SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I did say I was fine to agree to disagree. But, I still want to respond to you, because I would like you to at least understand where I am coming from even if it's not how you feel.

It isn't that I don't get that people who are hurting hurt other people or that a lot of the reasons for your affair was that you didn't love yourself. I do get that entirely. I think the root of just about every affair is that we don't love ourselves. Everyone else ends up being kind of collateral damage because of that. I mean, I can say with a straight face that my affair had nothing to do with my AP, my H...it was all my demons. So, I can relate to why you would say your affair had nothing to do with her. It's the use of the word "love" that I was objecting to, and I guess that depends on your definition of it. If it's fond feelings, then sure you loved her. But, I think the true definition of love is that we care for someone's well being the same as ours - a drug addict is incapable of that too. I think that's why people say we can't love people if we don't love ourselves - because when we love ourselves we also look after our own well being and we were not doing that in the affair. I personally believe we are not fully loving anyone around us, regardless of our feelings, it's just intellectually impossible. You see it as diagnosing your feelings, I see it more as a set of definitions with a pass/fail on it.

And the other thing I was doing in my response was explaining why I said "flinch" as you seemed to indicate there was something wrong with me if I was flinching and you were not. I wanted you to know it wasn't some visceral reaction of disgust. More of a "what?" I don't think there is anything actually wrong with anything I said, because I have framed it completely as "my perspective" of what "is healthy" rather than wrong or bad.

I will furthermore point out that I think it's interesting you can see you didn't love your husband at the time, but that you don't extend that to her. You don't need to respond to that but you should think about that a little bit more though because it's confusing. Again, I am pointing things out for your own dissection, and giving you some insight of what I have had to process. If you don't want it, honestly, it's fine. I am unaffected by that, and I don't mean that to sound cold - it's just true. Not everything I say is everyone going to agree with. I personally hate conflict, I have to force myself to speak up when I disagree so it's not the most pleasant exercise for me every single time. I do it if I think it will help and if I believe the other person is able to hear me. I just simply had more confidence that you might be able to hear me rather than seeming to want to shut me down. But, I don't have any control over that, it's sensitive to you I am sure. She was truly an innocent victim so you may really not be able to embrace the level you went to in disregarding her because you truly feel so badly towards what you did to her.

Anyway, I am not interested in trying to force you to see it my way, I never was. I was more hoping for an open dialogue on it for exploring or exchanging of ideas. I don't hold anything against anyone for not seeing things the same as I do, we are all on our own journey.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:59 PM, October 9th (Wednesday)]

Do drug addicts not love their families when they are using?

No. They don't.

It's funny Devastateddee, I had just come back to edit my response to say the same thing.

Drug addicts are incapable of loving other people. It's not that they don't feel badly towards them or have fond feelings towards them, but no they don't love anyone, and they don't love themselves.

HIO- I’m not trying to dismiss your words. There have been so many times you’ve given me food for thought and so many times you’ve been right. You know my story, though you may not have walked my journey. You were first to point out to me how my sexual abuse as a child maybe why my adult desires for sex run so high. I hadn’t thought of that before. Maybe I wouldn’t want intimacy and sex as often as I do had I not been abused. For me though, it’s just all I know. You implored me to dig deeper on this as you were concerned that I may not be able to go further in some recovery/reconciliation. This gave me pause and tho I haven’t spoken about it here publicly or PM’d you, but I have dug deeper. I haven’t confronted my abuser or dig into my abuse any further than current memories permit. I’m not ready for that. I may not ever be. But I have thought about how the abuse has shaped me today. Even in my occupation, working with emotionally disturbed students. In many ways, working with them sets me up to be the object of my students abuse. Many of them are violent predators. I’ve gotten bloody noses, fat lips, bruises, drank toilet bowel water... and I go back each day to these broken kids with a smile on my face and open arms to start a new day. A day where the moment matters and not the past or future. My abuse comes into somewhere... tbh, I haven’t fully pulled it apart yet and there are many attributes I need to look at. My point in all this was not bc I was trying to dismiss you.

But, bc I know your heart and your compassion, rather than going on and trying to explain my confidence, I will take pause here. You are adamantly trying to get me to see something I don’t. I will keep my eyes open and consider it though bc you’ve shown me how much it means to you that I do. I appreciate your thoughts and your time put into me, my recovery, my path. Please continue to challenge me even if I don’t agree this time. As always, your compassion is appreciated and seen. I wasn’t dismissing you to be rude. I simply felt certain. It’s effect though in you, has given me pause. I’ll reflect HIO. Thank you.

I appreciate that FR. it’s always take what you need and leave the rest but your instinct is right- I am coming from a place of caring in this and wanting what is best for you. That is where it was coming from, and as long as you recognize that then I planted a seed for you to grow or not grow.. And you have planted some for me as well to think about.

I absolutely did not at any time, ever think that the OM was special. I thought he was a whiny, needy dumbass and as far as the sex, I had much better by myself. But my A wasn't about ego kibbles or thoughts of love and I never experienced the fog that other WS's talk about. There was nothing that I considered special about, during that time.

As far as loving my BH? I most certainly did, before during and after. I just didn't like who he had become. My relationship with myself was a love/hate relationship. I loved the kind of mom I was, the part of me that would go to battle for those who couldn't and a couple of other parts of me. But I hated the parts of me who lived in fear, who allowed fear to rule of my life, but most of all, I hated the part of me that allowed the fear to make me weak.

As I look back, I wonder if it is possible to make someone, like my BH to feel special, did I ever make him feel special, if I was never made to feel that I was special or believed myself to be? What does it feel like to be special or made to feel that way? What does it mean to be special?

Other than my kids, I seriously don't think that I have ever been special to anyone. Not my FOO, not my BH, just my kids.

I used to make my BH a pumpkin pie for his birthday, his favorite. I made my own crust, I had a secret recipe to mix in with the canned pumpkin, that took me a long time to get just right. I really can make a mean pumpkin pie. Then a couple of years before D-day, on his birthday, my BH came home from work telling me that a couple of the women who work for him had brought in a pumpkin pie for him. I remember saying jokingly that he needed to tell them to back off, that the pumpkin pie was my thing for him. All he said was "yours are really good but there nothing special." I stopped making them except at Thanksgiving.

Anyway, now I have derailed this thread. Sorry about that.

FollowtheRiver -

You didn't derail it. I think it was derailed a page or two ago. What remains seems to be some visiting type stuff happening between some of the WS. It makes me wonder if we should have a thread for that. Just yesterday, I responded to another post in which the person was basically saying, I know I should be talking about this but I don't know what I am to be talking about. Seems like we need a free form thread of some kind. I will think on that some more.

As for your post - I understand your backstory so what you say fits for you and you are a #1 based on BSR's scenarios. You don't post that often, but here is my observation...outside of maybe the last post I read from you where you husband was supporting your trip, the one that sticks out before that would have been when he seemingly was struggling with anger again. I seem to think you all went out on a boat, but I might have that wrong.

Anyway, as I read this, it makes me wonder a couple of things -one, are the resentments piling up or do you just have some regrets over some things but not others? Or do you really see marriage having a different function? What I mean by that, some people feel marriage is a partnership and the "special" is not what makes for a good marriage. It sounds like to me you long to feel appreciated, especially in your pie story. I don't really think any of this has to do with infidelity at all, more the state of your marriage in general. I guess I am asking - where are you in all that? And, if it's too personal, do not feel you have to answer. I just think sometimes after all the work put in and all the investment - I wonder if years out that gets weighed in the whole picture of staying versus going out on one's own if the quality of the marriage was poor before the A and then moving forward it's just somewhat better? Please know I am asking to understand, not because I think I know the answer or I want to judge anyone else's situation.

IDK if I am getting it then. It was special, but it isn't anymore? Or it still is? If it is that it still is, how can you still feel special about something that honestly when I look back on it and think of who I was and what I did it is more disgust? I mean doesn't the path and intentions just negate anything "special" about it? To think of it being special, I just want to vomit. Though I know at the time it had to be "special" just to get the attention or I wouldn't have been doing it.

For me- it was special great amazing at the TIME. Barf here please.

Now I could use the word ‘special’ to mean significant or different than usual. It was so different than my usual it almost broke me but rather shaped into a better a person. The person I am today.

Had not such a significant, special thing happened, I might not be here today.

I am a special education teacher. The ‘special’ doesn’t mean amazing education. Or great education. It means different than usual.

I don’t know who you are directing your question to zug. For me, no it was not special or amazing. It actually disgust me to think about it. Even about who I was while doing it. At the time was I under the illusion it was special or amazing? I am not sure I thought it directly about the sex. But I was u see a grand illusion that I was madly in love with the ap. I know it was false, and I deeply hate everything that ever transpired between us. I can’t rewrite history of who I was at the time and as a result what I was feeling, but I do look at it with disgust and loathing and humiliation now.

I noticed that owningitnow and followthe river had maybe a similar view - but they both had revenge based affairs. Followtheriver wasn’t getting revenge on an affair she was getting revenge on all the anger and mistreatment. Those who were more limerant like me knows they were seeing something that was never there, and you are more the cake eater type who probably falls under a 1. But I don’t think what I am saying makes me unremorseful, and I do believe that the only difference in what darkness falls is saying is she easnt limerant she was in love at the time. I don’t think that means you can’t be remorseful over the pain and destruction that you caused or that you still feel in love with someone. Anyway that’s my synopsis.

Foenix hit the nail on the head. Of course the sex and whatever else each of us got from the A was special AT THE TIME. It’s easy to look back on the A now and dismiss those feelings as disgusting. But to say that they were anything other than wonderful AT THE TIME is disingenuous at best.

Otherwise why would you willingly risk everything; you and your spouses health and marriage, your life and integrity? Most of us have grown since our A and recognize how toxic we were and how damaging the A was. But while we were in the thick of it, those emotions and feeling were real to us.

By all means I in no way ever said anything about it meaning any of you weren't remorseful. That wasn't me who posted that.

Zugzwang,

It’s a good question. And one that’s hard for me to explain.

I haven’t laid eyes on the AP in almost three years—he no longer works at my place of employment. When he crosses my mind, it is without a sense of longing or nostalgia or desire to see him. So, I would say that currently, I have neutral feelings for him—he’s just someone that I used to know, someone that I was in love with.

I think my particular disconnect with topics like this is that even though I obviously was aware I was having an affair, I never really saw him as “the AP.” I just saw him as my ex, who came back, who I still loved, and saw it as a continuation of our “relationship.” I can’t say for sure, but I suspect I’d have different feelings about it all had he been a random guy I’d just picked up on the side.

I would have to agree with you there. I have noticed that about waywards that come here from affairs with exs. I would have to believe there was love. There was feelings for who the AP was. The AP did matter. Even if the reason for having the affair were more than about the AP. I just think from my perspective and any wayward that disconnected from their BS. When I married my wife I loved and valued her. I began to take her for granted and to take advantage of her. I saw her in a selfish way of object love and value. When I became less selfish the feelings I had before I took her for granted came back and then some. So, why not waywards pick up where they left off with exes? I would think they would be able to connect back into that relationship and love they had in the past even if they have forgotten or chose to forget why they weren't together anymore anyways.