I first posted yesterday, after reading the Basic Concepts. Since then, I've read additional articles and many, many posts. I keep being told that I am "addicted" to the OW.

I don't understand this. It seems to me but another example of the headlong rush our entire society is making to explain every social problem away as a medical problem.

Why am I "addicted" to her and those of you who were/are madly in love with your spouse not "addicted" to your spouse? I've loved other women in my life (no, not while married, but before I met my wife) and no one ever told me I was "addicted" to those women...

Please explain.

conflicted_father,

I too think that sometimes addiction is an oversimplification or sort of a useless analogy for relationships, especially extramarital relationships.

We could talk til the cows come home about all of the similarities between an addiction and an emr. But this will be unhelpful to you unless you are approaching it with an aim and desire to get out of the emr.

It's kind of like labeling someone an alcoholic. It is only useful if the person in trouble labels themselves as such and then applies themselves, heart and soul, to recovery.

If it is love, in your case, rather than addiction, then your task is to decide what the meaning of that love is in your life and what you are willing to sacrifice for it.

Good luck.

Thank you, Terminator.

Is it love? Yes, but, the most difficult part of all this is not feeling as if I am losing her love, but knowing that without the affair, I will also lose her friendship. I know someone is going to tell me to work on a friendship with my spouse, so, let me say this: until things fell apart, my wife and I were good friends. My friendship with my wife and my friendship with OW were different, as I know all of you understand.

It is just extremely difficult to contemplate the loss of a close, eleven-year friendship. How can I go from daily, intensive contact to none? God, this is hard.

And, by the way, I am here in my office, trying to work and trying not to call her, but wanting, wanting, wanting to hear her voice.

c_f:

My FWW doesn't like the description of an A as an "addiction" either. It makes her out 2 be an addict. But for some reason, she didn't mind, and even made the statement "it's LIKE an addiction."

I believe that romantic love is often an addiction. Like joggers becoming addicted 2 the endorphines the brain produces 2 "numb the pain" of jogging (I've heard this is a real thing), lovers can become addicted 2 the chemicals in the brain produced when we're feeling in love. So, one could be addicted 2 the "good feelings" one has with one's spouse, just like with an A partner. The major DIFFERENCE is that the M is not a lie, at least not at first, whereas the A IS a lie from the get-go.

In a M, we have the oppor2nity 2 go beyond "romantic love" and find a true, deeper love that is less affected by the things that our spouses might do or that happen 2 them or us during the course of our lives 2gether.

For an extreme example, but one that many of us sadly experience at some point in our lives, if your W were 2 become paralyzed in an accident, would you stop loving her because she could no longer have sex with you? What about the OW? This 2uestion relates 2 the emotional needs your W and the OW provide you. So, if your W can't give you SF anymore, is there nothing else she CAN still give you that would enable you 2 feel love for her? Same 2uestion about the OW.

Sadly, with the OW, you've shattered your personal integrity as well as hers. Do you want a fu2re with someone like that, being someone with no integrity?

-2long

conflicted_father,

I know exactly what you're feeling. I too was the WS in a long-term affair, which I ended.

Sooner or later, being what it is, someone will have to end it. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to do that.

So if you are able to resist calling her, good. It is the best thing for both of you to be out of the extramarital relationship. I can say that with certainty, but I also know how hard it is.

Stick to what you're doing. It is a start. You have a lot to unravel here.

How long, Terminator? Why did you end your affair?

c_f:

Whether an A is an addiction or not isn't the issue really, is it?

I don't know about terminator, but my W's A lasted 12 years. It wasn't quite like yours, though, because RM has lived in another state for the past 6 yrs or so. I let her "end it" on her own, because it meant more 2 me that she wanted our M, not that she quit because I told her 2.

If you get 2 NC of your own volition, it will mean more 2 your W than you can imagine.

-2long

Oh, it went on 7 years, off and on. I ended it for a lot of reasons...it just got so that there was more pain in it than anything else. From the begininning I knew it had to end and in fact there were a couple endings in there...one by him.

Finally, though, I ended it because the wrongness of it was weighing on me more heavily all the time, and I believed that what I felt for him was too special to be in an emr.

Terminator: "too special to be in a extra-marital affair" ????

Perhaps it is my own jaded-perspective, but that speaks volumes to me.

Sometimes I have the feeling there are a lot of people here pretending that what they had with the OM/OW was - in retrospect - horrible. Almost as if they are trying to convince themselves....

Terminator: I have just read elsewhere that your OM would never even tell you he loved you. THAT was too special? I don't get it....

It wasn't about what the OM felt. It was about what I felt.

If I remained emotionally invested in what he said, felt and did I would never have gotten out of the affair. It had to be about me.

It was, in all, a transformative experience.

BTW, conflicted_father, there is really no tolerance here for discourse on the specialness of the extramarital relationship. I should warn you that that perspective will not be validated here (not even by me).

Okay, c_f:

Being M'd 2 a wonderful woman who had the 12-yr A and would like 2 "remain friends" with him, I will warn you right now that, because your A with OW was so long-lived, it's going 2 take you considerably longer 2 get over it than most "typical As" - those that last "only" 1-2 years.

And that's AFTER you realize that the R must end. Utterly.

Have you read the late Shirley Glass' "Not Just Friends"? I haven't read it myself, but it's come highly recommended by a number of people I know very well.

We're here if you want help.
-2long

Please, help him deconstruct the lie of "friends"!! (annoyed, sorry)

Honestly I have no patience for people who suppose that a sexual relationship can be transformed into this--and even if it could, how a really close opposite-sex friendship, even if totally asexual, still infringes on the marital relationship...

"friends" is a way of hanging on.

"friends" is a way of secretly meeting needs without acknowledging what the needs are.

"friends" is only a different brand of deception.

"friends" is a way to avoid self-confrontation.

Ask yourself: why can't you let go of this person completely?

Please, help him deconstruct the lie of "friends"!! (annoyed, sorry)

Honestly I have no patience for people who suppose that a sexual relationship can be transformed into this--and even if it could, how a really close opposite-sex friendship, even if totally asexual, still infringes on the marital relationship...

"friends" is a way of hanging on.

"friends" is a way of secretly meeting needs without acknowledging what the needs are.

"friends" is only a different brand of deception.

"friends" is a way to avoid self-confrontation.

Ask yourself: why can't you let go of this person completely?

terminator, c_f:

I always put "friends" in 2uotes, in regards 2 my W's relationship with Rat Meat, precisely because their "friendship" was irrevocably TRASHED when they 2k it 2 the next level - the minute they started keeping secrets from myself, our kids, RM's kids, and Mrs Meat.

Now, whenever I'm told just how "nice" a guy RM is, or how "supportive" he was, my response is this:

"I don't care if he's the spittin' image of Jesus on the Cross!"

The man is a zero. He's less than nobody 2 me. He's also not the ISSUE in OUR marriage, just like YOU, c_f, are not the ISSUE in the M between your OW and her H, who just left her. He had difficult choices of his own 2 make. Did he ever confront you? If he didn't, chalk it up 2 the man having a TON of self-control and integrity, not 2 something s2pid like "see? he didn't really care about her, their M was 'terrible', so he ran away." I give him a lot of credit for staying M'd as long as he did. He certainly wasn't obligated 2, being treated like he was.

Get real, man! Be authentic. Let who you REALLY are show on the outside. Stop presenting this farce of a human being 2 the world.

-ol' 2long

2Long said:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I believe that romantic love is often an addiction. Like joggers becoming addicted 2 the endorphines the brain produces 2 "numb the pain" of jogging (I've heard this is a real thing), lovers can become addicted 2 the chemicals in the brain produced when we're feeling in love. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The reason the affair seems like an addiction is because the very nature of the relationship is one that preserves the conditions that will create this chemical high. It's not the person - it's the situation. That's why the chemical high subsides in mature relationships or even in affairs that move on to become marriages. The situation changes.

Some choose not to accept the addiction analogy. Behaviors can be addictive. The analogy works because treatment can be very similar - stop the behaviors that feed the addiction. There are withdrawal symptoms as well - the needs to contact your OW is your brain telling you to give it another hit.

As far as other people remembering their affairs as horrible experiences - Not everyone does. BUT, the big distinction is that almost every WS here at MB that's trying to rebuild their marriage have come to understand the horrible effect the affair had on their spouses and families. Should you decide to rebuild your marriage, you'll eventually come to that conclusion as well.

I wish you good luck in whatever choice you make.

Low

And what you just said, Terminator, applies as well to folks who are divorcing who want to be "friends" as to folks who are ending an affair.

Wanting to be friends means you still want the person in your life. Probably in a selfish way that means you get to decide how much to give and when to give it and the other person's needs and wants be damned.

There are days, and today is one of them, where I view affairs as bad not because they're different than a light-of-day marriage (which they certainly are), but bad simply because of the destruction and conflict they cause.

I've been reading a book that defines sin as anything that places an obstacle between you and the divine. And it defines hurt, anger, fear, guilt, hatred, horror, devastation, etc., as things are not-divine, and therefore they are obstacles between you and the divine.

The difficulty is not in the love that you feel for the OP. The difficulty is in the incredibly hurtful things that you do to the rest of the world in the name of that love. Destruction of spouse, kids, other family members, jobs, careers, criminal records (in extreme cases), finances, housing arrangements... the list goes on and on.

It doesn't, for me, add up to loving action in every circumstance. It adds up, for me, to a loss of the ability to see your actions for what they are, a loss of the ability to figure out how to bring love and compassion into each interaction you have. Instead of returning love for hatred, you begin to return indifference and bizarre mental gymnastics for love.

And that suggests to me that extramarital relationships are indeed sins. They create incredibly high obstacles to your connection to the divine, obstacles to your ability to feel loved by anyone OTHER than the OP.

Very dangerous waters to swim in. Very dangerous.

Yes. When I was in an emr I was very very conscious the estrangement from God. In addition, in continuing the affair, I was guilty of detaining another person in a state of spiritual peril. I do still hope he finds God's gifts, particularly forgiveness.