Stop thinking.

[anika99]

emphasis mine.

 

Anika, I like your comments. At first glance, they come across as words coming from a termagant, a dash or two of geniality. On second glance, I get what you're saying, though it took the second glance (often one I'm grateful for).

 

In my opinion when you hurt someone, especially yourself or your own morals, it takes time to recover. In my opinion if I was married for two years, I would expect at least a year to reasonably recover if I were divorced. Some are faster than others, but then again I'm not Mickey Rooney (married 8 times).

 

Yes some people, like myself, need a wake up call (a third or forth opinion), but that doesn't mean these people want the feelings to stay fresh.

God knows that I have been beating myself up over my XAP (ex affair partner), but even then did I really believe I'd get back with her? Realistically, not at all.

I have no illusions of that.

My trouble was coming to terms with being used and compromising my own moral compass.

Without that compass I felt lost, as I would never be able to change the fact that I fouled up.

 

I have learned to move on and find other women, because there are other women who would like me in their life,

and I WANT TO GIVE them the fairest chance possible for a healthy and long(est) lasting relationship.

 

That said, I've more or less tried to close my own feelings of losing a friend. Losing my affair partner (outside of the friend element)? I do not mind losing that. I've thought about what happened and concluded that while there were elements of friendship, the biggest problem was being used and abused relentlessly. My romance, is that I idealize friendship. I have seen the evidence that she wasn't friendly to me, and used me. Then again I abused the friendship too. Even now I think about it. My close friends or recently close friends will tell me to not "beat myself up". I'm not a punching bag for my own immature angst over the issue, but the loss was great.

 

Hell it took me 5 years before I realized a friend of 23 years was nothing but a user. It came to a close when I confronted him about it. I will move on with life, but I won't forget I had a choice in the matter.

 

What's your story for being here?

 

 

You are correct in that it does take time to recover from a broken relationship and so it's hard to say who is going through the normal recovery process and who has become stuck in their misery through an unwillingness to let go and move on. It's a fine line.

 

 

If years after a break up you are still beating yourself up then that's really more about you and not so much about the other person. We all do wrong, we all make mistakes and it's good to reflect and learn from those mistakes but beating up on yourself years after the fact doesn't really serve any purpose as far as I can tell. Is it coming from a unwillingness to let go and move on or do you tend to beat up on yourself over every area of your life?

 

Well I don't really have a compelling story for being here. A while back I had a close friend who had been cheated on and I was looking for resources for her and I came across LS. I'm personally not a BS or an OW but I have experienced infidelity in my family and I've watched friends go through it. I can empathize with the betrayed spouses and while it might not be evident in my posts I do feel like I can understand where some OW are coming from even though I haven't been an OW myself. Even though I haven't had an affair I have relationship experience and I'm no spring chicken so I see a lot of myself in both BW's and OW's. Mostly I post from the perspective of being a woman and wanting to see other women stop sabotaging their lives by making an unhealthy relationship the centre of their universe.

[Eagle's-bargain]

Thanks for sharing.

 

Is it coming from a unwillingness to let go and move on or do you tend to beat up on yourself over every area of your life?

 

The latter.

 

Well I don't really have a compelling story for being here. A while back I had a close friend who had been cheated on and I was looking for resources for her and I came across LS.

She was the WS or BS? Because if she was a WS, a lot of your opinions would apply to your friend, would they not? Would your friend be an emotional vampire? It's conjecture, I know.

 

I'm curious since you said the follow:

 

I'm personally not a BS or an OW but I have experienced infidelity in my family and I've watched friends go through it.

I can empathize with the betrayed spouses[.]

How exactly can you "empathize"? Do you mean you have compassion? How do you empathize with someone whose been shot at, if you've never been shot at?

 

[A]nd while it might not be evident in my posts I do feel like I can understand where some OW are coming from even though I haven't been an OW myself. Even though I haven't had an affair I have relationship experience and I'm no spring chicken so I see a lot of myself in both BW's and OW's.

 

Mostly I post from the perspective of being a woman and wanting to see other women stop sabotaging their lives by making an unhealthy relationship the centre of their universe.

Emphasis mine

 

Seems a bit selfish to single out women?

I'm speculating here, but was your father a WS?

 

Actually having an affair changed my viewpoint of men and women completely. I've heard women say things like they'd have an affair, and others who wouldn't.

 

I've seen some who look at me like I'm human and some like I'm nothing.

I've seen men and HEARD them say, "Good job... At least you got some action." or

"You were in love you did nothing wrong." or

"That's a dick thing to do."

Or nothing at all, maybe a shrug.

 

Women seem to be more reserved when I discuss these issues, whereas men have all kinds of opinions (if they share to begin with).

 

Question.

Have you told someone to refrain from starting an affair?

And/or, have you told someone to end an affair if you knew about it?

[MissBee]

I see here and on another board, people telling others to just stop thinking about the op. How do you just STOP thinking about someone you had a relationship with? You don't. But some want to try to make others feel like it's just that easy. It's not. You may not act on it. You may hide it. You may not like it. But you can't just make it stop. And if you could, these boards would be empty.

 

Yea that advice is very simplistic.

 

You can't just stop...I mean as you said if you could no one would be here.

 

It's a process and you have to actively do things to get through, NC is one of the primary ways that allows you to detach. It doesn't cease all thoughts and feelings, but it does in time give you space and distance to breathe and think and establish a new normal then one day you wake up and realize you haven't thought of your ex all day, then you're well on the road to moving on.

[Cinnimon]

There is a difference between focus and thought. I do not focus on Xmm but I certainly do think about him. And while he may not focus on me, he certainly still thinks of me.

I think when people on here tell someone to STOP thinking of someone else, it's useless. It just makes them want to hide their feelings and not share in order to get better advise as to how to deal with the a situation at hand.

For instance, it's been said to MM in the other thread that he needs to stop thinking about his AP, okay well he can't, he wants to Im sure, he's trying to Im sure but it is a natural thing, to think. They can demonize his XOW all they want but they are not going to stop his thoughts of her. My advise to him is to keep his thoughts of his XOW to himself even though he still thinks of her. The advise he gets based on the ommision won't help him at all but it will help all the ones who insist he stop thinking about her.

[road]

I have found that looking at all this reminds me that this man is not mine and has another life. I also look up articles of signs that they love you and also signs that they do not as a way to remind me that this relationship was nothing to keep me in NC.

 

Am I going about it wrong during NC by doing this?

 

Yes you are doing NC all wrong. Dwelling on the OM only keeps your addiction strong. You need for those memories to fade.

[anika99]

Thanks for sharing.

 

 

 

The latter.

 

 

She was the WS or BS? Because if she was a WS, a lot of your opinions would apply to your friend, would they not? Would your friend be an emotional vampire? It's conjecture, I know.

 

 

She was a BS. I don't get what the rest of your paragraph means. I give opinions based on the person I'm talking to. I don't consider my friends to be emotional vampires. An emotional vampire can be anybody. Doesn't matter if they're WS or BS.

 

I'm curious since you said the follow:

 

 

How exactly can you "empathize"? Do you mean you have compassion? How do you empathize with someone whose been shot at, if you've never been shot at?

 

 

perhaps empathy was the wrong word. Maybe compassion or sympathy would have been better words. I do feel like I can relate to the pain of the BS because I have been lied to and betrayed as well, just not in the area of fidelity.

 

Emphasis mine

 

Seems a bit selfish to single out women?

I'm speculating here, but was your father a WS?

 

 

I'm not singling out women. As a woman I relate better to women. Of course not every women is just like me and I can't always understand everything but for the most part I understand women and their feelings and their thinking better than I understand men.

 

My mother was a BS to my stepfather and my friends were BW's. None of them were awful people who drove their husbands to affairs. My mother was overly accommodating to my step father, while he was a bit of a user and abuser. Same goes for my friends. The BS was always the one giving the most and trying the hardest while the WS selfishly thought of themselves only.

 

Actually having an affair changed my viewpoint of men and women completely. I've heard women say things like they'd have an affair, and others who wouldn't.

 

I've seen some who look at me like I'm human and some like I'm nothing.

I've seen men and HEARD them say, "Good job... At least you got some action." or

"You were in love you did nothing wrong." or

"That's a dick thing to do."

Or nothing at all, maybe a shrug.

 

Women seem to be more reserved when I discuss these issues, whereas men have all kinds of opinions (if they share to begin with).

 

Question.

Have you told someone to refrain from starting an affair?

And/or, have you told someone to end an affair if you knew about it?

 

Absolutely I have warned people against going down the path of infidelity. I had a good gf many years ago who used to cheat like crazy on her long term bf. I bit my tongue for a while but one day I told her that she was being cruel to her bf and her behaviour needed to change. She was angry at me and our relationship changed after that.

 

 

I think that in general women aren't as likely to give an opinion unless they are asked for it. I'm sure the women you talk to have opinions but maybe don't speak those opinions as freely as men do.

[Bittersweetie]

After d-day, I found I still thought about xOM. So I said to myself, why am I doing this? How is this helping me? And I came to the realization that thinking about him, despite everything, was my escape. The escape from the pain and hurt I had caused and was feeling.

 

Those thoughts of xOM were not helping me heal or move forward. So, yes, I did decide to stop thinking of him. Was it easy? No. But my making the conscious choice to focus my mental energy not on xOM, it got easier every day. I had to start somewhere.

 

Every time I thought of xOM, I would hear something rude he said to me. Or picture my husband's face when I told him. Things like that. Soon my brain didn't want to think of xOM at all. All my mental energy was focused on myself, my healing, my relationship.

 

I think when the AP is married it may be more challenging to "stop thinking." While ending a relationship can be painful, it is also additionally disrespectful to the BS to continue to pine/think for the AP. That is where my choice came from, I didn't want to disrespect my H any more than I already had by continuing to think of xOM.

 

But then it is challenging for a single AP too, as one is dealing solely with the end of the relationship...rather than the possible end of two relationships and maybe even a family. I can't speak to that.

 

I would agree with a PP that if time has passed...say six months, a year, and one is still thinking of xAP every day...then "stop thinking" definitely applies. Holding on to things can sometimes cause more hurt than good.

[obtuseedge]

Agreed. That one cannot simply stop thinking of the other person.

 

I just had NC with my xAP, and I think about her regularly. It has subsided a bit in the last few days, but sometimes the magic of certain moments we've had strike me like a bolt of lightning and I feel intense pain over my situation.

 

To pretend to stop thinking about the other person immediately and completely is a total farce.

[Eagle's-bargain]

A solution maybe?

My memories of an ex-AP takes to the backseat, trunk, dungeon, whatever ye want to call it,

whenever I meet a woman who seems interested in talking me with me, because she's interested in my character and not bumping uglies.

 

It's important to feel attractive, even for the other person.

God knows how many women feel ugly around other women,

especially if they're attractive and a slightly less attractive/sexy woman is getting more attention.

This is of course if the attention is also intellectual/emotional (not just blood [or wind] rushing to those kind of organs)*.

 

Men think about feeling attractive too.

And that's why an untold number of 'em dress up like peacocks,

wearin' strange-lookin' colors and giving off strange vibes

(even around other men).

 

But what always does it for me.

What usually works just enough to put that MW who was my AP,

is meeting a woman who wants to have a conversation

and we enjoy each other's company.

 

I know why I like it: it's because I normally love it (getting to actually know another person).

When this happens, I can actually TELL another person what that woman is like, likes/dislikes, favorite car, etc. Stupid things may not matter, but most people appreciate being remembered for who they are (and sometimes what they like too).

 

The ex-AP, I thought, loved it too.

But I guess not enough to make it a priority in her life.

I'm sure she's in counseling right now probably figuring out why her intellectually and emotionally dry marriage and life are bothering her.

 

But not me, I didn't even give the ex-AP a thought until I wrote this down.

Why?

Because I'm think about those other women who enjoy my company for who I am.

If they back-pedal on me because their family thinks I'm not their "kind," or they're not ready,

"Well lady, I'm already out the door."

I run like hell when a woman jumps the gun on me or wants to see if others approve.

I used to hang around and see if they'd mellow out.

But the high-speed low-drag life-style women, ain't my thing.

I'm more interested in having a meaningful relationship beyond the sheets, and monotony of daily life.

I want teamwork.

I don't care if she's the driver and I'm the navigator, or reversed, but I sure as hell appreciate teamwork.

These thoughts keep me away from thinking about the ex-AP.

 

 

*Those organs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTtGI3uF_Ow

 

 

I think if we can find solutions to avoid thinking about it.

Or if we do, we ought to seek pleasant reminders to re-avoid. Then we're in the clear.

For me, it's good beer, good companionship/friendship, and mild temperatures.

Rinse and repeat.

Escape and evade, and evade and evade. Not too different from bull-fighting. The bull is the memory, and the matador is myself.

If I don't master the past, I'm gettin' gored.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Eagle's-bargain

[Popsicle]

It happens when it happens is my philosophy. It can't be forced.

 

But it will only happen when you want it to, or when you are not paying attention enough to notice that you're not thinking about them anymore.