I have a strong need to feel that I am connected to a soul mate. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that with the OW. Never have with my wife, or with the handful of other serious or semi -serious relationships. That's why I am so certain about how I felt re: OW. It felt radically different than anything else.

But that's past. (Meriting another post) It's not coming back. Applying MB principles with care and love, can a BS become a soul mate to a WS and vice versa? Especially after the WS feels he has already experienced the "real thing".

Read my sitch attached to my sig line. We were detached for 32 years when H thought he'd found his soul mate online.

Now he claims it's me. This weekend will mark the year anniversary of D-Day #4 and we've been on an uphill spiral (with a few bumpy rollercoaster dives) even since.

As you'll see from my strange story, our scenario is not typical, but neither is the 'soulmate' concept, if it even exists. With the help of God, our tough MC and this MB forum of friends willing to help, we are in love with each other for the first time in our 35 years together. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Best wishes in your quest,
Ace

There's really no such thing as a "soul mate". The OW most likely recognized a major emotional need of yours and set out to meet that need. There was nothing truly "real" about your affair with her, because you never lived real life with her. Besides, you would never have been able to trust her.

But, YES, you can fall madly in love with your BS. Your marriage CAN become everything you dream of having, but it requires work and committment on both your part and your wife's. The MarriageBuilders principles are the best I've found, and I've looked at a LOT of marital reconciliation stuff.

The first thing to do is to write a no contact letter to the OW that your wife will read and mail. There are samples of no contact letters on this website, but it should basically say that you are sorry that you hurt your wife and committed to your wife and marriage; therefore, you no longer want to have any contact with the OW. You need to tell the OW that if she tries to contact you, you will not respond, but will tell your wife. There should not be any kind of apology or lovey-dovey stuff to the OW in this letter. Short and to the point is all that is necessary.

Agree with LC. "Soulmate" is a stupid adolescent romantic notion.

You will feel that the person who meets your most important needs is your "soulmate"

You can feel this way about your wife as you meet each others EN's consistently over time. Meet needs, avoid LB's.

Interesting first paragraph. I appreciate the perspective and think there is a great deal of truth in the A not being real. I quibble a litte bit with the trust issue. Makes sense for obvious reasons. But it was a major need of the OW to be in constant contact with me throughout the day. (Many, many phone calls. Some quite long.This was a constant in our 18 month A.) I know from my own experience with my W, (to whom I tried to keep up a credible accountability with a manageable number of calls), the volume and frequency of calls would make a tryst impossible. The OW and I were over an hour apart and I never had any worries.

My point isn't to be defensive. I recognize that any relationship that starts as an A will likely have a trust issue somewhere along the line. The fact is, I wish to God I did feel untrusting in some way. It would help de-mythologize the whole soul mate thing. I'm just not clear of a likely scenario in my particular case in which trust would have reared its ugly head. I am open to hearing one to disabuse me of my naivete'.

I have not had any personal contact with the OW since we said goodbye in July. She has not tried to contact me, as far as I know. More on this in another post.

In regards to the term "soulmate." Dr. Harley uses the concept in his books on affairs. It may not be real, but he uses it because it is descriptive of the intensity of some A's. I see no reason to buck the trend.

Hi Buck5,



Welcome to MB! I take it that you and your W are trying to rebuild your M, so my comments are based on this premis.

The quote from your post is extreemly arrogant and disrespectful to your W. Rebuilding your M isn't about you... it's about YOU earning your W's trust again. I'm not trying to bash you, but if you are to even have a chance at rebuilding your M, you are going to have to lose the "It's all about me" attitude.

There are many fine people here that can help you as you and your W start rebuilding, but we can only offer up the experiences that we've lived through and pass on what worked or didn't work for our particular situation.

An Affair is an affair is an affair... they're all pretty much the same. Your's wasn't any more special than any other A that we read about here. If you continue to search for the reason you lost your "soul mate" or try and debate the fact that your "soul mate" would never cheat on you... then, IMHO, you're just barking up the wrong tree...

The real question you should be asking is "Why did I cheat on my W?" Once you can answer that, and once you start to place your focus on earning your W's trust again, then you will truly start rebuilding your M.

Please continue to post here and if you have any specific questions that we can help you with, I'm sure that you'll receive lots of answers...

However, if you continue with this line of thinking... then you're going to get a ton of shotgun blasts from some BS that are still dealing with the pain and anguish of finding out that the person they trusted the most in life has just ripped their guts out...

Semper Fi,

RIF

AWESOME post RIF. Totally agree with RIF Buck5

Yes, it is possible if both partners learn to become EXPERTS at meeting the others needs. This has happened in my marriage. We have a passionate marriage and my H calls me his "soul-mate." [IknowIknow that is the stuff of teenage girls, but it is sort of cute in a legit relationship]

And it will be a LASTING LOVE, not a fleeting, untenable love that occurs in an affair. The problem with affairs is that they don't ever last because they are based on fraud and deceit. The foundation of a good marriage/relationship is honor, integrity, decency and since an affair has none of that, it crumbles in 95% of the cases.

The first most important step will be to spend 15 hours a week together MEETING EACH OTHERS NEEDS. You can fall in love.

Does your wife come here?

p.s. If you really want to be soul mates with your wife, the fastest, most effective way would be to go to a Marriage Builders weekend. Dr. Harley will walk you and your wife to that point step by step.

Are you saying that if you had left your wife to live with the OW, that the OW would be able to trust you because you two would always be on the phone?

Well, have I got news for you! If you actually lived with the OW, I bet those phone calls would get really tiresome for you in a hurry. She sounds like a clinger. It sounds like she already didn't trust you. And, she would have good reason NOT to trust you, because if you cheated WITH her, you could cheat ON her. The same goes for her. You each already know that the other has no respect for the sanctitiy of marriage.



Just the fact that you cheated with each other would have resulted in one or both of you becoming untrusting. As I mentioned before, if she continued to call you all the time, you would eventually get tired of all the phone calls. Another possibility is that, once she was sure that she had you "hooked", she would have stopped calling you so much. If you had left your wife to marry her, the affairage would be doomed from the beginning.

Now, there is something else that you need to understand.

Your marriage is not all about you and your needs. You are very fortunate to have a wife who loves you enough to want to work things out. You need to dig deep down into your soul and find some genuine remorse for the tremendous pain that you must have caused your wife. And, you need to show that remorse to her when you find it.

Even though life (working?, taking care of home & family) may have gotten in the way of her meeting all your important emotional needs, you most likely weren't meeting her important emotional needs, either. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

So, get busy, if you aren't already busy, following the principles on this site. Does your wife post here? If not, send her here so we can help her, too.

One reason you might have trouble connecting with your BW is that you are still holding on to the idea that you and the OW were "soulmates" and that your relationship with your BW isn't as good. You need to see what your relationship w/ OW was - a fantasy. What you perceive to be a "soulmate" connection was just your body's chemical reaction to her meeting your emotional needs. It was also more exciting because you were sneaking around on your wife. The best way to feel that same connection with your wife is to apply MB principles, spend lots of time together, meet each others' most important, ENs, and avoid LBs. Trust me, the connection you will feel then is so much greater than you could have with the OW.

BTW, I didn't really read through your story much, but did you ever tell your wife about your affair? Because that would hold you back if you didn't.

Buck, does your wife know about the affair?

"I have a strong need to feel that I am connected to a soul mate."

Of course you do, because God designed us that way - to have a strong need to feel that connection with Him and to therefore seek a relationship with Him.

"Rightly or wrongly,"

Definitely wrongly! And that's IT: "Rightly or wrongly"?
Whoa, back it up dude, 'feelings' fade and change, what are your morals? Does it not matter to you whether or not your feelings clash with integrity?

"I felt that with the OW."

It's pretty common to desire some things that are immoral, does the fact that the feeling is there somehow trump all else? You are addicted to the way you felt about yourself when involved with the OW. It's an addictive high. And now you think that high was sustainable and is owed to you by your wife?

"Never have with my wife, or with the handful of other serious or semi -serious relationships."

NO DOUBT if you had stayed involved with the OW in time that high would have been less frequent and would have cost you much more to achieve. (As with any addiction)Eventually it would have faded altogether and you'd be claiming to not remember ever feeling that way with the OW. That's partly because the high of adultery is artificial - not reality based. It's also because you achieved that high partly because of the secrecy of the adultery and the cleverness of the OW's tactics - not by the same sort of efforts YOU would have to put forth to feel that way with your wife, let alone make your wife feel that way about you. Cheap thrills vs reality-based love.

"That's why I am so certain about how I felt re: OW. It felt radically different than anything else."

This is quite common fog-babble and justification. 'It felt SO good so it MUST be the real thing.' Again, of course something you are addicted to would feel good. BUT that in no way translates logically to therefore it must be a good thing, reality-based, the right thing. Seriously dude, you don't think that Satan is clever enough to make something that's sinful be enjoyable? And that little voice whispering to you that the adulteress was your 'soulmate' and by giving her up and going back to your wife you're giving up 'true love', who is more likely to be telling you that? Satan or God?

You still have a lot of defogging to do before you are ready to give your marriage a fighting chance. Do yourself and your wife a big favor and stop pretending the adultery and adulteress were in any way superior to your marriage and wife. There wasn't anything 'special' about it, anymore than a crack cocaine addiction is special. It's addiction and idolatry and someday you will be defogged enough to see that very clearly.

I would add that happiness is the result of living RIGHT, not in being BAD. Affairs do not make people happy, they kill their souls.

Buck:

To answer your question?

"Has anyone left an A with a soulmate and afterward have their BS develop into their soul mate?

YES.

I have.

But the OW was a fiction. I set out to become the "soul-mate" of my W after D-day.

I called my wife.

I sent her Emails

I sent her Text messages.

I showed HER my committment.

I was Open and Honest with her.

Like I had been with OW. Because, with OW, I could be as honest as I wanted. What was SHE going to do? Divorce me?

Yeah. Dday shakes up the Status Quo and reveals all.

Your next steps are to just be as transparent as possible with your BW.

That will start to rebuild the trust and intimacy so that you can become "soul-mates"

And your W has a long road to travel to get there.

My BW found MB three days before Dday, and sent me here. IT saved our M. She changed, and grew. I certainly changed.

Your BW may have alot more to process, but if she comes here and really learns about MB principles, and YOU learn them as well, then yes, you can become "soul-mates" And that ain't teenage school girl stuff.... (wink, wink, Mel!)

But I am with Mel in suggesting that you and your W attend the next available Marriage Builders weekend.

IT made HUGE difference in our recovery.

And the cost? What would an attorney have cost if you were getting divorced? THe MB weekend is at MOST 10% of THAT cost. And it's designed to SAVE YOUR marriage, not destory it.

Buck: Hang around, Your in the right place. Some may beat up on you, but if your doing the RIGHT things, then they tend to minimize.

LG

Take Lousygolfer's advice:

DO all those things he listed like calling your wife PLUS do all those little things you did for OW that slipped you down the slope to adultery: conversation, private jokes, flirting, flattery, whatever.

Because it's not just what the OW did for you that made you 'feel' she was your 'soulmate' but also what you did for her. Think back to when you first had contact with OW. Most likely it was 'just friends' right? Did you assure yourself that whatever contact you had with her was OK because it was not your intention for it to go any further? (BTW OW are VERY skilled at pretending they have no agenda like detroying a marriage and pretending they believe whatever lies a married amn tells them - you do ealize that, right?) The first few conversations, shows of interest, and little favors seem so innocent... But even then an inappropriate sense of secrecy and intimacy is sowing the seeds for 'feeling' that you've found your 'soulmate'. And it's the attention to, listening to, giving to, the OP that is largely responsible for your growing sense of being 'in love' with the OP - NOT JUST what the OP is doing for you by listening, complimenting, spending time with you.

If you do not feel as 'in love' with your betrayed wife as you did with the OW it has a lot to do with how you treated the OW better than you treat your wife. It is not just that the OP met some important emotional needs of yours - it's also because you put in the effort to meet the OP's needs and therefore you viewed the OP as being worthy of the atention you had already lavished on them; you saw the OW as somehow better than your wife because you were trwating her in a way you would treat somebody who was important or superior. Your feelings followed your actions..THEN you continued with actions based on those new feelings... and THOSE added actions just fueled your feelings even more...

It's called the consistency principle: People desire to have their behavior and feelings in synch with each other. Everybody knows that behavior can be driven by feelings; but the opposite is equally true: feelings follow behavior.

The exact same principle can be employed in your marriage to make you and your wife 'feel' like 'soulmates', feel 'in love' with each other.

All it requires of you is to treat your wife the way you should treat a woman you respect, want, love, cherish. The feelings will follow.

With the adultery you were unaware of the principle (and apparently also naive about the fact that adultery is like an addiction - complete with an endorphin induced chemical high); with your marriage you have a responsibility to purposely apply the principle.

The addiction will cause withdrawal symptoms for a while. And ANY contact with the OW will put you back fully into the addiction and you will have to go through withdrawal AGAIN. You'll get a quick fix for the moment but the price you ultimately pay will be tremendous (as with any addiction). I've read it can take 3 weeks to get through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms plus another 6 months to feel free of the addiction to the OP.

But it's not just the addiction you have to get over before having a chance of feeling 'in love' with your wife again.

You actually have to DO things for your wife, loving behaviors that will cause you to feel more loving towards her. And if you really want to feel more in love with your wife than you did with the OW you will have to treat your wife BETTER than you did the OW, do MORE things for your wife than you did for the OW. Do NOT under any circumstances act as if something your wife needs in order to recover is too much to be asked of you! After all, your wife is probably painfully aware of how much you were willing to say/do/risk in order to get that high the OW provided. Your wife nees to know that you value her more than the OW. Consistently behave that way regardless of your currewnt feelings and eventually you will feel that way.

Thanks so much for the responses. Many of them are quite helpful. Others not so much. Helping people reflect and leading them to humility,remorse and action is A LOT more effective than shaming them to it. The point isn't that my feelings make my actions right, the point is, now that I have them, what do I do with them? Saying I shouldn't have them or they are stupid isn't much of a solution.

Now on to more reflection, admittedly some quite cringeable

Back Story

1. Pre Affair: Generally rocky first four years of marriage. Followed by three solid years of desparation with W. No physical affection outside of sex. No sex for 18 months. Begging for counseling, to talk about it. Tears. No interest from my W. Our children are enough for her to be bothered with. Absolutely at a dead end. And yes, vaguely thinking about that too. I am very angry inside. Very.

2. Affair: Starts as an online EA on a marriage site. (Not this one.) OW similarly desparate. Two months in, becomes PA. She is two hours away. OW has no kids, she is done with her marriage. I have two. Can never find it in myself to plot a D. Think about it constantly. OW is 15 years younger, (surprise, surprise), beautiful, and an off the charts 'giver type' in most personality profiles. Her world becomes me. I am a leader in the community. (Not hers). She admires me. It is VERY intoxicating. Highly addicting.

The end

1. She wants to marry me, (and I her, in a sec, in my unmarried alternative universe) but I find it harder to balance family, work and affair. And the constant tension of doing the wrong thing. She is very lonely. I decide I can't keep biding time to make a decision. It is torturing her. She knows the A is wrong and this also eats at her. We give it up in late July. By text and phone message. We can't stomach to do it voice to voice. We might not pull it off.

After.

1. No contact. It is the end.


2. First three weeks surprisingly easy. I can't believe it. It is freeing to be a "moral" man again. W doesn't know anything. Our marriage had been slowly feeling better during the affair. I wasn't asking to work on the marriage anymore. This lack of demand made things more bearable. (Not a real solution, I know.) I have twinges but it feels OK. We start to talk about improving the marriage. A little movement. We find out W is pregnant. (Shock). She miscarries. We get closer. But plateau.

3. I tell her about the A. She is devastated. I ask if she wants to stay. Yes she does. We begin to get intentional about our marriage. Thank God, I am through the dreaded withdrawal period. It wasn’t so bad. Let’s get to work.

4. Not so fast. Suddenly withdrawal starts gnawing. I look at the OW’s bare bones Yahoo profile. She has just changed it. That day. She is now divorced. She also lists some moral wisdom directly related to our situation. Along the lines of ‘just stop doing the wrong thing. You can.’ I feel good about her ‘transformation’ and sad at the same time. It is the beginning of a spiral for me.

5. Day after day, it builds. I check for signs of her online. I see she has left a review about a restaurant we used to eat it at . An album we used to listen to. I become extremely depressed. After a month and half of this, I begin to fantasize about contacting her. Is she seeing someone? We had left no safe way for her to contact me. Does she secretly want to? I feel like I am falling down a shaft.

6. Meanwhile. My wife and I start reading HNHN and LB. She want this to work. She tries. I try. It makes a difference. My actions are much better. Hers much much better. She deserves all my attention and energy. But inside, my feelings for her vacillate. This too is awful. I begin to get radically honest. I am working through my feelings for the OW. It is hard on my wife to hear. But she is glad I am sharing. But I am not honest. She doesn’t know about my internet research. My head knows I am an undeserving fool. My heart doesn’t get the memo.

7. Two nights ago, I have a dream. The OW , the one to whom I have never felt ‘closer’ , has another romantic interest. I sit up straight in bed. It haunts me. The next day is the worst. I share my depression, not the dream with my wife. She begins to get sick. Her automatic response to being unloved. She goes to bed. I get in the car. I drive the hour and half to the OW’s apartment. I must know. If there are two cars or no cars in the driveway. I will know. She has moved on. I talk to myself the whole way. I feel a little like Travis Bickle.. But I say to myself, Car or no car, this is the end. “ I am destroying my wife with unlove. I am destroying me.” Someone is speeding a memo to my heart. I arrive at midnight. No car. I had prepared myself for that. Still. A slap. There are other plausible explanations. But I know. I can’t believe it. Can’t conceive of it. Just a pale imitation of the betrayal my wife has felt. Maybe the OW isn't morally transformed after all. I have been a fool. My ego is reduced. Three months after embracing me, her “soul mate” , she has moved on. Perhaps much sooner than three months. It stings. It is a tinman moment. My heart gets the memo. I ache for what my wife must be experiencing. I arrive home. I post on MB. Is their hope? My wife is in bed. I am flooded with empathy, and remorse. I cry and cry and cry for the first time over any of this. This beautiful woman, next to me, deserves everything. Please, God give me a new heart. Show me how to love her.

Are the emotions of the evening fleeting? It won’t be time that will tell. It will be what I do, and more importantly what I don’t do. It is time to let go, it is time to come home. It is time to make a home.

......But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him....(Luke 15:20)

Withdrawal is serious business. It is deadly. Don’t mess with any contact. Any. Even if it is one sided. You will never get clear.

Why did withdrawal hit me so late? Circumstance? Personality? Fear of real intimacy? I still have a cognitive need to understand, logically, the illogical feelings I have had.

first of all one would have to believe in soulmates..,,.

but I say it's more like a lennonism...(john that is)

the love we get is equal to the love we give.,,

rather than some cosmic hoo-hoo

ARk

You write beautifully. I was right there with you in the car. My mostly uneducated guess is that in the first three weeks when you "thought" you had aced withdrawal, you really hadn't begun. By driving to "see" you set yourself back and deeper into the withdrawal that had really just begun in earnest.

Dreams can be powerful and full of warnings or messages to us. Just like real life, you don't always act on those warnings or messages without first weighing the consequences.

I see very real possibilities for the complete recovery of your marriage. Why? Because it's obvious you're willing to "do the work."