Does the OM typically love the OW?

[Doublegold]

One of my favorites Cymb---thank you

 

 

The Road Not Taken

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

by Robert Frost

 

Most of us, most of the time, are pretty ok with what we have, but sometimes wistfully wonder about that 'Road Not Taken'. Some of us try to see what the other road would have been like. Others stay on track.

[cocorico]

This question keeps coming up, but, unusually for the English language which has so many words to cover the different nuances of so many situations, it falls short with 'love'. Love has many stages and manifestations. Not all are enduring, not all viable in reality. Love has many layers.

 

In my case, my mid-life husband, struggling with career disappointment and fear of ageing certainly felt (feels?) extremely strongly about his OW. It was clear to me that having met me at age 21, he was unused to this feeling after 30 years and was unable to understand what had happened to him. He wondered what was wrong with him.

 

His OW wasn't really workable in the real world. He is very very senior in one of the worlds largest multi nationals. His ow a young admin assistant in his own dept. not a sacking offence but it would be considered a lack of judgement. In addition she has (to me) serious issues due to a chaotic background. She could not be more opposite to me. She is young, different ethnicity, uneducated and not especially bright or interesting. She is very pretty and sweet and undemanding.

 

He is used to being kow towed to. He is used to making decisions and leading with confidence, so the confusion and realisation of what he has done is extreme and new to him. He is as blindsided as I am.

 

Is this love? Well yes, I would call it a kind of love. It seems more than lust to me. Could it work in a life where I am deeply involved with all aspects of his life as are his three children - two currently at Ivy League universities? I believe not and rationally neither does he. So he ended it but kept contact for a further 6 months, partly out of care and guilt towards her but partly because he couldn't resist doing so.

 

It is certainly passion, which he had not felt so powerfully for a long time (if ever due to the erotic dynamics of such an affair).

 

The enduring nature of attachment in our basically very sound and successful marriage seem to have won out, but I have little doubt that for a time, he felt very strongly for his OW and willnprobably always regard her with affection, even though he doesn't understand why.

 

I'd say this has a lot to do with mid life growing pains and is a common theme among affairs between individuals of different ages and status. It wasn't a fake feeling though.

 

.

 

Midlife is often when many people feel the tug of "last chance" opportunities - specifically, the last chance to become what they'd always hoped or imagined they'd become. Many people's lives are filled with compromise and so they find he selves in places they hadn't really intended - and "wake up" one day to the fact that they've sleepwalked into a life - job, marriage, family setup - that they feel they never really *chose*, and that they're playing a whole bunch of roles that feel alien to their true nature. Which is why so many As happen at this time - a desperate attempt to reconnect with what they see as their "true essence", underneath all the trappings of the smart highly educated wife, the successful business, the kids at Ivy League universities....

 

Some manage the break, reconnect with their core values, and "find themselves" again, and manage to live the second half of their lives authentically (with the OW or someone else), others recognise that they're happier in their existing life than they would be starting over, and others are too overwhelmed by the material trappings of midlife comfort to manage breaking away, and so "settle", never truly happy but unable to leave. This last group are the problem, as they're vulnerable to further As, or other means to fill the hollow at the centre of their lives.

 

Within this scenario, a MM can love the OW - or he can love what the OW represents. Which might lead him to act toward the OW as if he loves her, but down the track it will come unstuck if he follows through - which is why ICs are normally so cautious about establishing whether it's the woman, or the illusion, that the MM loves.

 

For the OW, though, I think it's pretty clear in his actions, his touch, his way of being with you. And, once you're settled in the daily life of M, some years down the line, it will be more than evident to you both whether or not it was "the right move". For some, perhaps not; but for us it certainly was

[Cymbeline]

'Mre. Which is why so many As happen at this time - a desperate attempt to reconnect with what they see as their "true essence", underneath all the trappings of the smart highly educated wife, the successful business, the kids at Ivy League universities....

 

Some manage the break, reconnect with their core values, and "find themselves" again, and manage to live the second half of their lives authentically (with the OW or someone else), others recognise that they're happier in their existing life than they would be starting over, and others are too overwhelmed by the material trappings of midlife comfort to manage breaking away, and so "settle", never truly happy but unable to leave. This last group are the problem, as they're vulnerable to further As, or other means to fill the hollow at the centre of their lives. 'M

 

Yes all this can be true. In our case, and , since our instinct is to view things through our own experience, the OW was, I believe, part of a true slightly unhinged crisis. For us it is the trappings that are the fantasy as we come from the humblest backgrounds. It is disorientating to become important in a certain sphere. We have kept close contact with our beginnings. After our move to a sixth country which would be our final one before retirement, I was menopausal and not too happy. My house seemed too big. (It is: I have no real interest in large houses and smart cars although I appreciate the choices his work has brought us).

 

, I spent considerable time with the older children who were in a different country. Unwise I see now but common enough in the life we lead.

 

My absences made it easy. The OW admired him enormously and he is very kind at work. He took a naive woman to locations where a night equalled a weeks wages for her. He made romantic gestures I would regard as in sexily cheesy. He was as different with her as it is possible to be. He seemed to encapsulate Esther Perels comment that we have an affair not to leave our partner, but to leave the person we have become.

 

More deeply, it is likely he had come to view me, subconsciously , as a parental figure to his eternal inner child. When friends described me as his rock, his 'if' or the restless, experimental adolescent within saw me as something of an authority figure. He has had other manifestations of a typical crisis - tattoos - activities more associated with 20 year olds.

 

I feel desperately sad for his OW who was caught up in this maelstrom. She was naive - she had to be since a more mature woman would have seen through some of this, despite his sincerity towards her. She is dating again now (another much older man but unmarried).

 

Upon confessing, he asked me if I felt that for all our marriage he had been inclined to do silly things and I had had to stop him. He asked if I felt he was the fifth child in our family.

 

I think what I am trying to express is that many OW are loved in a time and a place, but by men who are also in a time and a place that is not lasting or typical of them. This seems to me to happen so much more frequently to men than women and damages all who are caught up in it. Aside from being away less and therefore not parenting in the way I wanted to - and since his career dictated the physical distance between us and our children I still feel he let us down with his immaturity- I couldn't have stopped this at it has so much to do with aging and with existential fears.

 

If you can believe true romance and love is in the sensible and the quotidian, you are likely to choose easier paths since an affair is never sensible and truly grounded people rarely enter them. Wuthering Heights ended in misery for all, yet it is an iconic romance novel. David Lodge, the author and critic said that literature and Hollywood are 95% sex and romance and 5% about children. Life is the other way round. I think we would be happier if more of us could see this.

[OldRover]

'Mre. Which is why so many As happen at this time - a desperate attempt to reconnect with what they see as their "true essence", underneath all the trappings of the smart highly educated wife, the successful business, the kids at Ivy League universities....

 

Some manage the break, reconnect with their core values, and "find themselves" again, and manage to live the second half of their lives authentically (with the OW or someone else), others recognise that they're happier in their existing life than they would be starting over, and others are too overwhelmed by the material trappings of midlife comfort to manage breaking away, and so "settle", never truly happy but unable to leave. This last group are the problem, as they're vulnerable to further As, or other means to fill the hollow at the centre of their lives. 'M

 

Yes all this can be true. In our case, and , since our instinct is to view things through our own experience, the OW was, I believe, part of a true slightly unhinged crisis. For us it is the trappings that are the fantasy as we come from the humblest backgrounds. It is disorientating to become important in a certain sphere. We have kept close contact with our beginnings. After our move to a sixth country which would be our final one before retirement, I was menopausal and not too happy. My house seemed too big. (It is: I have no real interest in large houses and smart cars although I appreciate the choices his work has brought us).

 

, I spent considerable time with the older children who were in a different country. Unwise I see now but common enough in the life we lead.

 

My absences made it easy. The OW admired him enormously and he is very kind at work. He took a naive woman to locations where a night equalled a weeks wages for her. He made romantic gestures I would regard as in sexily cheesy. He was as different with her as it is possible to be. He seemed to encapsulate Esther Perels comment that we have an affair not to leave our partner, but to leave the person we have become.

 

More deeply, it is likely he had come to view me, subconsciously , as a parental figure to his eternal inner child. When friends described me as his rock, his 'if' or the restless, experimental adolescent within saw me as something of an authority figure. He has had other manifestations of a typical crisis - tattoos - activities more associated with 20 year olds.

 

I feel desperately sad for his OW who was caught up in this maelstrom. She was naive - she had to be since a more mature woman would have seen through some of this, despite his sincerity towards her. She is dating again now (another much older man but unmarried).

 

Upon confessing, he asked me if I felt that for all our marriage he had been inclined to do silly things and I had had to stop him. He asked if I felt he was the fifth child in our family.

 

I think what I am trying to express is that many OW are loved in a time and a place, but by men who are also in a time and a place that is not lasting or typical of them. This seems to me to happen so much more frequently to men than women and damages all who are caught up in it. Aside from being away less and therefore not parenting in the way I wanted to - and since his career dictated the physical distance between us and our children I still feel he let us down with his immaturity- I couldn't have stopped this at it has so much to do with aging and with existential fears.

 

If you can believe true romance and love is in the sensible and the quotidian, you are likely to choose easier paths since an affair is never sensible and truly grounded people rarely enter them. Wuthering Heights ended in misery for all, yet it is an iconic romance novel. David Lodge, the author and critic said that literature and Hollywood are 95% sex and romance and 5% about children. Life is the other way round. I think we would be happier if more of us could see this.

 

You make some good points...

 

Statistically (as far as we can believe them) show that success long term with an affair, when the marriage ends and the APs end up happily ever after is very rare, and usually fails, for a number of reasons. Often the affair partners never get to know each other well enough and even if they end up living together in the end, they discover traits in the other that they can't live with...... However, quite often, the marriage never ends.... or the married partner reconnect with their ex.

 

Affairs are an exciting crap shoot, with a lot of possible down sides. Sure, they can be extremely exciting at times, and even be quite successful for a long time... but only too often they end with pain and suffering, and often bring pain to innocent others.

 

But... from the OP original question... yes the MM CAN love the OW.