Do you think of your ex-AP having sex with someone else?

[lavenderblue]

This is the hardest thing i am facing at the mo... i keep having visions that my Ex-AP (we are 3 weeks into NC) is having sex with other women...i keep thinking of him laughing and doing all the things he used to do with me during lovemaking with someone younger, someone more beautiful...it is heartbreaking... do any of you have similar visions? How do you cope? This is so hard for me

[rumblefish12]

This is the hardest thing i am facing at the mo... i keep having visions that my Ex-AP (we are 3 weeks into NC) is having sex with other women...i keep thinking of him laughing and doing all the things he used to do with me during lovemaking with someone younger, someone more beautiful...it is heartbreaking... do any of you have similar visions? How do you cope? This is so hard for me

I think that's really common and very natural. I think it is also reflective of that lack of self worth that puts us in that compromising relationship to begin with. We seek, we need that ego stroke. It's a failing. Insecurity.

 

I think getting passed that is part of the growth that is necessary coming out of the nightmare. Find yourself. Not the you that was reflected through your AP.

 

When those thoughts cross my mind I try to think, let him have her. Her with all of the baggage that came along with her. I don't mean to be unkind to her. I'm equally, if not more at fault for the whole deal. But seriously, absent jealousy, I know I want to be free of the A. There are a million reasons to want to be free of the A. Let someone else wrestle with all the guilt and shame that was wrapped up in the A.

 

Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and say to yourself "leeeettttt gooooo." It works for me. And gets better over time.

[carhill]

I never really thought of such things, in general, or with any ostensible affair partners. To me, they were individuals and I focused on them and the interactions of the moment. Other people didn't matter. That's global. Example: Meeting my exW's second husband while we were dating. I didn't have visuals of them 'doing it'. He was just another decent guy out in the world. Perhaps it's a function of male compartmentalization and focusing, IDK.

[blueyedguy]

I think the real question is, Why are you jealous? All of us want to have sex with other people. Some of us do. Extending those boundaries don't equate to possession. As evidenced by an affair, no one can truly possess another. So why be jealous? You need to feel your import. Your sexiness. It's there otherwise your AP never would have sought you out. Be that person and you are free.

[SammySammy]

I do.

 

And it amuses me. I feel sorry for him.

[Daisy2013]

My thoughts went n the opposite direction. He told me he got around when younger, although he said he was ashamed now and a different person. I would think about him with those women in the sense he was free to enjoy them and love them and not struggle with the conflicting constraints and guilt of an affair. I would think how luck they were and I wasn't.

[RecentChange]

You know.... I am surprised. I have never thought of any ex's, AP's or not with another woman.

 

I'll reminisce about sex with them, but have never imagined them with anyone else.

 

Hahaha perhaps it's my huge ego, I am convinced they miss the sex with me

[Mrs. John Adams]

nope...dont care

[misspalmy]

I dont really care after the way he treated me,

[jah526]

This is the hardest thing i am facing at the mo... i keep having visions that my Ex-AP (we are 3 weeks into NC) is having sex with other women...i keep thinking of him laughing and doing all the things he used to do with me during lovemaking with someone younger, someone more beautiful...it is heartbreaking... do any of you have similar visions? How do you cope? This is so hard for me

 

This is something I've been struggling a lot with. He was very big on triangulation, always telling me about other women he was attracted to. It was finally what ended it for me, because I knew the person who he was targeting, and she was younger and prettier than me.

 

This morning I had some revelations and I may post about that on my own thread. My own situation is somewhat unique though as I believe I was involved with a narcissist, if not a straight up sociopath. A predator. I've been reading a lot about narcissism, and one thing that's helped me is an article (or maybe it was a youtube video) from the perspective of the narcissist. Their worldview is different from ours. They view others mainly as tools or objects. So if we worry about the next one being younger or prettier, their view is that the next victim is just another tool. Younger/prettier is icing on the cake, but still just an object to help them carry out their self-serving agenda.

 

ETA: Just found this link. The advice seems useful if you are dealing with an AP who is a narcissist: http://esteemology.com/coping-with-feelings-of-jealousy-when-a-narcissist-cheats/

Edited July 14, 2017 by jah526

[l8estnews]

I am surprised about this. I imagine this kind of ordeal to happen more on the BW/BH than APs. But I guess, ego is ego.

 

This is exactly the feeling I don't want to feel, Thus my detachment issues. I don't want to feel connected to any of my partners to avoid this kind of pain when everything ends. I guess it all boils down to self-esteem which I admit I have none.

[denwickdroylsden]

I have thought about it. And I hope she is. I hope she's found someone who is available and who loves her and who worships the ground she walks on. I hope the lovemaking she does with him is 100 times as great as what she had with me. I hope she's put me happily in the past.

 

DD

[isolatedgothic]

Yes, the thought of him with New Girl haunts me constantly and is a battle of my mind. I always described him as "the love of my life," and had wanted to be married to him for a quarter of a century before we finally reunited and the affair and following divorce happened [affair lasted 1 year till his divorce was final, then the narcissistic hell continued, for a total of 3 and a half years.]

 

He actually left his wife during his time with me...I thought for sure I was going to get to come back here as one of those who had challenged the statistics and won. I believed we had held on and found what very few find - true love. I believed we were going to make it and I would have the man of my dreams!

 

As soon as the divorce was over, the triangulation began. Somehow, I filled the spot that his wife had left behind. I became the "crazy" one, the "mean" one, the one who needed to be brought down to size by comparisons to other women, because suddenly, I was terribly flawed. I was the one told he wasn't going to walk on eggshells for me and if I couldn't handle his admiration for and involvement with other women. He told me if he couldn't just be himself, then I could just leave.

 

So after behaving in a shameful way and trying to work on the relationship, go to counseling, consult with professionals, pray and pray, read books, jump through his endless hoops [all lit on fire, mind you], staying awake at night grinding my teeth and crying my eyes out, I finally let go. I turned him over to the one whom he said, would REALLY appreciate him.

 

I am haunted by these thoughts you describe, OP. So haunted. After wanting him for 25 years, he is burned in my heart and brain, yet he isn't at all who he presented himself to be. Fighting the noise in my brain as I try to accept who he REALLY is, as opposed to the knight in shining armor he painted himself to be, is a very hard thing to overcome.

 

My work now is to stop myself in these thoughts of them together, to remind myself that my thoughts are not real, but what is real is me. I am here, in this moment, feet on the ground, and I concentrate on what I am actually seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, tasting. I have to be in my moment, not off in my head creating love scenes between him and any other woman. If I continue thinking of him with her, then his triangulation won.

 

I can't let him win this time. I have to make the life I am living my present. Open my hands and let go of the past. Stop my brain from creating false scenarios. Let God handle my future. I am right here, right now, and that has to be all that matters to me if I care to keep my sanity.

 

I hope that you are able to do that, too. By keeping his TV show playing in your mind, you do yourself harm. Love yourself the way you need to be loved. You are worthy of that love.

[rumblefish12]

Yes, the thought of him with New Girl haunts me constantly and is a battle of my mind. I always described him as "the love of my life," and had wanted to be married to him for a quarter of a century before we finally reunited and the affair and following divorce happened [affair lasted 1 year till his divorce was final, then the narcissistic hell continued, for a total of 3 and a half years.]

 

He actually left his wife during his time with me...I thought for sure I was going to get to come back here as one of those who had challenged the statistics and won. I believed we had held on and found what very few find - true love. I believed we were going to make it and I would have the man of my dreams!

 

As soon as the divorce was over, the triangulation began. Somehow, I filled the spot that his wife had left behind. I became the "crazy" one, the "mean" one, the one who needed to be brought down to size by comparisons to other women, because suddenly, I was terribly flawed. I was the one told he wasn't going to walk on eggshells for me and if I couldn't handle his admiration for and involvement with other women. He told me if he couldn't just be himself, then I could just leave.

 

So after behaving in a shameful way and trying to work on the relationship, go to counseling, consult with professionals, pray and pray, read books, jump through his endless hoops [all lit on fire, mind you], staying awake at night grinding my teeth and crying my eyes out, I finally let go. I turned him over to the one whom he said, would REALLY appreciate him.

 

I am haunted by these thoughts you describe, OP. So haunted. After wanting him for 25 years, he is burned in my heart and brain, yet he isn't at all who he presented himself to be. Fighting the noise in my brain as I try to accept who he REALLY is, as opposed to the knight in shining armor he painted himself to be, is a very hard thing to overcome.

 

My work now is to stop myself in these thoughts of them together, to remind myself that my thoughts are not real, but what is real is me. I am here, in this moment, feet on the ground, and I concentrate on what I am actually seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, tasting. I have to be in my moment, not off in my head creating love scenes between him and any other woman. If I continue thinking of him with her, then his triangulation won.

 

I can't let him win this time. I have to make the life I am living my present. Open my hands and let go of the past. Stop my brain from creating false scenarios. Let God handle my future. I am right here, right now, and that has to be all that matters to me if I care to keep my sanity.

 

I hope that you are able to do that, too. By keeping his TV show playing in your mind, you do yourself harm. Love yourself the way you need to be loved. You are worthy of that love.

IG -- Just remember that he's going to do that to the next woman. And the next ... and the next.

 

I appreciate what you said about staying in the moment. That's the mantra for this Friday. Thanks.

[jah526]

I turned him over to the one whom he said, would REALLY appreciate him.

 

I'm sure you know that's just more smoke and mirrors. It's what he wants you to believe because the purpose is really to hurt you. The truth is that NOBODY is going to be good enough to satisfy people like this. And that's why they have to keep finding new supply in their unending quest for fulfillment.

[central]

We didn't have a clandestine affair, but were FWB for years. I hope she's happy (in all ways) with her new guy, though - she deserves a good relationship. I'd be happy to have her back in my life, though, and even move in. My wife is okay with that, too.