]

The way I see it' date=' my affair is reality, we have been going through reality since d day with the wipers on - keep cleaning the sht off. However BS is going through fantasy with MM, lliving in lala land, in fact they both are going through it together at home, strange how stuff turns around.[/quote']

 

How do you know what the BS is going through?

 

I guess it's a matter of perspective and what someone is defining as fantasy and reality.

 

Fantasy isn't "not real" in the affair context IMO...it's a matter of if this relationship isn't exposed to the light of day but compartmentalized and a secret, then it's pretty difficult to assess. Hence, most OW eventually want an open relationship, as it opens it up to more reality and less ambiguity.

 

The BS has had an open reality with her spouse for years. You've never had that. You are only part of a subsection of his life and any relationship which is like that, while it is real, cannot be judged in the same way. It is a real affair...that is indeed a correct statement.

[MissBee]

 

So then what do you mean by that? Where does it stop being a fantasy? At what point? Please enlighten me if that's not what's meant?

 

I can't speak to what any other person means when they're using it. But for me, when I think of fantasy, I'm thinking of future-faking, plans that will never come through, and especially the shortsightedness that can come from being in an insular, compartmentalized relationship. As built more on wishes and if only I had met you first and so and so forth, and having a clear compartment of an A life, and then a larger life that includes family, friends, and people who know each other and you which the AP is excluded from.

 

For me it has nothing to do with "always roses and sunshine" or cleaning underwear and so on which negates fantasy. I think I compared it once to having a house with a secret basement/cellar. Your family lives in your house and in the rooms above ground and your friends come by your house and do the same and everyone socializes and can say, this is Tom's house. You live your regular life that is open for your family and friends and bill collectors and the mailman to see in this part....then if you have a secret cellar, like the A, this while it is clearly a real place in your house, like the A, a real relationship...it is so removed from your day to day life. So if there is an OW living in the cellar and when you go down to the cellar with her you have a mirror image of your upstairs life, where you act like a couple down there....while real...and esp real to her....in the larger context, that cellar life/A is more akin to a fantasy and doesn't have the same exposure and freedom from parameters as the "upstairs life"...and without that, you won't know your AP and his life as much as you think you do, without a broader, non-secret context to place it in.

 

That's what I conceptualize in terms of fantasy. And single women can be involved in future faking, compartmentalized, plans that never come to pass, their "bf" introduces them to no one, or only unimportant people, they have never met his family, his family has never heard of them, type of relationships as well. All relationships can include degrees of fantasy, LDRs and As, are the most common ones, simply because they have more built in constrains. Also, there is fantasy bonding, which you can also look up, which doesn't only happen in As, but based on the description below, seems more common in As, since a large part of loving, is knowing the whole person, which is very difficult in secret relationships.

 

Learning to Love the Person Behind the Fantasy - Sacramento Relationship Psychology | Examiner.com

[MissBee]

I believe that. I know after d-day they each saw a side of each other that they had both kept hidden from each other, aka their real selves.

 

each

 

I have no clue if my dad, for example, went grocery shopping or changed the multiple OW's tires, or "normal things." I imagine he probably has done some normal things like that. He might not have though. But regardless of if he did or did not...what remains reality is that my mom and my sister and I have lived with him for over 20 years, day in and out, and know him well....and whatever A life they had, was a life no one else in our immediate or extended family knew about, his friends didn't know about, and the months long As have way less reality to them, than his actual life. It was a life "over there."

 

The most recent OW had stuff to say about him that made my sister and I almost collapse with laughter...because all the blushing lovely stuff she said...I was like wow...okay....that is not at all my dad in his everyday life. As for my mom, that was how she experienced him when they first dated, but that wore off. But this OW was sooooo confident she knew what he was "really like"...I was like, please go be with her, good luck to you all! Because you're basing your reality of him on your secret trysts.

 

Every A is certainly not this way. My own had more freedom in it because of the nature. But nevertheless, I intuitively knew that there was what we had, which had real feelings included of course, and then a whole other aspect which I simply didn't know or remained to be seen, simply because it was LDR and an A. Having had non-A relationships, I see a clear difference between the two, in how long fantasy can go on. That is also why A breakups may be harder for some, as there is a whole unexplored fantasy of "if only" and imagining what things "could have been", even if reality may not have worked that way. While when open Rs run their course, you KNOW, because you had the chance to live it in the open and see where it could and couldn't work, while lots of As, when they don't get this chance, you fill in the blanks with fantasies. My exAP and I did normal things, but (until we did eventually have the chance to be in an open R)...a lot of time was spent imagining that and planning and just not knowing what some stuff was really like. Example: I had never been in his home before. I know many OW have never been in the space MM calls home. He may come to their house, they may have a secret love nest, but the place he calls home most of the time....most have never been. For me, one day I just thought, how can I say I am in a relationship, when I have NEVER been in your home? Something's wrong here...

Edited May 27, 2013 by MissBee

[Charlie Harper]

Go shopping

Grocery shopping

Working in a big project that involved a lot of agencies etc

Took Long walks

Got high (first time for me)

Took her kids to the movies

fixed stuff on her home.

Took her car to the Shop

Painted a room

Walked on the beach (while on vacation with or respective BS, and they never knew we got together )

She took me to the Doctor -hospital ( when she knew my wife did not give a rats ass about my illness)

Exchanged books.

Gave her Guitar lessons in exchange for cook lessons.

 

the whole 9 yards...

[Praying4Peace]

The more freedom a MP has, assuming the ap is single, the easier it is for them to have two parallel relationships and the easier it is to compartmentalize the two. Doing stuff that other people in non affair relationships do isn't really that big of a feat, assuming that they have the freedom to do, because of job travel, living separate married lives, etc.

 

Of course there are a lot of affairs where it's an hour here or there, sneaking in time together wherever and whenever you can, sex in vehicles, hotel meetings, etc. There are plenty of stories here attesting to the seedy side.

 

It's still an affair, and the single person is at a disadvantage because the married person calls the shots in the majority of cases. I don't get what the big deal is, proving or disproving that it doesn't fit the latter(the seedy side). It is what it is or it was what it was.

 

If its strictly seedy, its easier to get over, IMHO. You realize that you don't know what they are like with regards to everyday type things. Thats it.

[Praying4Peace]

About washing underwear? I've washed underwear for a family of 6. I don't understand...don't y'all just throw it in the washing machine or am I totally spoiled? It sometimes sounds like we wives are down by the river scrubbing them clean of skidmarks with one of those washing boards. I do not look for anything on the underwear, they just go in with the soap and come out clean.

 

Okay, enough about underwear. Let's carry on.

[Summer Breeze]

Historically there have been references made about an A being like a perpetual 3rd date and that's what I had in mind when responding to this thread. I think it's widely thought by some that an A doesn't have stresses and pressures, history, and highs and lows that are comparable to a M. Granted they are different to those of a M but they are still there and need to be dealt with and coped with all the same.

[Got it]

Historically there have been references made about an A being like a perpetual 3rd date and that's what I had in mind when responding to this thread. I think it's widely thought by some that an A doesn't have stresses and pressures, history, and highs and lows that are comparable to a M. Granted they are different to those of a M but they are still there and need to be dealt with and coped with all the same.

 

:lmao::lmao::lmao: Bwahahahaha!!!! No stresses, pressures, history :lmao:

 

Sorry, cracked me up this morning. Having now had an affair transition to a marriage there really isn't this amazing scope of new material I am learning about him that I didn't learn earlier.

 

Now I am not arguing that every relationship is like this and there aren't affairs where it is all superficial fantasy but my direct experience it was all very real and very raw. We saw the best and the worst of the other person, saw how the conflict resolve and communicate during the worst of times and how they handled astronomical stress. I learned more about him in the first couple years of our relationship than I learned in 10 years with my ex husband. There are just a lot thrown at you that either you both keep stepping up to the plate and coming together as a team or you quickly start seeing the chink in the armor and one's weakness are glaringly obvious. It does take paying attention and looking for those signs but assessment is crucial in all relationships.

[cocorico]

How do you know what the BS is going through?

 

I guess it's a matter of perspective and what someone is defining as fantasy and reality.

 

Fantasy isn't "not real" in the affair context IMO...it's a matter of if this relationship isn't exposed to the light of day but compartmentalized and a secret, then it's pretty difficult to assess. Hence, most OW eventually want an open relationship, as it opens it up to more reality and less ambiguity.

 

The BS has had an open reality with her spouse for years. You've never had that. You are only part of a subsection of his life and any relationship which is like that, while it is real, cannot be judged in the same way. It is a real affair...that is indeed a correct statement.

 

I don't see this distinction as an "A vs non-A" thing, but as a function of the way different couples relate to each other. My A was very "real", despite it being LDR, and despite it being an A, because of how intimately we were integrated into each others' lives.

 

OTOH, his M with his xW was far less "real". Many people did not even know they were a couple, they did not socialise together, had very different interests, and even when they worked for the same organisation there were no points of intersection that would lead others to see them as a couple. So there was no "open reality" in the sense you describe. Her reality was closer to the Fritzl basement described in a subsequent post - she did not attend family events with him, did not attend professional events with him, did not socialise with his friends, did not discuss his dreams or hopes or fears with him, did not go shopping with him, etc, while I did. And that was not simply a function of the A - their R had always been like that.