SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

But getting rid of art OW did for me and deleting photos of our trips and chat logs and all the stuff I wrote? No way could I do that.

if this is set in stone than I beg you, let your wife go.

talked about how I wanted to spend another 13 years with her and that we could get through anything together

This may be true. The trouble is, when dealing with an affair, you are not together.

Do you ever relate the OW or any of her things to the One Ring? Since she disregarded, disrespected, and tainted the pure symbol your BW gave you?

In the Frodo/Sam/Gollum analogy, I'd say the One Ring would be the affair.

Interesting, some would compare the affair to Sauron, if not, then who do you see as Sauron?

ETA:

Whether the one ring is OW, or the A, or some momentos from it, do you see in your writings how you are indirectly referring to it as precious?

[This message edited by aesir at 2:04 AM, August 4th (Saturday)]

Um, no. I feel I would die inside if I did that. Like I would cease to be myself. And this is why I'm feeling pretty hopeless.

As respectfully as possible. If you can't let go of the mementos of your affair, you need to cease to be married to your wife. There really isn't any way to continue to cherish memories of an affair partner and sustain a loving marriage.

The forsaking all others part of the vow you both took is supposed to have meaning.

You seem unwilling to even consider working at that part of the vow. You could get into IC to work through what is at the root of that reluctance if you want to try to save your marriage. Making an effort is an option.

If you can't even contemplate making the effort, then the kind thing to do for the wife you say you love is to let her go. Many posters are saying that to you here.

[This message edited by WarpSpeed at 6:49 AM, August 4th (Saturday)]

I have read this thread and contemplated it all week. I've had very long posts composed in my head, and then felt they didn't cover all the points I wanted to make so I stopped. So, Imma ramble now.

First, an observation: the OW in this situation is an utter cipher. lostalone, you are your own AP. I don't mean that in a simple, narcissistic sense, though there is an element of that. I mean it in a curiously metaphysical sense. And I think the reason I keep returning to this thread is that I know what it is to have, or want, an affair with yourself. To be limerent with, or want to be limerent, with you.

Second, with regard to how you feel when your wife cries because you've hurt her: there is a person who lives in your home who, like your mother, emotionally blackmails the other resident(s). But it's not your wife, lostone. It's you.

You are going to have to lose your wife. You are *going* to, but you are also going to *have* to. I'm sure your compartmentalization skills have served you well, because they've allowed you to keep hold of a vision of yourself that you could accept, and even feel good about. I suspect your mom offered you visions you could not accept. A personality disorder masquerading as your parent will do that for you. Compartmentalization - tuning out the nasty script - can be a necessary tool. Narcissism can be a great tool, too, because it keeps you from believing every terrible thing that is said to you about you. It can interrupt and tell you you're not that bad, even if it doesn't really know what to tell you you are. It keeps asking other people what they think, trying to hear what it wants. For a kid with a problem parent, it can be a benefit.

But tools have limitations. They wear out. They become obsolete, either because they are outdated and better ones are available, or because your life has changed and you are no longer in a situation where they are the right tools to use.

We geek atheists are as likely to have the religion gene as anyone else. The gene just expresses itself differently. We are protective of media (religious texts are media, any book, film, tv, game) that is and was meaningful to us, comforted us, illuminated us. We experience the transformative impact of media. I am grateful I had Ender's Game as a kid. I am glad I had Buffy as a young adult. I am glad I had Lois McMaster Bujold spanning the decades, and Sondheim...Sondheim, my entire sentient life. Margaret Cho's "I'm The One That I Want" explained limerence with oneself to me when I was younger, and Derek Walcott's Love After Love explained loving oneself in a way I only got five years ago. All of these are religious texts for me. And scripture is a tool.

What I wish you could have is what Muriel's Wedding was for me. I don't think it works for guys, it's too difficult for you to identify with female protagonists. I shall try to be brief. When I was 27, I saw the film. Muriel is told by her sister - a rather squat gnome of a person who seems slow - that she is terrible. "You're terrible, Muriel" is, I think, her only line. She repeats it over and over. Muriel's upbringing was beneath her. She is okay looking, but much better looking than her siblings, who look like her mom. She is determined she won't end up like her mom, who is entirely passive and downtrodden and who nobody loves. And you see things from her perspective for a long time.

But you and Muriel both figure out two truths: first, that she *is* terrible. Her sister was not the unreliable narrator. Muriel was. Second, that she should not have worried about ending up like her mom, who nobody loves. She should've worried about ending up like her dad, who loves no one. Who thinks he is too good for his own wife and family. Who is a serial cheater, who is a narcissist. And she has a right proper epiphany, and then Dancing Queen plays, and it is awesome, and I realized for the first time in my life that I. Was. Terrible.

And lostone...you are terrible, too.

It takes a lot of time to look at your tools and figure out what are really yours and which you use because your parents used them and that is what you learned but don't really belong to you, and all the other tool questions. You have got to work on that. The compartmentalization tool in particular...that one is bad. That force field you developed to keep the bad things out and let the few good things through so you could store those up to sustain you served their purpose, but it also cordoned off your ability to feel empathy. Your ability to feel anything, really, which is another reason I read the OW here as a cipher and thus not important to address. I don't think you love her, and I don't think you love your wife. Love is one of those things that you've cordoned off. And when you combine walled off empathy with being terrible, lostone, if that empathy ever gets out, your terribleness is going to hit you like you're Chaz Palminteri figuring out who Keyser Soze is. It will feel like your skin has been removed. The suffering of others will no longer be mystifying and sometimes distantly amusing to you. All your "terrible," from your whole life, there it will be, along with the realization that everyone else has known you were terrible the whole time, and they've seen and thought all the bad things, just like you feared. You will physically flinch when the memories come back. If drugs are an issue, be prepared. Your old coping mechanism is gone forever, and you will seek other routes of escape. And since you chose to have an affair, which is often used as an escape, this process may have already started.

So, as to why you are going to have to lose your wife: you aren't going to watch Muriel's Wedding, and some bomb is going to have to drop in your life to rip off your skin, and hurting your wife isn't powerful enough for you. Hurting me was enough for my husband, which is why he is still my husband. You, though...you're a tougher nut to crack, and you don't care about your job, you don't have kids. The only thing you have available to lose is your wife.

Finally, two things.

Regarding the awesome life you think you could have with OW. Read Stumbling Upon Happiness, and think about that some more.

Regarding Russian novels...are you familiar with the Superfluous Man? Some Pushkin might be good for you. It was for me. In the 21st century, women can be superfluous, too.

[This message edited by ladyvorkosigan at 5:58 AM, August 5th (Sunday)]

I liked your post Ladyvorkosigan. While I did not see Muriel's Wedding, I recognized that I too was terrible. Not just during my A, but throughout my M.

Your analogy of having your skin ripped off and being raw to all the pain and suffering all around you is accurate. I hated everything, was angry at the world for the 'raw deal' I was handed – I actually had a very good life. I blew my life apart leaving a bloody pile of carnage around me and eventually, when there was nothing left standing… I felt the pain. The pain of my BW, the pain of people around me. I cried at movies I would not have been caught dead seeing in the past. I was raw and open to feel more than just anger and resentment towards the world.

Lostalone – There is a lot of excellent advice from people who have been and are going through very similar situations. Just by reading through all these 9 pages of replies, you must be able to see that you are not special. Your situation is not unique. Stop trying to make it unique. I hope at some point you will be able to look around you and actually feel the carnage you have created.

Good luck on your journey and my heart goes out to your BW.

You define your "self". You determine the boundaries of who are by your choices.

If this is how you want to define yourself:

Um, no. I feel I would die inside if I did that. Like I would cease to be myself. And this is why I'm feeling pretty hopeless

(and it is a "want" not a

"need"), then that is your right. But be honest about it. Let your wife go and stay single until you are ready to "define yourself" as a monogamous husband, ready to be respectful and loyal to a wife.

Separate your wants and needs. They are not the same thing. You think you need to be defined by your affair and betrayal but you just don't want to let go of how it made your feel. Want or need?

I get that you have been a loyal husband for a very long time, but people change and that is not who you are at this moment.

Own your choice. Quit with the flowery imagery. You are trying to rewrite your affair in prose as if it happened in a novel, outside of yourself.

It's not, it's reality. Therefore your choices are:

husband devoted to his wife and their life together. Forsaking the other affair partner and any whatever poison they have brought into your life. They momentos bring nothing positive to you wife and family unit.

Defined by your affair. Cherish the memories of your betrayal. You have the right to make that choice. If that is what you want own it.

But you cannot have both. Either or. Period. You choose how to define yourself, regardless of what happens in your life.We all make sacrifices for family. Sometimes certain dreams are mutually exclusive.

Your defined by your momentos or your role as a husband.

It is not possible to do both. By Cherishing the memories of your affair, you are still betraying your wife.

Black and white. EIther/or. Make a choice.

Descriptive prose and flowery definitions does nothing to change that fact that you have to make a very simple choice. I understand that the execution is not simple in any way, but the choice should be. Memories of affair or wife. Which one?

[This message edited by grace68 at 9:06 AM, August 4th (Saturday)]

Ladyvorkosigan - wow. That was amazing.

What I wish you could have is what Muriel's Wedding was for me. I don't think it works for guys, it's too difficult for you to identify with female protagonists.

Actually, I have no trouble at all relating to female protagonists. Half of my RP characters are female and I often feel closer to them, to be honest. Part of what I liked about The Hunger Games is that the female protagonist was just as clueless about her feelings as I was. When she first spent the night sleeping with her "friend" for comfort, I was so happy that someone else was as stupid as me.

As to your other points - I donno. I hate myself. I've always hated myself. I do see the mistakes and bad things I have done in my marriage. I think part of the reason for the A is that I wanted a chance to do it over, to do things right. I was glad that I didn't have to experience the guilt with her. OW's only seriously relationship before me was with a controlling an emotionally abusive boyfriend. I was terrified at being him (because I know I used to be), but at the same time, I think I wanted to show that I was not that person anymore. I remember being able to explain the psychology behind his actions to her and she said that yes, that sounded like him.

On the other hand, people describe me as self-righteous. I don't see myself that way. I hate myself immensely.

I cried at movies I would not have been caught dead seeing in the past.

I've always cried at movies. I'm awful about it. I even cried at Titantic. When my wife and I watched it again this year because we never got the chance to see it together when we were teenagers. And I cried again.

Funny thing - only when I did my questions about myself with her did I found out that she thought the fact that I cried at movies was adorable. I never knew that.

I guess I just don't see why everyone here thinks I don't have empathy. I feel I do. I do feel awful for what I've done and I do see it in her. I just feel helpless to do anything about it.

It can be hard to tell just from some writings on a board whether you have empathy for your wife, so we could certainly be wrong about that. However, I think that we feel like you do not have empathy for her because if you really understood how much she hurts, you would stop hurting her. So far, you have indicated that you cannot (or will not) do that.

The longer you want her to stay in your M, without you making the changes necessary to put the OW out of your M, the longer she is going to hurt. Many posters here have said it, but you have not yet addressed it: you have to choose one or the other, you cannot have both, even though you clearly want that.

Since you've read "Not Just Friends", but have not seemed to come to an epiphany that you are doing the opposite of everything the book says to make things better & you are traumatizing your BW over & over & over again with your actions (this is why we don't see empathy), may I suggest a different book & tack?

"How to break your addiction to a person" by Howard Halpern.

It's worth a read. If for nothing else, to be able to stand alone, on your own.

I guess I just don't see why everyone here thinks I don't have empathy. I feel I do. I do feel awful for what I've done and I do see it in her. I just feel helpless to do anything about it.

You are not helpless. Pack up all the stuff, ALL of it, and head to the dump and toss it. You are completely and totally capable of doing it. There is no hiding behind label of helpless. You simply choose to cling to the other woman through those objects and your romanticised memories.

Let's run with the thought that you are empathetic. That means that you know your refusal to take steps to rid your home of those objects causes pain to your wife. You can identify with that pain. But, you choose to continue inflicting that pain.

Either you understand the pain (are empathetic) and choose to hurt her anyhow. Or, you don't have empathy towards your wife's plight.

hey lostone..

I've been reading this thread for the entire time.. Thought about posting a few times but I kept seeing that everyone else had such awesome advice and mine would be redundant. An enormous amount of effort from SI members has been put into trying to help you. I'm not convinced that you're taking any of this to heart. Sorry but I'm calling a spade a spade.

I'm a newbie WW at this point. Trying to figure out my own shit the same as you. I'm an action-oriented person. Once I know what needs to be done, I start working on it. Have you been taking ANY of these kind people's advice?

From your 1st post - you mentioned that you haven't talked to OW for about a week. That was nearly a week ago.. So now is it 2 weeks?

Have you "un-friended" or "stopped following"? Or are you still FB and tweet creeping? I don't mean, "ignoring her posting" I mean full NC on social media?

Why can't you just take your mementos to the dump? It's not like you're going to be a published author with your writings on OW and BW. What would you even name that book? "How I let my emotional affair blow up my marriage?"

I've been reading Surviving an Affair. There is a good scenario in this book that directly relates to EA. The main difference is the WH went full NC and worked on his marriage. This is something that I know you're not doing yet. All the MC and IC in the world isn't going to help if you are hesitant to commit 100% to your BW.

Another point in this book states that it takes about 6 months MAX to withdraw from your AP. They state that if it takes longer than that, it means that NC was broken and the withdraw has to start over from the beginning so the process is taking longer than it should. That is how a BS can know if their WS is not in full R yet.

Did you read and print off Maia's survival guide thread? I saw it had been bumped for you to read a few days ago. Just curious if you have considered some of these steps especially since other SI members stated how helpful it had been for them.

You know one more reason why I had been hesitant to post until now... Hope I'm not out of line by saying this.. I think this thread has been helping you stay connected to OW. You get to sit there and think, dream and write about her on here. Seriously this OW is not cool. She is a mean person that invaded your marriage, let you be the KISA and you fell for it. She has nothing to lose - AT ALL. You? Your beloved BW might leave you forever. That in itself should trigger you to start finally working on your marriage.

Buddy, D-day was January and it's now August. You are making this harder on yourself that it should be.

I wish you luck on figuring out your shit.

Feeling bad isn't empathy. Empathy means to understand and share the feelings of another person. You know that when your wife cries, you feel bad, and you want her to stop doing it. That is not empathy. That is you not liking how someone else's pain makes you feel.

Katniss is half your age, lostalone, and has never been in a relationship. Her internal monologue tells us she doesn't get the nuances, and it's believable. It is not believable that you, at your age and level of experience, slept in a bed with the OW with a Katniss level of naivete. Come on.

Your wife is 29, and the OW is young enough that your wife feels notably older than OW? How old is OW, anyway?

I need to slightly correct messedupchick's comment about this being an emotional affair.

They kissed,they slept in the same bed,and the next morning they were sexual with eacho ther,although he says they didnt have sex,they were sexual.

This is an EA and a PA. The fact there was no penetration doesnt mean it wasnt a physical affair. They touched eachother,in bed,in a sexual way. So it is a PA.

You're not helpless,lostone. You are choosing to pretend to be helpless.

[This message edited by confused615 at 3:56 PM, August 4th (Saturday)]

I need to slightly correct messedupchick's comment about this being an emotional affair.

They kissed,they slept in the same bed,and the next morning they were sexual with eacho ther,although he says they didnt have sex,they were sexual.

This is an EA and a PA. The fact there was no penetration doesnt mean it wasnt a physical affair. They touched eachother,in bed,in a sexual way. So it is a PA

My apologies!! I forgot about that important piece to this puzzle.

How old is OW, anyway?

ladyvork - I know this one. OW is 24 according to an earlier post.

lostone....

help - need advice - still have feelings for OW

Dude....all this cake eating is not good....you could wind up a diabetic...

Keep doing what you are doing....and your wife just may make a decision for you....remember, she has the power to turn off that oven and take away your fork..

JMO

Bufffalo

I think this thread has been helping you stay connected to OW. You get to sit there and think, dream and write about her on here.

I was just thinking the same thing. There's a whole lotta waxing nostalgic about OW here. And talking, talking, talking about how awesome she is.

It's keeping this relationship alive in a really unhealthy way.

Glad someone else is seeing that.

lostone209-I get you're answering questions & trying to work it out, but it's occurring like you're "re-living" the A on here, as it's probably the only acceptable place to discuss this stuff. I'm wondering if you see it that way at all?

Your wife is 29, and the OW is young enough that your wife feels notably older than OW? How old is OW, anyway?

OW was 22 when I first met her and 23 for the majority of the affair. I'm eight years older.

My wife has felt "old" ever since she turned 18 or so. She feels that society sees women as being in the peaking desirability at age 16 or so.

I tell her all the time that she is beautiful (she is) but this is a sensitive subject for her.

BW also feels that OW acts young for her age. OW is still in college, for example, which may or may not be relevant.

They kissed,they slept in the same bed,and the next morning they were sexual with eacho ther,although he says they didnt have sex,they were sexual.

This is an EA and a PA. The fact there was no penetration doesnt mean it wasnt a physical affair. They touched eachother,in bed,in a sexual way. So it is a PA.

Yes, it was an EA turned PA. The touching became more and more sexual as time went on, until even OW and I could not deny what it was.

I didn't really want to get into the exact details of the touching (I have told BW every detail because she wanted to know, though, and did not hesistate to do so). As someone else here said, talking about it does help me relive it and I do take comfort in that.

But we never kissed, at least not lip to lip. Toward the end, I did kiss her on her cheek and forehead once or twice, but primarily we messaged and rubbed heads. She wasn't really into kissing and kissing like that would have been an obviously romantic thing which would have destroyed our self-delusional game.

Also, BW had said she was ok with the touching (I asked before I first massaged OW's back), but what she meant was that she didn't care what we did, she cared what we felt. We maintained we were just friends but she knew better and our other friends knew better. But OW and I wouldn't let ourselves see it.

No genital contact ever occurred, but I'm sure it would have if I hadn't stopped that morning. But i consider the touching I did do that morning to be unmistakably sexual.

You keep mentioning that your BW said it was ok to touch her in some ways,and that your BW said you could break NC by looking at OW online....and you have said more than once how you wish OW had told you this or that wasnt appropriate because it went beyond the boundaries of "just friends."

You're a big boy. A grown man. You know right from wrong. You dont need your BW to tell you that touching another woman isnt ok. And you didnt need OW to tell you the things you were doing was inappropriate. You need to take responsibility for your actions.