SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Jrazz. Not sure what you took from my last post that would indicate I'm seeking validation to hang onto the OM, that I don't want advice or that I haven't done an about face and am following the advice given to me here. But I'm not going to surrender to the notion that I was bashing my husband day in and day out and playing the victim and seeking out someone to inflate my poor, frail and damaged ego. That just wasn't he case.

Yes, I'm coming to see where I made myself emotionally vulnerable to this other person by sharing details of my FWH's affair and our reconciliation process. I have never once doubted that what I did Friday-Monday was the wrong thing to do or have I tried to justify it. With each response I'm learning and contemplating and growing.

It's been two days, I'm not where you are in the process.

ETA- To fix typos.

[This message edited by Phoenix519 at 7:45 PM, September 26th (Thursday)]

Phoenix,

I ask this in kindness, sharing a hard learned lesson.

If you were hearing someone else tell your story, how would you feel about it? What do you think the right thing to do would be?

Not to pile on, but there doesn't necessarily need to be bashing of the spouse in an EA. I never bashed my XBH and yet my A was about as A as it gets.

Good for you for deciding to go NC with the OM. Good choice.

Thanks heartbroken.

I'm acknowledging what I did was cheat on my husband. I'm agreeing and implementing no contact. I am learning and accepting that I had an emotional A as well. All of this combined could destroy my marriage. I plan to talk to my husband about it.

Beyond that I'm pretty effin discouraged to be perfectly honest.

Discouraged about what, Phoenix?

Phoenix,

Welcome to the wayward side, I am sure you never pictured yourself over here. I am also sure you never thought you would do this to your H, your M, let alone yourself. This will take time to come to grips with, a couple of days is nothing. Take your time, but I would encourage talking to your BH. You have our support here, and you will do some amazing work here if you stick around. I can also see you down in madhatter.

Welcome, TG

Phoenix,

Speaking to you as a WW, I would ask you to look into how it got into sexting so abruptly after years of being plutonic? Do you recall any build-up? Do you recall any excitement and anticipation in receiving or sending messages?

Do you remember experiencing something fun or memorable and wanting to share it with him straight away, or looking forward to telling him the story?

Did you catch yourself thinking about what he may be doing etc?

Answer these questions to yourself honestly as it may help you understand what was going on. Maybe all these things were quite obvious but an excellent compartmentaliser or justifier is able to push these things down and say well there's no sexual things going on or we haven't said anything inappropriate to each other so it's all good.

I bet you there were moments where you both felt something for the other person, just probably never at the same time. 2 and half years is a long time. It was inevitable that something was going to happen at some point when you share life happenings with that person on a daily consistent basis..

Trying's questions are great!

Here's one from me. You are on SI, and have been for some time.

WHY did you reach out to a man in the first place?

There are 40,000 ish people on here on SI, a lot of which are women. Why a man?

I don't know where you met this OM, but there are so many fabulous strong women here to build relationships with.

I agree that your questions are great trying.

Do you recall any build-up? Do you recall any excitement and anticipation in receiving or sending messages?

If I understand the question correctly I think you're referring to the excitement and anticipation like what I felt when my husband and I began talking/dating. Over the 2 1/2 years, no.

Do you remember experiencing something fun or memorable and wanting to share it with him straight away, or looking forward to telling him the story?

Yes.

Did you catch yourself thinking about what he may be doing etc?

Once the relationship became inappropriate on Friday though, yes. My mind went from zero to sixty immediately. In talking with the OM about it, we both were able to see similarities with what what we were doing and what our spouses had done and we both agreed that it was horribly wrong and could not continue. For me, I think that if it would have continued I would have started to develop strong feelings for this person, and neither of us wanted that.

Broevil

here are 40,000 ish people on here on SI, a lot of which are women. Why a man?

I didn't see gender, I saw someone who was reeling and hurting just like I had and who needed help and was asking for help. He asked for some insight from someone that had been trough what he was going through.

When I discovered my FWH affair, it was the single most devastating experience in my life. I had grown up with a m manipulative and abusive mother, had moved more times than I can count when I was a child through my teen years, and I have been married previously to an extremely cruel verbally abusive alcoholic. My husband brought a love into my life like I had never known and adored me. The first year after d-day I lost so much weight I could wear my daughters clothes and she was 12 at the time. I couldn't sleep, I began to have massive panic attacks and I had a "functioning" nervous breakdown. I suffered from PTSD as well. Through all of that I held onto my marriage and my husband fought for me.

As I said I had never been unfaithful before and I was convinced that "I was not like them".

Even though in this situation I didn't "choose" a man, it would be honest to say that I don't have a single close relationship with a woman, and never have. I just can't relate at all to women.

I just can't relate at all to women.

Why is that?

IDK Aubrie. I've asked myself that questions hundreds of times during my life and it's an answer I long to discover. When I was a kid, all the girls I knew were playing with barbie dolls and I was outside playing football with the boys and riding the trails and shooting stuff with my bb gun. When I got to high school I tried harder, went out for the cheerleading squad and made it and was miserable. So instead of doing that again the following year, I bought myself a 68 camaro and my BF and I spent time fixing it up and going to the beach. Even now, I work with a lot of women and I feel very uncomfortable and out of place because I don't have any common interests with them outside of parenting.

Maybe it's just my personality type or maybe it's because of the terrible relationship I had with my mother growing up.

You wonder why you did what you did.

Itold my husband.. You're an idiot. If you were a smart man you would realize that the depth and severity of my suffering as a CLEAR indication for the love and devotion I feel for you. If I didn't care I would be over it and done with you by now. But I'm here, facing every day knowing seeing you is a reminder of the deliberate choice you made to hurt me. It's not just about you, I took vows and we became one. You did this to US, and until I'm healed you're not healed.

From an old post of yours and nope.. The depth and severity of your suffering is about you. That's why I post and piss people off rather frequently. I wish some would get this.

Why do you think infidelity is treated like such a stand alone? Yes it is a horrific betrayal. So is gambling, alcoholism, DV, emotionally abandoning someone, lying, trashing your spouse, spending money you don't have and hiding it.

But, when you introduce another person, the wheels come off. Why is that? One of the main reason is it hits so many buttons and triggers that fucking awful chemical spa of rejection. That's all about you. Pain is very narcissistic. A drive to feel better that is pretty relentless.

This is why I hate labels for people. Think you're the only BS that's utilizing wayward thought processess? Not even close.

I get along better with men too, but only on the surface. My deep friends are female. The reason? The level of intimacy I share with them. Opening yourself up to that level is a very special thing. Only a very few are admitted and only one spot for a male, with me. My SO or husband.

I too had a terrible relationship with my mother. Don't think that's the reason, though. I'm actually pretty introverted and direct IRL. If a friend asks me if her ass looks fat in her jeans my response would be, "well, they aren't the best camouflage for said ass. Let's find a different style". That's not a bonding moment except with a few others that are same way. There aren't many. Male or female.

So, don't get hyphy with the label and run from hard looks because of the "but I can't be like THEM". Let's start where you felt reaching out daily to "chat" with a male not your husband seemed like a good idea. I believe you said, "we were both hurting"...and how do you handle pain?

Maybe it's just my personality type or maybe it's because of the terrible relationship I had with my mother growing up.

And maybe it's both.

I urge you to dig into this when you're ready.

I so remember having this conversation a long time ago here. I have a "thing" about women too. Or had. Couple people here proved me wrong on my theory.

It's hard for me as well to be comfortably social with other females. I'm very "girly" but it's hard for me to open up and be myself around women. I have always felt more comfortable around men in that sense.

In my case, though, that comfortability and familiarity around men as opposed to women, coupled with my personally weak boundaries, allowed me to put myself in situations that were inappropriate long before I ever committed adultery.

I was naïve in my younger years, not realizing that it's very difficult (if not impossible) for a man and a woman to be emotionally close without one of the two wanting more. After I became wise to that fact, I still chose to disregard it and purposefully used it to my advantage to procure validation and ego-strokes that I had not learned to provide within myself.

Not saying all of that ^ applies to you, but it sounds like you learned the hard way about the slippery slope that occurs when men and women get too close.

I still chose to disregard it and purposefully used it to my advantage to procure validation and ego-strokes that I had not learned to provide within myself.

True. I also think affairs have become a bit cartoonish. Broken people. Looking for ego boosts.

I honestly don't think many people know how to have relationships. The Internet, FB, twitter, online groups. It's so easy to reach out and touch someone. "You"have an interest, hobby, disease, trauma and there's online support groups, fellow hobby sharers, old HS or college people, whatever. That one commonality starts to have far more meaning and an artificial intimacy becomes real because you put effort and time into it. It's like a huge welcome mat we roll out to masses. Y'all come.

Spouses become, or are even further isolated and confined to roles. Handyman, maid, babysitter, chauffeur, parent. Communication becomes news bulletins. Pick up daughter from soccer. Fridge is broken. Car pings. New "friend" becomes where the relationship building energy goes. No need for that work on the current spouse. They're there, after all. Not going anywhere.

Then it's so easy to see every flaw, fault, trait you aren't crazy about in a negative light. That love haze is now soooooo last season.

Relationships take work, time, energy. People don't have unlimited resources of any of those. So put them where they belong. Foster what you have. You won't find time for much else.

t/j

That's why I post and piss people off rather frequently.

and I love it.

ok, end t/j

t/j

uncertainone - are you a writer by trade? Your posts are always so well articulated. Some people here blow me away with their insights.

I am so grateful, because there is no forum to deal with these things in the real world for me, except with my H and in therapy. (And one friend who is sympathetic and supportive, but has no clue what it is like from the inside.) So, thanks for being here and sharing your wisdom.

Uncertainone

I had a few "aha" moments reading your post. I have no idea how to even go about opening myself up to a female. Like you, I'm direct, introverted and the joke with the 8 other women I work with is that "I'm often in a zone". Tuned out to what's going on around me. I don't like idle chitter chatter about what I perceive to be superficial topics. I have to keep my mind occupied almost constantly and I do that by listening to audio books, music, etc while I work. When the conversation turns to me, I typically find that my point of view is vastly different from everyone else's and that telling them about the bitchin 57 corvette stingray convertible I saw on the way to work, or about the interesting book I just finished about the Dead Sea Scrolls is NOT a great conversation starter, especially when they just discussed the great sale they shopped at Vera Bradley. I'm not saying I'm better than any of them, they're wonderful people but I just fail at relating to them. Additionally, I don't talk about emotions or my personal life, EVER with people I know IRL.

I agree with you that pain is very narcissistic. I can't tell you how I deal with it really. I talk to my husband but that only goes so far. He's a man of few words and not a great conversationalist, but he's working on that. I suppose I stuff it and numb myself up and then move on to the next thing that needs to be done for my family, work or the next thing to be learned. I barely skipped a beat when my mother died on Christmas Day two years ago. I felt guilty and still do for feeling relief that I wouldn't be met each day with her demands I could never live up to, her hatred I could never pacify and her manipulation that I never understood.

Heartbroken: A lot of what you said does apply to me. Is it crazy to say that on some level I resented my loyalty and boundaries to some degree after D-day?

I guess maybe I thought that in by helping someone else, I could learn something from their struggle that might help me with mine.

Perhaps you dove into this relationship because you felt he could help you understand a mans point of view and you could offer him a woman's point of view (although you were both betrayed so you couldn't really help each other understand ww behavior). You also had to enjoy the attention he gave you on a daily basis, even if it seemed innocent at the time. You knew that he would be there for you. This emotional attachment for a couple of years easily lead to your 3 days of indiscretion.

I am glad that you realize you have to go NC. Have you already sent the OM the letter? Are you going to tell his W? For some reason I think you will rationalize not telling the OBS because you feel it would be a betrayal to him... (hope I am wrong)

I do commend you for being here Phoenix519