SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Such as getting married and wanting to be exclusive/monogamous to then wanting a poly lifestyle?

Well sure, but I'm not prone to this other than that. My BW confirms that I wasn't like this at all before the affair.

As a teenager, I used to hate polyamory, actually. I thought it was wrong or something. Then over time, I just thought it was stupid. Then with my friend, I thought it was foolish since she had kids. But I was coming to accept it more and it's not uncommon in the circles I hang around in.

I was shocked I was interested in it myself, though.

Do you seek/have as many male friends as female friends online? Are women easier for you to talk to and connect with?

I connect with women much easier than men. My friendships with men tend to be shallower and I seem to have less in common. I'm ok talking with guys - I just don't tend to get as close.

I'm not seductive or flirtatious, though. I mean, with AP I was, I suppose, but I'm not in general.

In-depth conversations about what? What topics do you think warrant in-depth conversation?

Just about any topic, really. Art, music, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, emotions, all of life's experiences great and small. Existential dread. The taste of wine or coffee. Literature. Symbolism.

There's very little, really, that couldn't make for in-depth conversation if you dig deep enough.

Based on what you have written, I see some patterns that might be helpful to explore in IC:

Online relationships being prevalent. What is it about the online world that draws you in? Why do you not develop friendships and relationships IRL? Is it easier for you to sit behind a keyboard than to interact face-to-face?

A tendency to start new relationships before prior ones have ended. You seem to have a preference for starting a new relationship before a previous one has ended. Obviously, now, you have been engaged in an affair. But prior . . . you've jumped from one person to another without ending a primary relationship before engaging in another.

Engaging in extra-marital relationships. Self-explanatory, but it would be helpful to explore why you do this and what makes it "okay" in your mind to do so.

And as for the "wonderful" aspect as related by your IC that you were able to "help someone else grow" while in an EMA . . . I'm thinking that your IC may have found his license in a Cracker Jack box. It's akin to saying, "Well, the house burning to the ground DID get rid of our termite problem." I don't think your IC helps you see affairs for the destructive and devastating acts that they are. You were young when you were an OM. I get that. But now you're an adult. Encouraging someone to look back upon an EMA and see that there was "good" there isn't a helpful strategy at all.

Thirteen pages of responses and we are still just scratching the surface. There isn't a decision one way or another about your marriage. There isn't a more balanced view of the affair or the affair partner (looking at it with your BW's eyes rather than your own, which seem to want to gloss over ANY negative aspect of your behavior).

So I ask . . . why are you here? What is it that you hope this site does for you? What is it that you want?

Cat

A tendency to start new relationships before prior ones have ended. You seem to have a preference for starting a new relationship before a previous one has ended. Obviously, now, you have been engaged in an affair. But prior . . . you've jumped from one person to another without ending a primary relationship before engaging in another.

Actually, the affair was the first time I had ever done this.

So I ask . . . why are you here? What is it that you hope this site does for you? What is it that you want?

Originally, I came here in a desperate attempt to save my marriage. I was hoping that getting a different perspective might help me "snap out of it" and stop viewing memories fondly, if that were possible.

At this point in the thread, though, and for the last several pages I believe, I've just been answering questions in case someone comes up with something useful. I don't really have anything else to ask. I had added some more information in case it'd be useful, but, to be honest, it seems to have led to as many misunderstandings as anything else.

Do you still want to save your marriage?

If so, what steps are you taking to do so and what kind of help can the membership here give you?

Cat

Yes, I do want to save my marriage.

I don't believe there's any way for me to achieve that, however, and I think you all have already given me all the help you can.

ETA: I don't need another lecture about can't vs. won't. And I already know the steps recommended here. I summarized them a few pages ago. So yes, I know many of you will disagree with my assessment.

[This message edited by lostone209 at 8:04 AM, August 9th (Thursday)]

Hey Lostone, I've been reading this thread from the beginning, and I want to first say how awesome it is that you keep coming back, reading, answering and I hope listening. If you're really taking this all in then you should be very proud of yourself.

My only thought through all of this is you can only change if you really want to. You seem to try and explain and rationalize a lot, stop. If you want to save your marriage and be with your wife, you know what you have to do. You've been told many times over. You seem resistant, which is understandable, but it's not going to save your marriage.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in your mind by throwing away things, pictures, pieces of writing, you're giving up yourself- but aren't you giving it up to create a better you? Aren't you giving up things you're holding onto to get what you really want? A marriage is give and take- you took (you had the affair), not it's your turn to give. You need to give your wife what she needs. No excuses, no explanations. Just do.

Only you can save your marriage--nobody can do it for you. You have gotten lots of great advice here. If you don't care for the advice, that's ok. It is not going to change, however, by throwing in some peripheral facts. The basic facts are the same and the advice for how to fix it will be the same.

No matter what led up to it, you have to now choose--do you want your wife or OW? Make no mistake, throwing up your hands and saying "I just can't change things" is making a choice, it is choosing OW. You are not going to get anyone here to tell you that's ok--this is not the place for that kind of advice.

Your last post truly sounds like you are exasperated that we are not telling you what you want to hear. Whatever that may be. But we are telling you what you need to hear--you just haven't heard it yet.

Whether you stay with your BW or not, you have a lot to work on in therapy, and I agree with the others who say you need a different IC.

I too have been following this all along, and one thing that just struck me is that you keep coming back to words like polyamory. What you really wanted, if you're being honest with yourself, was to have your cake and eat it too. Except that in your case, you wanted your wife to know about it and approve of it.

What would you have done if the roles were reversed, if she had started a relationship with someone you knew, but who didn't treat you kindly...then one day she asked if she could just be with you both?

I ask this because one of the things my husband struggles with the most in his recovery (and which allowed him to do what he did in the first place) is his lack of empathy. One of his IC (he's on his third) recommended that at every point when he has to make a choice about anything, he should remove himself and deliberately force himself to think about how he would feel if I was making this choice.

It has been a struggle for him,but he is finally starting to see the effects of his choices on others, which is the meaning of empathy.

Of course, that can only work in a relationship where the former WS actually cares to restore the marriage, and honestly it doesn't seem you want to. At least you don't want to "enough".

Which brings me back to my original point. Even if you and your wife don't stay together, you need to do some hard work on yourself. Not for her, certainly not for the OW - who is not a friend (friends don't help friends destroy their marriages, no matter how great they seem), but for you. For you.

t/j

I almost lost my cool after he said some people are crazy and I corrected him with "some people are racist."

I think you were both right in that disagreement.

Having found the source through google, and identified the primary archetype, I assume you read the analysis, and see that this is one of the easier types to save a marriage from. The other questions were based on things you have written here, which admittedly are nowhere near a complete picture. If this is one of the easier types to save a marriage from, this is also one of the easier types for you to reattach to your wife, so long as she is willing. I assume you also read the long term prognosis for you and AP. Unfortunately I am at work, and fortunately for me I no longer feel the need to have constant access to my books about infidelity, or I might go into more detail.

The interesting thing about that book when you really read it is that it is not really analyzing affairs and breaking them down into different types the way it appears to on the surface. It is analyzing the psychological types for the WS, and how they justify the A. The normal details, like EA/PA/ONS/LTA/OLA/whatever are pretty much irrelevant to that analysis.

Whether you save your marriage or not, you still have to sort through this stuff for yourself. I am sure you don't want to save your marriage or start a new relationship, only to fall back into the same pattern again and end up wasting a decade of your life.

I was hoping that getting a different perspective might help me "snap out of it"

There is no snapping out of it.

There is no moment of lightning.

There is no light bulb switching on.

There is no magic spell.

You have to want to change.

And you don't want to.

So if you want to save your marriage, what is standing in the way of you doing just that?

Describe the barriers you are seeing that make this difficult for you.

Cat

I would like to make one observation, not as a slam, but simply as something for you to consider and, perhaps, explore when/if you return to IC.

You're willing to lose a wife rather than give up mementos of a fantasy relationship that really amounts to not much more than fantasy. Why is that?

You might even agree that your relationships, in general, have been more fantasy-based than based in IRL---with the exception of the one with your wife, which made the transition to RL---relatively short-term.

I won't argue "won't" v. "can't" with you; my husband very much looked like a man who just "wouldn't," but really---he couldn't. It took me a long time to wrap my mind around that. It still baffles me on an emotional level, though I get it, intellectually.

As much as he's hurt me and our kids, though, he's in far worse pain. He hates himself, and always has. He went to great lengths to hide this--and did, successfully, for a long time.

I bring this up because I believe you posted, a few pages back, that you hate yourself. If that's the case, I guarantee it's at the core of your difficulties.

Continuing IC has helped my x a great deal. He isn't long on empathy or remorse (read that: he does not experience them; he experiences regreat as it relates to him), and I don't expect he ever will be.

But he's learning not to hate himself. And really, that's important. No one deserves to feel that way about him/herself.

I'm not diagnosing you with any disorder--just hoping you find someone to help teach you to find peace with yourself.

Catwoman wrote:

So if you want to save your marriage, what is standing in the way of you doing just that?

Describe the barriers you are seeing that make this difficult for you.

My wife feels that she cannot stay and keep trying at R unless my feelings for AP and my fondness for memories of AP stop immediately. She is not willing to wait the several months (at minimum) that it would take even if I followed all of the advice here in terms of a new NC letter, getting rid of mementos, new IC, and mental stop-signs. That's her choice and I suppose I understand it.

In addition to that, I have severe doubts as to whether I could ever lose all feelings for AP and fondness for memories of AP even if I did those things. I'd feel like I was misleading BW if I said I thought that would happen.

And finally, I don't know that I can go through those steps. I suppose I could put all mementos, writings, songs, and so forth in a locked box and not open it until I'm better, like after a year or two, as someone suggested I do for my writing. I realize now I am creatively invested in my photography as well. My BW actually thinks I'm a better photographer than I think I am. And my BW never asked me to get rid of the mementos - certainly never demanded it.

But really, my BW's decision kind of precludes the rest.

solus sto wrote:

You might even agree that your relationships, in general, have been more fantasy-based than based in IRL

I would not agree. However harmful it may have been, I don't think my relationship with AP was fantasy at all.

[This message edited by lostone209 at 5:39 PM, August 9th (Thursday)]

However harmful it may have been, I don't think my relationship with AP was fantasy at all.

Oftentimes what is meant by this is not that your feelings at the time of the A were fantasy---they were your real, true feelings. They weren't "fake."

The "fantasy" aspect of affairs, however, usually comes in to play when a WS sees the AP in their best light (and vice versa, of course). Unless the AP and the WS live together or spend lots of time together over an extended period, there usually aren't arguments or pettiness or nastiness. There isn't dealing with kids (I know that's irrelevant in your situation---mine too) or household chores or dirty dishes piling up or being late for work or bad moods or money disagreements, etc. All the stuff that goes along with building & maintaining a life together. Affairs are almost always exempt from that stuff and that is why they are referred to as a fantasy. Most times, the WS and AP don't get to experience each other during the humdrum of day-to-day...they only experience the highs of passion (whether emotional or physical, or both).

I started a response, but I realized it was inappropriate for this board. It was not harsh, but it was very blunt. I will not violate the fair rules of this site or add to the moderators' headaches by posting publically.

It's not scathing or rude or angry. If you want me to send it to you via PM, I shall. Just let me know privately and I will.

My heart hurts for your spouse. She is in a hell entirely of your making and you're unwilling to do anything to make it better. That is so sad.

Cat

To me, this sounds like a reasonable request from your W, this long after d-day. It's a long time to keep putting your emotional thoughts and energy into the OW and doesn't seem compatible with making your M and your W a priority in your life.

I'm sorry R is not working for you.

one of the things I wanted from FWH was to see him go out on a limb, to risk it all to be with me. I didn't want to hear that he didn't want to put in the effort because he felt why bother if we are just going to D.

Speaking as a BW, it's hell playing second fiddle in your H mind and heart. You can only live that way for so long.

it doesn't take months to go NC, to throw out momentos and find an IC. It takes time to make progress on yourself.

Ok, so have you told your wife you are unwilling to try to reconcile yet? You've told us tat here over and over.

Have you told her so that she can move on and work through how to rebuild her life and start over as a single person?

I tell my wife everything. Of course she knows.

Ok

A forum for all Former WS's who have ended or trying to end their affairs and are striving to reconcile

.

FYI, from the forum description.