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Xx

[This message edited by Clearingthefog at 1:40 AM, May 30th (Monday)]

Heartbreak is heartbreak. None are easier.

When there are months of lying, manipulating, and deceit, the betrayal is devastating.

My husband didn't have sex with his AP, but he was in touch with her for months, after having promised NC. That deceit cuts me to the bone.

I try to think, would screwing her make it worse?

Probably not. It's the lying right to my face that eats me up.

I don't believe there are accidents in an EA, either. The moment you decide to confide in a person who is not your spouse, you're stepping over a threshold and creating a space for a separate relationship. I believe even when this happens, without physical actions/inappropriateness, the WS knows they're doing wrong. You can feel when you're acting in a way your spouse would not be happy with--even if it's purely emotional.

Emotional affairs are so threatening because of how harmless they seem to the uninitiated. Allowing themselves to be overcome with emotions for someone who isn't their spouse, it takes away from the primary relationships on both sides. It's still a theft of something tangible to those on the losing side of the equation; emotion, time, energy, and resources are diverted from the marriage and invested in someone outside. Maybe no one ever touches, but the emotional breach of fidelity is devastating enough on its own. Just ask anyone here who has been a victim of the EA "only."

My WH had a PA. He claims no emotions were involved. I think she had emotions for him though.

It's awful because of the mind movies, and every time we have sex I think of her. I hate that some other woman pleasured my husband, and she knows what it feels like to be with him. UGH

But it would hurt so much if he was in love with her. Then you have to question his feelings for you.

None of it is easy. This is not what any of us signed up for when we said "I do".

They are equal in devastation. Either scenario has the WS sharing something with an outsider instead of their spouse. The only difference is the risk of std or pregnancy with the PA.

I also feel that women tend to connect sex with love - physical intimacy with the emotional bond to their partners. So even if the husband was not in an EA with the AP, we feel as though there could have been strong feelings involved as women don't separate that usually. For me wondering if he had caring thoughts or had thought he was in love (neither) was as bad as the fact that he lied to me and our kids for three weeks so he could romp in hotel rooms with her.

FreebyGrace....you nailed it for me! While my FWH says there was no emotional connection with her at all, she absolutely had it with him! She wanted him body, mind & soul! And that one foot of hers was out the door and second one halfway out!

I've told my FWH that one of the things that hurts the worse is that she knows what it's like to be with him (even though he says it was only "f'ING with her...not making love)...they know what the other looks like naked....even if it's been 25 years since it happened....it all hurts like hell!

Whether it's an EA or PA or both...it sucks big time! It hurts big time!

My FWH has said on occasion...."it could have been worse.....I didn't LOVE anyone else"!!!

Honestly......I can't think of anything worse than your husband having sex with both a man & woman but hey....that's just my opinion and my story. Betrayal either with ea or pa hurts like hell right?

X

When I thought my WH only contacted both the OW because he was lonely and "liked to bullshit" with them, I was utterly gutted. When I saw that he would start texting them at 6:40am, it was pain beyond belief. That his first thoughts in the morning were them, were they up yet to talk, what were they doing, saying goodnight... Talking and sharing his life from morning until night... I thought I was going to die. It was only much later that I found out it was more than that.

So, I have both to go on and I have to say that the emotional side of it almost killed me. It hurt so bad to know that other women were on his mind and that he would spend all day talking to them, and I'd get a "sup?" text.

Pain is pain, and I doubt any two people react the same. I honestly wish he'd just been horny and banged some whore in a drunken state and not spent 2 years being in OW life emotionally.

I think they're both terrible. Both undermine trust and future intimacy (emotional & physical) in our relationships.

As I guy I tend to discredit EA's to a small degree because I know how many guys will pretend interest and say all the sickly sweet things needed to get to "the prize". Not sure if women play the same game or not, I'm probably not observant enough to notice.

My opinion that an EA/PA combo is probably the worst, but that's just because my experience was with a long term EA/PA, so of course that seems worse to me.

My mind movies lingered with each aspect (EA & PA). Places WW and OM met for either EA or PA are off my places-to-visit list forever.

We're all individuals though. So what is the worst for me may seem less horrible to someone else.

My WW had an EA, which has since progressed into a full blown relationship with AP (OM) over the past 14 months, exactly 1 week after saying she didn't want to be married any more.

In my opinion her actions for even an EA were calculated and I'm certain I caught her before she could escalate to a PA, so "leaving me" was her only way to get the PA.

She has treated our separation as the end of a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship rather than the end of a marriage. It's insulting regardless of if there was an EA or PA. It's heartbreak and it hurts.

The day my WW and her AP (her ex) crossed the line from EA to PA, which she says did not end well . . . she said they both actually agreed that they had crossed a line. And then they decided to continue the EA.

An EA, when the AP is your spouse's ex, is difficult. The questions that arise about loose ends, old flames being rekindled, lost opportunities, comparisons . . . they hurt! An EA can hurt every bit as much as a PA when it cuts to the core of the betrayed spouse's insecurities.

Add physicality to the EA and you feel sunk. You wonder, if it was only "friendship" then why the need for sex, or even passionate or physically deep kissing. (My WW denies passion to this day . . . but I don't see how they did what they did without emotions getting at least a little out of hand!)

And I hate that we are all here too. I was supposed to be enjoying my second year of marriage instead of fighting to save it!

I am devastated that my WW said to me she needs to love someone before she has sex with them, meaning she fell for the OP. So i am dealing with the fact she had a 18-24 month EA and PA. she said they only had sex 4 times during the whole time which i find hard to believe.

After the OP broke the A off, which i only found out about 18 months later she was down and depressed. I thought it was something i or the kids were doing, meanwhile she was mourning the loss of her lover!

I don't believe there are accidents in an EA, either. The moment you decide to confide in a person who is not your spouse, you're stepping over a threshold and creating a space for a separate relationship. I believe even when this happens, without physical actions/inappropriateness, the WS knows they're doing wrong. You can feel when you're acting in a way your spouse would not be happy with--even if it's purely emotional.

Emotional affairs are so threatening because of how harmless they seem to the uninitiated. Allowing themselves to be overcome with emotions for someone who isn't their spouse, it takes away from the primary relationships on both sides. It's still a theft of something tangible to those on the losing side of the equation; emotion, time, energy, and resources are diverted from the marriage and invested in someone outside. Maybe no one ever touches, but the emotional breach of fidelity is devastating enough on its own. Just ask anyone here who has been a victim of the EA "only."

I could not have stated it better. But I also agree that both EA/PA are devastating as infidelity is infidelity.

My FWH knew exactly what he was doing during his EAs. He was a selfish, emotionally needy person with deep FOO issues and at that time, did not give a rat's ass how it affected me.

I think most of the EAs are PAs with better at destroying evidence.

My WH had both. Neither one hurt more than the other. For me it was the non stop lies that broke me down. That's why I quoted Stronger in my tag line.

There are no lessor of the evils.

In my experience, I am having a hard time getting over his EA.

I can't get past the deep emotional pain that he has caused me.

Sex is an act, plain and simple and can be done without emotions. Granted there are no magnets that cause pants to automatically drop and the act to begin. There is a thought process before hand but that is where thinking and emotions may come into play.

An emotional connection to a person is different. There is nothing but thought and emotion. There seems to be more deceit in the fact that it is the persons fantasy that comes into play about the act, not the act. It seems more deceitful because the cheater can say "I didn't sleep with him/her I only pretended...it wasn't real" yet has the same payoff.

I personally cannot get past the lying, cheating apps, meaness etc.

In the end it is all betrayal.

Both are fucking terrible.

WW's affairs weren't what killed the marriage, her lies did.

WH went looking for EA's. They weren't accidental at all.

It doesn't matter what type of A it all hurts the same.

It's not a competition. Pain is pain, and to the person experiencing it, the acuity isn't mitigated by knowing someone else has it worse, somehow.

One of the worst experiences I ever had ---one that graphically illustrated this for me---was when I was in ICU after a car accident. I had numerous injuries, some of them life-threatening. But I was okay. I knew I wasn't going to die, and I wasn't fearful. I felt tremendously lucky.

Anyway, my orthopedist sauntered in to my room (I was given a private CCU room because the other ICU inhabitants were much older men), rooted through the box of Frango mints someone had brought me (that I still was not allowed to eat) and helped himself to a handful, and--with a mouth full of chocolate said, "You think you have it bad? You should see the guy I have down the hall!"

First, I didn't think I had it that bad. I knew I was lucky to be alive. He made assumptions about me and my pain he had no business making.

Worse, his minimization of my experience--which was pretty darn harrowing, even though I was well aware there were billions of people, on Earth, struggling with worse--hurt.

Not only is it impossible to quantify pain, but that the act of doing so can unwittingly magnify the pain of others. I know this is NOT your intent---and I'm not finger-wagging, I promise. This is just an observation, from my experience. Everyone struck by infidelity comes from a different place, with different histories and different scars. Who we are, individually, plays in to our perceptions of infidelity, as well.

Infidelity in whatever form it takes, hurts; that's about as specific as we can get, really.

[This message edited by solus sto at 12:25 PM, May 6th (Friday)]