Positives of an affair

[TwoTowns]

I was just wondering if you can see the positives in your affair/ex affair.

 

I feel now after just a couple of months that the A will help me have a stronger M and better relationship.

 

I am seeing my H in a different light.

 

Now he does not know of the affair so he doesn't need to spend the next 5 years getting over it and I feel it's now in the pass and we can move forward.

 

Just wondering who else sees there affair as a positive. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's right and I don't think having one is ever the answer to a bad marriage but a lot of us have and just wondering if you look back and think of the positives.

 

I was involved twice with one man - first over 20 years ago and then again for these last two years. I can't think of any positives that came from this affair, except that I can finally see a side of him that I didn't pick up on the first time around. Had I understood it then, I might not have gotten involved with him a second time - then I would have saved myself and my family alot of unnecessary heartache.

[Soverysad123]

Hello.

 

I just wanted to clarify that I wish that I had not had an A but I did. I understand and belief that what I did was wrong and it's something I need to live with. I am not telling my H because I am 100 per cent certain he will forgive me but then he has to live with the pain. That is not an excuse or a cop out it how I feel and none of you know what it's like being in my or my husbands shoes.

 

My H and I should of not let our marriage to get to where it was and it is most certainly is not his fault that I had an A. But it's both our faults that we just have carried on. Over the years I have talked myself into thinking he is not the one etc without realising that he is a great H.

 

We have a long way to go but the lost and despair I felt after the affair and the roller coaster ride of emotions I have had over the last year and a bit has given me the shake I needed.

 

Yes I should of tackled my marriage before the A but I didn't and I have to live with that. But I think if I had not had the affair my M would be where it was.

 

Will I ever have another A. No, no, and no again. I will never ever have an A. I will never risk my family. My children are happy go lucky kids and I dislike myself that I put their happiness at risk. If in the future I have difficulties in my m I will try and sort them out and if we can't then we have the choice of going our separate ways.

[snappytomcat]

soverysad

just wanted to say,myself as a bs would want to know about any kind of infidelity,but that's me,you have your reasons for not wanting to disclose,and im not here to say wether its right or wrong.

I just hope for your husbands sake he doesn't find out about the A,an couple years from now,that might even be more painful,at least it would be for me,i would feel like it was a continuos lie,even if A had stopped.

im not here to judge,i hope and wish the best for you,and your family

[veritas lux mea]

There was nothing positive about my affair. It was just selfish and wrong of me. I didn't need to let another man's penis inside me to learn a life lesson. But I dis get my life back on track since. That is positive.

[William]

Bringing respondents back to the topic to avoid any more suspensions/bans:

 

"Just wondering who else sees their affair as a positive. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's right and I don't think having one is ever the answer to a bad marriage but a lot of us have and just wondering if you look back and think of the positives."

 

Personal experiences are welcomed! Editorial comments, preaching and statistics regarding affairs are not, though statistics can be discussed in our general relationship forum. Thanks!

[AmyBamy]

It is nice to see a BS who is not antagonistic and pessimistic toward people on the other side. And who can see that positive things DO come from bad decisions sometimes.

 

My marriage was hell. I walked on eggshells all the time and was so unhappy for 16 years, but he threatened me about leaving. I was so beat down I believed him, after years of being beat up mentally and physically. I considered having an A because I was so desperately unhappy but I didn't (I am so glad I didn't - that would have made him the "innocent BS" - sorry, but he deserved anything that happened to him). He in fact is the one who had the A just before I left, but by then all I wanted was out. It was hard but well worth it. If I would have had an A in the marriage it might have sped that up, but it was just the wrong decision for me. Certainly his A sped things up for me to get out of an already crappy situation.

 

Thank you. I will say that I was a BS many, many years ago. So I've had a lot of time to process and heal and learn and I've changed a lot as a person over the years. I was in a marriage like that too. I was convinced that as long as he wasn't doing anything to me that everybody else couldn't see that it wasn't "bad enough" to divorce him. Even though I was miserable and literally dreaded seeing him every day. I have never been so lonely in my life and I have lived alone most of my life! I can't describe the loneliness that comes from living with someone who you do not care about or want to be with and vice versa it's like it just spotlights it every day that you are unwanted. It was horrible.

 

My exMM was in a relationship like that. Over the years I've learned that there are a LOT of relationships like that, mostly marriages. People get in them and it's like we believe that divorce is so horrible that we avoid it even at the cost of our mental health and happiness. Some people stay until death and are miserable the entire time. I mean I don't care if someone I don't know doesn't want to have sex with me but living in the same house with someone who is the only person I'm allowed to be intimate with and being reminded hourly that they are not interested in being intimate with me at all and feeling like I will go my whole life without that intimacy - it made me almost suicidal, and I couldn't figure out how to get out of it.

 

I did not have an affair, that was not something I personally would do. I had opportunities but I was afraid and had never been around infidelity in my life. I wasn't risking it. So I just stayed. I read books, I looked things up online about how to have a better marriage, I tried to talk to him, I tried to figure out what I could do to make it work. Then it just dawned on me. Not only could I NOT make it work, I didn't WANT it to work. I just wanted it to be done. I began to hope that one of us would just die, I didn't even care which one. That is how bad I thought divorce was and how much I wanted to avoid it.

 

My exMM went through the same things. He wanted out but didn't know how to get out. He was miserable, tried to talk to her, tried to make it better, read books, asked advice, went to counseling (she wouldn't go to counseling) for himself, did everything he could. Until he realized he wasn't going to be able to fix it by himself. He still didn't want a divorce. Didn't want to split the kid's family up, didn't want to deal with the backlash from the community and the families, was terrified of actually divorcing. That's when I came into the picture.

 

The positive of our affair is that it showed exMM that he can be happy. It's not him that's broken it was their marriage that was broken their relationship which was never great. He realized how miserable his kids had been in that situation watching their parents be miserable and hating each other. He realized that nobody even cared that he was having an affair and most people assumed he had been before us since he and his wife had been married for almost 20 years. People were shocked that I was the first since their misery from their marriage was pretty evident to everyone in the world except them it seemed.

 

Of course his ex wife is trying to claim complete innocence. Like she had no idea that there were any issues. She's lying. To herself and to everyone else. She knew good and well that he wasn't happy because he told her he wasn't happy and she in turn told him that she wasn't happy either. But she had her own reasons for not wanting a divorce. They both were avoiding it like crazy for a variety of reasons. It really was inevitable. The affair that he and I had was just the push they BOTH needed to get off their asses and handle their ****. Finally.

 

*edited to say, sorry so long, I got on a roll there. I've never really written it all out like that, that was a bit therapeutic!

[WrinkledForehead]

He once asked me what I got out of the R. He knew the A messed with my emotions, he was gone 3-4 nights p/w when he was with xBS, etc. he couldn't see what value the A had in my life.

 

I answered simply: "I get to have someone care, someone to ask me how my day is." And I did get more (sex, laughter, friendship), but this was in the beginning of the A. I remember how fantastic it felt to have someone call and ask about my day, and care, and mean it. I still treasure that.

[thecharade]

I consider my A (which I ended 2 years ago) to have been a positive experience, even though there was a lot of suffering for both MM and myself at times. I learned so much about myself, marriage, life. I have read many great books, worked with two excellent counselors, done MC, my H is doing IC. (My H does not know about the A.) I am not proud of having an A, but I do see the positives that you speak of. I cannot see my marriage lasting, though. I have been unhappy for a very long time, and when the A began, I was in denial over my unhappiness. I wish everything that happened did strengthen my M, but at least it allowed me to get busy working on it. Before the A, I didn't think there was anything to work on. I was just in denial about so much, about how alone I was in my M.

[fellini]

I consider my A (which I ended 2 years ago) to have been a positive experience, even though there was a lot of suffering for both MM and myself at times. I learned so much about myself, marriage, life. I have read many great books, worked with two excellent counselors, done MC, my H is doing IC. (My H does not know about the A.) I am not proud of having an A, but I do see the positives that you speak of. I cannot see my marriage lasting, though. I have been unhappy for a very long time, and when the A began, I was in denial over my unhappiness. I wish everything that happened did strengthen my M, but at least it allowed me to get busy working on it. Before the A, I didn't think there was anything to work on. I was just in denial about so much, about how alone I was in my M.

 

Wish my wife had done this. Our marriage was not a problem, by which I mean, she did not step out of our marriage to find the answer to anything specific in it, rather, she stepped out to get something positive that she needed for herself. As a person. She was adamant that she was going to get what she needed, and never leave. But when the positives of her experience added to the uncontrollable fantasy quality of her affair, she allowed herself to see her marriage differently and suddenly the need for affirmation and comfort and something new out there turned into "this man is giving me what my husband is not".

 

I think it's Mira Kirshenbaum who argues really well about the dangers of certain kinds of affairs which have as their motive "to find something out about myself" and for which it is not the goal of the affair, nor is the state of the marriage, one in which separation/divorce is being considered. Her argument is quite simple. People step out to get some information, but it is very difficult not to confuse the motive with the strong attachments.

 

For example, the purpose of an EXIT affair is to end the marriage. It's that simple. There is no reason to confuse that once this has been achieved, that the relationship with the AP should continue.

 

I find interesting that you have "returned" to your marriage but feel that there is no hope. If you learned something, why not apply that to your marriage.

 

Surely your AP was not, afterall, your soulmate and you thought you were going to leave a man you didnt love for him. You are back in a marriage, but this does not mean you cannot take that positive and radically change the dynamics of your marriage. Go for it. Just do something, one thing different, and see how it goes. (Im saying this having read Bill O'Hanlon's excellent book "Do One Thing Different: 10 Steps to change your life". His philosophy is simple. For every action there is a reaction. Change one thing, you change your partner as well. This is also the philosophy behind Mort Fertel's "Marriage Fitness", in which he argues to skip MC, and just do what you need to do to get to the place where YOU want to be, and never mind talking about the "problems" in the marriage.

 

If you want to change your husband, change yourself. Not necessarily radically. Even change your perspective of what your needs your husband must meet. Make yourself happy. It might be contagious.

 

I think you will discover a couple of things:

 

No marriage is over, people end their marriages by their inertia.

 

No one person is our soul mate. We only get out of a marriage what we put in. We are the soul mate. It is up to us to GIVE, not to receive.

 

If we do not try to fix, and find a solution when we have a problem, we will never be able to live with others in a fulfilling way. We have to learn / move past the problem or we are bound to either face that same problem over and over again running into new partnerships, or we will fail what as humans to embrace our capacity to understand that problems and solutions are part of every relationship. We do not need to find the perfect fit, we need to fit in perfectly.

 

So happy that you told us this short story of your A because it confirms, as a BS, what I have thought was possible: That some A's are completely personal, and the WS needs to find out what he/she needs, and then make the decision to either come back, shut up, and reinvest in the marriage, or pack his/her bags knowing that there is no future. This for me is being totally honest, not confessing you were mixed up, had a brief A, and dump it all on the BS to grieve with for 5 years.

 

I hope you decide to take the positive and truly reinvest in your marriage, because if you don't, it will have served no purpose other than an intellectual exercise.

Edited May 21, 2014 by fellini

[not-so-sure]

I'm probably rehashing a number of posts, but no. I don't think a lot of positives came out of my affair. I can say that from a personal point of view and from that of my wife and family.

[SunshineToday]

I was a cheater. Then I was cheated on.

 

There was nothing positive about either situation.

 

So many people got hurt. For what? A big fat nothing!

[RickFox]

No positives. It destroyed me and continues to destroy me. Destroyed my wife too

[cocorico]

With all due respect, as I am also a former OW, wouldn't ALL the things on the list be true and better achieved by an unhappy married couple being honest with each other and divorcing and then tactfully introducing kids to their new partners in an age appropriate way? I'm just not seeing how the things you've listed have anything to do with an affair. I suppose you are saying that the affair ultimately broke down a doomed marriage and now all are happier with new partners. Still, isn't that better achieved when a married couple go through the process of divorce and healing before taking on new partners, and especially introducing them to kids?

 

Perhaps, in an ideal world.

 

IRL though, that was not how things worked. Had he, after she physically attacked him in front of the kids and stomped off, refused to take her back when she came begging and pleading a year later, ignoring his kids' trauma and insisting that she lie in the bed she had made, there would have been no need for his A. He could simply have continued to thrive in separated bliss, have gotten support and counselling for the kids despite her objections, and perhaps met someone he liked enough to forge a new life with. She could have continued whatever it was she left for, perhaps eventually getting help when she saw she couldn't just have it all her own way, getting her life back together and perhaps meeting someone she liked enough not to abuse. Perhaps. It's unknowable.

 

At the time, he saw how badly she was falling apart. He saw the effect it was having on his kids. When she begged him to take her back, promising to behave better and to go to MC, he did the unselfish thing and sacrificed his personal happiness for theirs. He could have been selfish, and stood his ground, turning her away and using her collapse to demand full custody of the kids with restricted visitation by her. But being selfish was not how he was - is not how he is. So he gave her a second chance, it all went to hell in a handcart very quickly (of course) and he sat with the fall-out, trapped in a hellish M and unable / unwilling to visit that trauma on the kids again. It was too fresh, too recent. He became clinically depressed, emotionally overwhelmed, saw no prospect of surviving in his M long enough to see the kids through till they were old enough to leave home - until the A offered him a glimmer of hope.

 

So yeah, in an ideal world there would have been no A. But in an ideal world, the M would not have been toxic, either.

[Lady2163]

After my divorce I had three really bad relationships.

 

Then I went several years without anything but casual sex.

 

Then I had a seven year relationship/friendship with a MM.

 

There were a lot of positives.

 

1) Since it was long distance, he couldnt expect me to hop to when he wanted me to, there had to be planning.

2) He didn't try to borrow money or cost me money

3). He couldn't tell me what to do, he could give advice

4). I didn't have to tell him everything about my life if I didn't want to

5) I never had to wash his dirty clothes, cook him a meal or run his errands.

6) We didn't flight

7) Limitations defined, no buildup for holidays and dates only to be let down.

8) We were/are friends.

 

Since I do believe him when he says his wife is not as interested in sex as he is, has a low body self esteem, I also believe him when he says one positive from the affair is there isn't the anger or frustration on his part when she says, "no".

 

BUT, I do,know he experiences guilt and twinges of shame. So, for him the affair is probably only 40% positive. The sex, the friendship and the collaboration on a few side projects would be what he would list as positives.

[GreySkyMorning]

I was just wondering if you can see the positives in your affair/ex affair.

 

I feel now after just a couple of months that the A will help me have a stronger M and better relationship.

 

I am seeing my H in a different light.

 

Now he does not know of the affair so he doesn't need to spend the next 5 years getting over it and I feel it's now in the pass and we can move forward.

 

Just wondering who else sees there affair as a positive. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's right and I don't think having one is ever the answer to a bad marriage but a lot of us have and just wondering if you look back and think of the positives.

 

I'm a single xOW, so a little different experience than you. There were a few positives as a result of the A, but they all came after the end of it.

 

I learned how much pain I can go through and not completely break.

 

I learned that I will NEVER be with a MM again.

 

I learned that at the bottom of it all, you have to respect yourself and value yourself more than anyone else.

 

No, there's nothing positive about it. I just started seeing a therapist to deal with work related trauma. She was asking me all the normal questions in the first visit about whether I had experienced any grief or loss. I broke down sobbing. Even now. It's been 14 months since the end. Looking back, there was nothing positive.