I'm a little wary of continuing to post here due to feeling guilty for taking so many people's time. I'm mostly focusing on trying to finish reading NJF. It's kinda triggery, so I need to take breaks while reading it. I find myself getting jealous of people in it who had instant breakthroughs where they suddenly saw their APs in a different light based on so many things I've already been exposed to.
My BW says that even if I went full NC and got rid of all mementos, if I felt I loved my AP or wasn't sure, then she'd still leave. That's the basic reason for not doing those things immediately... I'm trying to focus on seeing things from a different perspective and see if that leads to anything.
Fluery,
That's an interesting theory that I hadn't thought of before. Not sure if it fits or doesn't. I actually have many theories for why the affair happened but haven't really been able to confirm or deny any of them. None feel particularly right, but nor can i deny them. Nothing has broken the spell.
I'm going to designate the married woman to whom I was an OM to when I was 17 as "MW". I met my wife while I was involved with MW, but BW and I did not become romantic until after that affair ended.
Here's the story:
MW was a friend of mine online. We interacted strictly through chat as friends and she was interested in my writing. I talked to her about her M. She had an abusive husband and two children with him. MW was 25 at the time and her daughters were 7 and 9 I believe.
Anyway, one night her husband left and it didn't sound like he was coming back. At that point, our relationship started to become romantic and sexual. This was actually the first sexual relationship I ever had. We didn't live near each other and had no physical contact, but we did engage in sexual behavior over the phone and through chat.
Her husband soon returned and we continued our affair. At one point, she did break up with me and changed her phone number after I kept calling (yes, I was obsessive OM...). But then somehow I convinced her to resume it, though the relationship wasn't the same after that. We had to be more furtive and even the "sex" wasn't as good.
Eventually, she started up another affair with a religious teacher and we broke up.
I was devastated. I thought my life was over. I really had deluded myself into thinking that she and I would get together and I'd help her raise her children. (Hey, I was 17, ok?).
Anyway, after a month or three, I started a relationship with BW. It was her idea initially, but soon enough I realized I was in love with her and we pretty much planned to spend our lives together.
Several months later, MW called me and wanted to resume our affair. She even said she'd buy a bus ticket to come visit me irl. I told her no and that I was happy with BW (we weren't married back then, just internet bf/gf, but we both we committed to each other and spending our lives together).
So that was that... until a couple years later, when BW and I were still long distance but still quite serious, I decided I wanted to contact MW again and try to be friends. I felt I still loved her platonically and felt that I had made a mistake in making the relationship romantic and sexual.
BW was very unhappy about this and told me she didn't want me to. Friends who I asked about the situation told me I shouldn't.
As you can guess, I went ahead and called MW. We talked and found that our old rapport was still there. But apparently she and her husband had reconciled and she told me how great he was to her. She asked me not to contact her ever again because it wouldn't be fair to him. She also told me that I had taught her how to be open and that this had helped her a lot in her marriage.
Oddly enough, AP also credited me with helping her be more open with people. As you can might guess from my sharing, I am a pretty open person when I'm comfortable with someone.
But, yes, in light of the affair, I do wonder if I had heard something different from MW, if I might have been drawn into an affair back then. I didn't believe I desired anything other than friendship with her at the time, though.
In general, throughout my marriage, but more so earlier on, BW was not happy that I've still had feelings (I believe they are not romantic) for MW. I occasionally (once every year or two) google her, but I have never tried to make contact. I had noticed my feelings for MW they seemed to fade during the affair, actually.
And, why not, I might as well say that there is one other person who I consider myself to have genuinely loved. This relationship actually was platonic and started a year or two before I met BW. She was an unhappily married woman and we once almost crossed a boundary but she stopped things and that was that. We were very close back then (when I was 16 or so - she was 35 I think?), but we considered each other to be the brother and sister each of us never had. I always called her "sis", actually. Unfortunately, our friendship has faded over the years and I'm no longer in contact with her. BW never had any problems with this friend of mine, though.
I actually was thinking my relationship with AP would be like this platonic relationship. It's where I got the "friends who love each other" idea, basically.
