I had what has been defined as an accidental A. It strikes me as both a stupid and understandable term in equal measure really. It by no means means I was passive in the whole thing, nor does it mean it happened by "accident". It happened because I made a whole load of shit and awful decisions that resulted in me moving into an A step by step. But the term does make sense if you look at the A from the standpoint of someone who genuinely did not see their faulty behaviour patterns. Having a causal chat with the AP on the phone about a course we were organising. Then talking about his ex and their relationship - intimate conversation begins. Unaware that I was laying the foundations of an EA just by listening, then consolidating those foundations but empathising. Then spending 1-1 time together on the course, gradually entering into more intimate conversations - you know talking about dreams and hopes; childhood memories; plans for the future. "Bonding" over mutual likes and dislikes - "getting to know each other as good friends". In exactly the same pattern you do when you are wooing a potential partner...
Wake up and smell the coffee. If you were both single then it'd be great, you'd be excited and happy to build a new relationship in this manner. But the kicker is I wasn't. I was married and building "just good friendships" with other men is inappropriate. That just good friend was my new emotional affair partner and all with me being completely clueless. Not blameless in any way, but completely clueless.
It was an EA that turned into a PA by means of kissing. No further sexual acts of any kind occurred. I can only be grateful that my BH caught me when he did, because as much as it pains us both, I have to accept that I suspect the A would have progressed into a full blown PA. Given enough time and opportunity they do, don't they? I wish to God that my BH had never had to witness his wife kissing another man, an image burned into his memories now as the worst sort of nightmare. The worst betrayal. 
The flip side is he exposed my A to me and the world before I destroyed everything.
I say that my BH exposed my A to me deliberately. Up to the point I kissed the AP, I hadn't accepted that I was having an A. I had my own head shoved so far up my own arse I could see out my mouth. Honestly, I would have denied that I was in an A until the cows came home. That mindset was one small part of my problem. Part of the search for the why's into the A.
I, probably like many others, thought that having an A was a term used when one person, in a realtionship is having a sexual relationship with another person. 
I had never heard the term EA, or any of the other terms I have come to know so well. My own mother and grandmother still think that both of us are completely over-reacting about my A. They genuinely look bewildered about the whole thing as if we're making a mountain out of a molehill. My mother couldn't even bring herself to call it an A. When my BH told my grandmother, she rang me and demanded an explaination. I explained what she had been told by my BH was right, I was having an A. She asked if I'd slept with the OM, I said no, kissed him only. She told me that this wasn't an A, just a silly misunderstanding, these things happen in life. We'd just have to put this "epsiode" to one side and carry on together. Ah, the good old british stiff upper lip - or rug sweep as we'd call it on here.
As with many of you here, my FoO play a role in the root causes of my whys. I don't blame them for my choices and actions, far from it. Only I am accountable for those. In examining my upbringing and social experiences through my life I developed a better understanding of how I had learned such peculiar coping mechanisms or behaviours.
I fought with my BH for a long time about the semantics of the term "broken". I hated it when he described me as broken. I felt like a reject, like something he wanted to send back but couldn't. I guess that's exactly how he felt. The more reading I did and counselling we went to, I realised that the terms are not insults. They are not they to apportion blame to one party. They are there as a description or explanation of why I react and behave the way I did. As soon as I started to accept these terms for what they are I started to make progress.
WHY 1: Emotionally immaturity
For as along as I could remember I fought against my grandmother calling me immature. I felt like I'd grown up very quickly, and exhibited very adult behaviours throughout my life, through necessity more than anything. I had a serious boyfriend in my early to mid teens, with whom I moved in, paid rent, did chores, etc just like any other adult. I never made a fuss about traumatic experiences from my mother's own abusive relationships (which included rape of me by her partner) and supported my mother as much as I could. I understood financial poverty throughout my childhood and we made the most of the little we had. I did well at school academically and in sports and music. I got into university and started my chosen career. All of these things made me feel like I was an adult. I couldn't control the anger I felt when I was then accused of being immature. What she didn't know, and neither did I at the time, was that she was bang on - she meant I was emotionally immature.
All these things are common to read about on here. They shape us and mould us as indiviudals. I thought I'd coped pretty well, but what I missed out on was a childhood and natural emotional development to maturity. I can't blame my mother for this, she had enough on her plate. She provided love, sometimes too much of it. What she wanted and needed was a best friend, someone to confide in. What she did wrong was she chose me to do this with. I thought it was cool that my mum was my friend, but what I sacrificed was what I needed most, a parent. Particularly, as I only had one anyway.
I learned by watching a vulnerable, co-dependent person. I vowed never to repeat some of the things she'd done, but I also learned faulty coping mechanisms too. I had no clear role-model for future relationships. I never say boundaries created and maintained when challenged. I envied happy families that I saw, but never spent enough time around these people to emulate their behaviours. Socially, relationship traumas and breakdowns were the norm.
Emotional maturity was something I'd never heard of, but it was the first dip into enlightenment after the A. On a walk with my BH I realised that I felt like a single girl that happened to have got married. I'd changed my status in name, on Facebook, but not emotionally. I never realised I had to.
Consequently I didn't behave like a married woman should. I wanted to be married, because I loved my fiance; but I had no idea of what a marriage really meant. Some would argue marriage itself doesn't mean anything, but for my own purposes I use it to encompass any long-term committed relationship. For me, I always believed that consolidating that committment in front of friends and family was something I wanted to do; the trouble was I hadn't grown emotionally mature enough to recognise what was entailed in that committment.
I knew that marriage wasn't all plain sailing. I knew we'd have tough times. Naively though I thought we'd "just get through them together" and they'd pass. I say naively because I didn't know how much I'd have to adjust and change to ensure we got through these times. I didn't know what working at a relationship meant. I'd always either given up on a relationship or been given up on before, just coasted through really, and when things no longer felt hunky dory, I figured like the old cliches, it's because we'd outgrown each other, we weren't right for one another, spieling out the ILYBINILWY line. I thought if you were truly in love with someone then you couldn't fall for someone else, you just wouldn't. I'd fallen for the fairytale beliefs and ignored the reality.
I'd always been emotionally immature. I was unable to deal with stressful situations and suffered from volatile moods. I still am emotional, but am able to take check of my emotions, and recognise when I'm actually starting to project my emotions onto someone else, or they are doing so onto me; and also recognise when my emotional response is disproportionate, stop and ask myself "why am I SO upset or angry etc?" Sometimes I don't catch myself until after the event, but I'm making progress day by day.
WHY 2: Lack of boundaries
Boundaries was another big one for me. Well, more accurately the lack of boundaries. I can identify strongly with feeling enmeshed with another. My friends always joked that as soon as I got a new boyfriend I developed a whole new bunch of hobbies and characteristics which coincidentally were just like his. Red flag - nah, completely blind to it. We all laughed about it, but I never pegged it as an issue. I quickly became enmeshed with this person, relying on them to make me happy and validate me. I hadn't spent time alone as an individual, well, ever really. I dated from the age of 13-ish until 28 without more than a months break. Relationships "overlapped" by days - in other words, I had EA after EA...repeating the same behaviour over and over again. I always had a reason, a justification and surrounded myself with friends who did not challenge me, and even if they did I'd shrug it off. I mean what did they know about how I really felt?
I didn't have boundaries set at home, nor did I at college. School was the only place I respected them. I wasn't a naughty kid, actually I was very respectful of elders, even kids older than me. I responded well to boundaries when they were in place for me, but set very few of my own. I didn't recognise boundaries in relationships. Things like staying in touch with an ex seemed perfectly normal - it's what my mum did; it's what I was taught was mature and what we all had to do at Uni. So when I met someone who felt it was inappropriate for me to continue chatting to my ex regularly after the relationship ended, I would tell them not to be paranoid and insecure. I couldn't see why they would feel threatened by this person - after all I ended the relationship. We were just friends. Eventually, my refusal to understand and accept what I felt to be as their controlling behaviour would destroy the relationship. I'd feel the possessive nature of my partner increasingly and end up lying by omission about contact with people he deemed to be a threat...you can guess how well this went.
Even then I couldn't understand my role in all of this. I'd discuss it with my mum or friends who thought the partner was over-reacting. I was asking people with the same faulty logic as me. After all, I wasn't having an A was I? I wasn't seeing anyone else. Actually, I was still having EA's - discussing details of my relationship or theirs, entering intimate conversations with another man, and ultimately investing energy into this "friendship" above and beyond my relationship with my current partner.
Looking back I can only hang my head at how my own actions betrayed and hurt my former partners repeatedly. I thought I was abused in relationships, yet I was an equal party, abusing in equal or greater merit, and refusing to accept any kind of responsibility for my own part in the relationship's demise. The same people who took "my side", would console me and my ability to find insecure or jealous men. The reality is more likely that these men were subject to my own warped expectations of a relationship which clashed with someone with boundaries in place. Don't get me wrong, there was fault on both sides, but I have too long shyed away from my own contributions to the problems that stared me in the face.
Learning about boundaries was a massive eye opener for me. This changed my outlook on all relationships I have - family, spousal, friends, professional. Taking steps to change my behaviour patterns and enforce boundaries in these relationships have given me the control I needed, yet struggled to find. I see situations so differently, and react differently. Today I received a happy birthday text message from a male client. Old OktoberMest would have felt buoyed up by the message, grateful that someone thought of me. I would not have bothered to tell my husband - why would you? This would have been external validation so needed to make me happy. I would have likely engaged in text banter, completely unnecessary interactions. Today I found the message and immediately showed my BH. It was unsolicited and it bothered me. I felt uncomfortable with it. I don't know him personally, and while most clients have my work phone number, it was the first time he'd ever used it. It was purely a personal message, without professional enquiry. It struck me as odd and I told my BH so. I have deleted it and not replied. Should any further texts be received I'll politely stop them.
This is the kind of change I feel as a WS in myself everyday. The trouble is, without explaining these situations to my BH each time they occur and complaring the old and new responses I would have had, my BH has no idea that I'm changing. Working on yourself is one thing, but without demonstrating that work to my BS, he has no idea that work is continually in progress.
WHY 3: Poor self-esteem
My mother has poor self-esteem and refuses to admit it. Her relationship with her own mother is toxic - controlling and manipulative from both sides. My maternal side of the family (excluding my mum) often berated the paternal side, for being common and odd. My grandmother even called my lovely sweet half sister, spawn of satan to me once. I sense she has some bitterness in her. The reality is that side of the family has many issues of its own, but they do have a true understanding of what family really means at the heart of it. That bit made me uncomfortable as a kid and teenager and I couldn't put my finger on why. It was just so foreign to me, something other people had and I didn't know what to do with. I watched from the outside, completely at odds with what was happening around me.
Poor self-esteem resulted in attention seeking and the need for external validation. My family expressed pride at my achievements, and if anything lack of constructive criticism was the weakness. I'm not sure if low self-esteem roots started from observing my mother and grandmother, or later on with bullying/abusive comments from her partner later on. I wasn't bullied at school, but not part of the cool crowd either. I have always been my own worst critic and as so well described in "Low Self-Esteem for Dummies" the air would turn blue around me as I talked to myself about me.
Comfort and security in my own skin was something I never had. I started to work on this without realising after a particularly harrowing, emotionally abusive relationship I had. Some friends were very supportive and I had to rebuild my self-esteem from the ground at this point. It is a shame I didn't consider counselling at this point, I'd have learnt an awful lot about my poor coping strategies, but no, after a few weeks I was yet again flattered by attention from another man and started a new relationship. Once the person who was buoying me up, stopped doing so, I'd either look elsewhere for another flotation source or start sinking.
This is exactly what happened at the start of the EA. A compliment here and there, a bit of well timed support when things were stressful and my BH wasn't around for an immediate pick-me up an hey ho, there I was using the OM to validate me. Pathetic and so simple. I can see why this area scares my BH so much.
This work is the most important for me. It is ingrained and so much so I never even knew it. I'm an outwardly confident person - with a great facade. Those who do know me, know I beat myself up and always expressed it was unnecessarily so. I love the developments I am making which give me the ability to believe in myself. Not have to justify myself, but just be ok with where I am and where I'm going. I've stopped putting myself down and shortly after this, I realised that I was bullied, but by a secret, hidden bully: myself. I still strive for great things, but recognise limits I have and I'm becoming OK with that. I was the person that avoided doing anything new for fear of failure. How much I missed out on. I still like to be good at things, who doesn't? But I get more out of trying and learning, than I ever did out of hiding. People respect people that step out of their comfort zone to have a go, they really don't judge you on how good you are first time round. No-one else cared but me, and no-one else lost but me.
I'm sure a few people here remember me saying low self-esteem didn't apply to me. Yeah right. It totally applies to me. It's the thing I think that will take the greatest time to work at, because my bottom line as they say, is so ingrained it's really easy to slip back into old ways. I cried in my appraisal the other day. I was able to recognise that it was about low self-esteem and that's a big step forwards. Next one is to stop crying in front of my boss!
WHY 4: Lying
I've written about lying before. I called myself an honest person. I didn't deserve that title, but I do now. I used to be seen as honest, my tutor wrote a comment in my leaver's book from school "OktoberMest, how will we cope without your brutal honesty"; but even then I lied. I found it easy to lie. I lied to hide my home situation when I was at school; I lied about small things every day "sorry I'm late I was stuck in traffic". I panic lied. I lied to "save face" or fit in (yes I know John Smith...when not having a clue who he is). I justified this with the "white lies" term or by lying by omission. Look, if you're not telling the truth you're lying. It's as simple as that. It might feel like it's easy to lie at the time, but it'll catch up with you and tie you in knots. It'll cause you stress and pain. Honesty may hurt if you have to backtrack and reveal lies, but let's face it, it's not the honesty that's hurting you, it's the lies again. Honesty is easy, it might not be nice, but it's not hard.
I read an awesome book - Tell me No Lies. Then I took advice from someone on here. Just stop lying. So I did and it feels good.
WHY 5: Selfishness
This one's hard to swallow. No-one wants to think they're selfish. The reality is anyone who has had an A is selfish. Hopefully that moves to was selfish. I don't think I started out that way deliberately, hence the accidental A. I didn't seek an AP, most people don't; but these things don't "just happen". A's require decisions to be made. At the start my first group of whys explain how I got into the EA; but once it was blown open and I decided to keep contacting the AP and even met up with him twice, I made conscious and completely selfish decisions.
I put any thought for my distraught, suicidal at times, yet still loving betrayed husband aside and carried on making selfish decision after selfish decision. Yes, I suffered from "fix seeking" behaviour, similar to any other addicition. But succumbing to these cravings came from selfish choices. I find it hard to identify with the person I was then and the choices I made. I struggle to explain them to my BH, because I cannot explain to myself.
Dr Jane Greer wrote a book called "What About Me?" which is fantastic for not only understanding where this selfishness comes from, but in helping to change you attitude to your partner, then sticking point and yourself. I had to understand that not being selfish and being completely selfless is not the same thing. Not being selfish will not mean I change into a doormat.
The selfish part scares my BH rigid too. The fear is that when we're are good it's ok, but as soon as something happens that I want to be selfish about comes along - such as wanting to spend time talking to another man because they pay me attention etc. I'll start the same actions all over again. I understand this, I really do. I believe that the key to stopping this kind of situation isn't acutally focussing on the selfish part, it's all the other parts that allowed me to get to the point where I wanted to spend quality time with someone other than my husband. Doing that AS WELL AS working on communicating what is behind the issues that trigger selfish hot spots, rather than focussing on the time when I was selfish seems like the best way forwards for now.
Is that it for my whys? I dont know. It's where I am right now. I feel like I've got a handle on the main reasons and my own root causes. I think most WS's share a number of why's, it's just our route to those whys that varies. I keep reading and going to counselling and each time I find another possible reason I examine it against myself and see if it fits me. What I do know is that I and we, have come a long way in the right direction.
Apologies for the length, hadn't written for a while - just my ramblings, but I hope they may be of use for someone else. I think it's only after working on the whys and the root causes for a while you begin to recognise why finding this stuff out and doing something about is just so important.
