gc:

Strange development, indeed. Though not, either.

I think that affairees that go off and get married like that and have families (even in cases like theirs where there already WAS one) never learn the difference between romantic and real love. They think that the romantic love is all there is, and since that's often so fragile a construct (especially for people in selfish persuit of their own "happiness" at any cost), they have 2 pile on responsibilities - like new family - 2 prove their commitment (2 themselves as much as their FOP [I love being able 2 use that acronym!]). In the long haul, it could be an unbearable burden - unless the FAee's can avoid deep thoughts indefinitely (which some do manage).

In your xW's case, it's hard 2 imagine sustaining the fairy tale with the constant reminders (in the form of car4love's kids) that they destroyed a family 2 persue their happiness. But who knows? Maybe they'll manage 2 beat the odds? Yeah, right.

FAR: I can sympathize. My W and I are back 2 sleeping in the same bed 2gether these days, though we've not been intimate in a while now (and I can't imagine it). Since she got back from OOSP last weekend, she's been friendlier than over the last 2ple of months. I get a faint sense that she's finally starting 2 realize what she stands 2 lose. But since it's no sweat off my stones 2 be kind (not 'nice') 2 her, I continue being kind. Firmer, and vocally though, about what I'll tolerate.

One thing I noticed even more this time than previously, when she'd been gone, was that I wasn't looking forward 2 her re2rning home. And so, when she's goes 2 teach her field class in 12 days, I most assuredly plan 2 enjoy my time alone while she's gone.

"Doing things" the way I have done them, has been beneficial for me and my family in the long haul, but it's not an approach I'd ever recommend for someone younger than I, or in a shorter term marriage than mine (30 years), or dealing with a shorter, though more "full blown" affair than my W's was. I can definitely see the love bank draining now. And for those for which that's a concern, I would recommend some method approach in dealing with that before it's empty. But in my case I think that I can re-fill it if and when my W truly commits 2 our M and 2 NC. At this point, though she's "nice" again, she's done neither.

-ol' 2long

One thing I'd like to add is that the common theme here seems to be "searching for that illusive happiness from without".

All your wives (or xw's as the case may be) were never that happy as individuals or as a 2unit (2long's term)...and they never realized that you cannot find happiness that way, nor can you love...not truly.

I've said it before on here and I really believe that when things come too easily for people who are on the self-centered side of the spectrum to begin with they look for ways to destroy, so that they can rebuild.

Your wives all had pretty easy lives with husband's who were faithful, hardworking and loving...when what they needed was a struggle. So they went out and found what they need for their soul growth work.

My little sister just re-afirmed this for me in telling me that when she remarried her husband (after she divorced him while in an affair/bar hopping mode) he took her back too soon, and way too easily.

15 years later, 15 years of her being miserable albeit remarried to him she finally "gets" it.

She said she would have gotten it a lot sooner if she had had to work to get him back...maybe suffered a little.

She's getting it now, but only because she can no longer stand her own unhappiness.

Gray, in your ex's world, she is not going to be happy and I fear that before this is all said and done her life is going to get pretty bad... unfortunately she will have a new baby which will suffer the consequences unless she can come to terms with what they have done.

You and car4love's happiness is on the horizon now...I don't think the ex's is.

And I take no pleasure in saying that, regardless of the pain they have caused. No one wins in affairs, as we say around here...everyone pays the piper eventually, even if their pain gets hidden in substance abuse, illness, accidents, financial ruin...an inability to self-actualize or find inner peace.

I feel sorry for people I see like that and I wonder what it was they never came to terms with. What amends, both internally and externally were they not able to make...what forgiveness both internal and external were they not able to give.

weaver:

Rather well said, I'm "afraid."

I used 2 wonder if certain WSs, particularly those in either LTAs or serial cheaters, have a screw loose or something that allows or enables the A 2 happen and go "unchecked" by facing reality. Never mind whether I could have done "more" 2 help my W face the consequences of her choices (I don't really believe that any lessons I could "impart" would have helped at all, or changed the pace of her growth, such as it has been, at all - she needs 2 choose 2 learn from her experiences and at her own pace, period).

These days, I wonder if it might be a whole bucket of bolts missing, or an entire hardware store inventory that hasn't been counted in a while...

End of Home Despot metaphor!

"Life is a weird place" - Mrs 2long

-ol' 2long

Weaver, having been on that side of things, as well as on "this" side, I think your observation is one of the truest of any I've read. The "fight," the struggle to learn and grow and become, is important to all of us. Male or female, we must all have challenges in our worlds in order to truly grow.

I don't like all of the things that I've done in my life. A few of them I name "sins," and I don't do that lightly. I believe that those things were truly evil, and evil that I knowingly committed.

And I also know that something in them was desperately important.

I hope that I have learned from those destructive and insanely beautiful things that I did. I never want to have to go to those lengths to learn and grow ever again.

OT:

Not that I'm in2 numerology or anything, but I just had 2 2uote this verse from this song by Genesis 2day:

"VI. APOCALYPSE in 9/8 (CO-STARRING THE DELICIOUS
TALENTS OF GABBLE RATCHET)" - Genesis

"666 is no longer alone.
He's getting out the marrow in your backbone.
And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll,
Gonna blow right down inside your soul.
Pythagoras with the looking-glass, reflecting the full moon.
In blood, he's writing the lyrics of a brand new tune."

Weird, huh? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-ol' 2long

Regarding the "happiness is impossible for affair partners" thesis:

I'm not convinced, though I'd prefer to live in a world where it's true.

Take someone off the street. Tell them people who have affairs and abandon their families and loved ones cannot be happy. Know what you'll probably hear?

"Well, my [relative] has been married to his/her AP for [large number] years, and they're pretty happy."

GC

...and maybe they are.

But we happen 2 believe that ol' gc will be a he11 wholeova lot happier in a few years than they will.

That's jut my opinion. I could be wrong.

-ol' 2long

I'm not worried about myself, buddy. Just being argumentative.

GC

I'm glad for what happened to me. I'm glad that I was brought to my knees and forced to undergo a complete examination of myself and my life, and all choices I have made.

I am a person so much better than I was, and I wouldn't switch places for anything in the world with someone who has not had to examine and change about themselves what I have.

I have been blessed in ways I cannot explain because I was hurt in the ways I was.

This is the difference Gray, and why I feel incredibly happy and at peace...I have learned fogiveness both of myself and of others.

If no one had ever hurt me, how would I have learned to forgive? Why would I have ever had to look within? Why would I have ever had to learn to be happy inspite of what was "done" to me, or what was not given to me?

I have one couple I am friends with, I was friends with them before they married each and were married to other people. They were, before they retired, very high up in the government agency I work with...and both were profoundly unhappy in their marriages. They both tried very hard for years to make it work. Her husband was an abusive alcoholic type and his wife was a self-centered nasty little materialistic type.

When he left his wife, he actually had to take a three month leave from work he was so distraught over his decision to divorce. He had begged her to go to counseling when he found himself falling for his female co-worker and she refused, as she had for their entire marriage.

My female friend also tried for years to get her husband to go to counseling and he laughed at her for it.

Yes, in their case I believe they are happy now, thank God!

But they underwent much personal struggle to get to the decision to divorce their spouses and marry each other. It was in my opinion, and most who know them and their ex's, the only responsible and self-loving choice they could have made.

Was this the case in your ex's affair? Nope.

But they underwent much personal struggle to get to the decision to divorce their spouses and marry each other.

Who wouldn't make this claim?

I know a lady who is on her third marriage. She says she's very happy........ for now.

SS

It wasn't a claim they made, it was an observation from years of knowing them both and watching them struggle through bad marriages.

I know what you are saying though Gray, as all affair partners would make this claim from a perspective of self-justification and re-writing marital history.

My friend is an incredible person who left work every night and went home and cried silently...for years.

And he begged his wife for years to get counseling with him.

It was not a decision taken lightly or from a place of adultress fog.

And I would bet that neither one of their ex-spouses have yet looked within to examine why their ex's left them. I would bet they are still living it up at the bar's telling everyone who would listen what jerks the ones who left were.

I shouldn't have posted their story here on this board, but you asked why then if guilt always seeks punishment are some people happily remarried...well, I just wanted to give the one example I know of where it worked out.

To be fair, there are people in abusive marriages who would probably be much happier if they were out of them and married to someone who was not abusive.

That's one of the things that bothers me about advice given on this web site. We usually only hear one side.

There is a difference between abuse and being ignored. There is also a difference between those who try for years to fix their marriage but fall into an affair, and those that leave on a whim (or whatever you want to call it) the instant something bad happens in their life.

One of the big problems is what Gray said - "who wouldn't make this claim?

Most who end up in affairs tell the same story -

It's interresting to me that 2longs W still brings up that she felt ignored 15 years ago as to why she needs to have RM as a friend now. There are times when it's easy to see fog for what it is.

I think we need more time around the campfire.
Maybe I'll go camping.

SS

And yes SS, who knows for how long...

So I mostly worry about myself and not too much what others are up to anymore.

If I had an abusive alcoholic spouse I would not have tried as long to make it work as she did. I wuold not have gone home every night and cried...I would have left years earlier than she did.

But I believe more in personal responsibility than I do marriage at any cost.

I have a resonsibility to be a beacon of light for my family as well as the strangers I meet. How could I do that if my spouse was sucking that light right out of me?

And he did not try to destroy his pregnant wife and young toddler, his children were grown...years he suffered and tried to make it work with her.

Are you proposing SS, save a marriage at any cost? At even the cost of yourself?

Yes, that is the point I was trying to make. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

We posted at the same time, so I didn't see this when I questioned your previous statement...sorry.

Weaver - The lady I was quoting was first married to a good friend of mine. He and I grew up together.

When they divorced she told the Judge (and reporter friend of mind looked up the court records and told me what the transcripts said) that he was good to her, and provided for her, and didn't abuse her, but she just didn't love him, and wanted to divorce.

That's why I said what I said about her. She later moved into the same neighborhood as my cousin, who didn't know the story, but made some observations that tell me the water may be really shallow where this gal is concerned.

SS

Turns out several of my best friends knew all this sparrow news before I did. Certainly car4love has known for a long time and went out of her way to not tell me, to keep me safe. Possibly people here even knew. Others were trying to decide when to tell me. My band knew but I found out from someone else before they could spill it. They were surprisingly sympathetic tonight.

Weaver, I have a feeling you're right about the future not being bright for my ex. Tonight it suddenly felt true and inevitable, and I felt so sad for her. But sparrow took a family apart. Two families. If she winds up hurting, she's got it coming.

Sparrow and tinman got married six months ago. The person who saw her a week or so ago said she's very pregnant. There's the gossip.

GC

2Long - man you hit the nails, screws, bolts, and all other fasteners on the head. I think, especially with a serial cheater, that there is way more askew than I can understand. I am JUST NOW beginning to realize that even me - our marriage - is part of a pattern in XW's life. She finds a person that makes her feel good about herself and gives her whole self to them. She seems to agonize about the relationships when they are over - but man she moves on.

And all along I thought we had something special.

far

FAR:

"And all along I thought we had something special."

One of you did. You.

And now you have the experience, so next time you'll have the wisdom.

-ol' 2long

I'm trying to do some catch up reading and don't even know how far to go back...

You all are talking about profound things... things I have been mulling over in my head lately (again <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> ).

I was driving home from work this evening, knowing I would be alone for a few hours (my H works late on Wednesdays)... and a pervasive feeling of sadness overcame me. Sadness isn't really the right word, but I can't think of another that describes the feeling better.

I knew I would come here, to check in with a discussion I'm having with Daisy on Recovery... and for the first time in a long time I thought I would begin a serious thread, about the long-term consequences of affairs. Not as a FBS, but as a FWS.

I have finally come to a point, I think, of not beating myself up... yet... the consequences are still there... the relationships I lost, mostly. The ending of the marriage notwithstanding, my affair put wedges in a couple of my relationships that the divorce solidified, if that makes sense.

I miss my former people. Some have died and I wasn't there to comfort ... or to be comforted. Like my exH's grandfather... when he passed, I lost something, too, but felt (feel) I have no right to grieve.

I guess all I want to add to this conversation (about WS's actions and karma and all that) is that even the most remorseful WS's (as I was) who have done absolutely everything possible to make amends (which I have) reap what is (was) sown. Unless someone is truly mentally ill, I believe that in their quiet moments, they know. New marriages, new babies, new friendships... perhaps provide a level of comfort... but what really matters is what is INSIDE a person.

It's been seven years since I first logged into MB as a FBS and an almost-current WS who had just spent the summer tying to get rid of the OM. A long time ago, to be sure. One would think these thoughts would pass... and they do... mostly...

::::

Anyway, I hope you'll all forgive me for going on... as I say, it's been an emotional time for me: my second H's and my five year anniversary is this month, one daughter is getting married this summer, H's daughter is graduating high school, and there are some huge life changes for my H and me (all good, but still stressful)...

PS: Weaver, how goes the internet romance?