Agree Pep (even though irregardless isn't a word)

Mom2 -

Have you tried anti-D's? I spent much of my early life like you. Good things just didn't make me feel good. Turned out I was depressed. It runs in my family. My sis has been on anti-D's for the last 20 years, and is doing well.

Pep, losing three parents in one year was the worst thing that ever happened to us. My very bright son dropping out of school came close but we dealt with it. We were closer than we'd ever been. We CLUNG to each other through that and I was having a breakdown. You see, when I had a breakdown (a genuine, needed medication, lost the plot breakdown) my H was there for me. When he had a breakdown I wasn't there for him. It says a lot about my H.

He was strong, he was there for me. I didn't do the same for him.

Going back for seconds and thirds. Quite a low blow there. I know what you're talking about. Seconds, the accidental meeting with the OM 2 years ago when I did talk to him. I was very, very curious to find out what happened after my H exposed. That's all.

Thirds. Last April. Yes, a close call. I thought I was immune to the OM. Obviously I wasn't but I found out within a week that I was. It didn't take long to find I was COMPLETELY immune. It was, and is, a wonderful feeling.

Pep, there will NEVER be any other times.

See Jen - this is why you get into trouble. You are not now, nor will you ever be immune.

Your sense of "immunity" is why you fall over.

LOL, I've just read about "irregardless". I thought how does BigK know what a student wrote?

We have student evaluations for our lecturers. One of the students wrote about one of our lecturers. "I really liked him but he used "irregardless" during a lecture, which isn't a word."

I looked it up on the OED (the ONLY dictionary) and found that it is indeed a word but has been queried as a word since I forget when.

It is a genuine, bonafide word but queried.

"Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."

BigK, I AM immune. I'm totally immune.

I don't know how to explain it. "Closure" that word that everyone hates so much. Seeing the OM for what he really was. Believe me if I saw him now I'd drop everything and run the other way. I am so totally indifferent. It feels SO good.

I don't think you can understand how happy Rob and I are now.

I think BSs desirous of saving their marriage would embrace any plan that seemed to offer hope for reconciliation. It just so happens that, as far as I know, Dr. Harley is the only one who advocates any kind of plan for breaking the affair. And the simple fact is, it makes sense.

But personally I don't subscribe to the idea that you can affair-proof your marriage by meeting all your spouse's emotional needs. I think there are many reasons why people cheat, and most of them have to do with internal issues within the cheaters themselves.

Take male philanderers, for example. Quite a number of psychologists believe that many men who are serial cheaters actually have a deep-seated hatred of women. Engaging in sex and withholding commitment or emotional involvement is their unconscious means of punishing women. Others may have sexual addictions. And what of that group of men and women who were unfaithful to their spouses because they had a desire to seek out a partner for sexual practices that most of us would find sickening. (Please don't anyone respond to this by telling me that anything consensual is okay; in my book sadism and masochism are symptoms of mental illness.)

As has been admitted above, self-esteem issues can cause someone to seek out the short term ego-boost often associated with an affair. What about the woman who, after twenty years of being a good wife and a mother, suddenly gets visions of herself growing old, panics, and decides to be the next Paris Hilton?

Dr. Harley reminds us that couples rarely know each other's emotional needs. I would guess that fewer than 10 percent of all married couples know each other's emotional needs or their relative priority. We tend to provide those needs we most want for ourselves; as it happens, men and women typically have quite different priorities for their own needs. That being the case, if meeting each other's emotional needs was necessary for a successful marriage, there would be very few successful marriages and an even higher rate of infidelity than already exists.

My father spent two and half years in Vietnam. My mother raised 4 children and worked full time during that period. Do you think her emotional needs were met? I can tell you she never cheated on my father. She understood that a commitment and responsibility to her family held a higher priority than her personal needs -- that was part of the deal when she got married.

In the same way, a parent will get up at any hour of the night to attend to one of their children who may be sick or have had a nightmare. You may not like it, but it's part of the deal of having children. You have a responsibility; you signed on for it, and in the long run your effort to meet those responsibilities helps mold your character.

By any yardstick, I had a very good marriage. You wouldn't know that if you asked my wife now. The affair changed all that, and if I hadn't poured over a hundred or more case histories that read just like mine I'd think I was crazy.

But am I at fault because I didn't meet her emotional needs? Sorry, no sale here.

Pittman says "Romantic affairs happen even more often in good marriages than in bad ones."

And, by the way, it was also Pittman, not Gunzburg, who said, "Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy. It's supposed to make you married."

Jenny - the fact you so consider yourself IMMUNE is what is so dangerous. It has nothing to do with how happy you are with your husband.

I don't think you know how happy my wife and I are either but I recognise that the OM will always be a danger to our marriage. That is just a fact pure and simple and if you read and understood HNHN you would never say you are immune.

NC for LIFE only makes sense in that context.

Nice to see you back Hiker

I know that BigK. I have read HNHN many times.

That's why I know NC is for life and that's why I will have NC for life.

Seriously, OM never crosses my mind. The last time I saw him was in April 2006. Mrs W said "recent" contact in her email to me on Idiotville. Recent is not April 2006.

To be free of the OM forever is the best thing that's ever happened to me and my marriage.

I would say 9 months ago is recent myself.

That was when you again proved you were not immune. Perhaps if you didn't believe you were immune then you would never have "fallen" last April.

When is the next time you will test your "immunity"

My wife has been hunted down by OM a few times and she has actually RUN away.

I think 9 months ago is a long time ago.

But then, I think irregardless is a word.

Oh Darn. I was so hoping I was still on your ignore list.

BigK, I will NEVER test my immunity again. I really did think I was immune. I thought that so much time had passed since the A that I would be able to deal with it. In fact the danger WAS that so much time had passed.

Why do you think I'm any different from your wife? I would run. Do you really think I didn't take on board what everyone said to me last April?

LOL BigK - you came off just a half hour ago!!!!

You can see that all the way from Down Under???

Jenny - in all sincerity some of the stunts and antics you have pulled around here since last April truely have me questioning if you have learned a single thing. Quite apart from the Pio episode, I've seen some pretty thick fog.

I hope you would run. I hope you will never test it again. I wish you all the best.

Jen,

When I was 18 I was indestructible.

When I was 25 I was healthy as a horse.

When I turned 50, I was in better shape than when I was 30.

I just spent a week in the hospital trying to kick a bacterial infection that has left me with a wound across my side and onto my chest that will likely cost me another surgery to put some live skin back on it, once it actually starts to heal. As I checked into the hospital no one could believe that I had made it to 54 years old without ever having been hospitalized for anything. None of my family or friends, even my wife of 33 years, had ever seen me actually "sick."

My immune system let me down.

When you say you are immune, you may think it is true and under current circumstances you would likely never go back to seeing OM again...

But what if you had another year of severe stresses in your life? What if your H had to be on the road (even family business) for a month or longer? What if he got sick and could do nothing in the way of meeting your ENs? What if he said something that was just the wrong thing at the wrong time and another OM came along?

See my point? You may never want to be with OM again, but that doesn't make you immune. It should make you vigilant.

Even a strong castle can be breached by the right assault. The key is to define the boundary that cannot be crossed. That means that YOU police the boundary and will let no one besides your H inside it. You also must assure that you do not cross it and go outside your M for ANY reason in regards to ENs, comfort, etc.

You don't need to build a fortress; you need to plant a hedge!

Mark

Great post Mark. Glad everything came out good for you.

Ok, BigK, call it as you will. The OM and only the OM has ever been a danger to my marriage. I've got an "out there" personality. So shoot me. In my job that's seen as a positive. Believe it or not people really like me IRL.

Stunts and antics and thick fog. Do tell.