My wife made a similar statement in an email she wrote OM. I clearly see your point of view.


The ability to cry on Q is typical of the seasoned OM. This guy was a pro----- no different than Myrta’s. However, in the end OM got hurt very badly, who knows maybe even worse than me. The end of the affair was devastating for OM. So in the end my wife was not played.



There is a window in recovery where the BH can leave with another woman if she is sympathetic. This is more likely with younger men. OTOH, I had no desire for other women------ I always wanted my wife and no one else. I never had the need for validation or admiration. When I took the EN questionnaire admiration was my last EN. I suspect most OMs crave admiration. So in a sense the affair becomes a mutual admiration society.


Yeah, the I love you, but I replaced you with another man for SF and attention is hard to understand. It is even harder to understand when OM does not measure up as a man. It is much easier to understand a woman having an exit affair because the BH is a complete loser and OM is outstanding. I should say “outstanding” in quotation marks because any man that willingly becomes an OM has issues. In the case of your H I can understand. In addition he left before pursuing the PA and the OW was single. In addition, he did not have to re-write the marital history to leave.

You know what, I better stop before I get too sarcastic or bitter. Lately I have been quite happy.

Thanks for listening!
CIAO!

Yes!

My wife was very sexual the 1st week then slightly less until she became somewhat frigid at 4-5 weeks past d-day. This coincided with the peak of the withdrawal from the affair. I also made it worse with my LBs. Eventually the libido came back to normal. The key is the end of withdrawal and depression. The latter is quite variable and likely related to the length of the affair.

My wife was great during this period and hid the withdrawal from me so I would not be depressed. She also gave me as much SF as possible despite the fact that she was depressed over the loss of the affair. It is not an easy thing to do my friend, but she did it.

During the 1st week there was no withdrawal. She was probably shocked by D-day and had no time to think about OM.

Oh - Sprint did ALOT of re-writting our martial history - it's what fueled his decision to leave. He was convinced of things that never happened in our marriage. My A sent him into a negative cycle of thoughts where he went back through our 7 years together, and made up things even that were true or didn't happen the way they did. When he finally left, he told me it was because he didn't want to be the bad guy, not because he couldn't get over my A. He is 34 and was in a full fledged EA with a 40 year old single mom. I was more hurt by the EA, then the PA...while with him, he was more hurt by the PA and the EA. If he had a one night stand it would have been easier for me, than the EA he was keeping up with her.

Anyhow...it's all in the past now, and I am looking forward to a great future with him - we made some pretty bad mistakes, but both of us have learned from them.

Thanks Stan,

Could you read my post in:
Is there a post or article that explains WS withdrawal?

My last post is on emotional needs and I could use some feedback.

The heading is:
Emotional needs letter...What would you change?

I asked "In an attempt to get my wife to meet some of my emotional needs and read Dr. Harleys material, I decided to write her a letter and would like feedback and suggestion on where it could be improved. I don’t want it to be an LB." The entire letter follows in teh post, should I postpone this...It might turn out to be a huge LB?

My wife also picked a major mismatch for OM. Same story------- we did not have a bad marriage. These OMs are smooth, that is all. Anyone who allows that initial intimacy can fall into an affair. Boundaries are needed.

Your letter is perfect------ I have no problems with it. See my post to Phgirl in recovery.

Good Luck

BTW, use reverse psychology and tell your wife you want to try celibacy to clear your head. It worked for me!

Here i have some questions for FWS. I will appreciate that if i could get the answer from you .

1, after my ww had affair, she lost loving feeling for me.
i did not know it is affair that cause it until it was discovered later.
so my question is : it is normal for FWS?

2, i have done plan a about one month, during plan a, i exposed the affair to friends from my ww and her family.
I have another question, if it is ok i expose the affair to the friends from this op?

i m looking forward to hearing from you.

I have one question as well.

I get the fact that part of the justification for the WS is to "rewrite" the M history.

After the A is over and the fog has lifted, does the M stay rewritten in your minds, or do you remember the "truth" of how you felt about S and M pre-A?

Shaden

Extremely normal. I week before I was caught - i gave my H the whole I love you but I am not in love with you speech....I think pretty much every WS gets to that point....

I can't answer your other questions about exposure so I will leave that to someone else...


Once the fog has COMPLETELY lifted all of a sudden the happy moments start to trickle in bit by bit and you realize they were there all along. H didn't believe me about this, until he rewrote history and left, and came back and over the first few weeks would have these moments when he would say - i remeber this and it makes me feel love...and would say know he knew what i was talking about when those memories and history come back.

Of course though, if a WS is still justifying and resentful then they are still in the fog a bit...and those probably wont come back but if you are filling the love bank and they are remourseful - they start to remember the good times...

I found that once I got through the fog I could look back on our marital history with more clarity than before the A. Yes, there were problems and my H was absent in the M too me but I could see more clearly why he was absent. I could also no longer use any of that to justify doing what I did.

A question for all of the FW spouses. My EX has done all of the things you have talked about here. Inappropriate OM(16yrs younger), says its not "a permanent thing", etc. My question is given that I gave up and got the divorce is there a chance that any of you would have gone back if your spouse had divorced you?

Does this end any chance of recovery?

******* Bump*******

Pureangle,


Good Lord, our FWH's were ****** the same OW!!!

Here my other question is :

since my ww can not meet this op quite often. i think they could meet each other 3-4 times a month, i would like to invite FWS to tell me, during the affair, what tool from BS should take to stop the affair, i mean what SB should do can make you worried about most, in this case to speed to end the affair.

i hope i can get the advice from you.

thanks

*****bump****

Pinetree,

I am a fww...I think that since you are doing plan A and have exposed you have done everything right.

For me if I was still involved and my h wanted to hasten the end of A...this is all it would take...

Since most fws are cake eaters I think it would apply to most.

1.) the threat of exposure at work would have been horrible to me... now if the exposure went full force to w/in my community...parents at my kids school having knowledge etc...that would have caused to me to want to just get out and get away...but not without my kids...which leads me to #2.

2.) the thought of my kids being taken away from me or them knowing about my choices would have removed me from the A very quickly...

3.) If I knew for certain that my h was going to ruin om life...(which of course I was a participant in anyway).

...by that I mean...if h would threaten exposure at his workplace or family...I don't know if you exposed to his side yet but if my h threatened that ...I would have gotten out sooooo fast...I did care for him...I am sad to admit. It was all good in secret but not many people like the consequences.

Fortunately for me I did not have any of these issues to deal with...my h found out through a very vague note I left om of me trying to end A...actually put it away for awhile..I didn't want it to end but knew I just HAD to...so in my h eyes I was already out of it.

But, emotionally I was not at all...keep plan A'ing her....actually b/c my h hasn't responded like most bs and following the books and is still pre A behavior...it has been really tough for me to not get justified but I have fought it tooth and nail and since there is absolute nc between om and I (we both changed our #'s)I can do honest work on the m...without true nc...during the w/drawal period it would have been all but impossible.

Hope I helped...
I am only true nc for 9 weeks.

Brandi

Thank you for your reply.
i appreciate it very much.

I am sure my ww is still keeping the contact with this op. at least via telephone every day.

due to her love bank is almost empty before her affair, so i think i need keep on planing a her .

Although i do not think the prlonged plan will take my ww out , but at least it will pave a very good base for my plan b.

now i m thinking if i should explose the affair to the friends of this op? do you think it works?

I'd like to ask another question. One that I've never seen asked or answered out here in all the time I've been lurking on MB.

There's a quote used earlier in this thread that strikes a chord with me: "Want to know if something is cheating? If you wouldn't do it with your spouse standing there, it's cheating." - Dr. Phil

Using Dr. Phil's definition of cheating (which no one seems to disagree with), at what point does a WS decide that it's "okay" to do something they wouldn't do with their spouse standing there?

Please interpret the word "decide" as loosely as necessary. What I'm asking is how a WS gets beyond the threshold where she/he would never consider doing something their spouse couldn't be there watching into a "place" where they do things they most definitely do NOT want their spouses to watch. How is that first step rationalized?

I'm divorced. I never got a good answer to this and it preys on my mind to this day, twenty years afterward.

First, I'm a BS not a WS - but I asked my FWS these questions and here is what he said:

1. Did it petrify you when the A advanced to a PA?

No. He said it was expected by both parties and it was a gradual decent to ******. The frog in boiling water analogy. There had been ample discussions about the escalation to a full-blown PA, with lots of petting in the weeks that led up to it.

2. What were you thinking during the sex?

He said his thoughts were all over the map. On one hand it was exciting to have arrived at this point and on the other hand he was thinking that the OW looked a heck of a lot better with her clothes on. He specifically said without all of the help she got from her bra, frankly she had nothing. And he said she was pencil thin, had no rear end or curves, and bird legs. Frankly I could have done without those mental pictures, but I was relieved to know that his assessment was honest and she wasn't someone he found attractive. He said he also wavered back and forth between telling himself he deserved happiness and the opposite as he was condeming himself for breaking his vows and covenants.

3. Was the sex enjoyable or disappointing?

He said it was extremely disappointing. My FWH tends to be raw when he is brutally honest. He said if OW ever intended to keep a man, she needed to learn to give a decent BJ. (good grief) And he commented about her hygiene too, saying that if OS was in the offering she needed to do a better job keeping herself clean. (TMI, TMI!)

4. Did you feel guilty?

Yes. He said by nightfall he was violently sick and vomiting. He took sleeping pills to get some sleep and bolted from his bed at his apartment to come home to see me and his (then) 9-year old son, to celebrate his birthday. I remember him crying the entire time he drove to the theme park we went to, tears streaming down his cheeks. He told me not to ask, so I didn't. Later, of course, the whole sordid tale spilled out.

5. If the PA continued even though you felt guilty or sick then why did you continue with it?

This doesn't really apply in our situation. He said he knew that he was going to ditch OW - even if we didn't decide to work things out. He said she was not anyone he would have wanted to be with and he admits he felt nothing for her other than the excitement of being chased by her, feeling wanted, and her stroking his ego. She came across as easy and that made it even easier for him to act on her advances.

-pendragon

I just noticed this thread, and while I didn't read all six pages, I figured I could at least answer the questions as a FWW.

1. Did it petrify you when the A advanced to a PA?
I don't know that I would use the word "petrify" but when it first happened, I was a little scared.

2. What were you thinking during the sex?
The first time it happened, I just kept thinking "I am a married woman. I shouldn't be doing this."

3. Was the sex enjoyable or disappointing?
At first the sex was disappointing, but it eventually became enjoyable. I think it was more the thrill than anything else.

4. Did you feel guilty?
At first I did feel guilty. I was away on a trip and I remember telling my H that when I got back, we were going to have lots of sex because I felt like that would somehow make it up to him.

5. If the PA continued even though you felt guilty or sick then why did you continue with it?
I was able to suppress my feelings of guilt. The OM made me feel happy when I was with him. Needs were getting met and I didn't want to stop that.