But this is not about what you want, but about your finances best interest. He has a right to know that you have a weakness when it comes to protecting your boundaries. This is information he needs to have in order to marry you. And maybe he wants to marry a woman who is silly like this and feels flattered at the advances of married men, but that should be his choice, not yours.

He has a right to the truth.

Lafire, do you not feel INSULTED that this man pursues you? You seem to be flattered and that is what puzzles me here. His pursuit is not flattering, but highly insulting. Do you understand WHY this man pursues you? I assure you it is not because of your dazzling personality. It is because he thinks you are an EASY LAY. A cheap piece of fun.


Quite frankly, he obviously doesnt think that at all (since he's been trying for 4 years without any success - that's not exactly "easy" is it? I'm not sure where "cheap" comes into it. Do you view yourself as cheap? I've never viewed myself as cheap. I've never believed that anyone who knew me would view me as cheap. I'm very concerned that you think I (or any woman) should believe she is viewed that way. [This is an aside but I'd also be careful about the way you let yourself think. Your cognitive expressions are a one path track to depression.]

He thinks you are so immoral that you might entertain a romp with him. He thinks there is hope that you might have some fun with him even though he is married and you are engaged. And you are flattered?

He doesn't "think" - he "hopes". He can hope for whatever he wants to hope for. I'm not flattered by his hope that I'd be "immoral" as such - I'm flattered that he finds me attractive. It's as simple as that.


A married man is not interested in anything else. He would never consider leaving his wife for you or taking you home to his momma. He would never take you around his children or his family. And you are flattered? what is wrong with you young ladies? Do you have no sense?

Wow. Come on, now - it is possible to be flattered that someone thinks you are attractive. It would be strange not to be flattered under those circumstances. You don't need the additional piece of flattery that this person wants to marry you or have your kids in order to be flattered that they are attracted to you.

Hon, his contact is an insult. It is a slap in your face. So, for you to be flattered by this means you are naive about his intentions.

I'm afraid I disagree. I'm flattered that he's attracted to me. You'll see in my original post that I'm not at all naive as to his intentions. I know very clearly what they are and I've always known what they are. I'm not interested in what he's interested in which is why I've never slept with him - not when I'm single and certainly not now.

And this is written in the little book of "rights" is it? I must have not been given a copy of that.

Sorry but we arent all entitled to know every fact about another person. Your only entitlement (if you call it that) is to make your decisions as best you can on what you see of another person and what you have experienced. And it ends there.

The fact that you are unhappy and miserable because of whats happened to you (and Im sorry it happened) doesnt mean everyone else is going to be or has to be.

suggestion...don't feed this troll.

"And this is written in the little book of "rights" is it? I must have not been given a copy of that."

"Sorry but we arent all entitled to know every fact about another person. Your only entitlement (if you call it that) is to make your decisions as best you can on what you see of another person and what you have experienced. And it ends there."

Have you read the Bible? Or do you believe in it? If you do, that will tell you what you need to know. If not, then everything is just a luck shot anyway.

What goes around, comes around.

Actually, I think you're right medc. Looks like she came here more to get reassurance that it was ok to do whatever she wanted anyway - and I know this board does not support that.

No, I do not believe in the Bible and I am not a member of the Christian faith (or any of its denominations).

Er, no - I came here to be listened to. I did not come here for my specific situation to be turned into something it is not by a bunch of people who are still suffering from their own hurts.

BUT - if you can't deal with a difference in opinion from your own - why are you in a discussion forum? Get on a soap box instead, perhaps?

actually, the PURPOSE of this forum is not to listen to your affair chit chat...it is to help people learn about Dr. Harley's method of saving marriages. This particular thread is about preparing for marriage by utilizing the Harley methods.

I do not see that you have any clue about the Harley's plan.

Do you honestly believe this?

Do you really believe that a person has no right to know about the person they are planning to marry? That secrets are OK as long as they don't come out later? That beginning a relationship and a lifelong commitment to someone based on not knowing the truth is OK? Don't you think that saying that you will love honor and cherish someone for as long as you both shall live entitles you to know that the person you are committing your life to is the real person?

From Dr Harley: Full article HERE

And this about dishonesty:
Full article HERE

True intimacy can never be achieved in marriage or in any relationship until the real person is known. To be loved and respected, cherished and protected for who you are is a wonderful thing. To trick someone into providing those things for you by withholding things that reveal who you really are sets up a wall between you that cannot be overcome simply by years together.

Your relationship with this man reveals that you have a poor sense of personal boundaries that not only makes you vulnerable but also indicates your total lack of empathy with his wife, since, no matter what he says, it isn't up to you to decide if his marriage is worth destroying or giving up on. All cheaters say the same thing BTW. It is a cliche for a man trying to seduce a woman to say "My wife doesn't understand me." Would it matter to you if he said "I love my wife more than life itself and would never do anything to hurt her." Would that make you more or less likely to climb into the sack with this guy?

Adulterers lie! Even when confronted with overwhelming proof in the form of video tape, audio recordings or photgraphs they try to lie by saying things like "It isn't what you think." or "It isn't like that."

You can't build a marriage on smoke and mirrors.

Picture the woman who falls in love on the internet with a man, flirts with him for months, they make plans to meet and promise undying love forever...only to find out the "man" is another woman. (It happens!)

Or imagine a guy falling in love with a girl who seems like the perfect mate for life and on his wedding night discovers she's really a guy in drag.

Those examples might sound extreme to you, but how are they really different from keeping this relationship with OM a secret from your fiance? It isn't what is obvious that destroys a relationship in the long run, but those things that are hidden from us. They bring into question all the things we see in the other person. We can no longer believe anything about our spouse when a flaw in their character comes into view after perhaps years together with children, hopes, dreams and grandiose plans for the future.

You say this relationship with OM is not even an emotional affair. Many marriages have been thrown away for a purely emotional affair, BTW, with never even a real meeting in person let alone a roll in the sack. If you are not emotionally attached to OM, then I challenge you to have no contact with him for about 6 months. That is no phone calls, no emails, no personal interaction of any kind. If he moved to another country without telling you, would you miss him and the flirting?

When you get time, look at this website: Just Friends or Emotional Affair?

I'm not judging you, LaFire. I'm trying to warn you that the road you are on will not lead to marital bliss or personal satisfaction. Any justifications you can give for both continuing this relationship with OM or keeping it from your fiance are really weak excuses to continue what even you know to be wrong; that is after all why you are here asking the question in the first place. Unless you yourself have no moral problem with any of this, you don't even need to be here asking. The bigger problem is that you insist on trying to make it right by arguing for it rather than against it.

Let me put it to you as a question. If your fiance was bisexual and was HIV positive, would it be ethical for him to withhold that information from you? If the person that gave him the HIV knew that he was planning to marry you and yet did nothing to inform you, would you hold that person accountable? Yes, it is extreme and the case you describe is much less extreme, but no less important to a commitment to remain with someone as long as you both shall live.

I really don't expect you to change your mind, but I wanted you to see the futility of making the arguments you are making.

Put a fork in me. I'm done now.

Best of luck in your forthcoming marriage.

Mark

Yes this particular thread is about preparing for marriage - not for venting infidelity anger/frustration. I see there's an entirely different part of the forum for that.

I'm sorry but most (if not all) of the above posts have simply not, in my opinion, grasped what I have said to be my circumstances or my issue - you've made assumptions upon assumptions, misdirected yourselves as to what my thoughts/beliefs are etc.

So there's no point in getting angry that I disagree with your views.

If there's anybody who can come at my issue from a reasonable perspective and is not concurrently battling with a marriage breakdown based on infidelity - I'd appreciate your views.

Infidelity is NOT the issue in my post and all of the above posts have failed to see that.

Well, I do think you are naive about his intentions. Any married man who pursues a young woman is not doing so because of her brains and dazzling personality, I assure you. He does it because he believes there is a CHANCE for some cheap fun. In short, he would not be pursuing you if he respected you. And that is an insult to you, dear.

Certainly you understand you could never darken his family's doorstep. You are a dirty little secret he has to hide. And you find that "flattering?" yegads

Do you want to know why he is not pursuing a 35 yr old hottie? It is because most women over 30 have the common sense to recognize when they are being insulted. Most women would not tolerate the insult. Someone in her 20's will.

In other words, you have to trick him about who you are to get him to marry you because you know he wouldn't marry you if he knew the truth.

If you have to HIDE who you are to get a man to marry you, that means you question your value. There is something seriously wrong when you have to trick a man into marrying you, LaFire.

Let me try to answer your original question as I read it...

How do you stop answering the phone calls and continuing this relationship with this married man? Have I got that correct?

Here's your answer:

Stop answering the phone, send him a letter via registered mail telling him that you wish to have no further contact with him for any reason ever again.

The reason those who have posted to you have come across the way they have might seem to you to be because they are in pain. While that might be true in some cases, others are actually in marriages that have recovered from the pain of infidelity and are now in not merely good marriages, but in fact great ones. They are happier now than before their lives were ripped apart by an affair.

The reason they are so attached to what they are saying is because everything you have said has been heard before and has been used to try to justify an affair.

I would suggest that if you are unable to break communcations with this man, that it is because there is some sort of pay-off for you to continue it. While you might truely love your future husband and know that you want to spend the rest of your life with him, this OM does seem to be meeting some Emotional Need of yours in some way, or you would have ended the relationship long ago.

That is what has been unspoken but has been picked up on here by so many. They might not have even been able to identify it in their own minds, but they heard all this stuff from a spouse who was cheating or in some case used the same arguments when they themselves were actively engaged in an affair.

You clearly know the relationship with OM is wrong or you wouldn't ask the question. You also know that continuing it in light of your forthcoming marriage would also be wrong and so you ask what you should do. Short answer: End the relationship with this guy at once and once and for all.

You see LaFire, an emotional affair is as hard to break as one that was consumated. It is what you get from OM that makes it hard for you to not answer his calls. You actually look forward to the flirting and the sexual banter or you wouldn't engage him at all. You look forward to it because it makes you feel something deep inside; that is, it meets some Emotional Need that you have. To not get it from him means that you must do without and that is hard to do. The more these feelings are fostered by contact with him, the harder they are to break.

Whatever he makes you feel brings you some kind of enjoyment. Repeated over time the effect builds up until the mere thought of him and your flirting causes that same feeling. According to Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, which you were instructed to read before posting here when you first came to this site to register, that means that he has made sufficient Love Bank deposits for you to feel toward him what might be called an attraction but what Dr Harley says is what we call Love. It has in fact become an addiction.

Now the rest of the advice concerning telling OM's wife about his philandering and letting your fiance know about this relationship so that he can make decisions about his life and his future, and your own as well, I addressed in my previous post to you.

So now I really am done since it is past time for me to go home to my wife with whom I really do have a pretty happy marriage and since I was not home last night I miss quite a bit.

Yeah, I'm addicted to her.

Read the Basic Concepts LaFire and see if you can't see the answer to your question yourself. If you have questions about building a reliable and growing marriage, ask away.

Just realize that no one here calls a spade a digger or delver or geovulvometer.

And seldom even a shovel...

Mark

Hi, LaFire.

You're probably feeling a little beat up right now. Every situation is different, and yet in many ways they are very much the same. Everyone here is giving advice from a good place -- the place of truly wanting to help you. The MB ideas here are so true and we want you to use them to ensure you have a healthy marriage. But I'm not going to preach MB to you now. I'm new and others here are so much better at it so I'll let them take that yoke. Let me instead try to talk with you woman to woman -- as a woman who has had many male friends and who has worked in male dominated industries.

I am a FWW. I had a PA 2+ years before I was married, and am currently battling through a recent PA-confession of 11 days ago. I know you're not here as an adultress like me, but my story started very much like yours.

The OM was a married co-worker. We were good friends for 5 years. One day the OM, out of the blue on a business trip, told me he was attracted to me. He made a pass and I denied him. I denied him the next night as well because I was married and would never do that to my H nor to another woman. But I enjoyed the attention and was very flattered. We started talking more by IM, email, texts, and phone (he worked out of another office). It was flirtatious and also just straight friend talk. But even when we were talking business two time zones away, there was that sexual tension. Why? Because I knew he wanted me. So even without being overt, I know I did things to ensure he'd remain interested. It felt good to be wanted -- especially when I wasn't getting that from my H. I'd giggle a little more, smile more, use innuendo... We thought is was funny. And the OM ate it up. Soon he became more bold about his desires. I'm not sure if you've gotten this far, but I thought 'it's innocent' because there is no way anything will come of it. Well, eventually it became a PA virtually, then eventually we were together one time on a business trip. If only I could have nipped it in the bud. If only I had told my H when I was doing things and saying things to the OM that I should have been saying instead to my H.

The fact that you continue the relationship as if it's status quo as friends when it's not, concerns me. I'm the last person to judge anyone and I will never tell you what you are thinking. But please think very long and very hard about this relationship with your "friend". You owe it to your fiance and to yourself to look at the reality of this relationship. Let me ask you to consider a few things here:

1.) If you were to record one of your flirtatious conversations with the "friend" and play it back to your fiance, how do you think he would respond? If you think your fiance would be uncomfortable in any way -- a little bit or a lot -- then it's inappropriate and wrong.
2.) If you were to cut off all contact with the "friend", what's the worst that could happen? Could your other friends, your fiance, and your family fill the holes he currently holds? You write that you don't tell him much anyway so is he really necessary in your life?
3.) If you were to lose your fiance because he misunderstood the reality of this friendship (the reality as you're seeing it), would it really be worth it? Really? People here who don't know you at all think it's inappropriate and an EA. You say it isn't. But if your fiance feels as we do (even if it truly isn't an EA as you say), would it matter if you were right? Your fiance's perception is all that's going to matter in the end.

You originally posted that you feel guilty but that you don't want to be rude to this "friend" with whom you've cultivated a relationship. Go with your gut here, LaFire. There is something wrong here and it's affecting you for a reason. The "friend" does NOT have your best interests in mind at all and this was proven when he acted negatvively about your relationship with your now fiance. He doesn't want you to be happy with someone else. Is this a true friend? He wants you to be available to him, even if just in fantasy land. If he was your genuine friend, he'd be happy about your happiness and he wouldn't put you in the position of having to hear his flirtatious banter. He's not worried about you, and you have no need to be worried in any way about him. He wants his wife (or he'd be divorced) AND he wants other women to make him feel manly -- either with flirting like with you or flat out having affairs. He's a very selfish person who is taking great advantage of you not wanting to be "rude". He is so using you. Please cut him off.

Do the no contact. If work requires you to interact, have other people do his work whenever possible. If he respects this "friendship" that you're working so hard to maintain, he will respect you and your new relationship and the flirting will stop as you've requested. It will be strictly business. Then you're not as accomodating to his "flirts", he'll move onto someone else. You'll see how important your "friendship" was to him.

I recommend you tell your fiance about this "friend". Tell him it was a friendship that started before you met him but that you're uncomfortable with it now for all the truthful reasons. Tell him you're going to tell the "friend" that you're going NC, and that you need your fiance's support should the "friend" ever call or get angry or threaten you. I've read why you don't want to contact his wife, but please at least keep her number handy should the "friend" refuse to leave you and your fiance alone.

Good luck, LaFire.

Short threadjack here...

L4,

Now THAT was inspiring!

Well done!

Mark

/tj

Um, yes Melodylane, "Who I am" is the exact content of every conversation I've ever had with this man.

See the error?

*********

Looking 4

Thanks for your response - have to run but will read later and respond.

Just this para:

1.) If you were to record one of your flirtatious conversations with the "friend" and play it back to your fiance, how do you think he would respond? If you think your fiance would be uncomfortable in any way -- a little bit or a lot -- then it's inappropriate and wrong.

That's just not right. Our partners (nor anyone else in our lives) are supposed to be privy to every little thing we've ever done.

My fiance had an episode of OCD a while ago and while he was in that episode (he's recovered with treatment) he would feel compelled to "confess" every minute thing he'd ever done that he thought was wrong to me. Things that seriously were not "wrongs" at all but natural behaviour - and I mean things from his childhood even.

The doctor told us that its NOT appropriate to tell your partner EVERYTHING that goes on in your life or every thought you had. You are supposed to use some discretion there.

Anyway have to run as am meeting up with the darling for lunch.

Will read what you have to say later - thanks for not immediately type casting me and then jumping down my throat.