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I can say that I have thought of other men in the terms of "he is attractive". I've admired an attractive man for that alone. It never crossed my mind what he was like in bed.

I thought my husband did the same, but I have found out since that this is not the case. He has said that he has thought of women naked etc... I have brought this up on these forums before... He says it is a fleeting thought.

I think I was shocked on dday because i was ASSUMING that my WH was just like me. We all know what happens when we assume.

For awhile after, I started to look at other men in this way. Mostly because it never occurred to me before. I have found it kinda exciting. If I told my WH this, I really don't think he would care. He would think it is normal because he says that he thinks it is natural.

I'm not sure how I feel about all this stuff. I have contemplated leaving in the past two years wondering if there is someone who doesn't think like this...but in asking around, it seems those who do not are few are far between.

....this hardwiring difference between men and women should encourage SI female members. I am not unique in this regard....there are men all around you that find you attractive, if just for your physical beauty. It is more challenging for men to "show" women that part of them that women fantasize about....the emotional strengths and the actions that show that take more time then a passing glance does.

Interestingly enough....I can see how to show that side of me easier and easier, quicker and quicker..is this me becoming a "playa"? Laugh

I believe my wife's AP is quite skilled at that....he is reportedly into another woman. I guess it plays into motive...that defines if what we do is either being genuine or a player....much like a woman dressing provocatively could be a tease or simply feels good by dressing a certain way.

To be sure, I notice woman who dress conservatively as I do provocatively....yep, I am a simple, basic man. I am smart enough to have established boundaries....I am grateful for boundaries.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 7:33 AM, October 17th (Thursday)]

Absolutely...to be honest I was pretty ripe for an A myself for a couple years before Dday. I would like to think that if an opportunity arose I would have made the right decision but I am grateful I was never placed in that position.

Same here...and I did have an opportunity, ironically enough it was during WH's (unbeknownst to me) A. I did nip it in the bud while we were still in the "hello, how are you stage?" but based on things I have faced about myself during therapy if I had known about WH's A at the time I would not have walked away. I would have jumped in with both feet, never mind slippery slope. No sexual fanatasies though. Mine were all about being treated as the woman I am (not mom, not wife) by a non-specific man who challenged my mind, spirit and emotions. Sadly WH did not do any of that, he was a black hole that sucked up everything around him and and demanded more while giving nothing back. He is changing all that though.

Never. I only fantasized about a better M.

If I see an overly attractive, look at me, kind of man, I generally think he is a tool unless he carries himself as if he is unaware of his attractiveness. A bias ...maybe.

Interestingly, speaking as a women, I find a man's mind to be the erotic thing.

One of my quotes on another social media site is this...

"Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I am yours forever." ~Anonymous

Although my husband would be described as very attractive (he is often told he looks like a certain celebrity), he is very unassuming. And his mind is what really attracted me. And I can honestly say, that I once fell hard for someone who was not very attractive physically but mentally he was captivating.

So I guess at this point in my life, in order for me to really 'notice' a man, I would have to know him pretty well on a deeper level which would be a boundary issue to say the least.

I do wonder now, though, if I have a suppressed sexuality. I wonder why I never had sex just for the thrill of sex with someone I just found attractive. Why did I have to have feelings?

Yes.

I never would have cheated on him though. After my step-DD died, when my H was in such an alcoholic suicidal funk, and the world only cared about him (even on SI when I talked about it, some members would reprimend me and remind me that losing a child was 1000x worse than having someone cheat on you, not realizing both happened to me (she was my step-DD who had lived with us part of the time) and in fact he was still cheating on me, but I didn't know that then so members here didn't know it either... and it seemed nobody cared what I was going through...I didn't even know he was cheating on me at the time.

I just remember those awful times, sometimes lying in bed at night some late nights when he was at some bar, just wanting to go where I used to go dancing before I had met him, the place I met him actually. Just wanted to dance with someone to feel their arms around me. I just wanted a hug. Really it is all I wanted was a hug and some comfort from a man. But I didn't do it and would not have. As far as fantasizing beyond dancing and having someone hug/hold me, I guess it didn't really go further than that.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 8:33 AM, October 17th (Thursday)]

I am hopeful that this new part of my fantasy life, the "relational" part of it, is me emotionally maturing past the teenager stage of the physical attraction men have to woman.

So I don't think fantasies are a threat to a M...as long as boundaries are sufficiently in place and the person having the fantasies are emotionally mature enough to learn from them...put into practice parts of then into their real life M. This means expressing needs and desires to there spouse.

I fantasized about passion and desire. My H was removed from those eventually because our problems were pretty big, and I felt neither of those things from him.

I think I can see those as an unhealthy thing now, kind of 'priming up' for the real thing - cheating.

I think there is something wrong with me, because I didn't/don't.

I do notice an attractive person male or female. But thats about it for me

I fantasized about passion and desire. My H was removed from those eventually because our problems were pretty big, and I felt neither of those things from him.

I think I can see those as an unhealthy thing now, kind of 'priming up' for the real thing - cheating

.

Hmmmmm interesting thought eachdayisavictory.

My wife never experienced heartbreak, never been dumped,, never experienced relationship passion in a relationship..,she has expressed concerns in MC that I showed her love more then she showed me. I, too, wondered if this played into her choosing to cheat.

I know she is capable of feeling passion as she did when in her A. Yes, it was based on lies and deception but the feelings were real.

She is changing and recognizing parts of herself just like I am.

Why was this lack of passion on her side of our M acceptable to me for years? Why was it to her? FOO issues are a big clue to both if these issues.

I think one reason I regularly asked my wife about past boyfriends, if she had fantasies and what they were about, and why I asked her what type of porn she liked ... I was trying to ascertain what she was attracted to what turned her on, so that I could help her satisfy those likes and desires and turn her on.

Unfortunately, whatever she shared, my own hardwiring biased me and I fixated on my physical looks, size and technique.....almost completely missing what really turned her own.

In not taking credit for her cheating....just seeing my own faults.

My own bias combined with her "holding back" left me to my own accord. I did the flowers thing, complimented her physical beauty, arranged schedules so her girls night out cold take place.....things I thought were building intimacy and a healthy M.

But my motives were not always pure and she was not always emotionally available....tied to FOO issues.

Dang....R seems so daunting at times....so many things to keep in mind, so much hurt to overcome.

But the A was not a deal breaker and I am excited about my growth still Andy wife has not filed yet....so we are still R.

God be with us all.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 10:11 AM, October 17th (Thursday)]

If spouses can explore and understand each other, the reward must be fantastic....right?

This is the " exciting" part to me. Would love to see what this feels like with my wife....would like to feel this joint passion with a woman sometime in my life.

It takes two in an honest relationship to experience this. I could not have done my "honest" part had I not changed. This ties into the excitement I spoke of earlier.

I have never ever in my life ever fantasized about a man ever. To the op--NO! there is nothing WRONG with you. I have just been an accepting type of person so I never fantasized about anything in our marriage either. Which to me is different than thinking, and saying, "I would like you to buy me flowers" etc.. I tell H what I want but for whatever reason he just doesn't do the the things I specifically say to do...

sexy to me is man doing dishes for me or cleaning for me etc...once my husband went in the store to buy my baby diapers. OH MY GOSH! to this day he still talks about how all the women just flocked to him...lol. Yes, apparently women think men buying diapers is sexy lol...its the idea of a man thinking and doing something for others that turns women on..of men taking care of their families and children that turn women on. I had a friend that had an affair on this guy who took his daughter to ballet class all the time...women love that a man takes care of the family and provides--that is what women find attractive.

Otherwise--see all these responses! Almost all the women said that emotional needs are what turn them on. That is why in my op emotional affairs are so psychological damaging. I hate that my H has had multiple emotional affairs--these OW had the desire to take my H away from me emotionally and often times they were very successful. He is also a pro at giving other women these types of things...on the contrary then I was left vacant and my own emotional needs were not met. I try to explain this over and over again but H doesn't get it. And then there is sharing emotionalism and then it turns to love and presents and being there in the middle of the night, and texts in the day and listening to them talk, and writing poems and writing songs and all this crap--that OHHH it isn't cheating at all! Overall i really think that women crave with the passion that you are describing blake of this emotional fantasy life .

I never did this at all to anyone but feel entitled to my own husband's heart and soul. There are "bed" issues too but by far the needs that are most important are the emotional ones.

I had a couple attractions, none of them serious, but a couple enough so that I thought: "Uh oh, Danger Will Robinson!"

My mother was an adulterer, and so I think I was more guarded/rational about it. In fact, the one person I got an Uh Oh with looked a lot like her OM. Creepy. So, it was easy for me to see.

I can say I honestly very rarely fantasized about others sexually - maybe 3% of the time while alone, and never during sex with H. Even when alone, it always made me feel guilty.

I am not sure H knows this, and I think he thinks women are more like men. But, my "attractions" never felt like they were about sex, really.

[This message edited by bionicgal at 2:57 PM, October 17th (Thursday)]

My H and I often talked, before our affair mess, that we both used fantasy during sex. Neither of us fantasized about a particular person, but neither of us was able to O without some kind of sexy story in our minds. We both consider it an affair related loss that we struggle with having a fantasy life now, because of the trauma of our affair mess.

Very interesting stuff. I must say though, since blakesteel responded to my thoughts, that I was/am dealing with the sexual abuse of my brother to myself and two sisters for several very young years. So, my fantasies always stopped at the passion/desire, because that's where I felt safe - not beyond that.

Now that we're both working on ourselves and our M, we have found ways to support my safety during sex - and let me tell you - I had NO idea how great sex could be.

1 in 3 girls, and 1 in 6 boys have had a sexually abusive event in their lives. Imagine how many of us are managing that, and what that means for our relationships! Crazy!!

No. My H walking into a room made me weak at the knees, I had no fantasy about anyone but him.

If only that feeling was mutual...

think men buying diapers is sexy lol...its the idea of a man thinking and doing something for others that turns women on..of men taking care of their families and children that turn women on

REALLY? 'Cause, like... I did all of these things, and yet my W still decided to go and boink another guy.

Seriously though, as it relates to fantasies. I have them. I have had them for a long time. DDay was 4 years ago. Lots of emptiness since then. Lots of faking it. Lots of feeling alone.

What did I fantasize about? A woman who treated me right. A woman who "got" me. A woman who shared my values, who was a good communicator, who was caring and selfless, who was intelligent and deep. And a woman who hadn't taken everything that I had given to her and flushed it down the toilet for a few nights of hot sex.

Ugh.

Hi ontheslope....you were most likely joking about you changing diapers but your wife still boinked another man....but thought it worth reminding that nothing a BS could do would have stopped a WS choice to commit adultery.

I do see many women who would value you, value me for who we are. We both thought that our wives agreed to do this, were doing this. We were wrong.

But, as proof to this post, there ARE women who would value this, who would actually do this with us.

I pray Gods will be done in my life. I did pray for my M to R...but have come to realize that is a selfish prayer, and one that infers to God that I somehow know what's best for me over His knowledge of what's best for me......so i am moving towards being fully open to Gods plan for my companionship for the future.

There is a need for men to step up....I have not done this to my full potential in the past, I am figuring out what that looks like and am doing so.

God be with us all.

....this hardwiring difference between men and women should encourage SI female members. I am not unique in this regard....there are men all around you that find you attractive, if just for your physical beauty.

Not necessarily. There are some of us here *raising hand* who are not fantasy material, physically at least. It doesn't encourage us to know that men checking out women is normal, because we're typically NOT the ones being checked out! Before our husbands, people weren't lining up or checking us out, and once our husbands cheated, we knew even more concretely that we were the ones "settled for" instead of fantasized about. But how sad is it that a sense of specialness comes from another person's reaction to us? It really shouldn't. It gives someone else too much control over our sense of self-worth. So we really should just set ourselves free and stop worrying about others' reactions to our looks/confidence/attractiveness/etc. Less pressure to perform if no one is watching.

I've read the many threads on the internet about how men "settle" for a less attractive woman (and I'm sure there are threads stating the reverse as well - that women "settle" for less attractive men - equally hurtful no matter what gender), how she's less likely to cheat because she has fewer options, how the "hot" women probably are "entitled" and not "women of virtue" etc etc (actual comments from a thread I'm reading right now). The woman he settled for wasn't the one he fantasized about; that was someone else. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called "settling".

No matter how you look, if your boundaries are strong, it can lead to you valuing things that are beyond the superficial. When I betrayed Mr Silver, it wasn't because I suddenly had more options. It was because I violated my own boundaries. My looks didn't suddenly become more valuable. It was my crap boundaries that got "attention". I looked the same physically; it was the boundaries that had changed. And I wasn't looking for "validation" of my attractiveness. If I was, I wouldn't have chosen my extremely abusive ex. I was looking for him to validate my UNattractiveness by abusing me some more.

When looks stop mattering, you realize it's the other things that are much deeper. Others value you for being a good listener, gardener, data analyst, whatever your passion and craft are, and you learn to identify yourself with that instead of getting stuck on the things you cannot change - particularly your looks. In theory that should mean it matters less that people don't check you out, since you know your depth as a person. But sometimes we struggle with NOT taking it personally when our other halves can check out others and not us. Then the "just because I check HER out doesn't mean I don't love YOU" sounds like an apples-oranges statement ("just because I check HER out doesn't mean I don't check YOU out too" makes for better context). So we're better off not caring about looks or searching for validation at all.

I see so many people in this thread whose fantasies are about how a person treats them, instead of about the fantasy person's looks. There is something to be said for that.

Ok I must be the only female here who is "wired" like a man, because yes I did fantasize about other men, and it wasn't about them buying diapers or anything to do with Brad Pitt either. Also had nothing to do with anything my H was or wasn't doing. Just being honest. It was never when he and I were having sex together - just when I was alone.

[This message edited by JanaGreen at 12:17 AM, October 20th (Sunday)]