I have NO fond feelings for xOM but NC is still imperative. Out of respect for my H and the knowledge I have gained from MB. My M did not even begin to heal until more than a year after H started NC with xOW. His A was nearly 3 years.

Hey! me too for the first and only crew! Lot of good that did us LOL!

Ain't THAT the truth BOW !

Well, yes sort of, and no definitely.

Here is a typical description of my undergrad days: Post

HSchool was a total wash. I was in Physics Club, Marching Band and AP calc. I wore a slide rule on my belt. Need I say more?

Before HS – who the hel1 dates in JrH?

In grad school I did have a gf for a couple of years. Got very serious, too. She pursued me and wanted to marry. We agreed we should wait until I finished my MS. No intercourse, but plenty of fooling around.

I discovered she was a liar and a cheat when her old bf, we shall call him Embre, showed up out of the blue and she took off for a lost long weekend with him. She got pregnant by him and had an abortion. Needless to say we broke up over it. About a year later she came back and said she was wrong and sorry and wanted to get back together - and all that whatever stuff.

My parents said I was making a big mistake to take her back, so I compromised and told her I wanted to take it very slow. Still no intercourse. Within a year I discovered she was doing it again. This time with guys she picked up in bars. I walked away and have never looked back. There is no smoldering flame in my heart for her whatsoever. Only cold dead ashes. Since I first met my wife 20 years ago I do not think of her at all.

Between lying cheating college gf and when I first met my FWW I must have had 144 girls-who-are-friends. Some smooching and pawing, but nothing serious. I was having way too good a time with my life to constrain myself with any kind of commitment to another person. I did not want to lead anyone on, either. So I always kept them at arms length. If anyone seemed to be getting too serious I just slowly stopped doing things with her.

The mystery is why I ever gave that life up for FWW in the first place. Not why I carry no eternal flames.

FWW may carry a small smoldering torch for OM. I don’t know. Nor will I ever know. I wouldn’t necessarily believe her if she said she doesn’t. I do know OM does not carry any heat for her.

I simply don’t know what such heartburn feels like. As I wrote earlier, I will have to lose myself in an entangled affair first, I suppose.

But that’s not likely to happen, lol. I may not wear a slide rule on my belt these days, but everything else about me is the same as it always was.

With prayers,

PS: Very busy today. The big bosses are all out this week so the rest of use are doing their jobs as well as our own. They have boring jobs.

Ok Ap,

It is time for "mine is bigger than yours."

How many pens and pencils did you carry on your slide rule?
How many rubber bands did it take to hold them on?

Used 3 rubber bands myself, and ALWAYS had 3 pencils, two mechanical pencils, and two ball point pens.

We are talking Picket and Ekel (sp) metal, log-log, the whole package man.

JL

JL and AP:

Did you guys play war games like RISK?

One of you may have roomed with my H in summer school at college one year.

I was amazed by that crowd's pen and pencil collection...

BTW..my H was/is my ONE AND ONLY...didn't wait til marriage though...

Me too.....though we didn't wait for the marriage bed....but he has been/is my one and only.....

not2fun

Mimi,

Gettysburg was the game of choice. I actually played a lot of bridge from middle school on. And of course the "ultimate war game" football (HS and college).

What is funny now, is that my kids think I was/am a nerd. I regale them with tails of sliderules, pocket protectors, flip up sun glasses, white shirts (who wears those). THey have a hard time squaring that with a kid that was 6'4" and 220 lbs as a freshman in HS. and subsequent military training. I love keeping them confused.

JL

OK...now we have my analogy.

THAT grad school girlfriend is likely just as much a risk to your marriage as OM is today.

HOW??

The perfect storm.

Perhaps you are away at a Engineering conference. You've taken along plenty of pocket protectors so your shirt is ink free and you are looking very handsome and professional. Low and behold. SHE is there to. She approaches you sheepishly. She indicates that she feels TERRIBLE for the way she treated you years ago. Did I mention that she has matured nicely. More curves AND the years have been good to her. She indicates she'd love to meet up with you after the next seminar on "Re-engineering safer Widgets" and buy you a drink. Give her a chance to make amends. You have absolutely NO INTEREST in her whatsoever...thus, it's safe...isn't it??? Why not? You've got no where to particularly be and it's kinda flattering isn't it?? You were (self-described) never the Don Juan so seeing her, and having her flirt with you in front of colleages is intriguing and ego-stroking. Besides, your wife had a 10 year affair so you're certainly entitled to having/sharing a drink with her, right?? Now...you NEVER consumated your relationship with her, she IS sexually appealling, you don't really care at all about her (she's a cheat and a liar) so hurting her isn't your concern. There is a CHANCE you could end up reciprocating her flirtatious attitude and, at least, flirt back. Perhaps never going further than that (you have been MB educated so you know better). But you just took step one on the road to infidelity. You let down your boundaries and you've got every justification and rationalization and then some for doing so. Your prior relationship with that women is what will allow that immediate familiarity to happen much sooner than some annonymous woman at the seminar. You've got 100 times less of your, I'm supposing, old science geek insecurity. In fact, because SHE betrayed and abused you so absurdly years ago you've got confidence that YOU are a better person than her. You can arrogantly speak to her with the confidence of Adonis.

No matter how unlikely the above scenario is, it COULD happen. Maybe not her, maybe the perfect storm will be one of your younger colleages, maybe the one that you allow to read here and get insight into your marriage. The perfect storm is out there for all of us. What will you do if you encounter the perfect storm? You do lust, don't you??? What is your plan? My wife's plan is NO CONTACT...run, don't stop, don't speak and call me. That's our plan.

As I said above, LUST is patient.

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- I did take AP Chemistry and majored in Accounting, then Tax Law albeit no pocket protectors...does that count???

p.p.s. - New revelation. I admire you guys for being virgins on your wedding day. IMO, it DOES make recovery much more difficult and I apologize if I ever seem or seemed to act too, er, cool or whatever because I'm in a recovered marriage when I never had to overcome that issue and all that it entails.

JL:

Are you Bill Gates? He loves BRIDGE but I guess not given the football..LOL...you sure are well-rounded...


LOL..My boys are confused too..A "GODDESS" BOOKWORM...STYLISHLY STUDIOUS...The "chicks" they deal with tend to be ONE or the OTHER..

In HS I had a log-log duplex trig. I kept that slide rule clean and lubed, I tell you. My mom used to take me to the store with her so I could compute comparative prices as we walked down the aisles. She thought I was so cool - I never told her it was just ratioing.

Oh, and I kept a circular slide rule in my book bag for backup.

My mechanical pencils and pens were always in my pocket protector. Along with a spare lead container. Prided myself on not needing an extra eraser though.

Played a lot of bridge in college. And Risk. And Stratego. I beat the college chess champion 3 for 3 my second week as a freshman. Still have Gettysburg in the downstairs closet! Built a ton of model rockets and a dozen homebuilt computers from scratch. I still have my soldering iron and circuit board etching materials.

I went to college when I was 17. Mothballed my rule for an early TI hand calculator. I was the very model of an early adopter. Sheesh, I have oodles more engineering computing power in my cell phone than those things did.

Interesting, suddenly I am missing my slide rule.

There you go Mr. W! Maybe I can identify. I still carry a smoldering torch for my slide rule! Now where is that thing?

With prayers,

WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL ANALOGY Mr. Wondering........

Very impressive....I would like to think of myself that I could NEVER cheat either but it wasn't UNTIL I read SAA that I understood that I could never say NEVER....so I readjusted and firmed up those boundaries....(because in the above senario, I would do the drink because it would be fun and I wouldn't want to hurt the others feelings.....but NOW....I would politely decline..... ;))....

not2fun

I was your polar opposite in HS...Cheerleader...Student Council...Multiple Social Clubs...Dated a TON...I was a "social butterfly"...That continued in college and after...


I did.

Aphelion...I don't conciously carry a torch for OM, not at all...I am repulsed by the thought of being anywhere near him...But I had felt that way about him BEFORE at different times...We had dated off and on for 9 years...Lots of crappy break-ups in there...When he contacted me and we started talking about some of the "good old days" though, I quickly forgot about past anger...His account in my lovebank was re-opened...

MelodyLane's description of a recovering alcoholic and a recovering(ed) FWS is the GREATEST parallel I've ever seen...It is TRUE...

Just as an alcoholic can't just have a "business drink", a FWS can't just have a little contact...The risk is too great...IMO, full recovery is not possible until the FWS acknowledges this vunerability and plans accordingly...

Mrs. W

Hi Ap,

My slide rule was stolen in grad school. Interesting in theoretical physics there was really no need to do "numbers" any longer, so never replaced the slide rule. I did/do miss it though.

Small computers didn't come along for years after I lost the slide rule. I still think kids need to understand them so that they understand what logs are good for. But, kids don't need CRC tables or any of that stuff now. I must say Mathematica is really pretty cool, but I do miss the "old" days.

Good stuff to remember.

JL

PS: Chemistry sets and rockets, now that was good stuff.

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. W, and everyone, for your thoughts on this.

Recovery only if NC is perfect was a big concern of mine for a long time. I have read on MB of many cases where contact was accidental years later and the affair restarted.

I conquered this fear of mine through loving detachment some time ago. Recovery has been more about me than the M for some time now.

But a concern remains FWW is still here only because OM hasn’t tried to contact her. Or responded to her many attempts at contact during the first year after D-Day 2. It just seems to leave me as the consolation prize, you know? Maybe that’s not a concern, but a feeling. I sometimes do still wonder if she would be content as (one of) his mistress(s) and without me.

I do not want to leave the impression I pooh-pooh NC. I don’t. As a kind gesture to the BH, if nothing else, it is very important.


Mrs. W, the reason I asked you about this in the first place was because you said in another thread you carried a low burning eternal flame for him. But now I see you don’t. The limitations of mere words, I guess.


Mr. W, lawyers are all over in my family. I was accepted to Law School but decided to continue on in Phys and Eng. (I got to help design some equipment that was used by a prof who later won a Nobel using it, and that's way cooler than LS.) I don’t think my dad ever quite got over it though – he wanted me to join him in his private practice. Several of my other brothers and sisters did eventually - so I don’t feel so bad about it now.

Your old gf analogy/scenario is good. I agree in general. But using my old gf as the temptress in particular leaves me cold. I could not stomach seeing her, no matter what she tried to do or say. She killed an unborn child to suit her own convenience. That is way too much for me to deal with.

I remember driving home after a party late one night with her asleep in the passenger seat. We were waiting at a stop light and I happened to look over at her. I saw a black shriveled pruny shape sitting there. Truly, I actually saw this. Vaguely human, but black within black. I blinked and it was gone. It was scary and revolting to say the least. A few months later is when I discovered she was now sleeping around with bar pickups, and I walked away without a word. Just thinking about her still revolts me.

(FWIW, I saw OM’s soul in a dream a few months after D-Day 2 of the VLTA, too. I was lost in a big cave. A labyrinth. A terrible feeling of dread permeated this part of the cave. I came around a corner and saw a black shriveled and distorted baggy thing hanging from a hook, like a side of beef, over an open pit. I knew what it was immediately. But this time it still had one tiny little light deep inside. Several black unrecognizable shapes were flitting around the small pinpoint of light inside it. I turned to go back the way I had come, but I woke up crying instead. Interesting, huh? I know little about prophetic dreams. Maybe just my subconscious at work. But weird just the same.)

Mr. W wrote > “Maybe not her, maybe the perfect storm will be one of your younger colleagues, maybe the one that you allow to read here and get insight into your marriage.”

I allow her to read on MB? How would I stop her? Why would I stop her? She is a BW several times over. Philandering H, at least at one time. For the record, I told her about MB and she figured out who I am. That’s about the extent of it. As for me, I care not who knows what about the VLTA. Most of the people in FWW’s office knew for years and kept it secret. Laughing up their sleeves at me. No more secrets. None. Ever again. In anything. If I am doing something I don’t want someone to know about then I shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

As far as failing under any circumstance? Well, I have already walked more slippery paths than I can remember accurately. I have had many opportunities for A’s over the years – too many to count. Even during the decade of the VLTA when none of my ENs were being met in the least (where was the EN theory of affairs when I needed it!) Some were amazingly blatant and overt opportunities. Some were actual open invitations by very beautiful women in very enticing circumstances.

For just one example, DS and I had just come back from Europe and FWW was still there. (D-Day 1 of the VLTA happened while we were living in Europe for a year. I came back early, she stayed another three months.) I was on a short overnight business trip with a female colleague. We were staying at a resort in AZ. I was feeling sorry for myself, drinking scotch and smoking a cigar in the patio hot tub when she unexpectedly joined me. After a while she floated over in front of me and put her hands on me and asked me to take her back to her room. I declined and left. My first thought was it would be a mortal sin. My second thought was it would hurt my wife, even though she had already been doing it for years. I thought of DS. I thought of my family. I thought of my own self awareness. So I left by myself. Damn, she was beautiful though, and she smoked a cigar too!

This is not a lone occurrence. It happens every once in a while. Similar has happened since D-Day 2 of the VLTA. But I can’t do it. It is wrong. I will never commit adultery. It is a mortal sin, after all. Besides, I know I’d get caught almost immediately. I can coolly reason ahead to see consequences fairly accurately.

I don’t want my soul to look like those others.

With prayers,

No, I said that Dr. Harley says that (or that is what I meant)...that my own affair illustrated that to me since OM was an ex-boyfriend...When he first contacted me I certainly didn't believe that there was a flame there-clearly I was wrong...I would like to believe that it is not there now. (I sure don't FEEL that it is-but feelings LIE as we know.) Experience, coupled with expert findings, I will not argue with-that would be very unwise, imo...So, I will choose wisely and act accordingly, meaning NC for life...

You are correct, much gets lost in the written word...At least MY written word...I'm a much better talker than writer!

I wish you well Aphelion...

God Bless,

Mrs. W


ETA: And YES, NC I also choose out respect for Mr. W, but also out of respect for myself...Out of respect for what I cherish greatly...Our marriage and family...

“OM was my ex high school/college boyfriend Aph...Pretty much cements for me what Dr. Harley says about NC being so important...That a low burning flame remains for an OPand it can be reignited at any time...My affair proved that...Dr. Harley is a very smart man...”[/quote]

Emphasis mine.

with prayers,

*NEW Emphasis MINE*

Sorry if I wasn't clear that it is Dr. Harley that says that about the low burning flame...

Mrs. W

Which is why I wrote:

"But now I see you don’t."

Lack of emphasis mine....

with prayers,

ed: lack of spelling mine too.

So we're good then!

Mrs. W