Twenty years ago I had an EA. It progressed to the point that I thought I loved the OW, didn't love my wife, and had never loved my wife. (Where have I heard that before?) I think my EA was atypical in that the OW's feelings weren't as intense as mine. The OW told me she didn't love me (but gee whiz did she love the attention and non-sexual intimacy she wasn't getting at home). In my fogged state I told my wife that I didn't love her, never had, and we should probably separate. I did wake up the very next morning and realize that no, I did love her (something I knew only a few short months earlier). I didn't say anything about the OW and now realize that sitting beside her at work and talking for hours most days for 2 or 3 more years meant the foundation of our marriage was never rebuilt. I don't know if both parties have to express love in an EA, and I don't know if the OW had expressed love for me would have made it harder for me to come out of the fog or if the fog would have been denser. I do remember the fog though.

Late last year I learned my wife was having a romantic PA (and got to hear some of my same words come from her mouth). My much earlier EA makes me empathize with my WW with respect to the fog. Empathize, NOT sympathize. Got that? My fog experience helps me take most of what she says to me with a BIG grain of salt. I've also not talked much in months about problems in the marriage (as I now believe we both wanted intimacy beyond sexual intimacy and lots & lots of communication, but neither of us made a move). My recollection of my fog is that I would have just tuned it out. Maybe that's been another mistake I've made and her recollection (if any) of me saying such things if she ever does come out of the fog would help. If you've got a take on that issue, fire away.

My WW, of course, is in love. We've been living apart a couple of months as she cleverly manipulated (in my opinion) putting our house on the market and then sprang "don't love you, never did" plus telling me (after we had a sales contract on the house) that we would be living apart once the house sold. In the past few months I've had a couple of people (our pastor for one) caution me not to equate an EA with a PA. There's a big line that's been crossed. Okay, I get that and no, I'm NOT saying EA = PA. I'm just asking about the respective fogs. I would think that the bond is much stronger and harder to break in a romantic affair given the sex (but what do I really know). What about that fog though? Are there differences? Does it matter? I'm especially interested in any differences that could be affecting how I'm looking at this whole mess and maybe in actions that I take or don't take as well as in my dealings with my WW (which are very few and far between now).

If this is all just word games, just tell me so. I've been thinking about this fog issue for a while (but it's WAY behind the adultery issue for me). What do you think?

OK, I'm a betrayed spouse, so much of this is coming from my experience going through recovery with my wife. She had two PAs and one EA and I've tried very hard to understand the dynamics behind all of them.

All this is just my unlearned opinion.

I think the "state" of the wayward spouse's mind is the same, "I found someone who meets my needs better than my spouse and I am willing to give up my marriage to be with them."

The tendency to re-write marital history, view their spouse as inept at meeting their needs, give the "I never loved you" or "ILYBINILWY" speech, etc, is the same.

What I think is different is the lengths to which the wayward spouse will go to "justify" or "protect" the relationship once the emotional/physical line has been crossed.

Most of us were raised that marriage was sacred, that infidelity was wrong/evil and good people don't do such things.

For a spouse to engage in an "emotional" affair, they entertain thoughts, feel feelings and have only imagination as their "memory". It would be easy for them to "wake up" from their attraction and walk away once they got a peek through the fog. Society, in some wacked out circles, even encourages such wandering as healthy to a person to find what is missing in their marriage so they can live a more fulfilled life. Rubbish.

When the two infidels engage in any physical interaction based on their attraction, kissing, fondling, sex, they know they have done the "unthinkable" in most people's minds and to justify to themselves that they aren't "evil" or "wicked", they will go to greater lengths to berate their spouse and marriage and assassinate the character of the faithful spouse. They want to make the marriage, in a fog-filtered historical-rewriting sense, to be unbearable and pat themselves on the back for staying as long as they did. They not only weren't doing something as horrible as they were raised to believe by cheating, they were getting something they deserved.

It seems to me that this is the biggest difference. Sure, there are all sorts of physiological things that the act of sex includes such as chemical imprinting and "good feelings", but I think those only add to the need for the Physical Affair infidels to justify themselves as not wicked more than the Emotional Affair infidels.

Just my $.02.