I read this in another topic and was curious as to what you meant by it...

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> except in the instances of "exit affairs" in which the WS decides to leave the marriage first and then finds an affair to help make it happen </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">thanks

FL - first, I sincerely wish for your success.

We jousted a while back and I regret any ill feelings.

I believe "exit affairs" are a rare different breed from the garden variety dealt with on this forum.

Instead of a symptom of a pseudo "involuntary" response to an unsought stimulus, an exit affair is a calculated strategy to end a relationship, I believe. In an exit affair, the WS seeks to end the marriage/relationship for whatever reason and strategically conducts an affair, hence with two victims, to end the marriage/relationship, providing a ready reason.

That's my layman's assessment. I do know that most publications exclude "exit affairs" from the realm of affairs they address.

Make sense?

Exit affairs are mentioned in Dave Carder's book, "Torn Asunder." Some good info about the nature of them, odds of WS returning to M, etc.

My own addition to WAT's definition is that if a S is totally withdrawn emotionally from the M, basically just "going through the motions" - but hasn't left the R, then I think an exit A is the next logical step.

Of course, a more mature step would be to talk to your S, OR divorce! But as we all know, not every "unhappy" S can do that on their own. Kind of have to be talked into it by their future A partner. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

lup - you're a real gem. Any prospects?

WAT

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by worthatry:
<strong> lup - Any prospects?

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hey, WAT -

WHAT am I "prospecting" for?!?
<img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

Guys!!!!

C'mon!!!

A Babe like you? With your intellect??? Un- , er, "involved"????

WAT

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by worthatry:
<strong> A Babe like you? With your intellect??? Un- , er, "involved"????

WAT </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sir,

You FLATTER ME!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" />

lup,

Watch this guy, he is a silver tongued devil. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

JL

My WH got ahold of some research online about exit affairs. He said that he was done with the marriage a long time ago, and that this was his way of getting out.

So I had two questions in response to this "revelation."

1.) If he really wanted this A to be his way to exit, why does he tell me he is not ready to D when I ask him if that is his desired course of action? I offer him up the "get out of jail free card," basically telling him, if he wants out, let me know, and I will take the action to make it official. He always responds that he is not ready for that.

2.) If the A really was the catalyst to just take that next step (albeit cowardly) to get out of the M, why are you still involved with the OW? In other words, if his theory holds true, it is not about her, just about the act of the A hopefully being the catalyst that enables him a way out (under the presumption that I tell him to get the hell out). Since he is on his own, in his own apartment, I am in Plan B, and by all the looks of things, he is OUT, why is he still involved with her. Wasn't she just a means to an end? So why waste any more time or energy on that relationship.

This kinda stuff really makes me feel hopeless. Because from my perspective, the M was relatively good. Of course we did flush out some serious problems since discovery of the A(communication problems during conflict, LBs on both sides, some internal issues stemming back from LONG before our M), overall, we enjoyed each other's company, recreational activities, companionship, sex (although not frequently enough for me), etc. He even said at one point, as we made some of these distinctions, that he wishes we would have made them sooner, because we would have had a WILDLY fullfilling life together.

His perspective on the M is different. He concedes all of the above in one breath, and then goes on to explain that the pain he felt over the areas that our M fell short was so INTENSE, that he lived his life completely and utterly miserable.

So how much of that is fog talk, rewriting history, or reality (and if we want to get more philosophical, isn't reality mostly perception anyways). So....was it an "exit affair" or, was it my WH trying to legitimize how the hell he could have done this, so he went back, fictionalized or dramatized all his misery, created this premise that he wanted out, and then conveniently found a counseling term that fit his hypothesis?

At this point, who cares. It is working. He is exiting his way right out of my marriage. But if he doesn't pull his head out of his rear, he will find that the exit door is barred shut, locked, and boarded over.

I feel that MOST affairs are exit affairs. Even if they are not calculated or planned on purpose, a cheating spouse on some levels realizes that his/her affair could spell the end of the marriage/relationship and yet chooses to proceed anyways.

Or are we talking about purposely and with intent having an affair to end the marriage?

I have a strong feeling that my wife's affair was an exit affair. To many things point at that direction and to tell the truth I can't blame her. (My official goal now is to reverse the conditions she was trying to exit from and hence entice her to return.)

dewt

Christy - very, very frequently, the WS uses the "exit affair" logic as an excuse.

Don't believe it.

A "real" exit affair is SO rare as to make your sitch not a candidate.

Don't dwell on it.

He is NOT in an exit affair. It just doesn't fit.

Exit affairs are VERY rare. It takes an extroidinarily perverse and financially lucrative circumstance to make them plausible.

WAT

<small>[ April 20, 2004, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: worthatry ]</small>

Elaborate on that.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by ChristyV:
<strong> Elaborate on that. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">For the reasons YOU elaborate. He's very, very classic in a garden variety affair. IMHO.

WAT

WAT....with your charm, you could easily be my ex-OM <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> !!!

Nay, nay, Lisa - not me.

I'm very much an X-BS, smitten by a new love..........

WAT,

first, absolutely no hard feelings here. I am too busy trying to get myself and my life in order to worry about holding on to any grudges here. i generally don't hold on to grudges, (well, except against my H <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> but that was the old me. not anymore). plus i truely believe everyone here is here with a desire to heal as well as help others.

so, thanks for the sincere wish for success.

regarding the exit affair topic, i believe that is what mine was about. i don't know if it really makes a difference at this point but i was curious about why you excluded exit affair scenerios in your post.

i can't quite figure out what is going on in my head as to why your comment stuck out.

yes, lupolady, it is a very immature way to handle a situation.

I believe mine was an exit affair, and i fear that is worse than the other type of As. I don't know why I am worrying about this. I just want to be sure, my H wants to move forward, I just want to be sure of myself so that i don't hurt him anymore.

Can a person who was so sure the marriage had to end, really ever be a good spouse? My H is having a hard time understanding it all too. He has asked me many times, if you had the affair to end the marriage, why didn't it end??? i told him the main reason was how tight he started holding on to me. but having it go on for 2 1/2 years... it is hard for him (and me) to understand.

all i know is i want to resolve all these issues in me. i can't ever allow anything like this to ever happen again.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by FinallyLearning:
<strong>I believe mine was an exit affair, and i fear that is worse than the other type of As.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Maybe yours started out that way because you felt no hope in your marriage?

Could be we're splitting hairs here trying to define something that each of us will have a different definition for.

I initially struggled with whether my WS's affair was an exit affair. She was SO sure of everything and didn't waver one iota. Well, just once she seemed to peek thru the fog and marched off to inform OM that "this sordid situation is OVER!" Apparently he sucked her back in right away.

Anyway, in working with Steve Harley, he informed me that this was a classic, classic, classic affair. NOT an exit affair. So that advice and my own experience and reading has defined what it is and isn't for me. Hmmmm, I vaguely recall Pittman addressing it in "Private Lies." Maybe I'll refresh that. My oldstimers disease again.

Anyway, it makes sense to me that real exit affairs ARE worse - because the decision has been made to leave the marriage already - BEFORE rationalizing it via influence of an OP.

I suppose there's a fuzzy middle ground in which a disgruntled spouse is already teetering and procrastinating leaving a marriage or experiencing a life crisis (like my WS) when along comes OP. Any port in a storm. When do the scales tip to an "official" exit affair? And does it matter?

WAT

WAT, thanks for sharing. i am not sure if this matters or not either. but it is something i am working thru in my head just the same.

i definitely felt no hope in the marriage, i was also in personal crisis mode due to death of my dad (very bad relationship). H knew I was struggling but decided it was all about my dad and did not think MC was needed at all. I think he still believes i have not resolved my issues around my dad and that it will continue to be a problem between us. i don't know what to do about that.

i did go to some IC with the same C as we were seeing as our MC. She had me write a note and then i read it to an empty chair during a different session. I'm not really sure it had any impact on me. In my opinion, relationship with dad was what is was, it is over now, he died 4-1, 2001. i saw him days before he died and i did not allow any room for any kind of warm/fuzzy conversation. i feel like an extremely cold person for taking that stand but i just couldn't open myself up to any more hurt and no matter what he said, i would not have believed him anyway, it would not of mattered, past cannot be changed by talking.

i listen to myself and i realize on some level i think the same way towards H. Our relationship was so non-existance, we were so distant from each other, in my eyes H abandoned me, he may as well had an affair himself (which i know he did not). and i tell myself, nothing can change all that, where do i really find the hope again?

one thing i have to keep telling myself is that a parent-child relationship is NOT the same as a husband-wife relationship. A parent is supposed to love and nuture a child, no matter what, unconditionally. Husbands/Wives have their own needs too and that has to be taken into consideration. ideally the love between H/W grows into an uncondintional love, but i think that is something that only occurs over time, as each partner feels comfortable, accepted, loved and safe.

My H states he has never felt safe with me, from the get-go. He never felt secure and that will certainly impact the way a person acts. I do not think I am the root cause to his inablity to feel safe. i am not sure what is, i know he did not have much luck with g/f's before me, but he has never really wanted to talk about his past at all. i wish he would, i think it would help him. but i do think i can either help heal the root cause or i can make it continue to hurt. i honestly did not understand that at age 19 when we met. I saw his jealousy problem as his problem and not something i was going to let impact me. i felt he was unreasonable to ask me to not have any male acquantances. i was in college at the time, computer science field, there were way more males than females. i am a very social person, i make friends whereever i am. when i worked at the computer center, i would go to lunch with co-workers (co-students) and the majority of them were male, it's just the way it was, there were so many more males in the area than females. when i graduated and started working in a company that does research and developement, the same was true, there were not many females around. so as the years went on, i continued to not want to help heal his issue around feeling safe. i just never understood. and i did not like the way he assumed that a person cannot have innocent male friends. i find i still struggle with that concept. i tend to think it should be ok to have male friends, but as i, myself, look ateverything that has occured throughout the years, maybe he is 100% right.

at this point, i get it now, and i want to help him feel safe, helping him feel safe is finally important to me now. i realize it should of been all along, i just didn't understand it. i know i can help in that area now.

on my side of it, i needed to feel loved, but he held back because he didn't feel safe. he didn't see my need as something he caused and therefore not something he was responsible to help with. He felt it was all about my dad, not his concern.

so if i can look at my side of it and feel confident that i get it now and can help fullfill his need, why can't i feel confident that the same can go the opposite way, that H maybe didn't get the things about me due to who he was, but he has changed and grown since he was 22 (which is how old he was when we met) and that he can get it now even if he didn't back then. i just need to learn to trust him. so easy to write, so hard and scary to do!!!

then going back to the original question... exit affair or not, why does it really matter anyway. For me, OP did not happen along, i specifically went into a local area chat room with the intent of finding someone, hence exit affair applies. of course at that point i had been involved in internet chatting for over a year. the first person i chatted with and became emotionally attached to did just come along, i was not searching it out then, i just went in chat room because i was always feeling so lonley, H was out of town on business and my sister talked a lot about chatting on line with people and how she had been getting to know this whole group of people and really liked it all. that was really the beginning of it all. exit affair did not apply there.

in conclusion!!! because it seems useless to just ramble on and on without a conclusion. i am going to not forget the past, but i need to let it go to some degree, not let the past make me fear the future so much. take all i have learned from here and love and trust my H till death due us part.

I am really looking forward to him coming home on thurs. this is the last of all these trips until next spring. other out of town jobs may come up her or there but this big one is over.

thanks again. feedback always welcomed <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by FinallyLearning:
<strong>at this point, i get it now, and i want to help him feel safe, helping him feel safe is finally important to me now. i realize it should of been all along, i just didn't understand it. i know i can help in that area now.

on my side of it, i needed to feel loved, but he held back because he didn't feel safe. he didn't see my need as something he caused and therefore not something he was responsible to help with.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">A vicious circle, huh? The marriage death spiral.

Hopefully you can reverse the circle and turn it into a positive feedback loop.

Good luck.

WAT

Finally:

Question. You were "done" in the marriage (it strikes a nerve in me to hear that, because those are the hurtful words I hear from my WH right now). What made you be "undone?" At what point, did you say, ok, I've committed this act I am not proud of, I really DO want my H, I will RE-comitt to my M now.

You make a comment that he held on so tight. But he did not know you were having an A at the time you made this shift. If he had known, would he have behaved differently, that could have potentially "sealed the deal," moving you to officially end the M?

I so desperately want to save my M. I love my WH so much. I want this M. I want to preserve my family, and I am absolutely TERRIFIED, that everything I do that feels right, seems to make it worse. It is like opposite day every day. Something that would have reached him before, pushes him further away. Something I never in a million years would have guessed he would say or do, he does.

I was hurting so bad after WH moved out, that I thought I should share this, in a non-threatening, non-confrontational way, but a way to maybe help him see where I am in all of this, and in some way demonstrate to him how much I love him, despite all the hurt. Every contact I have had with my WH since he moved out has eventually morphed into this HORRIBLY painful, mutually damaging thing...that I often hang up the phone thinking, what the hell just happened. Opposite Day yet again. Most people call it the fog, I call it a bad, bad mental trip (I am PRAYING I wake up from the nightmare any minute). Thus why I am in Plan B. The last communication we had (this was after I already gave him a letter telling him I wanted to eliminate direct contact with him as a means to protect my love for him, until he decided to end it with the OW, and then mistakenly indulged in several direct conversations that hurt me very, very, very deeply, probably more deeply than the A), consisted of a financial talk, that eventually had me in a place where I felt totally emotionally beat down. I quietly told my WH that I did not want to argue, that I felt defeated and beat down, and told him I had to excuse myself from the call now. I was so quiet in this statement, my voice was barely over a whisper.

I now wonder what this (no contact with him) is doing, if anything, if my WH thinks he just wanted out. Now he is defintely "out"..out of the house, out of church, out of the family, out of our close knit group of friends, out of our hopes, dreams and goals, out. He has the exit...but he is not fully walking through the door and moving on...to her, to a new life for himself, anything. Just seemingly in limbo.

Anyways, not to put pressure on you, point fingers, anything, I was just really wanting your prespective, without all the "fog" talk (and the pain that goes with those conversation with my WH).

Thanks in advance for sharing anything you may be comfortable with! :-)