How come we know better in grade school??

[Scorpio Chick]

I posted a bit about my story. I think it's helping to write about it. I have read many, many posts on here and the ones I pay attention to the most are the 'other women' because I'm a female.

 

I read a lot where the MM basically doesn't respect the woman he's had an affair with in keeping no contact with her, if she's asked for it and is struggling to maintain it. These MM will tell the woman they aren't leaving their wives. But they 'keep' the other woman. It is so, so wrong. It is so obviously one of the worst cases of selfishness.

 

I remember when I was in school, grade school, high school, and even beyond, of knowing that it would be wrong to lead someone on when you didn't feel the same way. Let's be honest, even if a MM is 'in love' with his AP, to make a declaration of 'I'm not leaving my wife' is also tantamount to him saying to his AP, 'I'm going to have my cake and eat it too and you'll probably put up with it BECAUSE YOU WANT ME.' To me, that generates a feeling of 'ugh' and 'ewww'!! What a selfish, self-absorbed bastard!! And sometimes the reasons he is staying with his wife are worse, meaning, not even out of love, but the old 'it's cheaper to keep her' so he's being selfish the whole way around.

 

How come we knew better in school or when we were younger, but when we're older and wiser, some of us just outright use someone and hurt someone that is in love with us?? I just do not get it.

[Patna]

When we see our friends involved with a married man, we could tell them to run out of their situation. But we became blind & deaf to our own.

[ConfusedMarriedOW]

Good question. I dunno the answer.

 

My xMM would have strung me on indefinitely had I had not completely lost my mind and sent him an onslaught of emails to his inbox everyday.

 

He didn't want to leave his wife, but he also didn't want to lose me. So he would lead me on with love and sex carrots and then leave me hanging when real questions came up and wouldn't give any answers because he didn't want to lose me either.

 

I on the other hand was ready to take it all on, the entire thing.

 

In the end his guilt and my "pressure" ultimately broke him to realize that he enjoyed an affair less than he realized he would and he finally instated NC. This is after four months knowingly making me crazy, longing, crying and confused almost daily. Dumping me off when I became too much work.

 

He loved his wife, but not enough to not hook some other girl into his realm as an ego boost.

 

 

They are wimps? Insincere? Lazy? Sadistic? Narcissistic?

 

No clue.

[Got it]

In all things it depends on what boundaries you put down for yourself. My affair wasn't like this nor would I have accepted it. I never saw it like I had to jump through hoops to be in the relationship with him, it really was the other way around. He was the one (still) married, that was his baby to rock and didn't change what I wanted/expected. We would discuss and compromise on some things, others not.

[preraph]

I like your approach to this subject because it is so true, as well as the comment following that says we'd warn our friends of the same situation but be blind to our own.

 

I think it's three things. One is so many young women think if they fall in love with someone, that it's a God-endorsed predestined thing and that it was meant to be and that the guy's marriage, then, by simple deduction, wasn't meant to be. They are the real "soul mate." This is all hooey, as any woman over 30 with a couple of relationships behind her knows.

 

The other is they're stupid and can't see that a man cheating on his spouse isn't any kind of catch and will eventually do it to them too. But they think they're special, so....

 

The other is one or the other of the adulterers is basically leaning toward being a sociopath who doesn't care about who they're hurting, either the cheating guy who lying to both the mistress and the wife to keep them both having sex with him or the mistress who just wants everything everyone else has.

 

I do think there's exceptions, like a couple who marry too young and outgrow each other and if they're being honest about it, then perhaps the guy isn't that bad and the mistress isn't that bad. But it's so rare they're honest about it. First you divorce, then you start dating, folks. It's a respect thing. Keeps things from getting dirty.

[amaysngrace]

I think life takes you far away from your innocence and sometimes women and men just need the attention that they are getting, no matter what source it comes from.

 

And so they are too happy for the attention that they fail to see the problems it can create.

 

I also think maybe they don't have a real strong stance of right from wrong probably because they are broken in some way by not getting the proper attention they deserve in the first place which is why they settle for a half a relationship rather than demanding more for themselves.

 

but what do I know?

[Decipleoflove]

My take:

 

Some people just lack empathy...and are too selfish, they are just missing something inside or they had it when they were younger, but they've lost it somewhere down the road to adulthood. So they became people like these users, who only cares about their own pleasures. There is a saying that people are Not born bad, but i read an article that some people do born with 'bad' genes. It's a 'flaw'.

 

Make no mistake, Kids can be selfish too...but as parents you teach your child to be more unselfish, and to share and think of others rather then yourself. Once you get older and have more experience in life, you have toughend up by the real world we live in. Depending what you have been through with past relationships (how broken are you by past relationships?), your personality traits and your moral beliefs to name a few people can become this 'evil' and stay this 'evil' probably by choice too, until they seek help or decide consciously to seriously fix their issues within themselves to become a better person.

 

Also what i would like to point out is, YOU as OM/OW have the POWER in your own hands (you may not realise that because you are too hurt and in Pain, but you do!), to not engage anymore in the A, not having fantasies about your XMM/XMW, not having any contact, not caring about what they think, what they do. Practice being INDIFFERENT for their needs.

 

Don't choose to 'Love' them anymore. Love is a choice! Don't let them use or abuse you. Don't show your weaknesses, vulnerabilities, easy said than done i know, cause once you open your heart for someone, you are immediately vulnerable.

 

We just need to learn to recognise the patterns and wrong decisions we made in the past that got ourselves in this mess in the first place and think of ways how to avoid them next time. Do things differently, think differently, follow your gut. Learn to have more discpline.

 

Also try to learn how to recognise people with these 'Flaws', you can if you be more cautious, not giving trust freely to anyone, but let them earn your trust, ask questions, study human behavior and so on. It's possible to become better at it so you will lower your risk being sucked in to these A.

 

Oh one last thing, these people just don't follow the Golden Rule:

 

"DON'T DO UNTO OTHERS WHAT YOU DON'T WANT OTHERS DO UNTO YOU."

Edited May 27, 2014 by Decipleoflove
add golden rule

[gettingstronger]

I don't mean this harshly but I think life beats us up a bit and we are not as strong and self confident as we were when we were young. I think that leads us to settle when we shouldn't. I think we get more lonely and less full of hope as we get older and deal with the stress of life. In some ways we are wiser, but in others we are more vulnerable. Ugh, that was depressing, I need to go laugh at a funny cat video or something.

[Robert]

on topic posts please, thanks

 

ETA:

 

There was some cleanup done on the thread and a thread jack deleted, thanks

Edited May 29, 2014 by Robert

[gettingstronger]

Sorry, was I OT? My meaning was older is not always wiser so we forget the lessons of youth because we are more vulnerable now than when we were younger. Sorry about that.