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Originally Posted by Edandsan
So if this is just a crush or infatuation it seems quite safe.

No it's not safe. The best thing going for you is that BIL lives in another country.

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I wish I could say I am 100% sure of that but when I am around him...things seem different

Until you can see the reality of the situation it is not "safe" for you to be around BIL. You can destroy your H's family by indulging in such thoughts. The danger is very real. Hopefully, the Flint's will post as they will be speaking from experience on the double betrayal involved when the OP is a family member.


BW - me
exWH - serial cheater
2 awesome kids
Divorced 12/2011




Many a good man has failed because he had a wishbone where his backbone should have been.

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
--------Eleanor Roosevelt
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Originally Posted by Edandsan
So if this is just a crush or infatuation it seems quite safe.
The possibility of a future affair with my BIL could just be in my mind then.

On the contrary, it is VERY dangerous! You need to learn, first of all, that while infatuations feel very powerful they are ONLY feelings and not indicative of whether or not a relationship with that person would ever be a success.

For feelings of infatuation to develop, you must spend time thinking about the OP (other person). This time and energy is energy you are stealing from your marriage, and that's very dangerous.

You need to learn to recognize those first little glimmers of "gee, he seems interesting" and learn to modify your behavior and thoughts so that an infatuation doesn't develop. It usually helps to do something loving for your spouse, and to think about your spouse, instead of OP.

Also, it helps to NEVER be alone with a male who is not your husband. No "innocent" lunches, no innocent rides to the store or whatever, no taking the kids to the playground together... unless a third person is along.

Infatuation is lots of fun, but it's not real and it's powerfully dangerous. It can destroy your life. Yes, your entire life for the rest of your years, leaving you with nothing.

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From Dr. H:

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R. J. described the essential conditions for an affair quite well. First, there is usually a dissatisfaction with marriage that stems from the failure to meet an important emotional need. For R.J., her need is conversation, which is usually missing in marriage when women have affairs. She has a deep and pervasive need to talk to her husband, a need that all the gifts in the world cannot meet.

R.J.'s husband has demonstrated his care for her in many different ways. But he doesn't care for her in the way that would deposit the most love units. Because he has not met her need for conversation, she is vulnerable to an affair.

The best friend of R.J.'s husband (we'll call him Bob) didn't intend to meet her emotional needs whenever he talked to her. He was just being friendly, and carried on conversations the way he would with almost anyone. But whether he intended to or not, whenever he talked with her, he deposited scores of love units. After a while, he might have noticed how his conversations were effecting her, but I'm not sure he would have made much of it.

I'm also sure that R.J. did not intend to fall in love with Bob. Those feelings that he rekindled in her came as a surprise, and she is at a loss to know what to do about it. She knows that they are a risk to her marriage, and yet she feels compelled to draw ever closer to the object of her new love.

There are some who feel that those feelings of love are a signal from God to abandon past relationships and rush into this new relationship. But it's no signal from God. Instead, it's the way our emotions mindlessly encourage us to spend more time with those who meet our emotional needs. If we submitted to our emotions, and chased after anyone who at the moment deposited the most love units in our Love Banks, our lives would become chaotic in no time. And the lives of family and friends, to say nothing about our own lives, would be trashed.

The more sane way to approach unsuspected feelings of love toward those outside of marriage is to confront the problem honestly and intelligently. But R.J. did not want to appear to be an ungrateful complainer, so she violated the Policy of Radical Honesty. She did not reveal her true feelings to her husband so that they could resolve the crisis together.

It's true that in some marriages a spouse will complain about an unmet need, and find their complaint met with anger and recriminations. When there seems to be no hope for satisfaction, these people find themselves particularly vulnerable to an affair. After all, the spouse had a chance to meet the need, but refused. So why not have an affair?

But in R.J.'s case, and in many like her's, the spouse is given no opportunity to learn to meet the unmet need, because it is not clearly revealed.

So far, R.J. is not actually having an affair. She is simply drawn to Bob. He is attractive to her because he is so easy to talk to. Whenever they are together, he makes a special effort to converse with her, and he shows a genuine interest her favorite topics. The friends of good conversation prevail, and the enemies of good conversation are nowhere to be found (see the Q&A column, "What to Do When Your Conversation Becomes Boring and Unpleasant"). The pleasure of her conversation with him deposited so many love units that she fell in love with him, and so it's natural to assume that she will want to talk to him even more. She is finding it difficult to wait for the next opportunity to see him. If she wants to talk to him more often, she will need to create new ways to spend more time with him.

R.J. is now at a crossroads. She can take the next step in developing her relationship with her husband's friend, or she can explain her problem to her husband and try to resolve the issue with him. The advice I gave her was to tell her husband about the entire situation. He should be the one she enjoys talking to the most, and her feelings for his best friend was a good wake-up call. If her husband were to learn to meet her need for conversation, the temptation to have an affair with Bob would be much easier to handle.

But if she were to do what most people instinctively do, her next step would be to tell the man how she felt about him, and ask him to get together with her more often, privately. She would tell him precisely what she wrote in her letter to me, saying that he has "rekindled feelings in me that have been dormant for a long time. I find myself thinking about you often and wish I could be with you. I feel so guilty and ashamed of these feelings, but nevertheless, they are there. I try not to think about you, but I do."

Once this honest expression of feelings is out of the bag, an affair is off and running. Even if her husband's friend had never given her a single romantic thought, the seed is planted, and starts to grow. Such an admission would lead to his thinking long and hard about his own marriage, and he would start seeing R.J. in an entirely new way. If one of his important emotional needs was not being met in his marriage, he would express his frustration to R.J., and she would willingly agree to meet that need. The rest would be history.

Of course, it's possible that Bob, all along, was feeling the same way toward R.J. as she felt for him, and after her declaration of love for him, he would immediately reciprocate, fall into each other's arms, and run off to a motel together.

But it's more likely that they would simply talk to each other more often, depositing even more love units. Sex is actually not the driving force in most affairs -- it is conversation and affection. In fact, most people who have affairs regard the sex as a minor player. What they appreciate the most about the relationship is the love and acceptance that is communicated in their conversation. But sex is usually the inevitable outcome, and since sex works best with great conversation and affection, the sex is also great. Once sex is added to the mix, so many love units get deposited that the couple cannot imagine losing each other. They are both addicted to the relationship...

At the crossroads R.J. faces, she should avoid telling Bob how she feels about him at all costs. And she should certainly not let him know that she is dissatisfied with her husband. As soon as Bob would know about her feelings for him and her marital dissatisfaction, the risk of an affair would be so great that she must end her friendship with him for life. From the moment he knows she loves him, their friendship should end.


The possibility of a healthy relationship with BIL is ended for good. The family has already been torn apart. Before that letter, there was a chance of fixing things quietly. Now there is none.

For the sake of your sacred marriage, you must have NC with BIL for life.


A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
~ English proverb



Neak's Story
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It is dangerous when you consider it safe!

People don't hop into bed with each other right away. They usually go down a long path of increasing intimacy.

My recommendation is that you not make too much of it with others but protect your heart by not being alone with him or having any sort of conversation, even by email, with him.

It's easy to fall in love. You already have. If you do what comes naturally, you'll spend some time with him, the intimacy will grow, and one day you'll be sleeping with him. If you do what goes against your nature, you'll take precautions to have as little to do with him as possible and make sure you are always with someone else, preferably your husband, when you are in his company.

I have become very fond of the husband of a friend of mine. We get together as couples. I would never do anything to hurt my friend, and that includes staying away from her husband! I had thought of giving him a book to read that I thought he'd enjoy, and then I thought better of it. I am taking the precaution to never have anything to say to him or to be with him outside of our couples friendship.

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Why would you disclose your feelings to your BIL? That seems really out of line. What were you hoping would happen?
Were you concerned about the effect on your H or your BIL? What effect do you think this will have on your H's relationship with his brother?
To me, doing this seems very abusive.

Last edited by Zelmo; 05/19/09 01:04 PM.
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This thread has been bothering me all day.

It is NOT OK to fall in love with someone other than your spouse. It is then an emotional affair. It does not matter if it
is 2-sided or not.

The way to avoid falling in love is to totally avoid allowing ANY needs to be met by someone of the opposite sex. If you find yourself thinking a lot about someone you are NOT married to, THAT is the time to KILL it. And I mean KILL it. Do whatever is necessary to stop the thoughts. Do this BEFORE you think you are in love.

When ANY type of "romantic" thought is given to anyone other than
your spouse, it IS adultery. If it can be stopped BEFORE there are love feelings and certainly before it is a full-blown affair
then all the better.

Jesus said that if you lust in YOUR HEART, you have already committed adultery. And the vows we take at our weddings say that we will forsake all others. That does not just mean physically, it means mentally also.

When you are thinking about someone else, you see your spouse differently. You clearly see what you are dissatisfied with and entertain the thought that they should somehow be "this" or "that" or whatever.

I am with Neak on this. NC with BIL for life and the possibility of any normal relationship is gone. Sad but true.

Edandsan, run for your life from your BIL. It is GOOD you told your H, but not good enough if that is all you are going to do.

You are NOT powerless over your feelings. You can fall out of love. You can FORCE yourself to fall out of love.

When I have more time I will post a litle about my first marriage. Never had an affair, but was very immature and believed this nonsense that you could love more than one man at a time and that mere attraction was harmless. A world of hurt is ALL you will ever get if you continue down this path.

I really do get how it happens, but it is still wrong. I get the feeling that you think this is just how it is, that the feelings popped up out of nowhere and they are just sweeping you along. These feelings can be CONQUERED.

You owe a great deal of restituion to your H.

Blessings.


WH2LE

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Originally Posted by Edandsan
So if this is just a crush or infatuation it seems quite safe.


No, no, no!!! You are not a schoolgirl. You have passed out of that naive period of your life. NO crush, NO infatuation, whether one or 2-sided is safe or harmless.

This is NOT interesting. You have crossed a line here. I don't think you see that. I think you think that because you are still married and have not had an "affair" that this is not so bad. You seem to be taking some pleasure in exploring what your feelings realy are here. Are they love? Is it limerance? Is it just infatuation? They are unacceptable. You already have a husband. You are deep in the fog of the WS.

When you talked about the eyes meeting across the room and how you have NEVER had that with your H, you were rewriting marital history, which is typical of a WS.

Whether your BIL returns your feelings or not is totally of NO CONSEQUENCE. YOUR feelings are what matters. And your H's feelings. Period.

Last edited by Wknghrd2LoveEasy; 05/19/09 01:40 PM.

WH2LE

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Edan, this story does not add up. Why are you here? Are you wanting to build your own marriage or what?

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E,

Assuming you are still reading and haven't decided to go somewhere to get your own POV echoed back in affirmation, check out this link: Not Just Friends Do the Quizzes found on the Navigation Bar at the
top of the page.

Be sure you have read all of the Basic Concepts on this site.

If you would like to try to repair your marriage and rebuild it into one that can make both you and your husband happy, get a copy of the book Fall In Love/Stay In Love from the bookstore on this site, from a local store or from your local lending library.

There are a LOT of things you can do to improve your marriage but believe me when I tell you that having some fantasy relationship with BIL is not one of them. In addition, attempting to justify your relationship with BIL also makes you extremely vulnerable to other men who might be in a position to take advantage of a weakness that you must realize is within you and not just the result of circumstances. You can be sure that there are men out there who know just what buttons to push when they find a vulnerable woman and will not hesitate to do so in order to get their next notch...

Welcome to Marriage Builders...

Mark

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