Last night, my FWW and I were talking about her past OM and she was telling me how she thinks he was deliberately manipulating her to get a divorce so he could have her. She said he did the same thing to another co-worker who was having some marital problems too. He comforted her, encouraged her, and assisted her to get her divorce for the sole purpose of taking over the role of her spouse. After the divorce, she met someone else and walked away from the guy who helped her get the divorce.

My FWW’s now believes he was doing the same thing with her. My wife told me he was there for her, was courting her, and wanted to be with her after she divorced me. He tried to hinder our recovery by not letting go even after my FWW told him she was staying with her family.

My FWW thinks her OM looks for vulnerable women who complain about their spouse and he immediately tries to jump in there to be the hero and helper. It didn’t work for him with my FWW, but he sure came close to killing our marriage and breaking up our family. These people are almost like predators in their own right. Two years post DD, we are doing so well in our marriage now, it is almost scary!

TooSoon

TS,

Yup,I would imagine all OP's are like this to some degree.You have the WS telling OP how miserable they are,their marriage is on the rocks,they never have sex anymore,they are not "in love" with their spouse anymore and are only staying for the kids,blah blah blah and there is OP,sooo supportive,understanding and there at any hour of need.Circling the marriage like a buzzard.

I can hear all the rationalizations and justifications from the OP all the time.In fact,this webiste called LoveShack has been mentioned here lately so I went over and have been reading.I don't like that site at all but do recognize several members posting over there.They also have a board for The Other Man/Woman under "Romantic" sub forum. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Disgusting.IMO just having a forum for them to discuss how they hurt people gives them credibility which they do not deserve.It's like Gloryb but people who disagree with them aren't tossed off the board right away.

Anyway,glad you are the Mrs are doing well!

O

OG:

I believe in the concept of the accidental affair. Two people falling in love over time by accident with niether party intending for it to happen.

The guy at my wife's previous office (State run agency full of misfits) was a divorced and lonely guy who has in the past, and who continued with my wife, to focus on what he perceived as vulnerable women. He wants to be their hero and confidant so he can end up with the person after they are divorced.

I don't think most happily married men and women would pursue a person who is complaining about their spouse. I am not removing my wife's part of the blame in the affair since she did fall for his "charm" and allowed the feelings to happen. The good thing is, my wife and I can openly dicuss this experience and talk matter of factly about it today. Times does heal.

TooSoon

I'm very sorry to hear this TS.It's a myth,plain and simple and takes away responsibility for CHOICE/ACTIONS.There is always a fine line waiting to be crossed and a WS does so.He/she makes that choice to go beyond what they know is appropriate and seek fulfillment there(OP).It's no accident.



Again I believe this is a fundamental problem that helps fuel an A.If you are talking about how happy you are in your marriage and with your S with this OP then they are not going to pursue as much,at least in theory.But I have heard it time and again that people who cheat do discuss what is "wrong" in their marriage or with their spouse,are intimate with these OP and support one another in their feelings of hopelessness,depression,boredom or whatever.It's the glue that binds them in what they are doing in addition to the addictive high feelings of fantasy and being told that it would be so much better with OP and I can make you happy,etc,etc.It's nothing but a trap.

I guess we see things differently.

O

OG:

Let me say it this way. I believe that two people who work closely together get to know each other very well. I think feelings can sneak up on them, particulary if one is complaining of their spouse but without it being planned. I agree that there comes a time when one or the other has to declare their feelings for the other which allows it to then go to the next level. There does come a point and time when you must cross the bridge into the affair. This is different than a person hitting the bars for the sole purpose of getting laid, imo. They are both wrong but they begin with different intentions. I hope that better says how I feel.

My wife worked around a bunch of people who were divorced or unhapplily married. The atmophere in your typical social state run agency is generally not full of optimistic type of people. They dealt with court ordered cases and the caliber of client was of a lower end of the spectrum.

The system itself attracts a different caliber of worker and the system has a tendency to bring the workers down to its level since you are not able to bring the client up to yours, etc. You take on the "misery loves company" and "we are all in this together" attitude like the rest of your co-workers. I believe the environment itself helped set the tone for her to have the affair. Her enviroment helped bring her down and her complaining of her spouse, like the rest of them did, made her a candidate for an affair and a target for this particular OM. One of the marriage Counsellors at the agency was married and divorced four times.

I think my wife fell into the affair by accident but I now feel like the OM did it by design. Neither party was innocent in the end and they both must share in the guilt of their actions. Does this make sense?

TooSoon

I understand you TS.But,whether you are some predator out to "get" a married person or it "just happens" by being in close contact with co-workers,etc,it's all the same since the outcome is an A.What happened was a failure to protect the marriage/spouse for personal needs/desires/fantasies,etc.

My WH also worked with many young,educated,attractive and productive people and the atmosphere for cheating was ripe.He used to tell me stories of how everyone was cheating with everyone else at work,single or married.When I went ot visit him at owrk I got a distinct feeling of eyes upon me and I wasn't sure how to take it.Opportunists are everywhere but it's how you handle them that counts.

Forgive me for saying so but it seems like you are still hanging onto the idea that this OM may have "hypnotized" your WW into the A.Yes he is to blame for his parts but ultimately it was your WW that allowed it to go on when she could have shut him down from the get go.I have had tingly feelings for other men before and being an RN,the hospital's I used to work at were ripe for this kind of attention:attractive,brilliant doctors and nurses everywhere caring for the sick and dying.I recognized what I was feeling for these other men(should say 3? over my adult lifetime while married) but I did not act upon it and I knew where it could lead.I was a big girl and I had a brain.I knew exactly what was presented before me.I loved my H more and that was that.

Even if this OM was a svengali,it was up to her to prevent him from helping ruin your marriage or at least put it at risk.Same can be said for my WH but in my case,he wanted it to happen.He felt entitled to enjoy himself and our marriage,family and me,his wife no longer mattered.He knew it was a huge risk but took it.The homewrecker was right there every step of the way too but ulitmately,he could have dumped her as he should have and saved our marriage but again,he chose otherwise.

I understand what you are saying TS but I just don't think it was an accident.No one held a gun to your FWW's head and said cheat.She got a "payoff",as Dr.Phil says,for being with this OM but ultimately it backfired.Luckily for you and your marriage.

O <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

No, I blamed my wife from the beginning for her to allow this guy, who was 18 years younger than her, into her life and our marriage. Maybe my FWW was trying to ease her own conscious a bit since she brought up the fact that the OM nutured another woman in the office thru her divorce. I do think my wife is paying a huge mental price for her infidelity. Her guilty conscious continues to haunt her and that is something I remember reading from Dr. Harley. No matter how happy the lovers are or act, they cannot escape their own guilty counscious. I asked her if there were other parts of the affair that she has not shared with me, but she says I know every detail and she is very glad she was able to tell me what happened as painful as it was for me to hear the facts of the affair.

I told my wife that I accept my role in the deterioration of the marriage in the first place, even though I didn't think it was that bad, but it was solely her fault and her bad choice to have the affair in the first place.

I think what I have learned reading the BB's that every affair has its own unique dynamic to each and every case but the participants seem to all act the same before, during, and after the affair is over.

TooSoon

Can I ask you a question?

This is a theme I see over and over here and I would like to address it.Why would you accept blame for the "deterioration" of your marriage when in fact,you may not have known it was deteriorating in the first place?

IMO,what I hear is that the BS is usually the last to know things were SO bad in the mind of a WS that they are destroyed when the news comes out about an A.I hear people saying "I take the blame for the state of my marriage" or I take responsibility for the atmosphere of the marriage",etc,etc and my concern is,what if you are going along your happy way,life is good,the marriage is good,not perfect but you haven't heard one thing about any issues from your spouse and then BAM,the A comes into play.

I have been here a little over 2 years now.And only but for a small handful of times where the WS said something like "I tried to get the attention of my BS",there was no indication that anything was seriously wrong in the marriage until it's too late.

I am one of those people.I had NO idea my WH was making his mind up to do what he did and that he felt entitled to do it.I NEVER once heard " I am an unhappily married husband" until I finally pried it out of him that he was cheating.Not once.In fact,only days before we were e-mailing each other and saying "I love you's" etc without ANY indication anything was wrong and my WH KNEW I would do anything to make our marriage better if I had known he was not happy.

What I worry about is these people in marriages who go along thinking things are ok when they really are not for one person.How on earth are we supposed to know if they don't tell us? We are not mind readers.IMO many people just do not understand what marriage is truly about.

O

All OM's have to have some predatory instincts about them or else they wouldn't be able to intiate the process in the first place. However, all OW's at least temporarily have to let there guard down and succomb to the OM's poison. This is not the OM's fault. It is his fault for preying on married women. But the MW allowing those EN's to be fulfilled outside of the marital relationship is a choice that they make and a choice that is always wrong regardless of how slick, sweet or predatory the OM is. It takes two to tango. Either one of the two makes different choices and we are not on this board. But the reality is that both made those choices.

OG:

When a person is faced with losing your spouse to another person, you must look at yourself and say, "What could I have done to prevent this from happening"? or "Could I have been a better husband to my wife"? or "What can I do to save my marriage?"

I took my wife for granite for years, but I thought we were good together and simply settled in marriage. I probably put her second too many times with other family members and work issues, etc. So after DD, if I wanted any chance to save my marriage, it was not a time for me to have loads of finger pointing rightious pride. I think if I would have done that, I would be divorced today. I immediately accepted shared blame for the condition of our marriage and asked her to go to MC. Was it a bad or abusive marriage or was it fun and exciting, no. It was just steady. Did she come to me with her concerns of the condition of our marriage? No, we had our share of fighting over stupid stuff but we accepted the marriage as what it was.

I knew we were becoming very disconnected and it was during the affair period that it happened. She was shopping more and more and working later than usual, etc. I even told my son that if mom gets pregnant, I am not the father since I was fixed. I could have sex with her but she wouldn't even kiss me for she was madly in love with the OM. I really knew deep inside she was seeing someone but I kept thinking if I don't address it, it will go away.

I don't believe that I directly damaged the marriage, but I found out that the condition of our marriage made it ripe for an affair. It took a lot for me to set my pride aside and to want and accept this unloyal woman back, but I am glad I did. I make a real effort to please her today, to clean the house, and to simply go out of my way to make her happy. I didn't do much of this before but I think my pro-active appraoch to the marriage is working for me and her both.

It was harder to save the marriage than it would have been to end it but I deemed it worthwhile to fight the battle to win her heart back. That is not easy when you are forced to compete with fantasy love either.

I see you are divorcing or did get a divorce?

TooSoon

My FWW not only put her guard down but she was flattered by the younger man telling sweet nothings in her ear. She ate it up big time.

TooSoon

Octobergirl has a point, IMHO. TooSoon, you say your wife was flattered by a younger man, a predator, who was whispering sweet nothings in her ear. But...where in the world did she get the idea she had a RIGHT to BE flattered in a personal context by anyone, much less allow a younger man enough intimacy to whisper in her ear? You see what I mean? How the heck did she decide that was okay? Why...and how...did she not see the first whisper was wrong, wrong, wrong!

To illustrate what I mean, I don't blame an alcoholic for having the disease. I WILL blame him (or her) for taking that FIRST drink once they are diagnosed. To me a spouse is like that alcoholic--and they can never, ever take that first drink outside the marriage.

I think Octobergirl was hitting on something I wonder about also. What about personal responsibility? What about self-discipline? Shouldn't these things be uppermost in any married person's mind when it comes to outside relationships?

Please, please understand. I’m not asking these questions to point fingers. They are things that genuinely concern me and have for twenty-odd years.

Hi, Longhorn.

Adultery is a choice. That choice must be made by two (or more) parties. It is truly that simple.

Since adultery is a choice, the infidels are each absolutely responsible for their bad choice.

The first time I stuck drugs in my veins, I made a choice. Every one of the women I had sex with was my choice, and theirs.

No one 'falls into an affair'. They make a choice. Even love is a choice. We have a choice about dying before our time.

Our lives are filled with choices and molded by the choices that we make. People that choose adultery, make bad choices.

All the best,
Gimble

Hindsight is 20/20 TS.Of course it's easy to say I must go back and look at how I contributed,but then isn't that placing blame on the BS? All these Q's come up AFTER the A only because we are all desperate to try and figure out what went wrong when in reality,it was all about the WS,period.It's normal to want to try harder to try and fix the marriage but I don't agree that we should start revisiting our pasts and wonder why the WS decided to cheat.Only they can answer.Again,if the WS was so unhappy and not feeling good in the marriage,get out.Don't cheat.In my mind,this is the most selfish act: choosing to cheat but also keep the BS on the side,in the background,on the fringe.


Doesn't matter.If your WW didn't protect herself from the advances of some homewrecking OM then it was her fault she chose to involve herself.What did she do to make her marriage seem better before choosing an A? Anything you can recall?

The point to me is,you could be doing your darndest to be the best spouse ever but it may not make a difference if the person you are married to has problems that they choose to handle inappropriately.When you get right down to it,the crux of A's IMO is that the WS is seeking to fulfillment that may not be realistic,seek escape from reality and find a willing participant in that fantasy.We all have moments where we are unhappy,bored,depressed,lonely,etc but ususally it passes.If it doesn't that person has a responsibility to seek help,either from their own spouse,or a professional,clergy,friends,family, NOT some OP.



You may have felt this way but if your *WW felt so,then she should have expressed this to you and you both should have worked to make things better.This isn't about righteous finger pointing,it's simply doing what needs to be done to help ensure eachother's needs,feelings or what have you are out on the open and dealt with,good and bad.No hiding,no secrecy,no withdrawal.

I am divorcing after a looong struggle with many things.Mediation is taking a long time but I am ready to be done with it all.My marriage died a long time ago and there is nothing but ashes left for which I will mourn the rest of my life.And,my D was not due to any percieved righteous indignation.It was only because of continued contact that he refused to end and my painful suicidal life that I knew had to be helped.I hope and pray that I am not reading what I think I am.

O

Longhorn:

I don't think my wife or I ever heard of the word emotional affair before all of this happened to us. Post DD, my wife described her work friend as one of her best friends who she kept getting closer to. She says she never had sex with him so she didn't look at it as she was having an affair. Her connection with him caused her to disconnect from me as their relationship grew. She knew it wasn't right so she began rewriting the history of our 20 year marriage to help her justify her secret life.

She told me she even prayed for a way out of her mess she was now in since she knew it was wrong but she became to addicted to stop the relationship. She later described the love for him as the same feelings that she had when we met and connected. I agree it was my wife's personal responsibility to protect her marriage but she let her guard down and got in way over her head.

Assuming she is now an affair-aholic, she can no longer have any contact with this man or she may fall back into the hole she was in. If my wife fell back into the relationship or if she started another one with someone else, MB would not help me or her. I would accept the fact that she doesn't love me enough not to stray and I would divorce her. It would be way to difficult to go through this again. It was too painful.

It is very difficult for so many BS's to forgive their WS and so many simply file for divorce and move on. I am not defending WS's for their actions, I have learned to better understand how and why these things start. After DD, I was pretty brutal to some of the WS's on these Boards. I still don't like the arrogance of some of them so I don't talk with them.

My marriage was as close to being over as you can get. She was apartment and furniture shopping and even put down a desposit on one. For me, it was in the best interest to keep the family together. I believe I made the right choice to forgive but I know I will never be able to forget it. You learn to accept it as another tough time in your life.

TooSoon

I don't understand this. Please explain.

TS

Gimble:

You are correct as well as the others on this thread. MY wife made a very bad choice in her life and had she known the damage it was going to cause, I do not believe she would have ever done it.

She further stated she enjoyed the kidding and badgering around she did with him and that went on for months. She felt like she had a secret best friend even though it was a guy. They had lunch together almost daily and that lead to a few after work movies and that lead to kissing and hugging. The kissing and hugging started in December and I found out by her cell bills in January.

I am not justifying anything she did but I understand how it unfolded. So many Ws's tell similar versions from their own cases. Do they make the choice to eventually stray, yes they do.

TS

Hopefully I am reading things wrong but that is why I mentioned it.Maybe it's just what YOU personally went through and not some ideal.

There is another poster on MB that I have disagreed with before who shall remain nameless.How this person used to address certain people was in the frame of mind that,since X's marriage was saved,everyone who was not as fortunate must have done something wrong.Their pride got in the way,they didn't do the MB principles right,they didn't wait long enough,etc,etc.All it really did was put blame right back on the shoulders of the BS again.It used to make me very upset.

The very fact that we are even here says a lot about the people who were betrayed when it would have been so easy to run down to the nearest court and file.It does a disservice to those of us putting our hearts and souls into trying when it's intimated that we may not be "doing it right".Who's to say that BS's weren't giving their all beforehand? I am not saying you said this but I wondered why reading your posts,I felt this way again.

When my WH came home for the second false recovery,there actually came a time when I felt so used that I started to make a list of how many "things" I did for my WH when he did very little.In a way I was keeping score but it was all to illustrate a point to our MC.It wasn't enough that I was willing to go above and beyond what I thought was a normal amount of attention to my WH but that he was not helping and trying to improve things in any way.After I said I didn't want to make him one more cup of coffee for the day,I was tired he said "AHA! I Knew you weren't going to change".To me,it wasn't about the next DA** cup of coffee but about equality and care.

Contact continued despite his assurances he was not(I found out on my own via computer) and he knew it was his last chance since going through all these false recoveries was killing me,inside.Each and every contact an acid wash of pain.I had to make it stop since he wouldn't.Tell me,should I have stayed longer and tried "harder"? What could I have possibly done to save my marriage that I hadn't already tried?

O

K...I really feel bad about belaboring the point. TS, please ignore me if it gets too exasperating, okay? I sincerely am not trying to aggravate anyone.

In your reply to Gimble, you said your wife made a very bad choice that she wouldn't have made if she'd known the consequences. You see, that bothers me on a deep level. J.C. Watts, the former Congressman from Oklahoma, once said (I'm paraphrasing here) morals are what one does when no one is looking. Adapting that to bad choices, why in the world would she have made a choice AT ALL? Why, regardless of consequences, did she not understand that the FIRST afterwork movie was horribly wrong? How could she not see the FIRST hug and kiss was an invasion into her marriage? You see what I mean? I cannot get past the question of why that first step--before a straying spouse is in the fog--is ever taken. And why would a wayward spouse EVER allow a second instance??? <sigh> I hope I'm not giving offense. It's not intended.

Hi, TooSoon.

Quote:
===========================================
They had lunch together almost daily and that lead to a few after work movies and that lead to kissing and hugging. The kissing and hugging started in December and I found out by her cell bills in January.
===========================================

I don't want to re-introduce doubt or add to your pain. It may be that some things are better off unsaid or unknown.

Having stated the above, I have a problem with the time frame of the EA. IF it was 8+ months, then the other man in question must have been a loser in the extreme. The reason I say that is because a real predator (like I was) would have been in her pants long before 8 months had passed, or he would have moved on to the next target.

So I question your wife's assertion that he was a 'predator'. In my opinion, that sounds more like a transfer of blame on your wife's part, and would lead me to question the 'no sex' part of her claim.

Sorry if that hurts and if I have taken a huge leap with little information.

It is true that I don't have all the facts about your situation. From what you have written, events and actions don't add up in my mind. That generates doubt for me.

All the best,
Gimble