The 11th Hour and D-Day is coming: Admissions of Fear

[conflictedlove]

An affair is an affair. It is a specific type of relationship, with limited contact, limited responsibility, and hardly any semblance of a REAL relationship. You never move past infatuation stage; you don't have to. There are no real conflicts, and no real issues or difficulties, because there is no commitment. If you don't like something you walk away from it long enough for things to cool off and can pick right back up and start anew later on. If you DID convert it into a real bonafide relationship where you have to live with one another, share a bathroom, share responsibilities, take care of one another (all the things that make relationships and marriages the HARD WORK they actually are), you'd still have problems and difficulties to deal with and trade-offs to make, albeit different ones than you have in your current relationship with your wife. NO ONE is perfect and NO ONE is going to ever be your perfect partner.

 

Hi Girl,

 

Thank you for your post and this is very eye opening! Sobering. So much its making me hurt deep down....a lot!

 

Since I read this post and others, I feel like I can't outrun the voices here, even when I'm with mow. They haunt me...because deep down before I close my eyes to sleep, I know they are raindrops of truth pattering outside the window of my mind. I can't out run them.

 

I will confess this.....mow and I have gotten close...too close....again...something that you mentioned.....we started talking about love for a lifetime, jesting about changing last names and wanting a more sincere and open relationship. The problem as you just mentioned, its a constant infatuation..there's no relationship with roots there. Mow had a fallout a few days ago and we were shattered and i see things in her that I'm actually afraid of. I don't think i could handle the traits she exhibits in a partner. When she's hurt she looks to ensure i feel her pain by inflicting it back in way that's a cry for help from her. I see that but its an A trying to adopt the traits of a full blown relationship but can't!

 

I will say this....some AP's feel comfortable talking about their spouses (and griping about them) to each other.....mow is more open about it than I am. I don't like talking about my w. Simply because she's got her own issues but she's nowhere a comparison to mow's H as she describes. With that said, i have seen her msgs to her H and to be honest, she shares the same thing with him as she does me at times. Pics she sends of herself to me i assumed were mine but she sends them to him too! Not all, but when she says she doesn't talk to him and they don't have a relationship, her actions speak otherwise. I feel like an idiot. Why did I believe this person? It shouldn't bother me, we are in an A and we share each other spouses. It's bothering me because i started to believe it was a relationship....until you wrote this post. Thank you for the knife to the heart.

[conflictedlove]

Also, do not assume anything, being a adult, (I) do not post anything does not mean things in real do not progress - do not assume I am former OW, plus I am not married anyway.

 

Hi Mount,

 

I apologize if I was out of line. Please forgive me.

 

As for you being an OW, I was just going by your posts but again, if I was wrong I sincerely apologize.

 

I'm in my mid 40's.

 

As for this A, I think what's happening as what I just mentioned to Girl...I'm seeing things differently. I'm feeling like LS is pulling the veil off my eyes..and it hurts to see mow for who she is. She tells me she's sincere and loves me to no end...but the last few days, based on emails and texts, she's sincere to a point. There's some misleading and obviously assumptions that we were exclusive. We can never be and i had to ask her today to think about pulling back on how we see each other. I don't want to talk about marriage, lifetime love or any of that. I want that, but it's apparent i can never have that with her. Even if we left our spouses, she's just not going to be as open as she demands of me. I too, have not been totally open with her so now I feel like we are just like each other...holding on to our private moments and only presenting what we want the other to see. It's not a good place right now...and I something is changing...in both of us. Is this how an A dies on it's own? when AP's expect more from each other than they can give?

[conflictedlove]

I'm a former/recovering OW, not a MOW. I'm single.

 

And even if I were a fMOW, don't assume former means that the MOW left their spouse. Former just means not in that situation anymore; the end result isn't specified.

 

Hi Rose,

 

Thank you for your post and clarification.

 

I hope you don't mind me asking....you are a former ow....recovering.....I'm starting to feel like this year might be the time I join you in the recovery category. Do you mind sharing how long you have been out of your A and how did you go about actually getting through each day? I can tell you that the thought of ending my A and coming back to earth is emotionally paralyzing. I can't even imagine a world w/o mow but now, just the last few days, i starting to come to the reality that mow doesn't want me as much as she says....she's desperate for anyone to love her. Her ow H...as we had a fallout a few days ago..she was back to texting love emoticons to him. The very man she says she doesn't have a relationship with and has been miserable. I'm staring to feel the pain that the illusion is just that. I'm numb. I want someone to tell me how they get through this.....and how do i start to disengage.....I need to know where the emergency exit button is and how to handle the onslaught of emotions i'm going to feel when the end comes.

 

Rose, I know you know all of this....can you share....how does one get through it? i just ordered a book on how to fall out of love with someone....just to start to prepare myself....but a cookbook is just that. i'll have to eat the bitter grief of the end and have no idea how to handle this.

[RoseVille]

I wish I had the answers for you, but I don't.

[conflictedlove]

I wish I had the answers for you, but I don't.

 

Thank you Rose for the insight

 

As someone who is a recovering ow status, I can understand you may still be going through the grieving process and I apologize for soliciting your thoughts on the matter

[RoseVille]

Thank you Rose for the insight

 

As someone who is a recovering ow status, I can understand you may still be going through the grieving process and I apologize for soliciting your thoughts on the matter

 

Don't apologize.

 

Any advice I give you would be "do as I say, not as I do/feel."

[conflictedlove]

 

To the OP - honesty would help those around you. Change is good.

 

Hi beach

 

Thank you and yes, I will concede the A ship is sinking. Not due to D day either. It's actually ending in a way that no one here mentioned. Perhaps it's a common theme, but I didn't see it until now.

 

An A Is obviously built having to mislead people. I have been in it for 3 years and until this last week didn't see the ugly side of the A until now. Mow has demanded me to be open with her about all things. She had be believing I did as well until I had a new discoveries recently about her not being honest with me. How can I expect her to be honest with me when we are ma in A? I think that's the moment of reality that has shook me to my core. After all the disparaging comments about her h and convos she's been having with others via text.

 

It's happening. The A is dying. Something in me has changed. We all have that moment when we know the end is coming. I had my epiphany reading through the posts here in this thread and now, I'm accepting of the fact that an A is never intended to go the distance. Maybe I should have been more accepting that a duration of time should have been set and that's it. Walk out. Or maybe deep down that's my hurt talking since I had some secret hope that maybe it could have been a real relationship. Don't we all have that at one point in an A?

[conflictedlove]

Don't apologize.

 

Any advice I give you would be "do as I say, not as I do/feel."

 

Rose

 

Thank you and I know you are learning or have learned something about recovering from an A. Can you share? There's a reality check I need to know! Recovery is best transitioned by ? How does one start on a recovery road and what can one expect?

[RoseVille]

Rose

 

Thank you and I know you are learning or have learned something about recovering from an A. Can you share? There's a reality check I need to know! Recovery is best transitioned by ? How does one start on a recovery road and what can one expect?

 

No, I'm in the midst of it and learning myself.

 

You recover from any relationship with total No Contact. Start there.

[conflictedlove]

No, I'm in the midst of it and learning myself.

 

You recover from any relationship with total No Contact. Start there.

 

Rose,

 

Thank you so much! You're in the mist of it too! You can relate to the A fog and how it not only clouds our thinking, but actually becomes just like Dr Helen Fisher wrote about, an addition.

 

So at this point, as the "ow" I imagine it must be even harder for you! I wrote mow a few days about how when 2 people (who are already committed to someone else) are in a A type of relationship and there's a bump in the road, they can fall back on their pre existing relationships for support then come back together when the dust settles. It's different then when there is no safety net and like in your case, 1 or 2 people don't have someone to fall back to. Then they have to come back to each other. There's no consolation prizes and that's where the true commitment comes in. In your case, its half way since your mom i'm sure loves you but you have a different commitment altogether. I admire that you are open about it.

 

It hurts not matter what Rose, but you have a different impact since you are single. On an island alone when you and your mom have a fallout and he's with his w and your solo. That's when we all who are snared by an A have to think about the end. I haven't even to cope with the thought until last night and i couldn't sleep. This morning i felt so weighed down that i could barely function.

 

mow text me yesterday and i felt the cloud lift. But i know its only temporary. This is not going to cut it. I have to figure a way to slowly transition out. I have had others express an interest and i can see some are ripe for an A. Because someone is at the same company as me, i can't do that anymore. I already did that with mow and although i helped her find a job somewhere else, she still has contact with someone at my company and as recent as last week spoke to this person about us. That's a huge risk.

 

I hope you don't mind me asking how long have you been an your A with mom and what its like for the ow from your side of the world?

[conflictedlove]

You'll continue until you're caught and force your wife to decide for you.

 

Hi Purple

 

Thank you for your post.

 

Yes, I actually was fearful of that. I used to also think how much better life would be if my w found someone else and I would have mow to myself. I was caught up in the A fog. 3 years of it and now that I have discovered some things about mow's untruthfulness (i'll call it instead of the L word).

 

My A isn't going to be a D day event. It's ending in a far more sobering way than that. I really believed the future faking talk. I think we both did but once that passed (recently), we are now at the downhill stage. If there's not really a future, then do we just carry on the A with a intimate relationship and start to transition to NSA? I think that's where its going. I almost feel like it has to. Not sure if either one of us really want that but both of us clearly (based on msgs i saw from mow to her h) don't plan on leaving our spouses at all.

 

So can 2 people who are mow / mom openly talk about being an in A and set boundaries about what they share, know about each other and have it be about the physical relationship?

[conflictedlove]

Trust me, the new job won't end it unless one of you resolve to end it. I worked with MM and a year and a half after the affair started he moved onto another company. I figured it would be over and I told myself I would not reach out and like you I thought it would die a slow death. He reached out after being gone 3 weeks. I tried to keep it to friendly once/twice a week/every other week emails. For 4 months, he would fish around to see if I was still in this thing with him and eventually it started back up. That was 3 years ago - still going on. So it won't end, the dynamic will just change.

 

Hi Blu,

 

Thank you and please please please tell me if you are still in it with MM? I had bet the farm that mow would go to another company (its been 4 months) and the relationship would dissolve. Wait, are you a MOW or OW? That's a big difference or factor, or maybe i'm delusional? Why? because you would have your H and relationship to fall back on but if a single ow then its much much harder to break away.

 

Also, do you honestly future fake or do you really believe there's something for both of you long term? How close were you to healing or were you not even close at all while you were trying to disengage?

[conflictedlove]

Why don't you just be honest, what have you got to lose? Oh wait, everything. If you tell both your wife and the OW the truth most likely you'd be free from both. You would be the one screwing yourself over rather than screwing the others over.

After your OW finds out that your future faking was just that, FAKE, she might just solve your problems for you by walking away and by telling your BS exactly what you have done and continue to do.

 

Hi Cinnimon

 

Well, I mow and I have not spoken about future faking directly but i can tell you after seeing her messages to her H, we are clearly future faking. She knows. I know. It's all about having someone to fill in the gap in our marriage. I am just waking up to this future faking thing. I know i have been on the fence but now I know its all just a mirage.

 

the question now is...when AP's are open and tell each other they have no intention of leaving their spouses or we discover it through messages like I did, do we say anything or just ignore it and slowly start to take steps to slide out of the relationship?

[Hope Shimmers]

I have had others express an interest and i can see some are ripe for an A. Because someone is at the same company as me, i can't do that anymore. I already did that with mow and although i helped her find a job somewhere else, she still has contact with someone at my company and as recent as last week spoke to this person about us. That's a huge risk.

 

SMH...

 

10 characters

[conflictedlove]

SMH...

 

10 characters

 

Hope

 

Maybe you don't understand the massive emotional grief AP's face when they try to even try to fathom the thought of breaking free of their pay. It is not a simple matter and I respect you probably know this already.

 

After my discovery regarding MOW's expressive love for her h and messages she denied having convos with other people (same gender a mow), I realize now the whole thing as much as I've been consumed by it is a mirage. Transitioning out is equally or greater difficulty due to the amount of emotions invested in the future faking story we all believe. I used to think I would not let the future faking term take root in me but I clearly was wrong.

 

I have no idea where to start and I don't believe NC is the least obtrusive way to go. I know you subscribe to the hard line of an a but it's just not practical.

 

So if you have any transitional experiences or ideas please feel free to share them

[Hope Shimmers]

Well, unless I misunderstood your other post, your idea of 'transition' was to slide into another A except you can't do that but only because the person in question works with you and communicates with your current OW.

 

Did I get that about right?

[RoseVille]

I don't understand.

 

You're married. You got with one OW. As that one is winding down, without a D-Day, you would like to transition to a new A, with a new OW.

 

What in your mind is the benefit of serial cheating vs. simply getting divorced? What's preventing you from getting divorced?

[beach]

Hi Girl,

 

Thank you for your post and this is very eye opening! Sobering. So much its making me hurt deep down....a lot!

 

Since I read this post and others, I feel like I can't outrun the voices here, even when I'm with mow. They haunt me...because deep down before I close my eyes to sleep, I know they are raindrops of truth pattering outside the window of my mind. I can't out run them.

 

I will confess this.....mow and I have gotten close...too close....again...something that you mentioned.....we started talking about love for a lifetime, jesting about changing last names and wanting a more sincere and open relationship. The problem as you just mentioned, its a constant infatuation..there's no relationship with roots there. Mow had a fallout a few days ago and we were shattered and i see things in her that I'm actually afraid of. I don't think i could handle the traits she exhibits in a partner. When she's hurt she looks to ensure i feel her pain by inflicting it back in way that's a cry for help from her. I see that but its an A trying to adopt the traits of a full blown relationship but can't!

 

I will say this....some AP's feel comfortable talking about their spouses (and griping about them) to each other.....mow is more open about it than I am. I don't like talking about my w. Simply because she's got her own issues but she's nowhere a comparison to mow's H as she describes. With that said, i have seen her msgs to her H and to be honest, she shares the same thing with him as she does me at times. Pics she sends of herself to me i assumed were mine but she sends them to him too! Not all, but when she says she doesn't talk to him and they don't have a relationship, her actions speak otherwise. I feel like an idiot. Why did I believe this person? It shouldn't bother me, we are in an A and we share each other spouses. It's bothering me because i started to believe it was a relationship....until you wrote this post. Thank you for the knife to the heart.

 

 

 

Are you saying that she does have a relationship with her husband, the man she's married to?

[conflictedlove]

LS friends,

 

It's been 6 months since I've been here. I sincerely apologize. As many here probably make the mistake in doing, I had my human moment. I felt like I could do it on my own but i couldn't. I need to stay connected here to have LS's users help with navigating through the A world and I clearly fell free to the facade and lies that an A does so well.

 

I came back because I know I have to either end my A or learn how to change from assuming its going to be a relationship with long term hope to seeing it as a A and accepting the rules of engagement of an A.

 

Both mow and I are 3 years into this next month. I never thought it would go on this long but we both feel like we want to be with each other long term. Through the A, I have learned about mow and I assume its the same with others, that mow or ow may have be in emotional bondage to their spouses and can never break free no matter how much they want to. I have been in enough non A relationships to see that any woman who cannot break free from their spouse and feel emotionally obligated to them in such a way they take on the maternal, excuse making role to justify how bad they are bullied emotionally by their h's. I actually think it's ok when you don't have an expectation of an A being anything more than that. it's when the A starts to produce an emotional fog that makes AP's start to believe it has the potential to be more than that. That's when people put their guards down and become invested and eventually emotionally devastated when they eventually see the truth.

 

I don't think anyone can help an AP through their emotional bondage to their spouses and its probably not right for the other AP to expect more. I am in that same boat and although I'm a mow, AP and I often talk about committing to a LTR. That's all talk no matter what people say until the moment comes and its too hard for one or both AP's to break free.

 

My question is, how does one start to pull away from what i've fallen prey to as a possible LTR and come back to the A place and making it casual? My mow is deeply emotionally invested as well but she's so fragile she can't back down to her H for virtually anything so it makes her LTR discussion just a fog of lies. I have seen and dated people like this before and I have been unsuccessful at helping them no matter what I do. KISA doesn't work. So i want to do something differently and start to back off emotionally.

 

I do have a much younger single F who has pretty much invited me to have sx with her after work. I fear she may get attached and that's why i have not moved on it yet. At the same time, I wonder if having an A with her would help to dilute my emotional investment with MOW and thus, start the beginning of the slow expiration. I can't just cut it off, it hurts to much. I would rather try to slowly pull away emotionally.

 

Thank you

[Lurkeraspect]

LS friends,

 

It's been 6 months since I've been here. I sincerely apologize. As many here probably make the mistake in doing, I had my human moment. I felt like I could do it on my own but i couldn't. I need to stay connected here to have LS's users help with navigating through the A world and I clearly fell free to the facade and lies that an A does so well.

 

I came back because I know I have to either end my A or learn how to change from assuming its going to be a relationship with long term hope to seeing it as a A and accepting the rules of engagement of an A.

 

Both mow and I are 3 years into this next month. I never thought it would go on this long but we both feel like we want to be with each other long term. Through the A, I have learned about mow and I assume its the same with others, that mow or ow may have be in emotional bondage to their spouses and can never break free no matter how much they want to. I have been in enough non A relationships to see that any woman who cannot break free from their spouse and feel emotionally obligated to them in such a way they take on the maternal, excuse making role to justify how bad they are bullied emotionally by their h's. I actually think it's ok when you don't have an expectation of an A being anything more than that. it's when the A starts to produce an emotional fog that makes AP's start to believe it has the potential to be more than that. That's when people put their guards down and become invested and eventually emotionally devastated when they eventually see the truth.

 

I don't think anyone can help an AP through their emotional bondage to their spouses and its probably not right for the other AP to expect more. I am in that same boat and although I'm a mow, AP and I often talk about committing to a LTR. That's all talk no matter what people say until the moment comes and its too hard for one or both AP's to break free.

 

My question is, how does one start to pull away from what i've fallen prey to as a possible LTR and come back to the A place and making it casual? My mow is deeply emotionally invested as well but she's so fragile she can't back down to her H for virtually anything so it makes her LTR discussion just a fog of lies. I have seen and dated people like this before and I have been unsuccessful at helping them no matter what I do. KISA doesn't work. So i want to do something differently and start to back off emotionally.

 

I do have a much younger single F who has pretty much invited me to have sx with her after work. I fear she may get attached and that's why i have not moved on it yet. At the same time, I wonder if having an A with her would help to dilute my emotional investment with MOW and thus, start the beginning of the slow expiration. I can't just cut it off, it hurts to much. I would rather try to slowly pull away emotionally.

 

Thank you

 

Wait, what? Your answer to getting out of one affair is to start another? Yea, good luck with that. I see no problem. Proceed. Punked. Please pop in in 6 months or so, and opine about OW 3. Can't wait.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Lurkeraspect

[Popsicle]

This is why I'm convinced that most MM have A's because they love the drama.

[Lurkeraspect]

This is why I'm convinced that most MM have A's because they love the drama.

 

I wouldn't consider this poster, "most MM".

[Popsicle]

I wouldn't consider this poster, "most MM".

 

I still feel that way and concluded what I said long before the OP came along.

 

Most MM have A's because they are bored in their M.

 

Please do not take my words extremely literally though. I do not mean married men overall. I am specifically referring to married men who have A's (and remain married) and the reason they have them.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Popsicle

[eye of the storm]

ummm you justified cheating on your W because you looovvveeeddd this MOW so much. Now you are trying to justify cheating on the MOW and your W (still) with this new chick because you want to wean yourself off of the MOW.

 

I know exactly what would get you over your MOW, tell your W. Tell her that you are so focused on other women that she is not even a side note in your thoughts anymore. Her reaction will bring everything into crystal clear facts.

 

Please just stop. Stop and think about how your actions are damaging other people.

[burnt]

Affairs have lasting effects on kids who more often then not will replay what they have learned from their parents, how to cheat, how to not value relationships and commitments. Waywards love to think they can distroy the family then everyone simply moves on. Back in the real world everyone involved has a lifetime of sh it to deal with because of someone elses selfishness.

 

True, but I wonder which is worse: a child growing up in family broken by an affair and then raised by a single parent, or a child growing in a family held together by superficial glue, appearing to be happy and functional on the outside, yet nothing but toxic, unloving, indifferent, and dysfunctional on the inside.

 

I think that what's most important for the child is being loved mutually by both parents in their own ways--whether the parents stay together or not. I think it can actually be very healthy for the child to see that sometimes marriages cannot be sustained and it's better to end it peacefully and find a new direction.

 

When a child grows up in a toxic family with both parents who just grow apart and resent each other, it ALL trickles down to the kids eventually--they pay the ultimate price. And all they can learn is that when they grow up if a relationship is failing, you better stay in it even if you're unhappy.