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Lostone,

I feel very sorry for your BW. She probably feels guilt and feels she let this happen because you flaunted it right in front of her and she didn't stand up for herself. She likely has never stood up for herself in your M. Now she is. Good for her!

You pushed the envelope a little further each time to see what you could get away with. You don't know what to do with yourself now because she is finally saying this behavior of yours is unacceptable. It was always unacceptable she just didn't express that forcefully enough. Many BS do that, at least in the beginning, and then they start to come out of their own fog.

One of the reasons WS can't accept that their AP's are anything less than beautiful, respectable, good, decent people is that their AP are their 'soul-mates' -- they get them more than anyone else does. They mirror each other.

If the WS sees this person as they really are they then have to admit they themselves are flawed or worse. Lostone, you are desperate to not acknowledge anything bad your BW says about your AP because that means you are all of those things too and you invested a lot of time and effort into someone who was not good or decent. You can't face that sort of truth. It's an ugliness that is too dark to acknowledge.

I hope your BW reads this post. I hope she can see that when you defend your AP, really you are just trying to defend yourself because you can't face what you have done....yet. Some WS never do.

She's said she never wants to have another relationship again, so it's hard to imagine that.

Then imagine why a woman of your BW's young age would feel that way. You have crushed her soul. She will never trust another human being on this earth again as she trusted you. You destroyed her ability to love and trust and care and be vulnerable solely by your selfish actions. Ponder what that really means.

Your wife has told you OW "wasn't nice to her" when you weren't around.

OW was flirting with you. Touching you. NO woman should be touching you(getting/giving back rubs..holding your hand,leaning on you,etc) if she's not your wife.

OW shared personal info with you.

OW complained about her marriage and listened to you bitch about your wife.

Again..OW wasn't nice to her unless you were around. Why do you think that was?

OW is in no way a victim here. She is far from innocent. She was not "surprised" by her "feelings" for you.

Look,OW is a fantasy right now. You don't know her. You think you do,but you don't. You have your image of her,that's it. You never truly know someone unless you live with them. You don't have to deal with money issues with OW. You don't have to deal with family issues with OW. You don't have to deal with her makeup and lotions all over the bathroom. She doesn't have to deal with your dirty clothes everywhere. See what Im saying? You've never had to deal with RL with OW.

Your wife has stood back and watched you develop a relationship with OW. She tried to tell you and you denied the truth. So then,desperate to hold onto you and the marriage,she considered compromising herself and sharing you in a poly marriage. Your wife deserves way more than you're offering her. If you cant see OW as the woman who has brought devastation and immense pain to your wife..YOUR WIFE..then let her go so she can find someone who loves her. Of course she told you she didn't ever want another relationship. She's dying inside. Your actions are killing her. But one day,she will realize she deserves to be loved..and she will move on with another man.

How can you have fond feelings for a woman who helped destroy your wife?

[This message edited by confused615 at 7:23 AM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

I've been captivated by this thread. Lostone, I feel like you could have been talking about my relationship with my WH. Honestly, I think you have given me some insight into the way he felt.

Now let me give you some insight into what that did.

My WH carried on a "friendship" that went too far while allowing his AP to become my BFF. There were many times I felt pressured into going somewhere or doing something I didn't want to do, so that they wouldn't be alone. When I found out about the affair it had (allegedly) not turned physical except virtually but it was bad enough. The first thing he said to me was that he couldn't imagine life without either of us.

The way you appear to be torn, he did the same. But when we married we married each other, not additional people. For me there was and never will be room for more than two in a relationship but it appeared to change for him, because he wanted both. And, honestly, I think AP would have gone along with that just to keep him.

When your W says she feels like you are/were trying to replace her, I felt the same way.

I needed my husband to look me in the eye and say that he loved me and he wanted to make it work with me and then set about making his actions match his words. I didn't expect him to just get over her but I did tell him that I wasn't sure I could get past it until he could tell me that he realized he didn't actually ever love her. He took major offense to that.

Long story short, he never did ACTUALLY chose, he forced me to do that. Everyone is right, you have to get off the fence. You have to pick one or the other because to make your BW be the one who has to stand up and leave you because you are being (in her eyes) continuously disrespectful to her, is really just another devastation that is cruel to put her through. My WH somehow had the audacity to being mad at me for pursuing a divorce something he "never wanted to have".

No one, not even your W really, expects you to just snap your fingers and be over your AP, whatever the real or imagined emotions that happened between the two of you happened and they won’t be undone overnight but you have to try and the first step there is to tell yourself, all the things the other members have been telling you. I gave my H a book called, “how to fall out of love” to help him process through his feelings about his AP. He never even cracked the cover.

I’m not going to tell you how you are glossing over the truth, or flat out avoiding it in many of the things you said, or tell you what you did or didn’t REALLY feel about her, or how she is not the innocent party you keep telling everyone she is. I couldn’t convince my H of any of those things and I don’t think you are in a place where you can really see those things either. Just know this. You can get over the AP. You can get to a place where you see her with clear eyes (you don’t have to come to hate her, just not continue to treat her like you are sacrificing some sort of ideal). And you can turn your attention only to your W, but it will take hard work. And if you look at that and say, “I can’t do that” then let your wife go.

Because if you don’t, and soon, you’re going to have to learn how to get over your wife and if you force her to choose you are going to break her heart all over again and make her recovery twice as long.

My fist question, has your wife agreed to give you another chance? If not then all of this is a mute point.

She would if I figured things out. She had basically given up on R, though, because she thought I'd always have fond memories of OW and she said she couldn't live with that.

I think if you look at one question at this point it would be helpful. If you had to choose between never talking to BW or OW ever again. Who would you choose. If it is OW, then let your wife go, even if it causes you pain. You can't have both of them.

I already faced this choice. After D-Day, this is the choice my BW gave me. If I didn't go NC with OW, she would leave and never contact me again. While I was deep in the fog, this was probably the main reason I chose to stay NC. I couldn't handle losing BW completely and never hearing from her again. I felt awful for what I had done to her and didn't want to see her with an awful life. I still wanted to talk to OW, but I didn't because I had to in order to do what was best for BW, basically. This was my mental calculus for months. But it wasn't enough for BW.

I have read everything else posted and a lot of it's useful. I just have a huge amount of trouble processing it. I don't know how to "make myself believe it" as it were. Sometimes I can process it mentally. I understand it on an intellectual level. I have seen the complete pain and devastation my wife suffers and done imago dialogs where she just pours out her feelings and talks about everything she's gone through.

So yes, I know these things on one level. But I have trouble changing what I feel. Sometimes when I get upset I blurt out things I don't really mean but are probably what I'm feeling on a subconscious level even though I'd never say them. It's frustrating.

Thanks for everyone's advice and support. I'll read over everything some more and hope it clicks. I never meant to say that you and BW were wrong and MC and IC were right. After all, I came here and asked because I wanted to know what people who had been through this thought and I appreciate everything everyone has said.

Your BW wants you to want her--not OW. Which is why it is not enough for her that you were "white-knuckling" it through your desire to talk to OW. You said earlier that your BW knows you well. She clearly could tell that you had not (and I think have still not yet) re-connected with her emotionally. Who wants someone to stay with them just because they feel bad about hurting them? And frankly, I don't think you actually feel bad about it, you just know that you should feel bad about it.

You are in a tough situation. I admire your desire to want to do the right thing and your coming here for advice. But I think it is clear from what you have written that you are emotionally detached. Have you always been that way? Was there ever a time that you felt for your BW the way you feel for OW now?

It may be that you can't "make yourself believe it", because you are not ready to accept that you caused a lot of devastation to a person that you love(d). I am pretty sure that my FWH still can't totally wrap his head around some of the things that he did. He feels like he is a good person--but a good person wouldn't do this kind of thing--but he did it, so where does that leave him? The cognitive dissonance is still very difficult for him (and he has come a long way!)

You can't have it both ways--you can't have feelings for OW and protect your BW. You are going to have to choose. Please don't make her pain worse by making her do it.

I couldn't handle losing BW completely and never hearing from her again. I felt awful for what I had done to her and didn't want to see her with an awful life. I still wanted to talk to OW, but I didn't because I had to in order to do what was best for BW, basically.

If your wife is reading this thread, you just told her she's your fall back plan. That you really want to be with OW but are staying because you feel sorry for her.

You are way to deep in the fog to process anything. I'm sorry I suggested that. Its up t your wife to deside whether this marriage lives or dies. If I were her I'd run.

There are some eerily similar themes here to my fWW's A and MOM... wow... very triggery just reading all of this.

lostone--all I can say at this point, is I second the motion that you read "Not Just Friends". What you are experiencing and going through is WHY this book was written. It's awesome, and I wish to god we would have read it much sooner after DDay, and I maybe could have avoided some of the pain that your BW is currently experiencing. It really puts things into perspective.

I'd also recommend you read through a thread I started on this topic in the R forum:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=463413&HL=35512

Some very good feedback in there, especially for your BW.

Good luck, you've got a long road ahead of you, but it's possible to R your M... if you truly WANT it, and are willing to work for it.

[This message edited by DWBH at 10:59 AM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

Do you realize how often you use buzzwords to explain away your actions. Everything horrible thing you've done is described as unconscious, subconscious, you didn't notice, realize or understand etc etc etc..

The root of your situation isn't that you are in love with your wife and another woman. Your main problem is that you are completely in love with your image of yourself. That's why you hesitate to use the word affair. It's an ugly word and I hate using it too. Look in the mirror and say "I had an affair". Seriously-do it.

You've made many decisions that have hurt your wife, but they are glossed over with transcendant, psychological bullshit. You are not the good guy here and certainly not the victim.

Your wife, who is hurting, cries. You don't feel guilt or remorse? No, it reminds you of your mean ole mommy so she has to quit crying. Can you, for a short time, think of her instead of yourself?

You seem to have this golden image of yourself that you want to protect, for yourself. Why are you so intent on maintaining this self-delusion? You did bad things and you will continue to do bad things unless you realize that you need to stop protecting yourself.

Stop trying to find (false) good in your actions. You rented a place for you and the OW--BUT it had two rooms!! We were standing on deck holding hands--BUT we were cold! I was about to bang the OW--BUT I decided instead to ask my wife if it was OK!

Lostone you don't need to get over the OW, you need to get over yourself. The perfect lostone is gone, if he ever existed at all (he didn't).

[This message edited by darkbeast at 11:01 AM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

Why do you have a hard time with the stabbing in the heart imagery, lostone? Have you ever had a broken heart? Maybe not. How is it too abstract? I feel it is very concrete, and it is exactly how I felt and I am sure many other BS's have felt.

How can you possibly have fond memories for a person who stabbed your wife in the heart? This is the part that I feel probably gets to your BW the most and that you refuse to see it as OW doing just that. OW is good, she would never intentionally hurt my BW. Yeah, she would.

You have set OW up on a pedestal. I bet her farts smell like sweet pea flowers. OW didn't realize what she was doing? Puh-leeze. Both of you knew exactly what you were doing and feeling but tried to disguise it as friendship. Compartmentalization and rationalization. I second the motion that you read "Not Just Friends" by Dr. Shirley Glass.

I feel this quote applies to you. unarmbears replied to a topic I had posted about what my FWH saw in his OW.

She stroked his ego and all he could see is the reflection back of his own overwhelming awesomeness.

eta: all MC's aren't equal. We had a great MC, but she knew little to nothing about infidelity. She helped us tremendously in communicating and did what she could with her limited knowledge of infidelity issues. For instance, at 6 weeks out from d-day she thought I should have asked all the questions I needed to ask about the affair. HAH! At 6 weeks out, I didn't even know the questions I wanted to ask! It wasn't until we read "Not Just Friends" and found SI did we really start working on and healing our infidelity issues.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 11:42 AM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

You've made many decisions that have hurt your wife, but they are glossed over with transcendant, psychological bullshit.

STOP. THIS. NOW.

You are distancing yourself from feelings & actions by using this psychobabble.

You don't want to face what you've done & who you are.

I understand this. When my WH/BH wanted to talk about my A, I did this. I realized, "What the hell am I doing???" I DID do those things. I really was HORRIBLE. Then I pictured my WH/BH in my mind during that time; innocent, loving, his face so clean, bright, and smooth. He didn't know all the ways I betrayed him, but he didn't have to-I STILL hurt him even if he wasn't aware.

Even if things were shitty between us at the time (they really weren't), he still didn't DESERVE for me to hurt him like that in pursuit of an ego boost for me. How shallow & empty.

You need to seriously get in touch with your feelings & admit to yourself what you're doing.

Why is it important to know how other people see you?

I was trying to check myself. I wanted to see if my feelings that people understood me were actually true. So I asked them to describe who I am, what I want, what I enjoy, and what they like about me, those sorts of things. And then I checked to see how much that actually seemed like me. I was trying to cut through self-delusion.

Cutting through self-delusion means listening to the not-so-good things about yourself. How you ACT. Which your wife is in a good position to know. Your friends seem to have reflected back to you what you wanted to hear (what I want! what I enjoy! what they like about me?).

Though he is giving it to you very bluntly, I think darkbeast has it right. You have described yourself as jealous, and it seems you can be controlling too (you said several times you would have argued if wife didn't agree to various things). Which goes back to my earlier post about selfishness and self esteem problems.

This is the point where most new waywards give up - they feel the posts that are trying to cut through the wayward's self-delusions are personal attacks. They are not meant to be, since we don't know you personally. However, we can let you know what we have observed over the months of dealing with numerous situations of infidelity. It always seems to come down to one partner who, due to problems of his/her own, decides their spouse doesn't matter enough to stop them from chasing rainbows.

You sounded genuinely upset in your first post, but as I read through your responses, I am beginning to agree that you are going to face significant hurdles in becoming the caring spouse your wife deserves. Those hurdles are in you, not in this situation.

Sadly (because I always have hope), I agree that you should let your wife go. And please don't torture your next partner by telling her you still have "feelings" for your wife, because when it really mattered, they weren't enough.

That is why having a sense of integrity is so important, so that you are not always at the whim of your feelings, which can come and go.

[This message edited by Lyonesse at 11:50 AM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

WS here:

In the time immediately post D-day, I honestly didn’t have too much empathy for how my BS was faring. I am not proud of how I was at that time, but truthfully, I was running for cover. I had been caught and I was like a little rat, frantically running through a maze trying to find a way to have my cake and eat it too. I was angry with BH for catching me. I had an AP who was all the sweetness and light of any illusion and I had a BH who was furious and hurt, who would scream and insult me every night from the time I got home from work until the time I went to bed. I was feeling such a mixture of intense emotions that I don’t think it would have even been possible to define them. (Add to this that my BS was the one who was interested in polyamoury and would alternate between asking me to do it again and screaming at me that I was acting like his torturer – but that’s a different story, and a long one).

One day, in the midst of all the chaos and confusion, the fury, the hurt, the true fucked-upedness, I had a realization that finally brought a little peace to me. I realized that I needed to decide for myself who I wanted to be, I had to do an assessment of where I was, and I had to take the steps to get myself from one place to another.

I decided that I want to be with my H.

I decided I want to be with my children, the birthdays and holidays and day to day life of my kids in close contact with me.

I decided I want my honour – I don’t want to be the kind of person that would deceive and lie and keep secrets. I want, someday, to lie on my deathbed and overhear the people around me whispering about how I was a role model to them, how they could count on me, how I was a strong person of integrity.

Those were the things that were more important to me than life itself.

Maia's Survival Guide worked wonders for me. I didn't like it at first, but somehow, in my heart I knew it was the right thing for me. I am a lapsed religious person, so I eliminated the religious bits and focused on the other instructions. They are hard to follow some days, but because I had my goal set hard in front of me, I was able to fall back on that.

It takes awhile to turn the ship around. You are used to focusing and thinking one way. If you want to save your marriage, you will have to think a different way.

Absolutely do NOT give up hope. You can be the person that you want to be. It is an overwhelming time and the pressure is on to get this crazy thing sorted out quickly. Start with one step at a time.

Who do you want to be lostone?

Inappropriate reply.

[This message edited by Deeply Scared at 2:34 PM, August 1st (Wednesday)]

Reminder to all BS's...

Just because this thread doesn't have a Stop sign doesn't make it a free for all to slam Lost.

Please post respectfully.

Thank you.

darkbeast wrote:

Your wife, who is hurting, cries. You don't feel guilt or remorse? No, it reminds you of your mean ole mommy so she has to quit crying. Can you, for a short time, think of her instead of yourself?

Are you seriously making fun of me because something triggers a memory of childhood abuse?

I do feel guilt and remorse. I do comfort my wife when she is in pain and crying. It's difficult, but I almost always try to hug her. At first, I feared that I would just make her feel worse, but after reading various things and talking to her, I realized that comforting her when she's upset is the best thing to do.

But yes, I do have a hard time with hearing her sob because of my past. You have no idea the things my mother said about men in general, the things she said about me and my brothers, the way she'd abandon us. If we tried to do the things she was supposedly yelling at us for, she'd just yell even more at us. And after the yelling fits, she cried very loudly in a way that sounds just like how my wife sounds as she's dealing with the trauma of what I put her through. She's never cried like that before.

I'm not using this as an excuse. I mentioned it because it's something I've found difficult to deal with. I know IC would be the best place to deal with it, but I don't think it's ok to make fun of someone talking about their experiences of abuse and its fallout.

Yes, I get that I have done great wrong. That doesn't make me less than human.

What I have found distressing about your comments here is your lack of empathy for your wife and her utter and complete devastation.

You also seem very detached from the whole thing, using clinical descriptions and doing your best to distance any messy "emotion" from any of this.

It makes me wonder if you have issues with intimacy (not sex--intimacy). And the reason I say that is because some people who have intimacy issues have affairs as their emotional "pop-off valve" to avoid putting all of their emotional energy and intimacy into their primary relationship.

It also makes me wonder if something else is here, like a personality disorder or personality disorder traits (rather than the full-blown disorder). Your ability to compartmentalize and distance yourself from this is quite distressing--it is not normal. I hope you realize that.

As far as the advice you got to keep fond memories of your extra-marital affair, I find that utter horse hockey. Encouraging you to have "secret" fond feelings for an act that destroyed someone you vowed to love is really bad, bad advice.

I'm not saying you have to (or can) switch your feelings off. Feelings don't work that way. But you have to work through them to get to the real root cause of your affair and dig beyond the veneer of rationalization into the true ugliness of what it was and is: an affair. Cheating.

But exploring in IC why you allowed all of these boundaries to be broken and how that "instant connection" was more a reflection back to you of the person you wanted to be is what needs to be dealt with here. It wasn't and isn't the "wonderfulness" of the AP; it was all about how they reflected you back to you.

You see, affairs aren't about the BS or the OP. They are about how the OP makes the WS feel ABOUT THEMSELVES. In your comments, I noticed that you place substantial value on what other people think of you. This makes me wonder if this sort of "reflecting back" dynamic was a huge part of your affair.

It is not the OP's wonderfulness; it is how the OP made YOU feel about YOU. She was the mirror that reflected back how you wanted to see yourself.

I would imagine that if you dug deep in IC to really answer the "why" of your actions (why you allowed all of those boundaries to be crossed, why you rationalized heavily about what you were doing to disguise the real ugliness of your actions, why you could not be sensitive to your wife's reasonable requests to protect your marriage, among other things) you will find that you have some fairly major things to fix within yourself before you can be a decent partner to anyone.

I hope you can find someone good who can help you on that journey of self-discovery. It is sorely needed.

Cat

I just wanted to say thanks, lostone, for putting yourself out there to try to figure things out for yourself & your life. This thread has been one of the best threads I have read on SI.

Thanks, beachbunny. I find it pretty easy to be open about what I'm feeling - that's probably one of the things that contributed to my getting into the affair. What's harder is being completely honest with myself and acting responsibly.

Catwoman - I just did a little online test for personality disorders the other day and came up negative. I'm slightly concerned about narcisism, as I do possess a few of the characteristics, but I don't at all possess others. My BW thinks I've displayed more narcisistic traits since the affair began, which is apparently common, but that I'm probably not one myself.

I have been worrying about having too high novelty-seeking and then my BW came across some descriptions of adult ADD that fit a lot of the things I've experienced. I was diagnosed with ADD as a child but thought I had essentially outgrown it. Bless her, she even sent me a bunch of articles she had found that might be useful.

And finally, I have been reading Not Just Friends. It's a little difficult cause a lot of the examples remind me a lot of myself and it reminds me of the time I was with OW and I trigger and get fond memories. Oi. But it's also good to see that it's not just cause of how unique and amazing OW and I were together.

I still find it striking how most affairs involve deception but instead I just used brute force, essentially. Before the affair (and during most of it), I was completely open with my wife about everything. I thought that would protect me from any affairs. As the book says, without lying, it can only be open marriage or divorce. Alas, it's heading toward the latter right now, so I guess the author was right.

I just wish I had realized that I also needed to be more understanding and listen to my wife more in addition to being completely open with her. I know I come across as self-righteous to people sometimes. I really thought I was immune to this sort of thing. But I guess everyone feels that way before they do it... I did notice Pride as one of the causes in the other book I read.

And again, thanks for all the replies I even appreciate the honesty of the "let your wife go" ones. And I am especially thankful for those of you trying to help pull me out of this. I want to live in the truth, not self-deception.

But it's also good to see that it's not just cause of how unique and amazing OW and I were together.

Dr. Shirley Glass - saving people from themselves one book at a time.

FEEL the truth in her words, and understand what you need to do to make this right.

I'm proud of you for reading the book. Here's to deeper insight, humility, and the road to becoming a healer for your BW.

DixieDevastated wrote:

I feel very sorry for your BW.

I do too. :-( Apparently I don't show it or my actions don't match my feelings or my other feelings don't match my feelings, but I do feel really bad for what I've put her through.

If the WS sees this person as they really are they then have to admit they themselves are flawed or worse. Lostone, you are desperate to not acknowledge anything bad your BW says about your AP because that means you are all of those things too and you invested a lot of time and effort into someone who was not good or decent. You can't face that sort of truth. It's an ugliness that is too dark to acknowledge.

I've often felt that I cannot demonize the OW because I did the same things. Worse, actually. This may be a little geeky (BW, OW, and I are all geeky...), but I liken it to Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Frodo can't believe that Gollum is irredeemable because he sees himself in Gollum. He hopes that there is still a good person inside of Gollum because he needs that in order to believe that there will still be a good person inside himself.

I hope your BW reads this post. I hope she can see that when you defend your AP, really you are just trying to defend yourself because you can't face what you have done....yet. Some WS never do.

I've showed her your post. Thanks.

(edited to fix a broken tag)

[This message edited by lostone209 at 12:29 AM, August 2nd (Thursday)]