I am in a 8 year relationship and d-day was 11/8/06. I was WS and she is BS. We are both in counseling which is helping alot. Everything is out in the open and this is very painful. I am learning how to express my feelings and I feel progress is being made. However, BS feels that she would be settling for 2nd best when she knows she could get better out there. Sometimes I think she really wants to try again with me, othertimes she wants me to leave. There is alot of history between us, same social circle of friends, I am close with her family(who do not know), and I live with her as she is supporting me while I complete my graduate program.

I have made the choice to try and make this relationship work again. I could have left but realized that she is the one I loved and the OW was just a fling that shouldn't have happened.

Her one question that I have not been able to answer is how, if I said I truly, unconditionally love her, could I cheat on her and not feel guilty during the whole thing? How could you do that?

I have tried to answer her questions and even be blunt to the point where I said I did not love her at the time as I should of, or I just wanted to see what it was like to be with someone else after 8 years, or the opportunity was there so I took it, or there was something missing in our relationship so I found it in someone else. In MC I'm trying to express my true feelings because I usually try to say what she wants to hear, which is what I am trying to stop because I want this relationship to endure. She is not satisfied with my answer so I ask my fellow FWS, how could you cheat on your SO? How could you go back to the person whose heart you stomped on and expect everything to carry on?

Please... I need to know if I am the only one who thinks this "just happened" because I wanted to F!@# someone else for the ****** of it...or something like that. Idon't even know.

Until you know, you can't answer her question. This is you, T2R. Only you can answer.

Seems like if you're not saying what she wants to hear, you want to use someone else's words.

I am a FWW. I know for me.

Are you a serial cheat? Do you fantasize about women, strangers, friends? Do you distract from your self? What pain do you have inside, what are your needs and how do you choose to fill them?

Lots of questions. This is about you. You have to answer that. If you don't get to the bottom of it, you'll do it again. Then where will you be?

See, I had to get it so much that I knew I would never do it again. There's no peace in not knowing. There's no peace or confidence in not knowing yourself. You can do this. It doesn't just happen unless you disassociate from yourself so much, it is someone else and not you looking for sexual gratification. Or something like that.

Do the EN questionnaire on yourself. Be as honest as you can. Examine all of the needs and think of those not listed. Think of how your fling met your ENs. Soul search. This question is yours.

LA

Someone on the MB has a quote in their sig line, and it says something like an affair = entitlement, lack of respect, and unsaid resentment.
These words could not be truer, in my husband EA.

Entitlement
Lack of Respect
Resentment and Contempt

You are really the only one who knows the answer to that question.

By saying what you think she wants to hear you are doing her a great disservice.....what she wants to hear is the truth.

In all honesty one doesn't go outside the marriage just because they want to have sex with someone else.....there are deeper reasons.

You two both need to read *Surviving an Affair* to help you understand why this happened to begin with.

Being here is a step in the right direction.

God Bless,

-Caren

Thank you for the responses...I know this is my question to answer and it is frustrating as ****** that I cannot answer. We have read Survivng as Affair, and it wasn't what we needed to hear.

I am scared that I cannot answer this question bc this is the make it or break point of the relationship. If I can find the answer in myself, I think it would be ok relatively speaking...I was sort of wondering how FWS came to find the answer in themselves...what did you do soulsearch?

An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect.
An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.

-Gimble

Thank you for the correct quote
That quote sums up my fwh.

"I am scared that I cannot answer this question bc this is the make it or break point of the relationship."

Sounds like your fear of facing yourself is too great to get to your truth.

"She is not satisfied with my answer"

Are you satisfied with those answers above?

How long was your A? Who was it with? What did you feel at the time you chose to risk everything for...what?

LA

t2r -

This is a question to which only you hold the answer. Finding that answer means a deep exploration of yourself, which you doubtless sense would be painful and might uncover things you don't want to face.

I would advise you to find a good, tough, supportive IC and plan to spend a long time with him/her.

In essence, you've discovered that your behaviour has been a long way adrift of the principles which you think you hold. This tells you that there is a gap between the real, inner you, and the false self that has been your outer shell for most of your life. That false self has protected you in many ways, so dismantling it is difficult and painful.

A good place to start is the book 'Undefended Love' by Psaris and Lyons.

Good luck.

TA

I think I can help you with this one t2r...I've been through the very thing you are asking yourself.

I can tell you about my experience and let you draw from that...I won't guarantee yours will be the same.

As was mentioned earlier...I had my affair for the same reasons Bill Clinton did...because I could. I had opportunity and allowed myself to fall into a pattern of thinking that gave me permission to do it.

I think a common mistake most BS's and even WS's on here make is thinking the WS is seeking to "replace" the BS completely. That is true only in a small number of cases. There were MANY things I loved about my wife and my family...but the few things that I had issues with...admiration, respect, and SF had become big issues for us. I ultimately convinced myself that my wife was incapable of meeting these needs and having an affair with someone who did would be better than to continue to expect her to. Selfish? Absolutely, but my desperate and depressed mind allowed me no other viable alternatives. I was not mentally stable.

So, you see, I never stopped loving my wife. WE could argue all day on these boards about whether you can love two women at once...I happen to believe you can. I agonized over this very things for months until my IC help me entertain the idea that maybe I really did love them both. That was incredibly liberating. It let me understand that what I felt...was ok and real...that now I could deal with it more effectively. I could let myself grieve the loss of the OW. This MUST happen for you to ever let her go and for you to begin the process of forgiving yourself.

Recovering yourself is a process of choosing WHO you want to be and ensuring that you ACT in accordance with that choice. For most of us, being a WS would not have been a quality we would have chosen for ourselves.

We lost our integrity. We lost our vision of the person we wanted to be, making it that much easier to act differently from that vision. We became "fractured" at our core, without purpose or direction.

For me, the first step in regaining my integrity was understanding that I still had value as a human being. I am somewhat religious, so for me, it came by understanding that God was willing to offer me forgiveness even when I couldn't. If God was willing to forgive me, who am I to disagree with Him? I did not think this flippantly, but it was a humbling realization...that Jesus Christ died...DIED...that I, an adulterer, could be forgiven.

Think about that for a minute.

Once you forgive yourself, you are able to start holding your head up, acknowledging what you did, and address the consequences with character and integrity. Accepting forgiveness form God and yourself means that you are no longer free to wallow in your shame...you should GO and sin no more.

You are now FREE to live your life responsibly. You're free to look back at the person you had allowed yourself to become with compassion. Your are free to apply the lesson you learned to your new life.

Some of the BS's are no doubt saying "What were you doing for your BS through all of this?"

Doing "all of this" is what your BS needs the most. It is the ONLY way that you will ever be able to assure them that it will never happen again.

Will you ever be able to convince your W that she wasn't 2nd choice? I don't know. Maybe...maybe not. All you can really do at this point is act with integrity...and treat her like the first choice that she is from now on to the best of your ability. She going to have to work through a lot things inside herself about this.

Lastly, accept that your marriage has changed irrevocably. This process is not about recoving what you had. You can NEVER get that back. It's all about building something new at this point. It may also be about your W ending your marriage. You have to accept that she has that right to choose and respect it.

Low

Oh, and don't expect all this to happen overnight. It does take TIME...for you and for your W.

Low

As a BS I've grappled with this one. I even asked WH during the height of the affair how he could be with OW when he said he loved me. His response was, "I don't know."

Best answer I've come up with is kind of Orwellian ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others..."):

"I love you, but I love myself more."

It's the "more" we're working through in counselling right now!

Best to you trying2. Hold fast to honesty - for yourself and for your wife - as painful as they are to hear about, she does want your true feelings.

G

Low, I really appreciate your contribution on these boards. As a BS you help me to understand so clearly what goes on in the WS mind.

Thank you

T2R, get the book "After The Affair" by Janice Abrams. It is most helpful for the WS to understand themselves and for the BS to get some insight into the mind of the WS. FWIW, I am both the FWS and the BS. I can tell you that I did love my H during my A but my A was extremely selfish and disrespectful to my H, my children and marriage in general. I thought at the time that getting my needs met was justification for my A but I hated myself and what I was doing the entire time. I felt like a split personality for a long time because of compartmentalizing the A and my 'real' life.

As others have said, only YOU can answer the question of why and how. God bless you in this self discovery journey.

Thanks, cc

I have wondered about this lately as the board feels more and more polarized. I've had a sense that people are more willing to listen to what another BS thinks their WS is feeling than they are to a WS who has actually felt it. That somehow, there's no value in listening to me because of what I've done.

I don't get to many opportunities to share with other WS's.

Low

My H still says he doesn't understand why he did it...We've talked about EN's not being met etc, and he understands why he was attracted to her, but still can't explain (even to himself apparently) why he 'couldn't stop' <<his words, once it started...he says he didn't 'fall in love' with her, but cared about her a lot...I asked him if he cared for her so much why was it so easy to end it when I found out..he could only say that he didn't want to lose me...

"I DON'T KNOW". How often have us BS's heard this? That was the answer to so many questions I asked my WH, and even after 2 years and being totally honest with each other, "I don't know" is still the answer to some of them. I honestly think that my husband does not know why he did some of the things he did, and as hard as it is, I think I am finally starting to accept that. It is hard, but possible.
My husband swears to this day that he has always loved me and never stopped loving me, but he still did the things he did. It's weird but I was only thinking today that when I used to ask my husband (pre affair) if he would love me forever, his answer was that we never knew what would happen and while he would like to think that he would love me forever, he couldn't promise me that he would. After the affair ended and he must have realised what was important to him, he actually told me that he would love me forever. When I brought up this previous conversation about him not knowing if he would love me forever, he told me that now he knew for sure. We had a long conversation about how I thought he was just saying this to make me happy and because he felt bad about what he had done, but he told me he realises that he was an idiot and was so sure of his true feelings now. After all we had been through and everything he had done, he believes that he will love me forever. If nothing else good has come of his affair, at least he has realised this. Even now, nearly 2 years after d-day, when I have a bad day I still wonder how he could do this to me if he loved me, I am coming to accept it more and realise that sometimes people do really stupid things. I don't know how somebody can cheat on someone they say they love, but from experience I do know it is possible, and while I could never explain it, it does become easier to deal with.
Good luck, reewil...

The same question stated differently: When did you stop believing that honesty and love were synonymous?

...because the whole thing comes down to lying.

How many WS would do what they did if they KNEW their BS would find out the next day???? Even those WS in an active A where BS knows still hide and lie about their behavior.

....the lie allows the WS to do a false cost benefit analysis.

Cost--O pain, since BS wont know.
Benefit--I, I, I will get pleasure (in the form of admiration; conversation: SF whatever)

Lies also have a way of twisting ALL logic....like a hall of mirrors everything becomes distorted.

Answer for yourself:
How and Why did lying become an acceptable solution to your unhappiness/dissatisfaction?

And you will have the answer to your BS question (IMHO that is)<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

How could I cheat on someone I love? T2R, as many have mentioned, you have your own situation, and you will have to look to yourself for the deep answers. I think that it takes time and distance for both BS and WS to be able to see things more clearly.

In my case, I had resentments toward my H that had been brewing for years. He had a hobby that was consuming a large part of his free time and was on its way to becoming an obsession. He had a great career that demanded a lot of his time and I had been admitted to law school. Upon my request I was deferred to the following year due to pregnancy. But after a year of caring for a colicky newborn, I realized that I was not superwoman, not even close. The choice to be a SAHM was mine, but I also knew that my going to school would put a dangerous amount of stress on the M. I didn't count on the stress that NOT going to school would put on me.

I was depressed for a month when I saw that a former college classmate of mine was the lead counsel in a case that made the cover of every national news magazine and paper. I watched my H take trip after trip for his hobby while I sat at home with the kids. We loved each other - I have never loved another man the way I love my H - but we were spending a lot of our free time apart, which I think is the kiss of death for a M. I began teaching part-time, volunteering in the schools, and took up an athletic hobby with a passion, but it was not the same as sharing activities with someone you love. On the outside, things were great, but there was an emptiness growing inside me.

Along comes OM in my mid-30s. I resisted initially, but my resistance morphed into "well, my H is doing hobby and ignoring me and what he doesn't know won't hurt him". So my head was so bassackwards that I managed to justify an incredibly selfish and potentially hurtful act and turn it into something that was owed to me. Ugh. Entitlement at its very worst.

I ended the A although OM would have preferred to continue contact. My guilt had finally gained the upper hand. But the damage had been done. Something is lost that will never be regained. My H never knew about the A while it was going on. He says it is because he trusted me, I say it's because he was absorbed in his own life and I kept the OM at arms length, seeing him infrequently.

So "I don't know" doesn't work in my case, but it's been years since the A ended and I've had a lot of time to think about what went wrong along the way. I know why. Now the hard work of recovery has begun.

The very best of luck to you in your recovery.

All through my A I kept saying to myself "If I leave my H for the OM, it means I love OM more than my H." But I didn't believe that was true and I couldn't get my head around it.