SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

And usually, this conversation comes up when a BW comes here all torn up because her husband was "in love" with another woman, where I'll offer up "It was almost certainly not love, especially if he's still with you."

Well, this is interesting, because there is a third option besides "he was totally playing her" and "it was true love." It doesn't have to be either one. I'm not arguing that OM was truly in love with me. Indeed, I think that was impossible, because he just didn't know me well enough. He was stuck in that limerent phase where he was totally infatuated (as was I, to a lesser extent). Your two piles of sticky notes suggest to me that this is something you've never experienced. Your love was either genuine, or it was a line to get in her pants. You don't have anything where you look back and ask, "It felt so real. How the hell did that happen?"

The danger of reducing As to those two options is that the limerent party will see things reductively, too. "I felt something, therefore it was twu." Many BS of both genders have had to deal with a spouse who did leave, or at least intended to. The ones who dropped the A without a backward glance probably fall into the NSA sex category with which you are so familiar. But what about the WS who give the ILYBINILWY speech? Who leave to find an apartment? Is it twu for them?

Of course not, or at least very, very rarely. But imagine this is 1989 and I'm still in the fog. You're telling me that he's a player who just wants in my pants. I'm seeing that the evidence doesn't line up with that. I decide that you don't have a goddamn clue what you're talking about and leave the site. Whereas, if you say, "He clearly has it bad for you, but let's talk about why (escape from other issues in his life, mirroring, projecting, the fog) and why it doesn't really have much to do with the real BraveSirRobin, so the chances of it lasting are poor," I might listen and actually get some help in ending the A and going NC.

And of course, there are many people who do need to wake up and see that they were ruthlessly played. I'm not disputing that at all, or even that it's the most common situation. I'm arguing that we have a broader constituency.

(Edited because I accidentally posted early due to tiny phone screen)

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 9:05 AM, May 2nd (Thursday)]

he could have been the 2nd coming of John Holmes in bed.

Hot damn, dude. Will millennials reading here get that reference?

I think it might have been me being in Afghanistan that stood in way of providing passion at the time

People who cheat on deployed spouses are the worst. I wonder if they have yellow ribbons on their cars.

what about the multitude of dudes leaving their wives for their AP. just sex?

Seward am I agree. I’m positive my husband would have left if I had discovered earlier. But the affair was so long and he was pleasantly shocked that I was willing to work through that he dumped her like a hot potato but I’m sure only because basically the whole relationship had played out. I was the better wife at that point

Editing to add. His was definitely emotional and sexual. Old high school love. Never had sex but always regretted. Thousands of text email and several hidden social media accounts. I think the volume of communication also speaks to the level of emotional attachment.

[This message edited by Thanksgiving2016 at 10:07 AM, May 2nd (Thursday)]

RIO, we're all individuals. Most sexual encounters I've had have had nothing to do with anything but sex. Love? 3 guys ever and all 3 were intended to be casual but the feels were developed on both sides. This may be where I've gone wrong, I recognize. I didn't date for qualities that I should have wanted to marry for. Genders can be generalized a bit, but too many fall outside the gender expectations for it to be reliable. A percentage of these guys you work with who have the supposed dead bedrooms at home and just want sex on the side are lying their asses off. Some of them probably have the freaky wife at home whom he's turning down for blowjobs because he's more interested in adding to his number than appreciating what he has. Some probably do have the dead bedroom because their wives know that they aren't into them and are focusing their sexual energies elsewhere. I remember walking around in shock sometimes the year before before DDay over being rejected sexually and not understanding WTF happened. I stopped initiating after a while because damn...how gross do I have to be if he's turning down blowjobs? Probably he'd already had one for the day, the jackass. He could never repay me for the self-esteem hit that he served up with that. If he had told one of the prostitutes that there wasn't much going on in his bedroom at home, he'd have been telling the truth but leaving out a whole lot of facts. There wasn't much going on in our bedroom because his sexual energy had nothing to do with me at the time and I will not beg for it. If anyone should have cheated for lack of sex, it should have been me.

So sure, these guys trying to fuck everything that walks and complaining that they don't get it at home might be being truthful, but it's pretty likely that they aren't getting it at home because they no longer want it at home. They need something outside. Something new to validate them. It's not all about the sex. There's something wrong with them.

There’s a strong possibility you are underestimating the power of your pixie dust.

I love it!

People who cheat on deployed spouses are the worst.

As a military spouse, I agree. Just as bad are military members who cheat while deployed.

Sex is just as fleeting as words of affirmation. It's gone as soon as it's down. Feelings can hang around for quite awhile. We see that in people who are in the fog, pining over the one who got away, etc.

RIO, I would say that your CW got exactly what she wanted during her A, just like her AP did. It doesn't matter if what he said was true. When he said it, she believed it and it made her feel good.

Why are you so hell bent on proving that she was played and abused? It's almost like you want to cast her as the victim so it's easier for you to swallow.

She played her AP just as much as he played her. She liked what he said. She figured out that she had to give him sex to keep that coming, so she did. She gave him sex for words the that were important to her just as much as he gave her words for what was important to him. She is not a victim.

And, yeah, I don't think the "building a harem" principle applies to BSR's sitch. That's way too much resources to spend when it would be much easier and cost effective to look closer to home. I might buy it if it was just calls and letters and such. But, once the guy flew across the country just to see her when there was 0 possibility of sex, there was more going on with him.

The feelings may not be based on anything real, but the feelings themselves are real. If you feel it, it's real to you.

My fch likes to watch MMA fighting. It excites him. That feeling of excitement is the result of chemical reactions and electrical impulses in his body. His heart rate elevates, maybe he sweats a little, he might jump up and down, yell, clap his hands. (Ok, that probably happens more while he's watching football.)

I can't stand blood sports. They make me physically I'll. That feeling of nausea is real. My stomach churns and my heart races.

Feelings are just as physically real as actions and are actually less fleeting.

RIO, this is the part I don’t understand about how you view your W’s affair. You’ve said many times that you’re less concerned with perceived “feelings” because they are intangible, transitory, and very unlikely to be based on reality/the “real person.” Ok, that I understand. You’ve also said that you’re much more concerned with the sex, because that is quantifiably “real” and actually, unarguably happened. That I also understand. But you come across as someone who had a LOT of casual sex in your single days, most if not all of which was probably entirely meaningless aside from your orgasm. (No judgment about that; nothing wrong with it.)

So, seeing as you’re so well-versed in the non-intricacies of casual sex and especially what it means (or rather, doesn’t mean) for a guy just looking to get his rocks off, coupled with your (correct, in many cases) view that “feelings” in an A are not reality-based and thus meaningless nonsense, I’ve always wondered why your wife’s A bothers you beyond a broken vow; why the exchange of sex for false feelings bothers you so much. As you know from firsthand experience, it’s what men and women often do, even without an A. And seeing as you did it so often yourself without finding it bothersome, why does it bother you beyond the betrayal aspect that your W did it too? Because it does seem to bother you beyond that.

If I’m wrong, I apologize.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 10:34 AM, May 2nd (Thursday)]

I guess the message is this, I don't want to see BW's beat themselves up over something that's almost certainly, in my experience, not true.

RIO, your experience seems to be limited to serial cheaters/philanderers, and not so many MLCers. I think many BWs beat themselves up, because that's not the case with their WH. If it was, wouldn't their WH drop their AP like a hot potato, lay low for awhile, maybe do some MC to appease their BW and then get a BJ from the receptionist after things died down?

I'll give you one example of how it wasn't just sex with my WH -- my LO has a number of allergies, which we discovered when she ate something at her 1st birthday party, broke out into head-to-toe hives almost instantly and started gagging and gasping.

WH and I left the party and drove her straight to the ER. She was okay, got benedryl, was monitored for a couple of hours, left with an epipen prescription.

But it was terrifying. I was on edge. And my dumbass WH has the nerve to say, "I need to call AP and tell her about this."

I was like "Why do you need to call AP?"

"Because this was really upsetting and I need someone to talk to."

I'M SORRY, WHAT??! You need to call your COWORKER to tell her about OUR DAUGHTER while I AM IN THE HOSPITAL WITH YOU!?!

I lost it and had a panic attack, because it didn't make sense, but his COW was so ugly I still didn't believe he would be having an affair with her when he was still having regular sex with me.

How does that fit in with your experience of cheaters? Is that something someone would do if they weren't completely infatuated?

[This message edited by ibonnie at 11:01 AM, May 2nd (Thursday)]

what about the multitude of dudes leaving their wives for their AP. just sex?

As I said before, there are exceptions. But, statistics tell us, the "dude" leaving for the OW is rare to extremely rare. Marrying her rarer still. Even leaving isn't necessarily "true love", it could just be he wanted to leave anyway and now that he's secured another sexual partner, he feels more emboldened. But I would NEVER claim that it's not about love anymore than I'd claim that EVERY lottery ticket is a bad investment. No, if you get the right lotto ticket, it could be a fantastic "investment". But the overwhelming majority of those who buy lotto tickets are going to lose, just like the overwhelming majority of A's aren't going to lead to any soft of lasting "love" (or even love at all). Buying lotto tickets as an investment is stupid, just like having an A for love is stupid because, in MOST cases, you're not going to get what you want out of the "investment". Having an A for sex is logical, you are likely to get what you want, which, for me, is a pretty consistent and reasonable explanation for why at least some people (those that I know, for example) do it.

So sure, these guys trying to fuck everything that walks and complaining that they don't get it at home might be being truthful, but it's pretty likely that they aren't getting it at home because they no longer want it at home. They need something outside. Something new to validate them. It's not all about the sex. There's something wrong with them.

I agree with this. I won't go into details because it'll quickly get hurtful, but "dead bedroom by choice" isn't at all unheard of in my circle of friends. And I'd further agree that there's something wrong with them.

Why are you so hell bent on proving that she was played and abused? It's almost like you want to cast her as the victim so it's easier for you to swallow.

She was played. She wasn't abused. She was just run of the mill stupid. And "stupid" isn't the same as being a victim, it's just being stupid and not understanding the internal workings of an A. She long ago came to realize she was a sexual plaything for the AP, so it's not about her anymore. It's about other WW's, both those in A's currently and those pining for their OM that I dig into the "why" for the WH's that I know. Because once you realize the "real why" for a lot of WH's, the pining stops. And I think that for some BW's, the pain lessens too if you realize that there's a real good chance it wasn't "love" it was "say what I need to say to get into her pants". I hate seeing people suffer over something that's not very likely to be true, just like WW's come into sex threads and say "No, it wasn't about rock star sex and the OM wasn't hung like a donkey", to try to lessen the stories that many BH's (myself included) imagine as the reason for the A. It's not (usually) the OM's magic d**k, or even his d**k at all, it's other things, and focusing on the thing that hurts you most (for me, magic d**k that was so much better than mine) when it's likely NOT the case at all is just wallowing in pain that's entirely of your own making. Yes, there are women who have A's with "magic d**k" APs and have the best sex of their lives with them. I've read those stories too. And there are men who fall madly in love with the AP, come home, pack their s**t and move out the next day never to be heard from again. I've seen those stories too. But both are FAR rarer than the other alternatives and going directly to the "worst case" situation is an exercise in pain shopping, IMHO.

Feelings are just as physically real as actions and are actually less fleeting.

When they are based on truth and facts, I tend to agree with you. When they are based on lies, much less so. What if I told you (and you believed me) you just won 10M dollars? You'd feel great right? Then later I told you, "oops, that was Darkness Falls, not you". Wouldn't feel so great anymore, would you? Now, slightly different, what if I handed you 10M dollars? Feel great, right? And then later realized, oops, that was supposed to go to Darkness and handed her 10M dollars too. Would that make you feel any less good? IMHO, no, it wouldn't, because you have something of value. You have the 10M dollars, it wasn't words, it was something tangible (sex/money) that cannot ever be taken away from you. Feelings can be real, but they have to based on reality. If you're basing feelings on fantasy, they are no more real than Leprechauns, a total figment of your imagination that will evaporate the moment you realize that the fantasy you built in your head was just that, a fantasy.

I’ve always wondered why your wife’s A bothers you beyond a broken vow; why the exchange of sex for false feelings bothers you so much. As you know from firsthand experience, it’s what men and women often do, even without an A. And seeing as you did it so often yourself without finding it bothersome, why does it bother you beyond the betrayal aspect that your W did it too? Because it does seem to bother you beyond that.

First off, your not wrong, and second, no reason to apologize. I might be a bit hard to take at times, but I love answering questions and digging into my own psyche, so, as long as it's not just blasting me, I'm always happy to try to pull the strings together in my cobweb of a mind to dig at my motivations and reasons better.

Why does it bother me so much? I guess it's a combination of things. First, we pledged fidelity to one another. And that pledge was much more a sacrifice for me than for her. I really enjoyed casual sex and "giving it up" was/is difficult for me. Second, our marriage was very sexually inhibited. It was another big sacrifice for me, I had to give up a lot of my sexuality to be married to her, a compromise and loss that I did NOT need to suffer (because she was totally different with the AP). The exchange of "false feelings" doesn't really bother me very much, it's the actions that she took as a result of that bullshit that bother me.

Thank you for answering. I understand both of those reasons, not that you owed me an explanation.

How is sex tangible after the act? Do you walk around with the used condom, or the tissues used to clean up? Seriously, RIO, I disagree with so many of your points of view, but the idea that sex is somehow tangible but feelings are not simply cries out to a hubris rather than a reality.

Simply put, after the act of sex, it’s nothing more than a moment in time, a memory. Which is no different than how an act of any nature would make someone ‘feel’ in that moment. Just because someone has the ability to deny ever saying “I love you” to their AP doesn’t make it any less real if it actually happened. Whether the statement of love is based on a lie or not is completely irrelevant and changes nothing in the matter of it actually happening.

I don’t bring this up to try and change your view, rather, as a challenge. If you are so insistent on proving how right your views are, then at least present them in a way that gives a fair outlook on all realities around them. You place high value on logic and deny feelings at any opportunity as if they don’t co-exist in the same space and because of that, your arguments are constantly riddled with flaws. Sorry bud, but you are no more logical than any of us emotional fools and every bit as emotional as us logical beings. Denial simply blocks your path to growth and breeds pride into hubris.

Just because someone has the ability to deny ever saying “I love you” to their AP doesn’t make it any less real if it actually happened.

They can deny having sex the same way. That's not the difference. The difference is I can easily say "I love you" and actually strongly dislike you or, more likely, not care about you at all. I cannot have sex with you and not actually have sex with you. The "feeling" can be lied about (in fact, in my personal experience, it's very often lied about) the act cannot. There's no way to determine if someone actually loves you or not, there's a million ways to determine if you're actually having sex or not. Which is why, of course, there's a commercial market for sex but not one where "love" is sold. Because the veracity of it cannot be verified.

Whether the statement of love is based on a lie or not is completely irrelevant and changes nothing in the matter of it actually happening.

I couldn't disagree more. The veracity of "love" is one of the most important things to determine. If you're having an A with someone because you love them, it's pretty darn important that they love you back or else you're doing it all for.. Well, nothing. The only love you can verify is your own, do I love this person or not? For anyone except yourself, there's no way to tell, but there are context clues. If you're having an A with someone, here's the first clue, they probably don't love you. If you met a guy in a club last night and he said "I love you" there's a real good chance he didn't mean it and only wanted to get into your pants. The context matters a lot when trying to determine the veracity of the claim. Kind of like the difference between Bill Gates telling you "I'll give 1M to your foundation" and a bum on the street telling you "I'll give you 1M dollars if you spot me a bottle of booze". And an A, in most cases, you're dealing with the drunk looking for another bottle, not Bill Gates. And people should EXPECT that a down and out drunk is going to lie to get booze; in fact, if you told me you gave a bum a bottle of booze because he told you he has a winning lotto ticket he'll bring you tomorrow, I'll tell you "you are an idiot". Just like I tell anyone engaging in an A for love "you are an idiot".

Sorry bud, but you are no more logical than any of us emotional fools and every bit as emotional as us logical beings.

That's simply not true. We are all different. Some of us are very logical, some of us understand and communicate emotionally very well. I'd NEVER claim that I'm just as effective an emotional communicator as other posters here, I'm not; in fact, I'm not even close. But yes, I do believe at the same time that I'm far more logical than a lot of posters here. It doesn't make me right, but it does mean that I'm better than some at showing the logical path to a destination. Just like, well, almost anyone who's not me is better at showing the emotional path to get to a destination.

If you are so insistent on proving how right your views are, then at least present them in a way that gives a fair outlook on all realities around them. You place high value on logic and deny feelings at any opportunity as if they don’t co-exist in the same space and because of that, your arguments are constantly riddled with flaws.

By all means, challenge the arguments then. If nothing else, I'm in love with debate and that's how I learn and understand things. There have been lots of posters who I've sparred with and "lost". I've come to believe that my W's A, even though 90% of the time she was with the AP she was naked wasn't about sex. And that took a lot of back and forth with a lot of posters before I found some sort of path that could get me to understanding on that issue. Yes, emotions matter, as much as I wish they didn't (frankly, I wish they didn't exist, when I was kid, I watched a lot of Star Trek and desperately wanted to be Spock, always presenting hard facts that saved the day), I know they do. But my understanding of them is about as shallow as they come, I don't live in the world of emotion, and the field I work in is numbers, formulas, logic and decision trees; which, I'm 100% sure, while a great career choice for me, has pigeonholed me further into a logical frame of mind.

I was thinking essentially the same thing as Loukas. Sex isn't tangible like money. You can't hold it. You can't keep it in your pocket. Once sex is done, it's done. It's nothing more than a memory.

Just because feelings change based on circumstance doesn't make feelings less real. I can remember the good feeling I had before you took the money away. I can pine for that feeling. I can do all kinds of things to try to get that feeling back. How we feel about people matters.

it's just being stupid and not understanding the internal workings of an A. She long ago came to realize she was a sexual plaything for the AP, so it's not about her anymore

This doesn't really answer my question. So, she was stupid rather than a victim. That still seems to paint her as not responsible. "Well, it's not really her fault. She ain't all that bright." She fell for his shit, but she did so because she wanted to. She knew it was wrong, but did it anyway.

My fch was stupid like that. But, he is still responsible. He's a grown man. He knew what he was doing was unacceptable. Otherwise, he wouldn't have hidden it from me. He let the MOW shook him and drag him in. He could've stopped it at any time, but he didn't. He is responsible for what he allowed to happen.

But my understanding of them is about as shallow as they come, I don't live in the world of emotion, and the field I work in is numbers, formulas, logic and decision trees; which, I'm 100% sure, while a great career choice for me, has pigeonholed me further into a logical frame of mind.

This here was the point to my whole post. You do live in a world of emotion. Just because your understanding of emotion is shallow doesn’t change the fact that you are filled with them and operate within them.

Here is something I’ve learnt from my Nerdy Trekky friends. They all aspire to be Spock. Like somehow a robotic state were we all drone on through our one dimensional utopia will free us from our suffering existence. But even poor Spock was half human and all you Trekkies weren’t even born with that level of grace. Nope, full human, how tragic.

Fortunately, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, not denying it. In this case, continue pretending to be Spock, pigeon hole yourself if you’d like (because it’s only you doing it yourself) or take your ignorance (and I don’t mean that as a pejorative) and learn how emotional you actually are. You didn’t become a logical thinker by denying logic, what makes you think you can do the same with emotions?

Fortunately, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, not denying it. In this case, continue pretending to be Spock, pigeon hole yourself if you’d like (because it’s only you doing it yourself) or take your ignorance (and I don’t mean that as a pejorative) and learn how emotional you actually are. You didn’t become a logical thinker by denying logic, what makes you think you can do the same with emotions?

I have to run, and will give a proper response later, but the reason I've not honed those skills is because I don't find them valuable. I don't need them to get through my life, in fact, if anything, allowing emotion to enter into something leads me to draw illogical (and incorrect) conclusions. "This guys my friend; he wouldn't take advantage of me".. Well, yes, he will, if you let your guard down.

"This guys my friend; he wouldn't take advantage of me".. Well, yes, he will, if you let your guard down.

He's not really your friend then, is he?

I think (better than most) understand that it's possible to like and/or love someone and not trust them.

Can't buy feelings or sex at walmart unless you know somebody who knows somebody...

"This guys my friend; he wouldn't take advantage of me".. Well, yes, he will, if you let your guard down.

And there we have it, an emotional rationale safe guarded by logical decisions that create incorrect outcomes. More than anyone, RIO, you need to discover your emotions. Despite what you may believe, they are doing more of the driving than you’d even care acknowledge.

But... and this is just a hypothetical... what if feelings suck?