Yep... it is illogical. I don't know what happens to self-preservation & logic & all the other constraints. My whole life, I've always been one of the most risk-averse people I or anyone in my family knows. Except for 10 & a half weeks where I was a complete idiot in disguise. I ignored risks of getting caught & the very predictable fallout that would (and eventually did) ensue if that were to happen... dismissed signs that OW's H was on to her... shrugged off self=preservation, and my moral qualms, too, because they stood in the way of a fix I wanted.

It sure seems like "temporary insanity", except that such a "psychosis" diagnosis lets us WSs off too easy. For some of us, there are actually tiny lucid moments when you decide rather than react, while there seems to be a brief hole in the fog, in-between when you've had the last fix & when you start craving the next one, when you have a little panic attack & think "OMG, what the hell have I gotten myself into?" But the brain isn't completely clear ... the prospect of never getting that fix again is not one you want to confront just yet; and so you "reason" to yourself -- against all logic & probability -- "Well, it's gone on this long, nothing really bad has happened, there's no reason why we should necessarily get caught, we can manage it, after all, we're smart people, we can keep this discreet." So you choose to take another spin on that merry-go-round and tell yourself that you can quit anytime, and that "Someday OW & I will do like we discussed and 'end it on our own terms' so that no one'll find out & no one'll get hurt." But not just yet. Not before one last fix...

And the memory of those lucid moments comes back to smack you in the face after you've been caught, & that's where the feeling of relief comes from, for those of us who'd had sporadic thoughts of wanting to jump off the merry-go-round.

The Harley conceptualization about not having ENs met provides a logical explanation as to why someone might seek a fix, but it doesn't get at the vexing question of why someone would shift their boundaries to countenance getting that fix outside their marriage. I've yet to see any satisfying, logical explanation for that. (Anyone got one?)

I imagine any BS in a recovering M wants a satisfying, logical explanation, because you want to know, "How can I know & guarantee that this won't happen again?" The "explanation" of "My WS/FWS acted like a selfish a** for 2 & a half months" provides no such comfort for the future; you can meet all the ENs you want, but you can't conjure up any guarantee re: the boundaries. I'd sure love to be able to give TWC such a guarantee, but I can't do that today for the future, any more than I can go back in time & undo the bad crap I did in the past. All I can do is treat her well & try to keep her too busy & having a good-enough time up here on the high-wire of recovery that she won't have much time or inclination to look down & ponder that there's no safety net under us, no guarantee to be had.

For whatever it's worth, I don't think that such a guarantee exists for anyone. It's just that people on this forum are no longer blind to that fact. Maybe there's some small measure of satisfaction to be had in knowing that you're no longer walking around blind. (Cold comfort, for the subset of BSs who've been treated so badly that they go around wishing they could be blind again... I don't know what to say to them...)

:::rubbing head::: Ouch, Pep! Did you have to hit me on my soft spot??

The Harley conceptualization about not having ENs met provides a logical explanation as to why someone might seek a fix, but it doesn't get at the vexing question of why someone would shift their boundaries to countenance getting that fix outside their marriage. I've yet to see any satisfying, logical explanation for that. (Anyone got one?)

When you were in the middle of your A and needed your 'fix', how did you phrase it to yourself? I mean, did you say "I need OW" or was it more a thought of needing the emotion that came with OW? Were there thoughts in your mind that you were in "love" with OW, and that justified your actions? Or was it more of a realization that you needed the validation that came from contact with her - not her, specifically?

The warning buzzer is there. It's heard. WSs make a choice to ignore it. We think we can indulge in a little more flattery, a little more flirtation in the conversation... after all, we're grown-ups, and WE can stop before it goes too far... or so we convince ourselves.

I want to be able to give you a different answer. I want to get a call from a detective saying that they've belatedly discovered that someone went around planting stuff in my coffee cup that made me not responsible for my actions. But that call's never coming. There's no less ugly answer.