Yes, I most certainly moved on from the constant thoughts of and attraction to my FOM. I cannot remember the last time I even thought of him. Your FOM will eventually just become a nobody. I was very good friends with my FOM for 5 years before we crossed the line, so it's not like he was a total stranger to me and I was able to let it all go and move on. An A really is a total fantasy world. It all felt so real until I look at it in hingsight. It was all ridiculously stupid, I just didn't want to see it.

NC is the key. Like Rose told you, you will find it's the addiction to the feelings, not to the person.

This may be the wake up call your DH needs to get him involved in wanting to meet your EN. You may be surprised to find you can actually have all those feelings you have for the OM for your DH. The best part of that is you can act on it and enjoy every second because you will be having the feelings for the person you are married to.

Prior to my A, I had completely checked out of my marriage and was setting myself up financially to leave my DH. Now I cannot imagine my life w/o him in it.

LC

Hi stuckinthemud,

“I have many more comments to make and questions but is there a way to have the space I am typing in on the same page as people's comments?”

I copy and paste everything I want to comment on into Word, then I copy or cut and paste quotes into my reply (in Word). Then I copy the reply into the message board. The post I’m replying to shows up beneath the window that opens to type a response into. Hope that makes sense.

Mark is right about reading the links. Have you bought any of Dr. Harley’s books? His Needs, Her Needs is the one our pastor gave us first.


“I was hoping by emailing him my feelings and hearing his it would provide a sense of closure for me so I can close that chapter and get back to fixing my marriage...And crazy enough I do feel like knowing that he is still attracted to me provides a bit of closure for me.”

Trust me – there is no such thing as “closure.” Looking for it has ruined, or nearly ruined, a lot of people. It’s just an excuse to continue an A. Even if you feel “closure,” it is a temporary fix, and you will begin to need more “closure” in just a little while.

“I mean, I spent time 2 years with this om yet, albeit a long time ago but I know I am attracted to him.”

I had known FOM for two years also, in high school. It had been over 30 years ago, and believe me when I tell you, neither of us are even remotely the same people we were back then. Even if it has only been 15 or 20 years since you knew OM, and even if you both still look terrific, you are not the same people you were then. It will NOT be like you remember it. You are older now, you have an H and children now. You are different, inside and out.

A therapist told me years ago that “you can’t go back home.” (This was years before my A.) He meant that everything there will be different than you remember, and that you will be disappointed. When I visited FOM, I also saw some other old friends from back in the day. I found that I no longer even liked some of them. We had nothing in common, and I disagreed with a lot of their world views. It was a nightmare of disappointment and shock.

“My en's not being met so then I didn't feel connected so the sex was not fulfilling or the sex was not fulfilling emotionally (not physically) so I pulled away emotionally. “

Something I’ve learned from being married 32 years, and also from reading and talking to other women, is that some men express love differently than women do. Having sex CAN BE an emotional expression of love from our Hs. It’s the only way they know how to communicate sometimes. It helps to know that. Reading about emotional needs and filling out the questionnaires with your H, and spending time talking to your H about these things can help.

God bless,
Rose

Lifeschoice-I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that you were able to get fom out of your head. It gives me such hope. Thank you.
Rose-you are so right on. The closure is never really closure, it will always leave me wanting more and wondering. One last email to him or from him or one last question etc...
I've got to run, more questions later, thanks all. I have hope because of you.

REally stupid question but..how do I end it? Internet communication, ea. I want to stop contact this weekend. I'm scared but want to end things before they get anymore tangled and hurtful to my family and dh.Do most people send a final "well, this is it, I've got to move forward", kind of thing?
And I have avoided saying anything to dh because I wanted to end things first with om. I plan to talk with dh on Sunday but why do I need to tell him everything? I get the secrecy thing but does he need details? I admitted to om that I was sttracted to him, om admitted to me that he was attracted to me and that is it. The rest of the problems really have been in my head over the course of the past 6 years, me just thinking about om. I guess I see that as the real problem.
Should I be starting a new thread for different questions to get more input or just post on same thread??

Not a stupid question at all. There is a no contact letter here on this site. I will find it and post it here after I get DD out the door to school.

Once you send the NC letter to him, you have to cancel your email account immediately, save a copy of the NC letter to show your DH. You do not want to read any reply FOM may send. End it and cut all contact, PERIOD. If he has your phone number do not answer calls from him. Do you have caller ID? If not, get it.

The note to OM should be short, no drama, no sappy stuff and don't ramble on and on. (BTDT more than once :RollieEyes:)



Just curious why you are waiting until Sunday to tell your DH? Do it sooner if you can, I know it's easier to avoid, but don't.

Also no blaming your DH, no drama and don't beat around the bush. Have it written out, something like this: Honey, I need to tell you something very difficult. I have been secretely emailing my old BF for such amount of time. I find myself attracted to him so I have cut off all contact with him. I am sorry for what I have done and hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for allowing this to happen. I want to be open and honest with you and will share all you want to know. I want to work together to improve our marriage so we both can be happy.

Tell him the basics of it and tell him you will share details if he wants them. What a BS wants to know it up to them. My DH wanted to know everything, some BS want to know minimal. Don't just throw it on him.



Don't start a new thread. It's better to keep it all on one. It makes it easier to follow your story.

No time to proofread I have to run.

LC

Well, you could TELL YOUR HUSBAND THE TRUTH!!!

Yes, this is definitely the short answer. By telling your DH it will help keep you honest.

BTW, don't downplay any of it to your DH.

LC

Because he's a human being who you are manipulating like an animal. It's disgusting. You are MANIPULATING another human being! One you promised to cherish ABOVE ALL OTHERS!!!




You need no more advice than to TELL YOUR HUSBAND THE TRUTH and stop MANIPULATING HIM LIKE AN ANIMAL!!!

This is not correct!!!

Her AND HER HUSBAND write the NC letter and HE mails it!!!

Yes, I get that and was a little torn between telling her to end it or telling her H first.

I don't see why she can't end it before she tells him. They can still send the NC letter together. I think it would be better if she could tell her DH "Honey, I ended it already" vs "Honey, I was waiting to tell you so you could help me end it."

BTW, what's up with the giant font?

OMG, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!! My FWW pulled the same thing. Do you have any idea how humiliating, and how much resentment it causes, for a WS to treat a BS as just another contestant on the Dating Game? If you have problems with your H, work on those. Leave OM out of the picture. If you can't work things out with H, then divorce him. OM will likely still be there. Maybe he won't, but that's the risk you take when you promise to "forsake all others" How would you like it if he held you up for comparisoin every time he met a prettier/funnier/smarter/sexier/richer woman?


Another, OMG!! My FWW's relationship with her OM began with a lot of phone calls, during which the sexual enuendos and teasing increased, increasing the sexual tension between them. My FWW then thought if they just got together once, they'd get it out of their systems and have closure. HA! 3 hrs of nonstop sex the first night led to 5 hrs nonstop sex the next afternoon, and then another 3 hrs nonstop sex the day after (I was out of town on business). The point is, you don't get closure - you get more infatuated and more addicted. Break off all contact now, or it will be too late, if it isn't already.


I don't get it. You say you have a low desire for sex, but imply that a principal criteria of yours in a mate is physical attractiveness? Do you like to look, but not to touch?

I see you are a FWW. Ask any BS why. What good is a copy of a letter that the BS had no input on and doesn't even know if it was really sent? Guess what...Waywards LIE!






I want her to hear LOUD AND CLEAR!

In the worldview of the BS, its not over until the NC letter is sent. Up until then, the BS has only the WS's word on it (unless the BS listened in on the last phonecall), and WS had just lost a lot of credibility with BS.

Just a couple of observations here for you.

To begin with, you say this has been going on in your head for 6 years.

I would question if this were really true unless you have been in contact with him all that time.

I know it FEELS like you just haven't ever been able to forget him, but if you had no contact with him at all even for a few weeks you would not be dwelling on him all the time and would in fact have periods when you wouldn't think of him at all. The less you obsessed with him the less you would think of him until you thought of him very seldom...

Unless there was some other dynamic involved in the mix and I think that there is.


You have probably had some issues with your husband that have never been addressed. Rather than bring things up in an appropriate way you likely stuff them down where they cause resentment. You put all this stuff into a gunny sack and carry it around with you. This is a constant reminder to you of the hurt you have felt over certain things your husband has done.

But the past relationship with OM looks oh so attractive because he never did these things your husband has done. The comparison continues and soon you have created this entire fantasy life of what might have been. It brings you comfort from the load of {b]stuff[/b] you have been carrying around just waiting for the opportunity to dump them all out at once in one great explosion of anger. But instead, you retreat into your fantasy and choose (and it IS a choice) to dwell on this past flame.

The flame still burns hot because it has been fanned. And with a confession of undying love between you it was like pouring gasoline onto the fire.

But a fire needs three things, heat, fuel and oxygen. Remove any one of the three and the fire dies.

An affair needs three as well...
Entitlement - the heat
Resentment - the fuel
Selfishness - the oxygen

Remove any one of the three and the affair dies.

Using purely Marriage Builders ideas here, your old BF left you with an unresolved balance in his account in your Love Bank. It became an inactive account and the love units just sat there. There was no overhead on the account since there was no relationship that needed to be maintained.

You met your husband and he made sufficient deposits that his account balance became large enough that you began to feel in love with him. you never purged your BF's account because you had frankly forgotten it was there. You weren't dwelling on OM in those days.

But your marriage has overhead in order to keep it going that drains your Love Bank daily. REAL life has a way of doing that. Housework, laundry, dirty socks on the floor next to the hamper instead of in it...

And then there is something your husband does that just irritates the heck out you. This is his primary Love Buster. Every time this happens, his account in your Love Bank takes a huge hit. The fee for doing this causes his balance to drop.

But at some point he wasn't making enough deposits to make up for this overhead of the relationship. His balance fell below the minimum level required for you to feel in love with him

Enter old boyfriend...

Old account, long forgotten by the bank (you) no activity for years and suddenly a small deposit is made...Instantly this account becomes the active one and you stop taking deposits from your husband. This small deposit could actually have been made by you yourself rather than OM. It was a thought of something he once did and to make it worse, you compared him to your husband in this very instant. OM did this nice thing for me and husband did not do this nice thing for me...

Maybe the same nice thing or maybe two totally different things....

And in that instant you began to seek deposits from OM and his balance grew even higher and now, since you didn't have a real relationship with him, there was never anything to debit against his account and all that happened was the balance grew.

And you let it and even encouraged it...

This is exactly why Dr Harley says that we should never have any contact of any kind with any former lovers (lover meaning someone we once felt we were in love with)

You are addicted to the way OM makes you feel. He made deposits, that is, he did things that made you feel good and happy. Soon, merely thinking about him was enough to make you feel happy and feel good about yourself. You even could give yourself a fix just by thinking about him.

And when your supply of feeling good ran low and thinking didn't make you high enough, you'd have just enough contact to load up the stash and then use just enough to get by so it wouldn't run out so quickly.

You told yourself you were fighting the feelings.

You weren't fighting them, but managing them.

Have you read the Basic Concepts yet?
It will explain a lot...

Mark

See she has the advantage of having BS's tell her what to do. It seems pointless for her to tell him it's over and there will be no more contact only to send him a letter with her H the next day. Kill 2 birds with one stone and don't risk opening contact. Rmemeber MB isn't cookie cutter.

She doesn't need to be yelled at to get the point. She came here for help which says she is open to hearing what is said and you are not being very helpful by yelling at her, IMO.

Stuckinthemud,

I have some advice for you as you read through your thread. You are going to come across things that make you mad as you read them, mostly because they are hitting home. My advice is if something strikes a nerve, wait a little while and read it again.

I learned so much by being open to reading things that really upset me. There were times I had to walk away from my computer for a couple hours to calm down and let it sink in.

My email address is in my sig line, feel free to email me anytime.

LC

Thank you, this seems reasonable and makes sense.

Stuckinthemud,

I guess the thing to do is tell your DH then discuss the NC letter I will still find it and post it here so you have an idea of what it says. (ETA: since the search feature still isn't working I won't be able to find it for you. Perhaps someone else has it readily available and can post it, sorry.)

When I ended my A I called my FOM and said, "FOM, I just cannot do this anymore, we have to end it." I did not confess to my DH for 15 months after that. It was a huge mistake for me not to confess immediately.

Do you think your DH has any clue at all?

Hi all-

A BS really should write the NC letter. It gives him/her control of a situation that a foggy WS cannot be trusted to deal with appropriately. The BS needs to know exactly what was written to ensure that there is no doubt in the OP’s mind that NC is demanded. It also lets the OP know that the BS knows what is going on. It is also a sign of solidarity between the BS and the WS. In order to do this, the BS has to be told first, obviously.

stuckinthemud -

You can tell your H what you told us. “I admitted to om that I was sttracted to him, om admitted to me that he was attracted to me and that is it. The rest of the problems really have been in my head over the course of the past 6 years, me just thinking about om. I guess I see that as the real problem.” Then answer all of your DH's questions honestly.

Then, like lifechoice wrote, email address(es) and phone number(s) have to be changed. The BS can even lock all the computers in his/her trunk every day, if need be, while the WS goes through withdrawal. We all know that an addict can find ways around restrictions, but it doesn't hurt to make it as difficult as possible! In the end, though, the WS is the only one who can really make himself/herself stop the addictive behavior.

God bless,
Rose

You just don't get it do you? It is DANGEROUS for her to contact him AT ALL, even to tell him it's over.

The BS DESERVES to be a part of writing the NC letter and mailing it himself.



IMO she has not listened yet and also IMO you are giving her bad advice because it goes against MB principles.

Well if you had read further you would have seen I told her differently. I did not want to edit an old post.

BTW, don't bother to reply to me any longer you are officially going on my ignore list.