improving,

I think our sexual experiences are better now then they were then. I last longer and do lots of foreplay, we now work on making her O first and then I finish it off. Which is fine with me but she gets upset if I finish first, I have tried explaining to her that a man can't control his ej******** but she doesn't believe me. She thinks a man can hold it in however long he wants.

She thinks I can reach my point when ever I want and if I get there before she does then she feels I just needed to get off and she tells me she feels used that way.

I think she is as clueless about my sexuality as I am of hers.

I agree, I wish my wife could tell me that and mean it. Recognizing the problem allows one to work on making things better.

She needs individual counseling. She can do it now, while she is young, and just beginning in life, or she can wait until she is 50 (like I did). Then she will have to look back on the havoc she caused herself and others.

This has nothing to do with the A-holes she met. There will always be predators in life. It probably has little to do with what needs you are or are not meeting. She has a hole in her heart.

Now that doesn't mean that you cannot make changes, be a good husband and father. That is your duty to your wife and family. You can start working on your part now.

But your wife is going to need to do some soul searching. She has to realize that there is something very wrong in her life.

beatndown- I was just addressing your question, not any specifics of your FWW's issues.

I can say honestly that I was not having ENs met, but it was my own weakness that led to my A. My whole identity was tied up in my relationship, and when I did not feel loved, I could not even recognize it, much less verbalize it. It took understanding co-dependency, depression, and ENs, for me to understand why I had not been happy for so many years. Unfortunately, a lot of the pain and resentment of that affected my M.

I don't mean to hijack the thread but obviously I am not a woman and did not mean any disrespect.

Obviously having sex with the OM was important enough to risk the marriage. To say it was meaningless for me does not compute.

But on one hand you say you have to be emotionally committed to do it on the other hand you say it ment nothing? A lot of woman have great sex with their affair partner if you listen to them when they are having the affiar but if they get caught then things seem to change. There seems to be either honesty or revisionist history after the fact. Maybe they tell themselves during the affair this is great and later feel used and do not look at it as being great?

I don't think it was meaningless for my wife although I could be wrong. I guess she gambled that I would not find out or was it just too important to her. I know she knew that if I found out she had SF with OM our marriage would end. She knew that and did it anyway so I don't see how this meaningless argument holds any water. If a person knows their marriage may end if they have sex outside of marriage and they still do it how can they think it was meaningless later? It was important enough at the time to risk everything.

I really do not mean any disrespect to anyone that ended an affair. It is just I have heard these same arguments from my STBXW. This woman told me for years if I ever cheated she would divorce me in a minute, and I believed her. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Now when the shoe is on the other foot she says it was meaningless. Now if my wifes case she found out about this guy from one of her friends and my wife was interested in him for the sex. Now she claims that she was only curious and it was not about the sex??

Ahem,folks. His wife had sex with 7 different men in a one month period.

almost two a week.....this is a sign of serious problems, insecurity....you must get your WW to some IC immediately, tested for STD's.....

Also, the A was not about how I felt about the OM, it was how I felt about myself when I was with him (I have learned since that I was co-dependent, so I looked to others/relationships for my self-worth). I never loved the OM. Basically, I felt like I was using him to get my needs met. I did care about him and appreciate him, but I always knew I loved my H and wanted him to be meeting my needs and loving me.

My H had been doing loving things, but they were not hitting the mark. The same as I was doing things for him, they just were not the things that made him feel loved. It was not that we did not love each other, we were just not speaking the same "love language". Once I realized that, I wanted to meet the needs I had been neglecting. Just as I wanted to have him start meeting mine as well.

When you are in an A, you are not thinking rationally. You are the basest level of human being...only concerned with having needs met. It is not pretty, but it is the truth.

We are all posting anonymously with nothing to gain from lying. I think it would help to consider that we are giving you the truth. You may not like it, or understand it, but it is what it is.

A lot of WS have a hard time themselves with understanding how we could do this. It is not easy to put into words how you can be such a weak person, that you do this vile thing. But, we did. And, I bet all of us never thought we would. Just as I am sure you never think you will. Yet, "normal" people do. There are serial cheaters, but many of us are people who did it once and now are dealing with the fallout.

And, I have to admit, I have had the same reaction from my WH when I tried to discuss my A. It is to be accused of lying when you are actually telling the truth. The more I understand myself, and what happened, the better I am able to explain it. As I said, it is not just about not getting needs met...it is about a weakness in you that allows you to do this thing. If the weakness is not discovered and "fixed", then you are at risk for cheating again. I have been working very hard on this weakness and have no fear that I would repeat the A.

Ihad, what I MEANT was to be fulfilling sex it had to be with an emotional committment..sf with OM was NOT fulfilling, it was cheap and dirty BUT it was the means to an end. I got to continue having my EN's met by him by meeting his need for SF. Compute? Sorry not upset just not seeming to express myself.

I find that I am always the odd ball out on some topics here. But that is who I am. I can and have had meaningless sex with my FWH and I am a female BS. Sometimes the sex is just that SEX or others call it a quickie or whatever. I have been abused in my past and can detach quickly and without much effort, but that is not what I am saying here. But when I detach, like the poster said about his FWW, I detach, he uses me and I curl up into a ball and cry. But when I have JUST SEX with my FWH it is just a release to me. Same as pleasing ones self but with a partner. And no I do not do it often, but FWH knows when it is also.
JE

Wow - this changes alot.

This isn't an affair like mine or improving - this is less about been selfish - and more about some underlying problem. Sex I do not believe is meaningful for her....but it fulfills SOMETHING in her...it's replacing something SHE is missing (not something you aren't doing)

That's why I thought of sexual abuse. For those poor women, their body isn't their own, but belongs to whoever wants it.

I thank you so much for all your thoughts and suggestions.

All along I always felt inside that her reason for doing this had very little to do with me or maybe even nothing.

If it had been one man and an on going thing, it would be very different, but she has told me that she doesn't even know why she did it. Nonetheless, the pain is still great and takes a tremendous amount of energy to deal with.

Even though she didn't know what she was doing at the time, I still think she was capable of making better choices.

It is time to move on though and I also need to find out what in her was missing that caused her to do this. I have and incredible hunger to know exactly why she did it.

Dorry, like you mentioned that sex is not meaningful to her, maybe that is why she never wants a quickie or she gets upset if she doesn't reach the big O because she is looking for sex to be so very meaningful and no matter how well I perform, she doesn't get satisfied.

Feel free to correct me.

IHadEnough,

I agree with your post. I think for the most part, past adulterers tend to relieve themselves of their pain by believing it all was "meaningless". If it was so meaningless, how come most affairs are much more than just ONS? Going back for seconds, thirds, etc etc surely suggests they found some meaning to it. But it is easier after the fact to believe it was all just meaningless. If it didn't mean something then they would have never pulled their pants down in the first place.

It's kinda like how some people mask greed as being ambition


~~


7 different men in a month??? That's a hella lot of future therapy needed gonna work that out if at all. Maybe you should just run dude.

I can only speak on my experiences,and mine was obviously different from some. SF with the OM was NOT meaningless for me. We had known one another for a very long time and actually interacted on a more complete level than I did with my H. We loved one another. But, and this is a big BUT, I believe love is a choice. I don't believe true mature love is just a feeling that drops from the sky uncontrollably. I had chosen to invest my love into the OM rather than my H. That was the selfish difference.

The SF was meaningless. The feelings were not. For me, it was how I felt when I was with the OM, it was not about SF.

It is like any other new relationship where you want to talk to the person, you enjoy their company, feel really good with them, are more thoughtful, dress nicely, etc. Eventually, this leads to SF. The only difference is that it is wrong.

And, it takes getting away from it to recognize it for what it is...an incredibly stupid and selfish act. But, when you are in it, you do not think rationally. If you did, then you would have to stop---thus, the "fog". Your brain's way of protecting you and making it possible for you to continue the A.

Eldente, I think it is a tad disrepectful to call us liars. I am not justifying or mitigating the effects of my affair for myself or my H. Just as Improving said, the sex WAS meaningless but the feelings from the A were not. As with many male/female relationships these days women give the sex to get the emotional stuff back. KWIM?

Beat, as for your WW. She needs IC. It certainly sounds like she has some past sex abuse issues that led to confirm her worthlessness by allowing that many men to use her. Believe me, when a woman sleeps with that many men it has nothing to do with "feelings" or sexual satifisfaction.

I meant more of a subconscious type of way to deal with a situation. Not outright lying.

I don't think I called FWS liars, at least not active liars, but we were good at lying, KWIM?

To say the "feelings" were not meaningless, and in the same sentence that the sex was meaningless seems a little skewed if one used sex to achieve said feelings desired...emotion or whatever in the first place. I mean, we're not talking about sharing a five dollar milkshake here are we? Besides...when you get right down to it, isn't sex just another emotion?

Emotions. Needs.

Why not stop at the EA phase if the PA part was going to be so "meaningless"? Some do stop, others don't. Why?

But at any rate, I won't further thread jack this thread.

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

Eldente, well said!