My H thought the same. I was drinking heavily from grief and he was severely depressed over the deaths of both his parents and my father all within the same year. Severely depressed. Cut off from everyone in his life, including me. I was also suffering from grief. My father was everything to me and I loved my in-laws very much.



The OM, when he turned up again offered some relief from the pain of grief. I never expected to hear from him again after we attented our mutual friend's funeral. Yes, I was pleased to see him again, yes, we talked about old times but I thought that was it. I never expected him to get in touch with me again.



I thought I'd meet him for lunch. What could happen? We were both happily married.



Like Mrs W, I never thought "I love you but I am not in love with you" about my H. I tried to compartmentalise the two things. But eventually I couldn't. I thought I wanted to be with my "boring engineer". Nothing had changed from when we were young. We still had chemistry but we had nothing in common. My H and I have EVERYTHING in common, PLUS chemistry. The OM had everything in common with his scientist wife.

Jen:

Thank you for your reply.


...Once again confirming that most A's begin as an fantasy escape from the reality of pre-existing severe emotional stresses in the life of the WS. They are far more about "avoiding dealing with painful realities" than they are about "meeting someone 'new' who is 'so right' for me". As we have stated before, the OP is, not only not "better" than the BS, but often someone the WS would not have considered to be suitable romantic material in any stretch if they had been single and emotionally healthy at the time.



Bingo


What "could happen" depended upon YOU. Nothing "could" have happenned without your participation (emotionally and/or physically). If you are honest with yourself, you can look back now in hindsight and realize that you probably went to lunch with OM sub-conciously "looking" to see what "might happen". Obviously, you were emotionally vulnerable and allowed him to start meeting your need to "feel better" about your life at the time.


It is interesting to see how these things begin...so subtly, so "innocently", so "unintentionally"...and so irrationally.

"I love my H--there is nothing wrong with me enjoying spending time with OM as friends"

It is amazing how the WS (and your OM too in this case) overlook the fact that you 2 "have nothing in common" with each other and "everything in common" with your respective BSs. Emotional, not logical...

Thank you again, Jen, for describing your experiences and congratulations on recovering your M.

Chai,

"Following 'feelings' blindly is the surest path to ruin in life."
--Dr. Gary Chapman ("The Five Love Languages", others)


"Loving" is a voluntary ACTION; falling or being "in love" is an involuntary (& temporary) FEELING.
Any romantic R "fails" because one/both partner(s) refuse to "love" when they are no longer "in love".
Relationships (esp. marriages) do not magically "fail"; the partner(s) fail the relationship.
ACTIONS PRECEDE FEELINGS

Yes, you are correct that most WSs conclude that they don't "feel that way anymore" about their BS and that justifies in their mind why they should pursue the A and possibly get a D. When the A ends, as they usually do at some point, the WS is left with 2 choices:

1. Find someone "new" to develop feelings with/for.
2. Return to their BS and "renew" their feelings with/for each other with ACTIONS.

Too many times they go with #1 - keep trying to find someone with the chemistry to create that "in love" business again. They don't think that they can ever get it with their spouse again.

Yes, you are right, Chai...I am quite sure that my xWW will likely choose option #1 when her LTA inevitably ends. These people don't realize that the "problem" was not that they married the WRONG person but that they had a relationship meltdown WITH that person...and that is correctable and renewable.

The "answer" was NEVER "out there"; it was and always will be "right here". I hope your WH comes around to understanding that.

Thanks SD. I think you and I both know that our spouses will have a rude awakening someday. Sounds like they both have to some extent. At least you got somewhat of an apology from yours. Mine is so, so hostile towards me. He has shifted the blame totally to me and is going ahead full force. I haven't seen or talked to him in well over a year, but from what I can gather his OW may have dropped him when he got sick. Rather than consider all of my proposals to recover, he turned the hostility towards me and now hates me.

Anyway, glad you found MB for support. We're here 24x7....

I have a question for waywards too. My WH told me last night that the first time he hugged OW, he had to go to the bathroom and threw up three or four times!! How in the world do you continue a relationship with someone when touching them makes you violently ill??!!

Not to be a downer or anything, but he probably is not telling you the truth about this. WS think of some oddball things to say in an effort to try get the BS to give them a break.

IMHO, its a combination of being confused as to what "love" is and being confused as to what's "real"

The later can be somewhat explained by fog, just meaning people can delude themselves into thinking someone is a great person.

The former is less about fog, but more about intrepreting emotions and feelings. Most people just don't bother with this type of introspection without something pushing them this way. As an example, when a person intreprets "I can't get them out of mind", as love, and then further intreprets "I don't think about my H all the time" as not being in love, they are making a faulty comparison. This is not a indication of love, its an indication of which person you know more about. Meaning one does not often ponder about things they already know the answer to.

I think these can change suddenly because to be blunt, it doesn't take a whole lot of introspection to put the pieces together once someone is willing to actually do it. i.e. I think an WS who actually reads the EN section on this website could rather quickly deduce that they aren't "in love" with OP, but unfortunately, while in the A, they are completely unmotivated to do so. They prefer to read that information with a bias towards disproving it, or refuting due to their unique circumstance. I think once the A ends, most have less bias towards doing that.