I've been reading here for a couple of months now and have been looking for someone that is in my type of situation. It seems that most A happen when the OM/OW is meeting some unmet EN of the WS. Two people get too close and think that they are in love. That seems to be the common theme.
I'm trying to figure out,I guess, what type of an A that my FWW was having. Years ago, we were close to a friend of mine and his wife. Regretably, I had an A with her. A few years later my friend had an A. So out of the 4 of us,my W was the only faithful spouse.
Now, 12 years later, my W did have an affair. 3 actually, 2 EAs and 1 PA. Her reasoning is that she felt "left out" and was curious to see what it was like. I know that there weren't any emotional ties or thoughts of love or anything. I think it would make more sense if she were to tell me that she thought that she fell in love with OM or something.
Maybe it's considered a "revenge" affair. I don't know. Mine was 12 years ago and we seemed to work it out.
Anyway, I just wondered what anyone else's thoughts were or if anyone has had a WW or WH who was just "curious" or felt "left out".

rockbottom--

I would respectfully submit that you did not "work it out". For 12 years to pass and then your wife to have affairs because she "felt left out" means, to me, there were unresolved issues from your affairs.

Your wife was/is a Betrayed Spouse who, like many betrayed spouses, was tempted by the thoughts of a revenge affair. Get something back for themselves. Whether it's driven by curiosity or revenge or depression, many betrayed spouses are vulnerable to the temptation to enter into an affair themselves.

When you look at the entirety of affairs (PA or EA), the only person to have any "fun" (I use the term loosely) is the wayward spouse. Granted that "fun" is illicit and destructive, but from a betrayed spouse's point of view, the wayward spouse had a lot more fun than the betrayed spouse.


How can your wife have an EA (Emotional Affair) yet there not be any emotional ties????

Even if there was no emotion in her physical affair, then how was it really different than a series of one-night-stands or seeing a prostitute. Those involve sex outside the marriage with no emotional attachment, but are still betrayal.

I don't know what your timeline is in recovery / since D-Day, but I suspect your wife is using your past betrayal as rationalization for something more common to all affairs: unmet needs. Her saying there was "no emotional attachment" sounds like a defense mechanism to help her reconcile the loss of the affair partner.

Just my 2 cents and may get you as far as 2 cents of gas will.

You both need to get some help with these issues and marital history.

Blessings

I agree that there were probably unresolved issues with our recovery. She says now that she has learned that there is nothing good that comes out of affairs. And wishes that hers never happened. She had to learn the hard way I guess. I was a WH and I hate myself for what I did. I'm sorry now that she has to experience the pain knowing that you hurt someone so bad.
I guess I shouldn't have called 2 of them EAs.

rockbottom...

using feeling left out to have an affair is a crock of crap..

it's as juvenile as a teenagers mantra...everyone else is doing it....

yeah big whooping _ _ _ _

two people get too close through a direct response to their actions..

it does not just happen...
boundaries ARE crossed....
slowly and tentatively at first...

but they are and should be boundaries....

true reperation on YOUR part the WS ...includes continious glorification and celebration of marital vows
continous ENERGY expendature of being for eachother...

so that the mere IDEA of investing any energy towards anyone else is as foreign as it comes....

a big red flag was that your friend had an affair a few years later ...

what was your reaction.....

what should your reaction have been based on someone who really truly knows the carnage...

did you expose the affair to your friends BS so that she had the right to know ...

lets talk about the pattern of acceptable fidelity...in your life....

your level of tolerance for affairs should be NONE....

what stand did you take....

ARK

I agree with Ark.

This is a convenient excuse she is using to try to justify her affair(s).

I don't think she would wait 12 years to get revenge, do you?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "there weren't any emotional ties or thoughts of love or anything." That's what an EA is - emotional.

I would think that she was still pretty foggy to have said something as stupid as she felt "left out". That's the biggest bullsh** line I've ever heard...She knew the pain your A caused her; after 12 years, why in the world would she want to inflict that kind of pain back on you?

I agree with Artor ~ your M never fully recovered from your A, leaving your wife open to having one.

Hopefully this time you will recover fully ~ read all the concepts on this website and start implementing them. Read and post here (and over on the Recovery board) to see that everything you're going through is normal, and to find out what you missed last time that left your relationship open to you W having an A herself.

Good luck ~

~MF

Thanks for your responses. That is one of the big questions that I had with her. How she could do this after we had already been thru all the pain that my A had caused. I asked her if she remembered all the pain thatI caused her and she told me that she tried to forget about all of it. That is what blew me away. I guess that since I learned a big lesson about how terrible these things were that she had also learned it. I know that we never fully recovered. I know that right now in my IC, I am trying to learn to forgive myself and other issues where I am stil beating myself up over what I did.
I guess I should have seen the red flag when my friend had his affair about 5 years after he and his W (my former OW) had supposedly worked it out. I've been trying plan A for about 2 months now and my W is starting to come out of the fog it seems. I am still trying to figure out why she did this though. Thanks for your inputs. Keep 'em coming and thanks!
Jim

I do have another post here. I probably should have kept this in my one post. Anyway, I guess I shouldn't have called two of them EA. Basically I see it as 2 people using each other. They were instances when these guys flirted with her and it turned into perverted emails, swapping perverted pictures and stuff. I guess it wasn't emotional. Just sick stuff. She has a very low self esteem and seems to respond to whoever showed her any interest. It sucked.

well, as a BS who has major issues w/ feeling LEFT OUT....her excuse my sound like a crock of ******, but i beleive it was exactly how she felt.
ddi she know better? sure
but, she never delat w/t he pain of the YOUR affair...she just stuffed it.
she has likely been spending the last 12 years feeling very empty and unfulfilled in your marriage.

I tend to agree.

that doesn't make it right.
but if you can both admit tha tmaybe you can start w/ a clean slate and deal to the work to heal.

you are both in the same spot now.

So, rockbottom,

What are you going to do about all of this?

Recovery is a rough thing -- the fantasy a WS spews ("I felt left out") is sometimes easier for the BS to accept than digging for the real root of the affair.

The "circumstances" around affairs may change, but when you strip all that away, most affairs are really the same underneath.

Fortunately, as I think most MB's with recovered marriages will attest, the process of recovery is really the same underneath as well. Sure, circumstances will vary -- what emotional needs have to be met, how long it takes, what kinds of counseling, etc. But the MB principles are the foundation for recovery.

I've read some of your posts (but not all, sorry) so I believe you're still in Plan A, right?

How is that coming? Has your wife shown remorse?


Is this couple still "friends" of you and your wife? If so and you have contact with them, I can see a bit where your wife may feel a bit of discomfort whenever you are together. Continually seeing your OW could certainly have contributed to her keeping resentment and unresolved issues alive all these years. I can't imagine being "friends" with any of my wife's OM or their wives. I hope this isn't the case for you.


I believe they were Emotional Affairs -- I just disagreed with you characterizing them as having no emotional involvement. Your wife may not have "felt" anything for the particular creep sending her the pictures/email/etc, but she definitely was getting emotional needs met by this. As you say, the attention fed her self-esteem, and she was getting emotional needs that should be met by her husband met by some other man. That's an emotional affair. The fact that she was a willing participant is betrayal.

The simple rule that usually works (not always) is that if your wife is doing something with another man that she doesn't want you to know about and would hide from you, then it's an affair, or at least the prelude to an affair.

Keep strong, rockbottom -- it's a lot of work and you both have a lot of history to recover. You can do it. You have shown yourself committed to recovering your marriage. She will emerge from the fog and see you for the dedicated husband you are if you stick to Plan A and recovery.

The two friends we had (one being the OW) are long gone. Which is good. There is definately NC with my OW. Just the sight of her would turn my stomach.
I know that a lot had to do with her self esteem needs being met. What is frustrating to me is that I really don't know how to meet that need in her. I try. I tell her things and she just says that "you have to say that" and stuff like that. It's frustrating. Thanks for the response.