thank you queeniesnewlife. You dont know how much you have helped me thru this. and i am sure ther are many more lurkers out there that you have unknowingly helped thru this horror.
I cant post more now but i will post my story later.

Thank you for this.

It is my hope to finally and truly give to those who need it because it was so freely given to me. I didn't believe I could come to this place. I truly truly didn't. But I am, and so shall you on whatever path you take.

We are here and look forward to reading your post.

{{{{{{{{{{{Still}}}}}}}}}}}}

[Thanks to all...this thread is fabulous]

XXXXXXX,

I said and wrote the same things to my WW/xWW a gazillion times over the last 2+ years...with the same predictable futility. Trying to out-romance or compete with a romantic affair (esp. when the WS blames the BS for the marital unhappiness that preceded it) is akin to trying to extinguish a raging forest fire with a squirt gun. That's why Drs. Pittman & Harley advise not expending too much energy on trying to convince or woo a WS back.

Undoubtedly, there is a tremendous amount of resistance and stubbornness in most WS even after the "in love" euphoria inevitably wears off. They have sacrificed so much, told so many lies, & often D'd the BS by then. Some have even married their co-adulterous affair partner who also D'd his/her spouse as well (as my xWW did). For them to "return" would be an ego-trashing admission of error and failure and immorality. And they would then have to face, even in the most receptive circumstances, a BS and family who is hurt, resentful, and has lost all respect for them. My guess is that many WS who have gone this far off the deep end will hang on till the bitter end and even then be too prideful to do anything more than slink off into the shadows and find someone new...

I had the same experience with "exposure"...it was utterly useless and ineffective.

1) I was the "last one" to know or suspect anything (that BS fog thing)

2) My WW had already manipulated and lied all persuadable/naive parties into believing that I was at fault and her whitewashed version of the A was accurate and she was the "innocent victim".

3) The best I got was some mild sympathy followed by other's perception that I was being "irrational", "harrassing", and "accusatory" for bothering them. Most of her friends/family/co-workers simply accepted the status quo and turned away from me.

HopeandPray,

Wow, I finally (regretably) met a man who has a WW story commensurate in sheer Jerry Springer-esque, "WTF???" folly with my own. I'm so sorry...

My xWW affaired (and soon married) with a man 17 years older, short, beer-belly'd, and cheating himself on his then-3rd-wife. His past includes barely making it out of high school, a dishonorable military discharge for AWOL, multiple failed business ventures, (now) 3 divorces all because of HIS infidelities, an abandoned eldest son who will never speak to him again, jail time for non-payment of support, and a history of social-climbing via romance as a means of rectifying massive money mis-management.

Presently, his 2nd son receives almost no attention from either one of them and his 3rd son (all via different women) HATES them both and has been similarly abandoned emotionally and financially (behind again on child support--gee, go figure!). Since he is a contractor, I imagine he is severely under-employed at present.

He and my xWW have virually nothing in common in terms of values and principles and interests:

She is "a Christian"; he is completely a-religious and non-spiritual.
She is an active hiker, biker, and skier; he hates the outdoors and the cold/snow.
She wants a close-knit family (we had no kids thankfully); he is a "father-in-name-only" type
...and on and on....
The only commonalities in their R are that they like dogs and hang out at the same nightclub owned by their employer (they met at work).

Remarkably, my xWW has dragged him off to church, hikes/rides, and skiing--it seems like she is desperately trying to TURN HIM INTO ME!

I know that Dr. Pittman writes about how romantic affairs often take place with someone totally unlike the WS (and the BS) and those crazy differences serve to heighten the addiction. Even so, it's truly amazing and baffling to watch such a self-destructive, depraved, and completely disastrous spectical voluntarily take place!

In the early-'90s a prominent women's magazine (I think it was "Ladies Home Journal" or "Woman's Day") did a survey of their long-term subscribers--the results shocked them and caused a change in their editorial advice column policy regarding female questioners who were writing in and considering divorce.

They found that after 3 years post-voluntary-wife-chosen-divorce (remember women initiate/file for ~70% of divorces in the U.S.), a whopping 85% of the now-divorced women REGRETTED their decision and would CHOOSE to "work things out" with their xH's if they had it do over again.

This (admittedly non-scientific) sampling included a large number of female subscribers who wrote in to the magazine's advice column describing how their "marriage was dead" and that they "had fallen in love with another man who made them much happier."

Based on these startling and very unexpected results, the magazine re-tooled their default advice column policy away from (previously) recommending "following your heart" to aggressively advocating for reconciling the existing marriage in all but the most extreme cases.

Food for thought....

Very interesting...

I have thought about this a great deal to understand what might be going on in the heads of my xWW and her OM.

OM:
I have had extensive discussions with his xBW (#3!) and think I have a handle on him psychologically despite not knowing him at all personally. He fits the protoype of what Dr. Pittman calls a romantic philanderer. A philanderer is usually, though not always, a male who has little regard for the feelings of others and an enormously selfish sense of entitlement when it comes to his romantic needs/desires. He thinks of marriage and commitment as mere temporary and conditional social arrangements...conditional on how well it suits HIM at the time. It becomes almost an ego-necessity for him eventually cheat; the only reason he stays "faithful" for a while is because there is "nothing better" in immediate view. The philanderer is not capable of true love but can indeed temporarily "fall in love" (hence the RP term) long enough to marry, father children (usually done to entrap the unsuspecting female into being his supplicant), and get his social/financial/sexual needs assuaged for the time being. The specific OM in my case fits this description perfectly. He has betrayed & left 3 marriages (so far...and counting) and undoubtedly has had numerous undetected trysts all the way. He even brazenly told his kids that "she (my xWW) is here for ME!" when questioned. This type of person rarely feels much in the way of guilt towards their BWs/kids other than superficial regret at the financial/social setback. Although he lied to his then-BW for a few months (not because he felt bad but because he didn't want the monetary/social loss), he eventually came clean and told the truth to her. That is his one, tiny element of nobility in all this.

xWW:
This quote struck me -- "The power of self-deception is often proportional to the guilt one would be forced to endure without it." This fits my xWW perfectly. She is a classic pure romantic affairee--someone for whom this is the first and only time of infidelity and someone who truly does value commitment and morals. The guilt of these RA's must be immense. They know and believe what they are doing is wrong and must go to tremendous lengths to rationalize, scapegoat, blameshift, deny, conceal, and justify it to themselves and others. They are people that previously would never have condoned an A by people they know and would be devastated in their current or former spouse had done it to them. It seems to me that because the guilt they would otherwise feel is so overwhelming, the necessary self-deception must be so great as to severly limit or even preclude an honest admission to the BS. This fits with my experience...my xWW was an otherwise classy, upright, honorable person who has done something so dishonorable and so distasteful that the only way she can live with herself is to implausibly deny it even in the face of undeniable evidence. Ironically, in contrast to her POSOM, she has NEVER admitted anything to me. She still sticks to the farcical story that her and OM were "only friends" and did not have "a relationship" until AFTER she decided we were done and filed for D against me. That, of course, is still adultery even in the most generous of readings, but is also laughably and demonstrably untrue--they were EA'ing (and probably sexually active) with each other AT LEAST 9 months prior. Truly a masterpiece of self-deception...she actually believes that denying it makes it all "not real".


I wish I had not been so naive and had hired a PI...

This is a great thought (I am learning so much on this thread about how non-unique my situation is/was...thank you all).

My (then) WW -- and I foolishly didn't know she was in an A at the time -- and I were in MC during late '06 while we were separated and she was "deciding" if she wanted to reconcile or D. I was stunned to learn from the C that she had for a long time felt "inferior & intimidated to talk" to me (she made a very poor effort to communicate what she had been feeling about the M even prior to the OM being in the picture) and "had a hard time accepting that someone like (me) would be interested in her". This despite the fact that I had fallen HOH for her in 2 dates originally, had told her my feelings for her very early on, and remained utterly loyal and faithful to her during 2 yrs. of dating/engagement and over a decade of marriage--truly amazing!

This was reinforced again recently when she called me over this past summer (her 1st spontaneous contact in over a year). She (now my xWW) said "I tried so hard for years to impress you because I was terrified that you were going to leave me!" I listened in stunned silence shaking my head and then disbelievingly responded "I was utterly devoted to you from our 2nd date onward and never wavered; I would NEVER have abandoned you! Where did you get that idea from?" No answer...

All of this could have been avoided by simply talking openly and tenderly -- what a stupid waste, huh?

Mimi & Hope:

You are both entirely correct.

Mimi, you described perfectly the anatomy of how a RA begins and takes hold...it starts innocently with each "next step" being initially so subtle. Once those powerful "feelings" get going, then come the rationalizations that allow the WS to venture into ever more dangerous and inappropriate territory (lying & concealing to spend more time together, touching, kissing, and ultimately sex).

Hope, you are also completely correct as well in describing each of those steps as a morally-compromising CHOICE made by the WS. The WS COULD:
1) Stop and go NO FURTHER along the road
2) Cut off contact w/o explanation
3) Tell the OP that "this is wrong" for them
4) Tell the BS (or soon-to-be-BS) that "I am having interactions and feelings for OP that I know I shouldn't indulge"

Etc., etc... Ironically, my xWW did some legitimate business with a guy several years prior to our problems in which this very situation came up. Not unlike the current OM she ended up having a RA with a few later, he was considerably older and married with kids. This guy started pursuing her on the phone and in person telling her that "he wanted her" and "was falling for her." To her credit at the time, she recognized it, firmly told him to STOP, told him that she had told me, and warned him that she would call his wife if there was one more romantic suggestion.

I wonder by comparison where those boundaries and standards went a few years later when she indulged that EXACT SAME scenario with the OM -- who was and is a far worse "catch" than the original married guy. I asked my xWW that once specifically...she never answered me back.

I have read Michelle Wiener-Davis ("Divorce Remedy") and been on her website (divorcebusting.com) many times. They have a discussion forum just like this one.

She has some rec's and policies that jive with MB and some that do not. For instance, she does recommend the "LRT" (Last Resort Technique) in many cases...this is basically Plan B in that it calls for cessation of all contact with the departing spouse--which she calls the WAS (walk-away spouse). The "180" and "GAL" (get a life) she advocates is about "doing something different", "improving yourself", and not appearing needy & desperate to the WAS. It is by and large an expansive, long-term Plan A to meet your spouse's ENs and make yourself appear "more attractive" to them in the process.

The most obvious difference in her approach is with the issue of infidelity/affairs. DR/DB place MUCH less emphasis on the role of an A (whether known or not) in the departing spouse's motivation. In fact, she recommends NOT snooping, NOT trying to find out, NOT exposing, and NOT concerning yourself with possibilty on the grounds that "there is not anything you can do about it anyway and anything that smacks of 'control' will only push the WAS away more."

We have discussed here situations in which finding out & exposure have been helpful, even decisive, and situations in which it was useless and maybe even counter-productive. It seems to me that 'seek & expose' is much more effective when:
1) The A is relatively early and new
2) There are family/friends of the WS who have substantial influence
3) They haven't already been co-apted by the WS's deceptions and rationalizations
4) The WS is threatened by exposure (loss of job, social contacts, potential child custody issues, etc.)

In the absence of the above factors, I think exposure (which is trying to deal the A an artificially rapid death) probably does not help much and only makes the BS look vindictive and accusatory. At this point, however, it probably doesn't really hurt that much either as the WS's initial defensive anger will subside and nothing will change until the A dies a natural death anyway.

All in all, I have researched both and strongly feel that the MB way is superior in the vast majority of cases (in fact, I wish I had found this site a long time ago -- well before I started the DR/DB approach). I have found MWD's general view to be VERY unrealistic and naive with regard to the likelihood of an A being ongoing and the BS's chances of being able to 'out-compete' it.

In talking to many, many people--both men and women, here and in 'real life'--on both sides of the WS/BS fence, this is what I have learned:

1) Not to be paranoid, but if you have realistic concerns that your spouse may be having an A, they VERY LIKELY ARE.
2) If your S separates from you, talks about it, or mentions D, they are almost always having at least an EA on the side.
3) This is especially true of female affairees--wives rarely abandon husbands unless they have another "safe" male harbor to meet their ENs. Battered women's shelters are FULL of women who have been severly physically abused yet still refuse to permanently leave their abusers.
4) There is virtually no limit to how much a WS will lie, conceal, evade, rationalize, and deny when an RA is ongoing. So, don't take their word for it...no matter how adamant they are or how much you want to believe them.
5) A WS will almost NEVER admit to an ongoing A unless 'caught in the act' or presented with overwhelming evidence. Some will deny it ("we are just friends" or "it was a business lunch") even if you have photos of them walking arm-in-arm with their OP into a hotel at noon.
6) Even the most previously trustworthy, devoted, and faithful spouses are not exempt. Strong moral values, religious upbringing, and "having too much to lose" are NOT protective.
7) In the vast majority of divorces, infidelity is involved. Few marriages truly end because "it just didn't work out", "we fell out of love" or there were financial problems, different lifestyles, 'irreconcilable differences', etc.

Bump

bump

And bump again. Reading Hiker's write up really helped me just now....