L4

I have so admired your humility, repentant heart and determination to make right the wrong you committed against your H. I'm relatively new to MB, but in my view you are the model of what a WS is to do to recover a marriage after adultery, at least in your attitude.

But, something about you describing your FOM like you did above bothers me. Is it healthy for your recovery to remember all these wonderful qualities about him and to write them down? Isn't it best just to not think about him at all, and especially try to forget anything that attracted you to him?

I understand the context in which you did this - talking about affairing up, affairing down, etc. It just seems like bringing to your mind how awesome this guy is could be a trigger to pull you right back into withdrawal.

Also, I'm imagining your husband reading that post and wondering how he would feel seeing you describe his rapist that way.

Hey Sweetie! I just wanted to send you some hugs and positive thoughts.

And a little advice, if you don't mind.

I know right now it is hard not to, but don't let others' opinions of people...people they don't even know...get to you. It may be their truth but it isn't your truth. And it certainly isn't the truth. It is nothing more than an opinion based on their own lives...hurts and happiness. And besides...could anyone else really be more disappointed, ashamed, disgusted of you than you. Could anyone beat you up more or call you worse names than you have yourself.

And IMO, an active WS is pretty much scum based on their current actions. Active and current being the key words here. I accept that my past actions were defining me at that time in my life. I know just how horrible a person I was then. Now, I am a person who still carries a lot of shame and guilt, but I am trying my hardest to allow my present actions show who I truly am at my core and in my heart. And you know what, other people may continue to define me based on the past, but that is not going to be my truth. And I know with all my heart, it certainly is not how my God sees me or knows me or loves me.

Breathe in and breathe out and let it go. You know your truth and you are doing everything you can to bring love and trust and respect back into your family. That says a lot of good about you as a person. Focus on that!

As for the whole trading down thing..think about it...anyone who engages in an A is trading down. Both the (m)OM and the (m)OW in the affair are trading down when choosing a person who is okay with lying and cheating, disrespecting a marriage, hurting children and destroying families...the list goes on and on. In this case, one person isn't trading down while the other is trading up...they both are trading down. It doesn't matter how wonderful your XOM was in his community, you still traded down with him because he was a liar and a cheater and thought more of himself then he did his own a wife, the woman he vowed to protect, or his own children and their security. You traded down with him just as he traded down with you. It's the nature of the beast. No one can have an A without trading down.

Now, the important thing is to realize that you are no longer willing to trade down. You are working your tush off to be a person of integrity. A person who wants better for herself and her family. A person who can be trusted to be open and honest, respectful, hardworking, humble and loving. When you have all that...trading down is not even an option.

You are doing good L4...don't lose sight of that.

You got that L4.

We are all sinners. Some sins may be more but our [censored] stinks all the same. What you do to right the wrong is what matters and says a lot about you as a person. I know very well that you are nothing like my OW. I like you and would pound down some Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream with you. OW....ehhh...not so much.

My opinion of FOM?

The cream rises to the top...

But then again, so does pond scum...

Any married man who chooses to actively cheat with a married woman is pretty much somewhere way down the scale in my book.

As for his being well respected, what would his community, his church and his peers think if they knew of his actions with you during the affair?

An amoeba is perhaps the largest of all the single celled life forms...It's still just a single cell and relative to an elephant is hardly worth a look and in fact you can't see it without looking really close under magnification. Worms are a lot more interesting to watch...

And pond scum aka: filamentous algae is really a bunch of individual single celled plants grouped together by nature of being sticky and gooey...

Yep


L4 my H is one of those people who cared A LOT about what other people thought of him. I'd hear all the same descriptions you gave to OM and it would anger me because it was a facade when he was wayward. Mrs. W pointed out in another thread that people thought Ted Bundy was all those things as well. Those 'good qualities' were irrelevant in light of his behavior.

My H was a terrible husband, father, and human being. He acknowledges that too. Now he is not. He is no longer that man. He can never undo his adultery but strives to make amends as best he can. I think it will always pain him that he dishonored himself, his family, and God. That is a huge cross to bare. I pray that FWH is able to forgive himself one day. I know I will forgive him long before he forgives himself. I hope any FWS can forgive himself and heal his own hurt.

Or a BS like me agreeing with this statement in totality. That's exactly how I would describe it. A legal rape of my wife. I know it is shocking to even say that. I agree with ottert.

L4,

It appears that you still have strong feelings for your OM (which is understandable...too early anyway) and you are comparing your time spent with him, your perception of what you saw of him with your married husband. Not fair at all.

And the MOST important thing... (may help in your affairing down)

By having an affair with a MW (you) he has sunk to the lowest possible levels. It doesnt matter if he was intelligent, smart, great looking, funny and what not...just that one quality alone overshawdoes everything else. He has completely and utterly disrespected your husband. That alone will brand him as a complete looser from my standpoint. Your husband on the other hand, may not have been perfect, but is truely the man you want to be with.

You just described me except I was not the one who strayed. You are correct though...It takes that one bad choice to nullify anything great they may have done before. That is the reality and why not ?

Then, now or both? Putting aside emotion for a moment, does it make any difference if POSOM was now a FWS?

now we are getting deep. I meant "Then"...Assumption being we are NOT tracking POSOM anymore.

Does it make a difference if POSOM is now a FWS ? From my standpoint, yes ofcourse, this world could be a better place. Hopefully, he learnt from the mistakes/devastation he had caused and is now very remorseful and very disgusted with his behavior. He probably realizes what a stupid blunder he had made...all for what ? And hopefully will NEVER ever even think about going after MW or anyone else while still being married to someone else. Unfortunately, if they get away with it, they are bound to repeat it -causing even more destruction.

Call me biased I think WWs take forever to let go of their feelings for their OM but when they go through withdrawl, it is a TRUE withdrawl that you want to see. I wondered about OM though, at times. (given that not many are emotionally attached in the A). What kind of withdrawl, if any, do they go through ?

Interesting conversation that has come of this, from my little "I'm not diggin' this" moment last night.

Let me get something straight right now.

I understand your concerns, ottert. And thought that myself last night after I re-read this post. I probably should have qualified it then, but thought it made sense in the context that it was written.

I do not long for FOM nor do I sit and ponder his favorable qualities. I was using all of the positive adjectives in the context I did (as you noted) for the point about affairing down. Did I forget to mention he was also selfish, cold, disgusting, two-faced, selfish, manipulative, dishonorable, kniving, selfish, greedy, inconsiderate, slimey, and did I mention selfish?

And so was I.

I have occasional contact with people who also know FOM. His name has come up since many know we were good friends and worked closely as managers back in the day. I'll get "Do you ever hear from FOM, L4?" and "How's FOM doing, L4?" and it's still always asked with a tone of reverence for the guy. While it stings me because I want to scream how FOM wasn't that wonderful after all back in the day, I have to remember that whatever I can think of him was also true of me. So while I want to say, "He's not as fantastic as you think he is," that was then and from my experience I know people can change -- snap out of it and try to become better. So I dismiss the comment, change the subject, and forget about it.

If you remember, my H and the FOM's BW and FOM were in contact immeidately after my confession, which was 4 months after their own D-day. H shared with me then that FOM and BW are working hard to save their M. I have to admit it helped me to know that they were trying -- that I couple I directly hurt was working hard to forgive each other and me, and moving forward as a couple, as H and I are now doing. I have no idea how they are doing or what they are doing since, and I do not dwell on it at all. I hate to see any M dissolve due to lack of effort so hooray for any couple that can recover after betrayal.

No one in the world does comparisons and analogies better than you, Mark. I got a giggle out of this one.

I tend to agree that WWs take longer to withdrawl if there is any. Women have a tendency to romantize situations waaaaaay more then men. Heck some women find butter spread romantic because Fabio eats it. My FWH did not go through any withdrawl but he was only looking at OW with lust in his eyes.

L4:

Hey sweet thing!

Your recent topic of discussion gave me some things to ponder. You know that my H and I both had A's. My partners were single, however his was married. I never really thought of my H as "the other man" even though he was for my neighbor's husband.

Either way, we both wear the scarlet letter and neither situation gives the other a leg up over the other. Does it make me a better person because he was responsible for breaking up someone else's marriage? Nope. Does it make him a better person because his affair was done to get back at me and wasn't emotionally involved like mine? Nope. Both were inexcusable, reprehesable, destructive and most importantly COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE had we opened up our mouths and hearts to each other when we weren't getting our needs met.

Remorse, repentence, connection with God in asking forgiveness and the willingness to heal the marriage is the most important.

You exemplify everything that I am striving for. You conduct yourself with grace and honesty.....how thankful I am to have you in my life's path.

B_R,

I think that for most women, they attach emotionally before they have sex with a guy. I know there are exceptions to that and some might use sex as recreation the way men tend to do and that there are women who use sex as a way to get something in the way of intimacy from a guy they don’t know how to get in another way, but most women are “in love with” the guy they are sleeping with, most of the time.

In addition, a lot of women in an affair have already emotionally detached and “divorced” their husband before falling for the OM. So when it comes time to giving OM up, they have a lot more invested in the relationship than most men do when it comes to an affair.

There is a commercial for a boat motor of all things that is running right now that explains it this way…

Before your (brand name) motor will need service, the average woman will say 21 million words. The average man will say 7 million words.

Same period of time and yet 200% more words used in the same length of time. This is because to most women, the relationship is the most important thing. It is also why for most women, Conversation ranks higher on the EN scale than SF.


I’ll shut up now, but I think that generally speaking, the relationship is most important to a woman involved in an affair while for men it is most often about sex or other EN that they are getting filled by the AP, at least at first.


Mark

No need to shut up Mark. I agree with everything you said. I know OW had much more invested in the A than FWH. We are on the same wave length here. If something got lost in my translation...my bad.

BR:

I think that Mark used about 8 more lines to say that...

LOL



LG

Ready? Here I go...

This relates to the point I was trying to make, TheRoad. Wh*re is not an adjective. It's a noun, an identity. It's a label for what a person IS or WAS, same as the words doctor, millionaire, Canadian, mother. Wh*re is not an adjective that describes a characteristic ABOUT the person like the words disgusting, disgraceful, selfish, and shameful do. Note the difference:

She is shameful.

She is a wh**e.

Which do you think hurts a woman most? And which one do people use the most when describing a WW? Not just on MB, but IRL too.

I try to be conscious of words. What I say and write can be very powerful so I attempt to take care and be accurate. Mistakes are made, oversights exist, rants get out of control, typos happen, so I don't perfectly articulate what I want to say with every word. While I try to read between the lines and pay attention to body language as well, in this forum we're forced to take words at face value.

I'm explaining this so the following may make more sense. Yes, I can and should let things roll off my back. And I often do. If I vented about everything I read on MB that can sting, all I'd be doing all day is typing here. But I try to see the perspective of the author and respond (or not) accordingly.

I think it's inappropriate how casually the nouns harlot, wh**e, and skank are used around here. If the woman is truly promiscuous (multiple partners) or is getting paid for her services in gifts or gain of some kind and you KNOW this, then have at it and let the words fly. But if you don't know, call the woman what she in fact is or was -- a cheater, a self-absorbed infidel, a messed up wayward wife.

I hope at least one person can understand what I'm trying to say here and will re-think how they label people. Here's my point which I am probably not succeeding to make...

When one insults a WW, nouns and labels are usually used – identifying the woman as a single, immoral being. People call a WW a sl**, wh**e, tramp, hussy, wench, prostitute, hooker, skank, ho, etc. These words relate to the sexual use (or misuse) of a woman's body which is seen as the lowest thing a woman can do. I did a dispicable, painful, and shameful thing. But these labels by definition are untrue for me -- then and now.

Compare these insults directed toward WWs to how we insult WHs. When describing unfaithful men, the nouns they are called are generic insult words such as jerk, ba**ard, pondscum, pr**k, deadbeat, low-life, a**hole, loser, etc. I don't know that I've ever seen a man on here referred to as a gigolo or a John. We don't cut a man to his core sexually. We use insults that demean the man, but that don't judge the man as harshly immoral.

Think about it... The adulterous man is "a jerk" -- a term one would also use to insult their neighbor. The adulterous woman is "a wh*re", something I dare you to call your neighbor. ...Unless, of course, you live next to The Bunny Ranch in Nevada.

Am I making any sense about the severity of language we use to cut down women verses the language we use to cut down men around here?

Tell me I was what I really was -- a cheater, an infidel, an adultress, a selfish broad. But don't call me a wh**e or a hooker or a skank ho. It's not correct and there is a difference. Prostitute synonyms may fit for other select WWs, but not for all. And I know not me -- not when I was a WW and not now as a FWW.

And if a society feels the immoral noun label fits on a WW, societey needs to look at at the WH and call him what he is too. If I'm a tramp, then he's a John -- a prostitute's customer. Few will ever call him that and I don't understand why. If you say the name fits for one, the other fits as well so we should use them both.

I agree.

Which is why I'm done with this topic. It's something that's rubbed me wrong since I started here but decided not to bother with until last night when the planets had aligned and I felt the need to say my peace. It means probably little to few, and I'm sure several will feel it's only semantics, schmamantics and that if you cheat as I did, I deserve whatever labels are thrown my way.

I accept that the labels have come and will continue to for the rest of my life. I brought that on because of my actions.

That does not mean, however, that I deserve them.

<Folds arms across her chest and nods head for emphasis in a so-there kind of way.>

The end.


Now back to our regularly scheduled program of L4's roller coaster life...

LOL LG

Mark is gonna get you. :gobblegobble:

***raise hand*** I called my H that. Heck I even called H a slut, tramp and then some.

I understand to a degree what you are saying L4, but using a word like manho or gigilo doesn't rile up most people the same way it applies to a woman. Double standard? Maybe. Perhaps because prostitutes are largely women.

Sparky pictures L4 as Barbara Eden in "I Dream of Genie".

You must have been he11 on wheels in debate class. :MrEEk:

I heart u!!!!!!

BTW.......I bunked with a prostitute when I was in the joint and I will tell you that there was a VERY DISTINCT difference between the two of us.