We can't control our feelings, we can control our actions. However, so many people put all of this faith and trust in their feelings. As if feelings are pure and always right. When you use feelings as a compass for your life, you're in trouble. This why it's beneficial to have a faith in something greater than yourself, cause you can never be a perfect compass.

Our feelings are spoiled brats and they want everything their way, right now. If you have more faith in your feelings rather than your head, guess what's going to happen? That's why I think that it's the more insecure person who is more likely to fall into an A. Because they respect their feelings more than their judgment. And that's sad.

Thinking, "I wouldn't do this to you" or "I don't deserve this" is very gratifying and pats my ego, but it feeds my self-righteousness as a BS and makes me feel more pain and anger than necessary.

"Anger can be the most difficult emotion to modify, because when you get mad you will be like a furious bulldog, and persuading you to stop sinking your teeth into the other person's leg can be extremely tough. You won't really want to rid yourself of those feelings because you will be consumed by the desire for revenge. After all, because anger is caused by what you perceive to be unfair, it is a moral emotion , and you will be extremely hesitant to let go of the righteous feeling. You will have the nearly irresistible urge to defend and justify your anger with religious zeal. Overcoming this will require an act of great willpower."

Burns, David D, M.D. (1999) Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Revised edition. New York: Quill.

In my conceit I think I'm this great person that no one would cheat on, cause I'm so wonderful. Well, I'm in good company. A lot of beautiful women are rejected, Halle Barry and Angelina Jolie for example.

It's been tough accepting that the A didn't happen because of me (my conceit again). I had nothing to do with the A. The A says nothing about my worth as a person. However, the A does say a lot about the WS and OP.

Now that I've gotten over my anger (which flares up occasionally and tries to be fed), I have a lot more compassion for the WS and OP and how much of themselves they've lost. - Where did that come from....wow. I have sincere compassion for my H. I love him again. My world just shifted.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Loy:
<strong> I have a lot more compassion for the WS and OP and how much of themselves they've lost. - </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If it makes any BS feel better (perhaps not- but here it is anyway) as a FWW, I can affirm for you how true this is. Once that fog lifts, reality isn't pretty. You do lose yourself - lose respect for yourself, lose liking for yourself, lose love for yourself ALONG with coping with the fact that you have terribly hurt the one person in the world that you love the most. The wages of sin, I suppose.

Loy, you have a very good perspective on this.

How did you get past the anger?

AndrewA - Your post about OP being an ugly guy cracked me up. I met my XW's OP once and thought he was not a threat just by looking at him. No chance is what I thought. He isn't her type physically at all. I have thought like you how if it was Brad Pitt or something I think it would bother me less. The fact that she is or was attracted to this guy makes me think less of her in general. It also makes me feel real low if she chose him over me. Even if it is a temporary thing. LOL.

Does anyone here buy the WS excuse "I wasn't looking for an affair, it just happened!" or is it just me that refuses to believe that?

I didn't buy it when my wife told me about her A's. I thought it was a load of crap. Later I came to understand that it can "just happen." After 6 months of my wife's waffling back and forth on our marriage, her continued contact with OM and confession of another A, I found myself beat up mentally and physically. No touching, speaking or hardly looking my direction for months wore me down. She acted as if I was the evil one, after all, I was trying to take her soulmate away, her first real love since the one that got away before we met.

Enter the OW....At first she was just another person on an email distribution list for jokes. There were some reply to all's and I thought she had a good sense of humor. The over the course of about 2-3 weeks we started exchanging emails privately...nothing romantic or sexual just talking about life. She was aware of my situation with my wife and I because she worked with OM and my wife. OW was going through a divorce so I guess I looked at her as a source of info.

I don't remember who said what first but the emails started turning into "pick-me up" sessions. With both of us telling the other how great of a person they were and how thing would work out in our respective marriages. Somewhere in these conversations something changed. It felt good to have someone say that I had a good heart and that eventually my wife would wake up to what she was walking out on.

One day I realized i was developing feelings for her. I don't specifically remember an "a-ha" moment but I was kinda suprised because it did sneak up on me. This was the crossroads for me. At this point I knew what I was doing, I didn't know quite how I got there but I knew where I was.

I wasn't looking for an affair but I did little to try and stop it. Part of me felt it was justified because of what my wife was doing. Another part rationalized that my feelings were just like any you'd have for a good friend.

Once I started justifying and rationalizing my actions that is when I could no longer use "oops" as an excuse.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Sadfww:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Sarahbellem:
<strong> H tells me that he didn't "intend" for this to happen. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Pure garbage- fog babble. Unless he was tied up and forced into the A, he *intended* to do each of the steps that led him further and further into the A. Same is true for all WS. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'll give you that at each point there was a decision made to proceed in the direction I was going. That is true, but I think the point was that having an A was never a goal.

God Bless

Doug

Juke, that still sticks in my craw too. If OM had been a real catch I could of understood FWWS 'love' and infatuations with him but OM is , well, NOT Brad Pitt.

He's almost a foot shorter than me
He's 54 ( I'm forty)
He has a blonde mullet leftover from studio 54's last days
He dresses like Disco Stu's dad
He has never worked, only been supported by his ex wifes and current GF
He is an architypal ex-jock, can hardly string a sentence together
He is no great shakes in the bedroom department
He is a petty criminal
He is a serial marriagebreaker and womaniser ( 3 divorces, every one stolen from a marriage, plus affairs)
He is a liar
He had regularly abused his position in his sport to get flattery and sex
I could go on....the man would be pond life to me if he hadn't had an A with my FWW.

I thought I must've been a REALLY sh1t husband for him to look good enough to consider FWW dumping me for. I know thats probably not true. The fact that he is almost my exact opposite probably was part of the attraction. I sunno. Mebbe never will.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Loy:
<strong> We can't control our feelings, we can control our actions. However, so many people put all of this faith and trust in their feelings. As if feelings are pure and always right. When you use feelings as a compass for your life, you're in trouble. This why it's beneficial to have a faith in something greater than yourself, cause you can never be a perfect compass.

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My counselor put it to me like this using a locomotive/caboose analogy......

The caboose is like our feelings always at the end of the train. The caboose should never come first, that is what the locomotive is for.

Your feelings are controlled by your heart.

Your heart is controlled by your thoughts

your thoughts are controlled by your mind

you mind is controled by YOU.

Kinda that whole garbage in-garbage out thing.

God Bless


Doug

LOL Bob!- Cracking up at your post! The mullet and disco clothes! Too funny. My XW's OP could fit into several parts of your list too. He is a womanizer (must be capable of it by arrogance alone because he is one ugly SOB) and she knew this going in. He is really skinny with poor physique. I am in total good shape. I told her that he would wind up cheating on her and he did. Yes, he is also the polar opposite of me in every way which makes him the polar opposite of her because my XW and I are very much alike. All they have in common is the affair and drinking. That's it. The only reason I even trusted her around him is because he is the way he is. i will never make that mistake again. Any other man is a potential threat.

He also doesn't work just lives off government money which I think is gone now according to XW.

My H's FOW is considered to be a catch (Jennifer Aniston to your guy's Brad Pitt) and it did not help me in anyway. For a while I thought "of course H cheated on me" because:

OW is a film actress (cheerleader movie)- I'm not
OW is sexy - I was pregnant
OW is a size 2 - I'm a size 6
OW is 24 - I'm 29 (this list seems so high school)

I could go on and on to find ways to make me feel crappy. Then I would feel angry at H for making me feel this way. For making me feel sexually useless, for making me undesirable, for making me feel unwanted and unloved.

I gave my H way too much power. My anger came under control when I began to take control of my life again and take responsibility for my own happiness. My H isn't responsible for how I feel about myself. Getting a life again, discovering what my interests are, making plans on my own have helped to rebuild my self esteem.

For me, things got better as soon I stopped trying to repair my WH and save my marriage and started to take care of myself. Now, I only work on what I can control.

I've also been angry and embarrassed at myself. Why didn't I ask him about his cell phone record earlier?, why did I throw myself at him only to be rejected when I knew he wasn't "in love" with me? Why did I beg and plead for H to try and love me?

Having compassion for your own mistakes is a lot harder than having compassion for others. I don't know how the FWS manages.

I read this recently: What you do today is far more important than what you did yesterday.

SB

I'm with you on this!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">H tells me that he didn't "intend" for this to happen. Well, to my eyes it looks like there was a lot of intention going on... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I also heard from my H that he didn't 'intend' for the PA to happen. He can't, however, tell me what his intentions really were when he picked up the phone and started up the PA again (1st PA was during H's first M).

Like you, all I see are H's intentions.

We went out for our 3rd anniversary about 3 - 4 days before the actual day because H had to travel for business (or so I thought). Little did I know at the time that while we were sitting in our favorite restaurant that H already had his *date* with OW planned for the night before our anniversary the following week. He managed to get her invited to a business dinner (ridiculous since OW works for a competitive company of the vendor H was visiting) and OW went to H's hotel room afterwards. Of course, just to talk and catch up with each other since the 10 years from their first PA. H's intention that night...was to have sex with OW...on the night before our 3rd anniversary! He finally admitted to that recently (like I didn't already have a clue!). He also spent some time with OW on our anniversary.

So, as far as I'm concerned, H can take his "I didn't intend for the PA to happen" and stick it where it belongs.

H left me, his beautiful wife, at home and spent the night before and the day of our anniversary with some butt-ugly OW!

That is some hard [censored] to deal with!

Take care.

sss

<small>[ October 08, 2004, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: stillsosad ]</small>

Well, it varies, but there is often a grain of truth behind the "unintentional" claim that many WS's have. They are intending to do something for themselves, not hurt the BS. That's just collateral damage.

I got the, "It just happened” talk too. From both wife and OMM.

It "just happened” for 10 years? The lies they both told each other, over and over again, to keep it going "just happened?" All the sneaking around and planning and even meeting in foreign cities "just happened?” The passionate love letters and phone calls almost every day " just happened?” Arraigning sex in a hotel days in advance " just happened?"

I don' t think so.

OMM tried to tell me he never expected it to go this far. Blah. What a line. He knew what he was doing. He's a player. Then when OMM's wife found out, he blamed it all on my W. Claimed she pursued him until he just gave in, he was the victim, she is the predator, he wanted to file a harassment suit, on and on. Yeah, it "just happened" like his other A's.

The only thing that just happened to them was getting caught.

However, this kind of talk from W was early in recovery. I haven't heard it for quite a while now, thankfully.

I agree with Bob. It took them both a lot of planning, careful decisions, acting out their plans and just plain hard work to make such incredibly selfish behavior " just happen". If that much "just happened” occurred in our M we would be the married couple of the century.

If I jump off a cliff, it will just happen that I hit the bottom hard and get hurt. If I let myself be seduced it will just happen that I become an adulterer.

Life just happens to these people. They never appear to do anything consciously if you really listen to them.

T

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> If that much "just happened” occurred in our M we would be the married couple of the century. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So true.

Does anyone here buy the WS excuse "I wasn't looking for an affair, it just happened!" or is it just me that refuses to believe that?

Yes, I believe that affairs can happen by accident. My FWW maintains that the daily talks at work with her OM led to feelings and emotions that just happened. The relationship evolved from there. Warning to anyone who has a close friend of the opposite sex, be careful.

TooSoon

I think we really have two questions here.

The first one is: Did the WS seek out an affair? I'm willing to bet that the answer is NO in the vast majority of cases.

However, the second question is: Did the WS INTENTIONALLY take the steps necessary to have an A? And I think in ALL cases the answer to that is yes. For example: Did the WS arrange meetings/conversations with the OP? YEs Did the WS choose to engage in physical contact with the WS? Yes... etc etc ad nauseum.

<small>[ October 11, 2004, 06:39 AM: Message edited by: Suzet* ]</small>

Most WS’s (except serial cheaters etc.) definitely don’t go out and looking for an A or someone to have an A with. Many (if not most) A’s start out as friendships with someone of the opposite sex and then unwittingly crossed boundaries from platonic friendship into romantic love. Although people can’t always control their emotional reactions & feelings towards others, they can still control their actions and not respond or act on inappropriate feelings.

I’m a strong believer in the saying: ”We can’t always control our feelings, but we can control our actions”. Therefore I believe that feelings can happen accidentally (or as Pepperband have said, by chance), but I agree that the act of adultery or cheating is always intentional and can never happen accidentally. When someone have an PA, that person know without doubt that what he/she doing is wrong... Sex and using your body and/or genitals CAN’T happen 'accidentally' because clothes can’t get removed by itself! But as I’ve said, someone can get involved in an EA if boundaries is unwittingly crossed from platonic friendship into something more… When during such a friendship, you realize you've developed inappropriate feelings for the person, you still have the choice to stop before it develop any further, but if you let the EA develop into an PA any way, you know without doubt what you're doing is wrong. However, the problem is, it often involves enormous will-power and self-discipline to stop an A once boundaries has been crossed into romantic feelings...and I believe this is why most people get involved in an PA while there original intention wasn't to have an A and to cheat on their spouses.

Before I became involved in an EA myself, I was extremely judgmental of people who allowed themselves in situations like this. I never thought something like this would ever happen to me (this was very out of character for me) but my experience taught me humbleness and today I realize an A can happen to anyone if not cautious and careful and that everyone must be aware of their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> However, the second question is: Did the WS INTENTIONALLY take the steps necessary to have an A? And I think in ALL cases the answer to that is yes. For example: Did the WS arrange meetings/conversations with the OP? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">After the emotions are running high due to the ongoing contact with the "friend", accidental or not, the ingredience for an affair are in place.

Yes, the WS does make a decision at some point to take it to the next level and to hide the progression of the affair. At some point, that causes the first lie to be said and then the second and so on. Before the WS knows it, he or she is on the fast train to family destruction.

suzet said.......

I’m a strong believer in the saying: ”We can’t always control our feelings, but we can control our actions”.

I'm not disagreeing but maybe I am not reading it the way you meant it.

In a broad sense feelings can't be controlled. Most of us are born with predispositions to "feel" a certain way about things. Like me and brussel sprouts...I hate them. I get nauseous thinking about them. Wooden spoons, don't like them either. Watching Dwight Clark and "the Catch" every year over and over turns my stomach...... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

But on the opposite side... looking at the Grand Canyon at sunset is breath taking. Watching my 5 wood go 220 with a slight draw....goose bumps or priceless. All these things, for me, are instant and powerful feelings which I think are different than feelings that develop for another person.

The way I felt about the OW would have been easy to control if I had chosen to. I felt the attraction growing and steered my actions to come in line with the feelings. My thoughts about the OW controlled how I felt about her. I let my mind wander with thoughts of her. My feelings grew because I chose not to control them, not because I couldn't.

I have only came to this conclusion in retrospect and at the time I would have said the whole "love at first sight" or destiny thing was in effect. But I think that was just a way to place the blame outside of myself and attribute it to cosmic forces beyond my control....Since something bigger than me was directing it made it so much easier to keep living in the fantasy.

God Bless

Doug