As you can see by my name I have been lurking here for a while off and on. I cannot
help but see a similarity between tempted and a person who posted not too long ago
(maybe three or four months ago) under the name of married man seeking advice.
The writing styles are very similar and he also brought up the same arguments to
continue in his "Friendship" with this other woman. The people who are responding
to him genuinely want to help as did others on this board at that time (I believe
Conquerer was one of them). He also would not take their advice and also kept
asking what harm would come to him or his marriage, etc. Please all you wonderful
and helpful people do a search under married man seeking advice.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I agree with you that I was having an emotional affair with her, but it takes two to complete that affair and it is clear my friend was not into that </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Honestly Tempted! The woman sat with you in a car, kissed you, let you stroke her leg..."not into that". Buddy, this is NOT innocent stuff.

You are either very naive or yanking our chain. Lying to yourself or in your posts.

With the hundreds of posts, outlining exactly that friendship is NOT 2 married people fondling each other in a car & using words of love, I would think even someone so naive that they could have been raised in the Alaskan wilderness by wolves, might allow that a couple dozen folk who've been there might have a point.

Oh, she's into you all right. Maybe hesitant, maybe scared, maybe smarter than you, but she's right there with you. Calling you, getting into the car, responding.

Someone asked me if my friend has to page me and she does not tehcniically but has done so in the past. My wife is aware of many of the pages when we were working togehter. Her huband was aware we talked.
Technically she does not have a reason to page me. Me sitting in her car and kissing her was about a month ago and has not happened since that time.
She paged last night and I did return the call. No over the top stuff. Just talking. The woman views me strictly as a friend. I once viewed her as more but now those feelings hve dimmed and I view her as a friend

My friend paged me last night and I returned her call. But I kept it strictly friendly and not going into strong feelings which I used to do.
She views me as strictly a friend. I had stronger feelings for her but I am not seeing her as a friend.
My wife knows I know this woman and had to work with her on something. Same with her husband. The woman does not have to page me, but we do so as friends.
I was very tempted a couple weeks ago to make it into something it wasn't. But her feelings were not the same as mine and I realize that. So I had no contact, got out of the fog and now I am just a friend.
Is it possible to go through a period of no contact and come out on the other side like we whould have been had we started as friends and I had never told her how I felt?

I think that question would be best answered by your wife. Since it doesn't seem to be a big deal, why not ask her?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by tempted:
<strong>My friend paged me last night and I returned her call. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The rest of your post read as "blah, blah, blah" after I read that first sentence.

Obviously you came to that proverbial "fork in the road" and made your decision. You called her, and thus the downward spiral continues.

I pity you. No one is as blind as the man who will not see.

Lori

Blah,Blah,Blah, no kidding! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />
Tempted, you have wasted our time. Everyone here told you to observe no contact and then after all the reading you have done, YOU RETURNED HER CALL! JUST FRIENDS!

I will not respond to any more of your posts, should have realized that sooner. I might suggest that you look over at gloryb.com and see how it is on the side of the other woman. It's not pretty, but then you refuse to observe MB principles so I have no idea why you are here...

Tempted,
You want to go back to just being friends with this OW. Unfortunately it sounds as though it's too late. It's too late because of the feelings that you have or have had for her. My guess is that you still have feelings otherwise you wouldn't be trying to rationalize a continuing friendship. It is really too late if you ever told the OW your feelings (I think you did, at least you implied it)because she may act on it at a later time when her relationship isn't working well.
My W had an EA with an old friend and wanted to go back to being just friends but it was too late. She had shared her feelings with the OM and the EA was close to turning to PA. This despite the fact that she knew he was unattainable/married. Even if she hadn't share her feelings, I would have asked her to end it because she was constantly comparing me to him.

Numerous people have told you to tell your wife whats going on and you seem to ingnore this advise. I suggest you sit down with her and tell her what's been going on and ask her for her help. It may be painful in the short term but it will help in the long run.
BTW somewhere in your postings you say that you feel like a teenager again. Well no offense but aren't most teenagers the most self-absorbed, cruel and uncaring human beings on earth? They live in an ego-centric world that all that matters is their own feelings and they don't seem to feel much empathy towards anyone. Yeah I'd say your situation sounds like that of a teenager's. Luckily most grow up.
Good luck to you!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Is it possible to go through a period of no contact and come out on the other side like we whould have been had we started as friends and I had never told her how I felt? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">One thing most of us have learned is that you cannot rewrite history. You did tell her.

You just had a phone call where you discussed your feelings. Which is still Emotional Affair behavior.

You are desperate to keep her friendship. Which is still Emotional Affair behavior.

Regarding the phone call if you had said "She's nice, but I realized I don't need her in my life and told her not to call anymore. My marriage is so much more important." THAT would be a beginning of being out of Emotional Affair behavior.

You didn't do that. So, the likelihood of this becoming and staying a platonic friendship is not probable.

Find a friend you haven't kissed & caressed.

well, when i signed on for marriage i understood the deal to be that my H wouldn't "love" another woman, no kissing of other women, no cuddling of other women.

so why don't you let your wife decide if she wants to be a part of this new deal you've got going.

lets be fair. tell her "honey, i've decided that its ok for BOTH of us to have friends that we are attached to. so go ahead and find one for yourself. i'll be fine with you loving him and kissing him, as long as you want to stay married to me."

Fair enough Tempted?

BUMP

I have a feeling that like mmseekingadvice, we will not be hearing much from tempted. I hope I'm wrong though.

New points of view for you to ponder:

1. "her husband is jealous that she is emotionally close to me". Smart man! He knows about the EA. Hopefully he will call your wife and tell her. Better yet you will tell your wife first so that she can respect you for being honest.

2. "she seems in control". (OW) Yes, in control of YOU! She is using you to get her own selfish needs met just as you are using her.

3. You say she does NOT have to call you but is doing so strictly as a "friend". Female friends DO NOT allow male friends to pursue them and make advances and then continue the friendship even though the advances have stopped. If she has you and your wifes best interests at heart she will NEVER contact you again. Your behaviors are inappropriate and so are hers. The "friendship" ceased to exist when you made advances and she allowed it. You and she both know exactly what you are doing and you are both enjoying it.

4. The most important reason for you to end contact is out of love and respect for your wife and out of consideration for your wifes feelings. Imagine that she DOES know or WILL know all about this and operate on THAT premise.

5. Do you like, love, respect people who hurt your wife? OW has entered your marriage and is on your wifes turf as we speak. Did your wife invite OW to do this? For you to continue this "friendship" on any level whatsoever is the most unloving, disrespectful , SHI**Y thing you could do to your wife. OW knows she is on your wifes turf and is continuing anyway under the guise of "friendship". With friends like OW wo needs enemies. Please stop allowing OW to hurt your wife.

6. QUOTE from Princess Di---"There were three of us in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded". (You know, just another run of the mill "we are just very good friends" kind of thing).

7. Well I think that pretty much sums it up.

8. OOPS, one more thing, have you and OW started to feel any GUILT yet, or are you still in the "anything goes as long as you don't get caught" stage?

I will be very surprised if we hear from tempted again. And even if we do, most of our questions will not be answered.

He has repeated ignored questions that might make him REALLY think about his situation or ones that would give us more insight to how he is thinking. There are two that come to mind.

1) How would he feel if his wife had a "friendship" where her and the OM had held hands, kissed, and told each other of their love?

2) If it is "just a friendship", then why hasn't he told his wife of kissing, etc... this OW?

I know there are a lot of people here that are interested in the answers to these questions and many others that tempted has chosen to ignore.

TEMPTED...one more question....if you are so in control of this relationship, then why are you here asking for help?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?