Hiker, there are a couple. Another one is linked on a post on the first couple pages.

The Wacky Wisdom of the Waywards

More Lessons in Fogenese

Chrisner,

Thanks -- that's it. Funny stuff. I think I'll put together a short post with some of the better lines. It'll help lighten up this thread a bit.

Hiker

It's strange when you've been here long enough to see yourself on one of those 'old' threads that are brought up again.

Here is a collection of statements made by wayward spouses during the course of their affairs. MBers know them as “fog talk,” and most of these lines have been contributed by forum members on other threads. The wayward lines are in bold type.

The Classics:

”I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”
“I’ve never really loved you.”
“I only married you because I felt sorry for you.”
“Our problems have nothing to do with him/her.”
“You should be happy for me. I’ve finally found real love.”
"We're just friends.”
“Our marriage was over before the affair started.”
"You can't help who you fall in love with."
“It’s not what you think.”
“You and I have nothing in common.”

Oh . . . okay:

”I can never trust you again since you spied on me.”
“I wasn't lying to you. I had already forgiven myself for it so it isn't a lie.”
“How dare you look at the phone bill on line. I threw them away for a reason. You had no right to do that.”
"I cheated because I thought you were going to die.”
"If I had known how badly it would hurt you, I wouldn't have cheated.”
"I did stop sleeping with her . . . for a while."
"I am not making any plans for a future with OW. I am a married man, it would be immoral of me to plan a future with another woman.”
"I never wanted a divorce and I never imagined you not being in my future, I just never thought we would ever get caught."
"Why can't I have a wife and a girlfriend?"
"Well, at least I don't beat you."
“You only think about the kids, that is why you don't want a divorce.”

Why Some Marriages Recover from Romantic Affairs and Some Don’t -- cont'd.

”There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.” – George Bernard Shaw.

Another reason why wayward spouses leave their marriages and never attempt reconciliation is the proverbial midlife crisis. When a spouse becomes enmeshed in a midlife crisis, a romantic affair is more often a symptom than a cause.

A midlife crisis may occur when a person enters a serious period of self-examination about his life. All manner of questions are entertained: Is this where I expected to be at my age? Have I done the things I’ve wanted to do? Is this all there is to my life? Am I just marking time until I die? Must I continue working in a job I hate? What happened to the excitement in my life? I’m getting old and what have I accomplished?

A midlife crisis is usually triggered by major events in one’s life: children graduating and leaving the nest, the death of a close friend or relative, getting laid off or fired from a job, starting a new job, reaching an important anniversary of some sort, a debilitating illness, and even the simple realization that one’s time on earth is slipping away. Sometimes the crisis comes when a person compares the dreams they once had for their future with the reality of their current situation.

Whatever the cause, a midlife crisis is based on fear; the fear that if one fails to take some sort of action to make a change, one’s life will continue on its dull path until claimed by death.

In such a mental state, it’s easy to see how an affair can get started. The affair, as we know, is likely to end. But the underlying cause in this case – the midlife crisis – doesn’t always end with the affair. In fact, the midlife crisis may be the launching point for a whole new lifestyle for the wayward spouse, a lifestyle that no longer includes the betrayed spouse.

One obvious reason for the failure of some married couples to reconcile is that sometimes the affair doesn't end. The wayward files for divorce and continues the relationship with the OP. Perhaps the wayward spouse and OP may even get married. If one takes the time to extrapolate the statistics between affairs that go beyond 2 years and marriages between the wayward and OP, the rough numbers would indicate that less than 5 out of every 100 affairs results in a marriage between the wayward and OP. Of those 5, only 1 of these marriages will still be going after 5 years.

It happens that I know of just such a marriage. Friends of this couple describe their relationship as an open marriage essentially bound together, not by love, but by their joint financial interests.

The fact that these marriages have such a high failure rate is of little consolation to the betrayed spouse.

Hey, Hiker, do you know where those statistics come from?

The fact that these marriages have such a high failure rate is of little consolation to the betrayed spouse.

This is part of the push to 'get over' the WS. If I get over him, this will not bother me NEARLY as much. Well, much easier said than done. Sometimes I feel that you don't TRULY get over something like this until you find someone else who appreciates you again.

I will be fine without WH, but that's not the point, is it?

BTW, I do believe that my WH is going through a MLC. His natural mother died from cirrhosis (resultant from years of alcoholism) and he SAW it. Soon after, affair number one insued. I know that he misses us, but he can't bring himself to let go, right now. I, on the other hand, can only hold on so long...

sdguy,

Jan Halper’s study of successful men (executives, entrepreneurs, professionals) found that very few men who have affairs divorce their wife and marry their lovers. Only 3 percent of the 4,100 successful men surveyed eventually married their lovers. When you average in statistics for the rest of the general population, including women, that figure jumps to 4 or 5 percent.

Frank Pittman states that in his practice only 25 percent of those affairees who marry are still married 5 years later. So if 5 out of a hundred affairees marry, and only 25 percent of that group is still married after 5 years, then statistically only about 1 couple out of 100 would still be married at the five year mark.

I think there are three ways to get over losing someone in this way:

1. Time. Time really does heal all wounds.

2. Reducing want. Go find the Dalai Lama like Tyrone Power in The Razor's Edge and seek the path to inner peace.

3. Find a replacement.

Obviously the third method is the easiest; even then, you don't want to jump into anything too soon because you are so vulnerable. By this time you are actually starving to give and receive affection, which can be a turn-off for some folks.

I have a long way to go before 'replacing' anyone. I guess inner peace is where I'm headin'. I like the idea of time, also. Time is not infinite. Like in 'It's just a matter of time'.

So far, time has served me well. I have learned so many things about myself, and how to be happy while ALONE. Fear has taken a back seat to my daily life. Time passing is a big one. I think, in this type of sitch, you need time passing, as well as working toward inner peace.

That's not to say that if the dreamiest man alive showed up, I wouldn't consider giving him a run for his money... (post Divorce, people, post divorce)

Hi Hiker,

Thanks for this post, made very interesting reading for me. You should state another reason why plan A/B doesn't work: the BS is too obstinate or is not able to execute it properly... LOL, that's what happened in my case! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Found this quote interesting:

"Another example is a cheating spouse who says something like, "I never loved you. Even on the day of our marriage I remember telling myself this was what I had to do out of a sense of duty. I was afraid you would fall apart if I left."

When you hear things like this, you can be almost certain your spouse is rewriting the past. Statements like these are unlikely to be true memories."

Before she moved out, on one of our long talks, she said that even at the wedding she had 'cold feet' trying to use that to justify why she didn't think she was suited for marriage. Then she saw an eipsode of Oprah talking about how you lose yourself and your identity when you get married and such, and suddenly she was glued to the TV. End of the day, they will find ANY kind of justifications for the A, although she didn't herself admit that it was ongoing.

Hi Dev,

The underlying assumption of that section was that the betrayed spouse wanted reconciliation and was following Dr. Harley's plan.

We could cover many more reasons for the failure to reconcile if we consider issues like the betrayed spouse not wanting reconciliation, or the inability to follow the Harley plan.

Maybe we should do that.

Thanks,

Hiker

Thank you so much for this thread. I've been searching for an explanation for my STBXW's A. I knew it didn't meet the usual description, as despite exposure, she is continuing the A, and continuing the fogtalk.

elproducto, I believe it is actually quite normal for the WS to continue the A after exposure. I haven't seen many that quit right away. Many times, Plan B is instituted, and if the A ends, that is when it happens.

The Myth of Romantic Love

”While I generally find that great myths are great precisely because they represent and embody great universal truths, the myth of romantic love is a dreadful lie.” – Dr. M. Scott Peck

To understand why a person entangled in a romantic affair is so willing to abandon his/her spouse and/or family, we might satisfy ourselves that the answer lies in simple brain chemistry, which we all know provides the “high” associated with a romantic affair and even explains its addictive nature. But brain chemistry doesn’t explain why so many people are initially open to the idea of having a romantic affair to begin with, especially since most people believe infidelity to be immoral.

Several polls conducted in the 1980s and 1990s found that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that being unfaithful to one’s spouse is wrong; the numbers ranging from 85 to 91 percent. Yet oddly, many Americans do not feel that infidelity is necessarily wrong under all conditions. Dr. Shirley Glass found that among unfaithful spouses, 64 percent of men and 66 percent of women believed that falling in love with another person was a suitable justification for having an affair.

On what grounds do people support such a justification? I submit that it’s done under the myth of romantic love. In our society, the myth of romantic love permeates pop culture through books, movies, TV, and music. What exactly is it?

". . . the experience of falling in love must probably have as one of its characteristics the illusion that the experience will last forever. This illusion is fostered in our culture by the commonly held myth of romantic love, which has its origins in our favorite childhood fairy tales, wherein the prince and princess, once united, live happily forever after. The myth of romantic love tells us, in effect, that for every young man in the world there is a young woman who was “meant for him,” and vice versa. Moreover, the myth implies there is only one man meant for a woman and only one woman for a man and this has been predetermined “in the stars.” When we meet the person for whom we are intended, recognition comes through the fact that we fall in love. We have met the person for whom all the heavens intended us, and since the match is perfect, we will then be able to satisfy all of each other’s needs forever and ever, and therefore live happily forever after in perfect union and harmony. Should it come to pass, however, that we do not satisfy or meet all of each other’s needs and friction arises and we fall out of love, then it is clear that a dreadful mistake was made, we misread the stars, we did not hook up with our one and only perfect match, what we thought was love was not real or “true” love, and nothing can be done about the situation except to live unhappily ever after or get divorced." -- Dr. M. Scott Peck

Michelle Langley, author of Women’s Infidelity – Living in Limbo, believes that women have much higher expectations of marriage than men, particularly because they have been raised with Barbie dolls and Cinderella stories and notions of knights in shining armor.

Perhaps this explains why, among all divorces, women file more often than men. (Glass)

One thing is abundantly clear; as an effective destroyer of families, infidelity has few competitors, yet thanks to the myth, popular culture most often depicts cheaters as innocent victims of romantic love.

*bump*

SDguy

Thanks for bumping this up!! I'm not sure how I feel after reading though. It almost makes me think that my chances for recovery might be less than what I thought. At least I'm beginning to face that fact that I have to prepare for the future if it doesn't. Make sense??

I know it makes you feel down, but look at it this way it will help you measure how much resolve you will need to muster to be successful.

Its the hardest thing for me to come to terms with, it might take years to see my W again and will have to deal with WW until then.

Viking-
I take it that you are in recovery?? How long?