PS ... I am having problems with my eyes today ... sorry for all mis-spellings ... I just see blurry sometimes. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Pepperband -

I wrote a long response and got booted offline. Was it an act of God to spare you? LOL

I agree with almost (almost) everything you are saying, but I have a question for you.

Do you know any people who change themselves, or who seek enlightenment, or spiritual growth, or personal growth, or transformation, when they are happily trotting along in life?

Do you know any people who have started out on those journies motivated by anything other than pain - pain that arises from a relationship?

I started looking at myself after BF's betrayal. But honestly, just a little bit. I was as self-righteous and holier than thou and arrogant as they come. HE did that to me.. etc. Falling for MM was humble pie served fresh daily. I know you all say it's a choice, and it was, I don't deny my own responsibility, ever. I am no victim. But I never imagined myself as OW. It wasn't in my list of possibilities, ever. And there I fell very hard for a married man and had a relationship with him.

Right now I can't imagine I'd have learned things that I HAD to learn in order to shed some very dysfunctional elements in any other way. I couldn't escape looking at myself anymore and I'm sure my library looks something like yours.

Again, I'm not making justifications. I'm making an observation. I see this all over Terminator's posts. When you put down the lens of judgement, you see other things that come from affairs. Pepperband, you talk about opportunities for growth.

Also, Terminator, you are trying to teach your kids how to avoid affairs. Why do you think we have to reinvent the wheel with each new generation? God hasn't stopped affairs through His commandments... laws against infidelity don't seem to stop them either. Why have people had affairs since the beginning of time? Do you hae any ideas about that? You, Pepperband?

About emotional maturity. I read here that people who have affairs are not emotionally mature. Was Terminator less emotionally mature than a husband who refused counseling and refused to look at himself in any way?

Was my BF less emotionally mature than I was when he betrayed me? At the time I would have said yes of course. Now, with the clearer lens of hindsight, I'd say we were a pretty good match on the emotional maturity level!

So far I haven't needed the asbestos suit but I'll keep it on just in case.

Pepperband, I have some responses to your post. There are things about my situation that I know--about myself--and knew then.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Changing over to a new partner does not solve our lack of courage. It intensifies our anxiety and deepens our self-loathing. But, that "high" hides this fact ... until the crash and burn stage. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The 'high' never hid anything for me. I had a sense of endgame from the moment I acknowledged to myself that I loved him. From that point on, I was thinking about getting out of the relationship.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Achieving intimacy, true and deep intimacy frightens most adults, despite our claims that intimacy is what we are lacking and seeking in our relationships. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm not frightened any more!! From a young age I 'understood' the terrible risks of trying to love unavailable people. (My mother, primarily.)

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That goes double for an EMR. Just the fact that it is an EMR guarentees there will be no deep intimacy risks taken, because the EMR partner is, in essence ... truely unavailable for 100% intimacy. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I disagree with this too. I took all kinds of risks in the EMR. I told him face to face every uncomfortable feeling and thought I had, as it was happening. It was a terrible risk to confess to him that I was in love with him, in the circumstances. He was unavailable because he was married, but also unavailable because he couldn't discuss his own feelings.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> And THAT fear is why you Term, and Sungirl, and Pepper all were attracted to our men! We have an uncanny ability to choose partners with just enough flaws to protect us from true intimacy .... and we then can complain that our men are just not able to meet our needs or.... "if only he was free from his horrible, terrible wiffey then we'd make a great couple" ..... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I was attracted to him initially in a very strange way: when we met, there was a sense of familiarity about him--he was like a composite of a few different men I'd known and been strongly attracted to. I had no initial awareness that he was conventionally attractive. I once watched a colleague flirting shamelessly with him, and subsequently she greeted him in the hallway and I slipped up and said, "He's so cute," which was completely uncharacteristic of me--I never discuss men in professional environments and I had never had the independent realization that he was handsome. The only thing that made me aware of that was other women saying it or acting like it. So what I'm saying is, I was attracted before I had ever interacted with him, and the fact of his unavailability due to marital status came up much later.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> it's US that are flawed, and shaking with fear that if our men actually knew the real us ... they would no longer love us ... so we hide behind our favorite defense mechanism ... or drug ourselves .... or get overly busy with unimportant things .... there are a million ways we can avoid ourselves. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yep, I'm flawed. We all are. We are all on equal footing there, sinners all. All through the affair I received the signals that told me who I was. I never thought, felt, or banked on the fact of X-MM's loving me. That was a non-starter. I knew my H didn't 'love' me the minute he raised his hand against me in anger. I realized then (as I had suspected) that his attraction to me and need for me was based on my being something I no longer am.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We meet our true selves when we surrender our fears. We become emotionally naked. Open. Vulnerable. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This was the end result of my experience in the affair. I learned that you can survive the worst kind of brokenness. Not only survive, but prevail. Faith made me prevail. Who knows--maybe God intended that through this experience I would find Him.

Not everything is written in books (yet).

Sungirl, I have to write to you too:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Also, Terminator, you are trying to teach your kids how to avoid affairs. Why do you think we have to reinvent the wheel with each new generation? God hasn't stopped affairs through His commandments... laws against infidelity don't seem to stop them either. Why have people had affairs since the beginning of time? Do you hae any ideas about that? You, Pepperband?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Reinvent the wheel? Oh my goodness...in my case (my generation) there was no wheel pointed out to me. No guidance whatsoever, or positive example either, about man-woman relationships. My parents' marriage was awful, one that never should have happened. Do I blame or resent either of them for this? No. But I have to present some sort of wheel to my kids. No, God has not stopped affairs or any other kind of sin. He won't. We were made with free will. God wants us to choose and hopes we choose to follow Him. When we don't, he waits and is prepared to forgive all in the instant we say we love and serve Him. This is love that passes all understanding. (We did discuss the 6th commandment in catechism so I won't repeat what the kids know from that .)

But on a secular level, what I'm interested in conveying, is, I guess, the strong warning not to get married in a non-authentic self state--and be sure you know this about the partner. I try to let them know that their feelings are important to me. And how to act on feelings--discuss them!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> About emotional maturity. I read here that people who have affairs are not emotionally mature. Was Terminator less emotionally mature than a husband who refused counseling and refused to look at himself in any way?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've thought so long and so hard about this--how much emotional maturity is enough? Is it enough to say that if you and your partner both know you're on a journey, and sharing a map, the relationship will succeed?

I have known a long time that my H has individual issues that he needs to solve. I was less hopeful about MC because I knew this. He did go to IC for a time, but it didn't really "take". I saw the same counselor alone a few times, too, as part of the MC. I had a good cry or two in his office.

It is at a point where I can't even discuss things with him because at some point it has to slip into a therapeutic lexicon--and he's just not interested. Or motivated. Or whatever. I wish he could understand that if you let God be there when you face yourself, it is just not that bad.

Searching for personal growth is far more likely with the stimulus experience of a deeply felt pain.

Hence Plan B when the WS cannot fall off the fence one way or another. WS need a painful reality for stimulus.

Happiness can be more precicely defined in our discussion, I think.

If I have a new car ... I might feel happy. But, that's not the kind of happiness we are seeking when we are in a relationship, is it?

Aren't we discussing spiritual enlightenment and self love when we discuss deep and lasting happiness?

"I fell very hard for a MM and had a relationship with him." .... yes, I know. And the feelings were real. So was the degredation. But, this relationship was not one you can feel proud of. And, quite frankly, I think being a single OW is probably one of the most singularly self-demeaning positions we women volunteer for. I do not hate OW ... I feel very sorry for anyone with this amount of neediness.

I think being an OW makes it difficult for a women to be a wife later. Not impossible, but more difficult. All the infidelity books say that having crossed that line one times makes it easier to cross that line again ! I'm not sure I agree.... but I think it does leave a significant scar on one's heart. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Schnarch says we become attached to mates with approximately the same level of emotional maturity as ourselves. I did. But, when I looked at our marriage pre-A ... I saw his immaturity clearly, not my own. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Emotional immaturity is not a put down .... it is a state of being on the way to more maturity.

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

P.S. The 'why' of affairs...I believe that people have affairs when they are not sufficiently bonded to their spouse. Sufficiently, authentically, emotionally bonded to the spouse.

Another reason is that people do not have a proper awareness of the institution of marriage as God intended. In some religions it is a sacrament, which I don't agree with, but it's pretty clear to me now what God intended, and sexual compatibility is a big part of it. People don't face that, or recognize it upon getting married, it seems to me. I sure didn't. Sexual compatibility and true intimacy preserves and strengthens the bond between people. I heard a sermon on the radio once about that--how couples should be able to escape the rest of the world, in bed. All the cares and stresses and hurts and all that. Marital sex should be an escapist activity.

Pep,

As to crossing that line again--no way, no how. I can say that with certainty, don't doubt me.

Also I'm glad to say that I don't need any man now and never will again. Want, maybe. Need, never.

There are no blind spots any more.

Pepperband.

I've read many, many infidelity books in my attempts to understand all three of us - my xBF, me, and xMM.

Having been on two sides of the triangle, I would like to say, just from my POV, that almost all of those books spend precious little time on the OP side, and use trite sayings and superficial stereotypes as a way to get out of serious and close examination of that side. As you know, infidelity books are written for the BPs and WS... there is precious little that addresses the actual reality of the OP, or what happens to the OP after the affair. If you know of any books that deal with the OP on a deep level, please tell me.

If you are interested in one book that deals with the role of the WW in depth, I'd be glad to recommend that to you.

So, as for me, will I cheat? Has this experience made it easier in the future?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I'd rather suffer bodily torture at the hands of trained professional than come home every day and lie to someone I say I love, or get involved with an MM again.

But I don't share your POV on the conditions and role of the OP, Pepperband. There's much more that happens than the books superfically address. It's not just about neediness and weakness and all of these negative things. I'm not here to convince anybody of that, simply to state my experience.

Terminator - there's so much to talk about! Glad to meet you. I can't comment on what you are saying about marriage because I've never been married. If I decide to go that route one day, I'll be sure to look you up again!

Term ... I can't remember if you told me your age. I am 54. A hippie in the 60's. I may have inspired the "zipless f__k" ... remember Erica Jong's book "Fear Of Flying"? I was an airline stewardess during the 70's. I have done my fair share of degrading my own body. I am infertile because of all my sexual freedom!

We have 2 adopted children. Siblings. Birth mom herpoin addict.

One child (son 17) has RAD ... reactive attachment disorder .... which we just learned about. He also is bipolar and ADD and has numerous other issues. We adopted him when he was 3. He was abandoned.

Sooooo, why am I telling you all this? It has to do with the vulnerability issue you've mentioned. RAD .... do a google search, it's fascinating. People with RAD are very uncomfortable when faced with love and connectedness. Those feelings were always followed by pain when they were pre-verbal infants ... and the brain trains us to avoid painful stimuli. Having a detached caregiver parent can be as bad as being abandoned. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> Our son's chances of ever making any deep and lasting relationship last, are slim. He is in a treatment program now, living there full time. I am learning so much from my efforts to direct his young life.

I see people who go into EMA's as having some of the same issues. Superficial attachments can be very very intense and powerful. But, they are much lower risk than a deep marriage attachment.

If you pour your heart out to your spouse, there is always the chance he might leave you. So you keep quiet. You build resentments. You swallow your voice. You die by inches. All because it is risky to take a chance at authentic intimacy with someone who has power over your life in some way.

If you think of those times when you might have met a complete stranger, and poured your heart out .... there is little risk to doing this.

Don't give up on yourself and your ability to love and be loved.

Take care Term....
Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

Why did you allow a man to strike you?

Term said: "People have affairs when they are not sufficiently bonded to their spouse. Sufficiently, authentically, emotionally bonded to their spouse."

I agree and don't agree. Both.

If you read Schnarch, you'll get a different POV.

People can bond too tightly to their spouse, so tight that they in fact give away parts of themselves to maintain the equilibrium of relationship. Their individual losses are suffered to maintain the relationship. Sounds like "woman thing" doesn't it?

There needs to be movement inside the relationship. Breathing and growing room.

Pep

Sungirl--good to meet you too. Funny place to meet.

Pep, I see where you're coming from--but as far as attachments etc. not much of it really applies to me. I had no clear idea of emotional risk when I married. Or the nature of any bond between myself and a man.

Why would I allow a man to strike me? A man? (Not just any man...it was my husband...) Allow? Allow? He almost did. Not quite. Only grabbed my upper arm, snarling threats into my face. In that instant, I thought he was going to knock my block off. Thus he will never be touching my body again for any reason.

He is 6'3" and over 250 lbs. I am 5'2" and about 120. Allow him to strike me??

Is this for real?

Is what for real?

I am ignorant of your situation until you make it clear for me.

MB has seen some WW's get into scary dangerous situations with their abusive husbands when the H find out about his W's A. Does your H know about your A?

I don't know if you are, or are not, in any danger with this man ... your H.

I thought you said he had struck you at one time ... and I was saying "allowed" because I assumed you did not call the police when he did strike you.

If anyone striks you, would you call the police? If it were your H who hit you? Or your child who hit you? I called the police on my son one time. I did not "allow" him to threaten me with a large frying pan.

Thank you, by the way, for such a nice conversation. I enjoyed it. Take care.

Pep

Pep, hope I didn't offend. None intended.

Yeah, it's in the marriage story at the beginning of this thread (the link) I think. dustkitty put the link in.

I didn't tell anyone other than my sisters and one friend at or around that time. Now, I don't know why. I should have filed assault charges and thrown him out of the house. If my dad knew he probably would cease to have a relationship with H. I didn't leave then because I didn't want the kids to know that about their father. It's weird to look back on this now because I see how I suppressed certain things about it. Talk about a degrading experience. He was remorseful about it, they always are, but later he rationalized it (that he hadn't, after all, hit me). Now he just yells when he gets mad, which is hard on all of us.

No, he does not know, and I don't know what he would do if he did. There are guns in the house, some are under lock, but he keeps one where he can get to it quickly and I don't know where that is.

X-MM's W is kinda wiggy. I agreed to meet her when she contacted me months after d-day, which was years after I ended the affair. She had big, violent revenge fantasies initially, don't know if she still does. She is not a very mature person overall, and superficial in the way she thinks about things...so I wouldn't put it past her to tell. But, what can I do--I'm damn sure not going to let her manipulate me or live in fear. I figure she tells, that might speed the demise of the marriage, which would only be a good thing, ultimately.

Don't have anything to add here, but wanted to thank you Pep for the book referral. (Passionate Marriage) Also, it's been an interesting thread to read, and think about.

The book sounds fascinating!

Take care,
H_P

H-P

I hope YOU know YOU are one of my favorites!

Your courage in facing what you need to do is awe-inspiring. I just love people who make a huge human error life mistake, and then demonstrate the guts to face themselves and turn their lives around. YOU are one of those good people. So is my DH! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ....he's 'da bomb, ya know I adore him and his courage. And .... as I told you before, I think the world of your X-H .... he'll come around. He's strong like a buffalo .... kind'a slow moving, but as reliable as they come. When that man says he loves you ... you know you've got something real. The OM was something like a crow. Slick, shiney, fast talking (ever watch the old Disney movie Dumbo?) fast moving .... not someone you could depend on in one of life's storms.

Stick to your path.

I adore your struggle.

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

<small>[ August 28, 2003, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Pepperband:
<strong>
And, quite frankly, I think being a single OW is probably one of the most singularly self-demeaning positions we women volunteer for. I do not hate OW ... I feel very sorry for anyone with this amount of neediness.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Bingo! It is how I don't hate her even though she has my H's child. I don't want to say I pity her because that would imply superiority on my party. I do pray for her. I do it because it is good practice for me to bend my will to God's and because it helped clear the hatred out of my heart.

One time I said to my sister "With all the banquet the world has to offer, how could she be content (for 7 years) to feed herself from the scraps that fell from our table?"

What troubled me more was when exOW told me that when she lost my husband, "she lost her best friend." Best friend!? OMG! If that is her definition of friendship...I can't even find word to finish that sentence.

H tried that line on me once also: "You were always my best friend, the one I loved." I said, very calmly "you were not my friend in any way during your affair and don't ever kid yourself that you treated me well. You were my worst enemy, doing behind my back what you knew might very well destroy me. If you want to be my friend, my husband and my lover again, that is a position you can win back, but don't try to fool yourself about what truly went on during your affair." The treatment that he allotted to me and to exOW was disgusting and says nothing about friendship but only about using people to meet your own ends. The difference is that she entered into this mess willingly.

It sounds like I am angrier than I truly am. What I just wrote is a reflection of where I was at one point in time. I also think that the truth (for me) written above is still there, just without the attendant emotions. Why so much less anger? Because H is becoming an authentic person, he lives a straight and honorable life, he is once again a good husband and now a good father to our children. He is no longer a broken person. I hope and pray that I am also no longer broken.

MJ

<small>[ August 28, 2003, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: MaryJanes ]</small>

I feel as sorry for the BSs who need the spouse so much that they hang onto the marriage at any cost, even when it's pretty obvious that the WS is not any more emotionally open than when they were having the affair.

Whether it's accepting the half-truths or omissions of the WS, or actually believing them for want of any other insight into character and emotional make-up, the result is the same. You still have "half" a man or woman, just as when the affair was going on.

That split self thing, again...

I've come to the conclusion that no partner at all is much much better than a partner who has the emotional maturity of a teenager. Once you know, you know. I am thankful beyond recognition that I don't NEED a man for financial support or anything else.

I am confused..... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Are you staying with your H Term? Do you love him? Are you rebuilding a great marriage after your problems?

Pep

Answers:

No.

Not in the way that a wife should love a husband (the sexual component is gone, unrecoverable).

I wouldn't even consider trying unless he voluntarily entered IC with some tangible goals for change.