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COW's sitch is a perfect example of the uppitiness of most on this thread, like it would be impossible for them to have an affair. Yeah, our WS were the weaker, but we are all vulnerable. Bump into someone on a regular basis at work or any where, say passing cliches, then wham! Caught in a web. Agreed. My fwxw SAVED MY LIFE!! I really believe that. If I'd gone first(and last as she would not have had an RA) I don't know if I could live with it. I just don't! Instead, I had numerous liasons over the past year. I'm certain I had ws tendencies and they showed after DDAY! DUDE
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COW's sitch is a perfect example of the uppitiness of most on this thread, like it would be impossible for them to have an affair. Yeah, our WS were the weaker, but we are all vulnerable. Bump into someone on a regular basis at work or any where, say passing cliches, then wham! Caught in a web. Man, I have been bumping into folks at work for a long time(need to get my eyes checked) and I'm just full of cliches. Funny, no affair. Wonder when it is gonna happen(might help if I was good looking, I suppose).
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COW's sitch is a perfect example of the uppitiness of most on this thread, like it would be impossible for them to have an affair. Yeah, our WS were the weaker, but we are all vulnerable. Bump into someone on a regular basis at work or any where, say passing cliches, then wham! Caught in a web. Man, I have been bumping into folks at work for a long time(need to get my eyes checked) and I'm just full of cliches. Funny, no affair. Wonder when it is gonna happen(might help if I was good looking, I suppose). It aint looks. Nobody wants to cheat w/ anyone hot lest they get cheated on..DUDE
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Having your needs met is necessary for a happy marriage, but unless you marry a retarded 12 year old, needs being met and infidelity are completely unrelated. You said it. With all due respect to the Harleys, there's no connection between needs being met or physical attractiveness when it comes to cheating. ENs are necessary for a good marriage, as Krazy said above, but will do nothing to prevent cheating. People cheat because they think they can. That's it. That's all. It's just entitlement run wild. If it was lack of ENs being met, I'm the one who would have had 27 boyfriends while married to XWH. I never had any. I was largely ignored and became more and more emotionally starved and fragile, while XWH was hogging down double and triple helpings every day and just couldn't understand what was wrong with me. His life was great. He told me I "needed help". Mulan
Me, BW
WH cheated in corporate workplace for many years. He moved out and filed in summer 2008.
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Mulan,
I agree, EN CAN be met and if not? It doesn't matter. I was just curious how many WS or BS were almost begging for EN to be met before WD or A.
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Mulan,
I agree, EN CAN be met and if not? It doesn't matter. I was just curious how many WS or BS were almost begging for EN to be met before WD or A. themud, I have a somewhat unique perspective on this, in that my current marriage and my last marriage had affairs, but both with different causes. My last marriage of 20 years ended over an affair. In that marriage, my REFUSAL to meet his needs made him vulnerable to an affair. His top 3 needs were SF, RC and Conversation. I refused to have SF with him, wouldn't go anywhere with him and had no patience for his mindless blabbering. I treated him with horrendous disrespect. So, the first skank that came along and offered to meet his needs was irresistable to him. It was like a starving man encountering an all-u-can-eat buffet. There is no excuse for his affair, but my treatment of him contributed to his vulnerable state. Fast forward to current marriage. We had been married 6 months when I discovered his online EA with an old girlfriend. I had been meeting all of his needs. He had his affair because he was a man of low character. It had nothing to do with unmet needs. And this is coroborated by our counselor who introduced us to Marriage Builders. Some affairs do result from unmet needs. It might be the REASON he was vulnerable, but it is never an EXCUSE. It is NEVER EVER an excuse for an affair and never is the BS to blame for a bad decision he/she never had any vote on. Like Dr Harley said, blaming the BS is analogous to blaming the bank for a bank robbery because they refused him a loan.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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I think this deserves a REPEAT: You will hear Joyce and I repeat, "there are reasons but no excuses." One of the reasons for an affair is that emotional needs are not being adequately met in marriage, which makes an affair that meets those needs more tempting. But the same thing can be said of some who rob banks. They may be out of work, need money to pay the rent, ask for a loan but are refused by the bank, which makes robbing it more tempting. One reason for the robbery is that the bank refused the loan, but it wasn't the bank's fault that it was robbed. On hindsight, a bank might have helped the robber get the help he needed through social services, but the bank is under no obligation to do so, even though they advertise that it is a "caring bank."
An affair is different from robbing banks in that a couple have promised to be more caring than banks. But the principle is the same. The lack of care by one spouse does not excuse harmful behavior by the other spouse. Even when one spouse absolutely refuses to be affectionate, or to make love, or to talk intimately, or to join in recreational activities with the other spouse, it gives them no right to have those needs met by someone else of the opposite sex in an affair. They have the right to separate until the other spouse meets those needs, or even divorce when it becomes obvious that there will be absolutely no cooperation (there are many who strongly disagree with me on that point). But an affair is so cruel and so painful that nothing any one spouse does (including having an affair themselves) can justify the suffering that an affair causes.
Making a disgraceful act more tempting by someone is no excuse for that person committing the disgraceful act. Besides, in most marriages, there are times when emotional needs are not being met for reasons beyond anyone's control. That's why I recommend extraordinary precautions to help spouses avoid an affair. They are to not allow anyone of the opposite sex to meet their need for affection, or intimate conversation, or recreational companionship, or sexual fulfillment. When those needs are met, they deposit so many love units that you are likely to fall in love with that person, and make you hurt your spouse in the worst way possible. I hope that explanation helps.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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You know what, some BSs could NEVER have an A. I, for one consider someone who so selfishly cheats on their spouse and stays with them the same as I do a child molester. To me saying that a WS who continues to stay with their spouse and cheat on them is like saying a child molester cannot help themselves because they can't help it; because they are lonely; because they were abused. I have had MANY opportunities to cheat if I wanted but I totally avoid all that may tempt me because I WILL NEVER CHEAT ON MY SPOUSE- PERIOD. So I think it's a bunch of crock that anyone will cheat if given the right circumstances. In my first M, I was so miserable in that M. He was abusive and I stayed. I thought about it, I was even attracted to other men BUT I DID NOT CHEAT. Some people will not cheat no matter what. They will leave.
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I agree with cobol_girl. I would never cheat on my W. I cannot imagine any "conditions" that would cause me to do so. If it were that bad I would just leave.
I was doing far more to meet her ENs. In fact she was doing almost nothing to meet mine. She had a huge sense of entitlement. I guess that was mostly my fault, because for 9 years I bent over backwards to try to give her everything she needed, and most of what she wanted.
We were pretty far apart on some parenting/discipline issues, and that was all we ever fought about. Then she convinced herself that I didn't lover her anymore, and that I hated her kids even when it had only been about 4 months since I told her that I wanted to adopt them. She even posted on her facebook page that I was a wonderful husband less than a month before she began her online affair which turned physical.
She lied to me about where she was going that day, and stopped by a lawyer's office on her way to his hotel room. She has told me "we were getting a divorce". She doesn't say that anymore, but when she did, I would say "no, YOU were getting a divorce".
She now admits in her mind at the time, if she started D procedings, that we were separated, and it was ok to be with OM, and that it wasn't cheating. Even though I was totally oblivious to any of it, including her plans to leave me.
It is just truly amazing, but very sad how a person can convince themselves of just about anything when full blown selfishness kicks in.
Last edited by throughthefog; 12/03/09 06:41 AM.
ME: BS (50)
DW: WS (38)
M: 9 1/2
A started 1-13-09
D-Day 1-20-09
D-Day (finally admitted having sex) 10-08-09
A ended NC 1-22-09
DSs (26 19)
DDs (23 15 12)
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My sitch is slightly different than most here on MB.
I would have to say that i at the time my H had his A i was not doing a good job at meeting his ENs. With that said the reason i was not meeting his ENs was because of him.
We had a drunken relative living with us and i did not want him there and i begged my H to make the relative leave. I told him i did not like being around this person (because he was always falling down drunk) and if my H chose to spend his time around his relative that was his choice but i would not be around the two of them.
Well my H allowed this drunken relative to live at our house for 3 years (that is a long time). By that time we were no longer spending time together at all and he was vunerable to the OW.
So while i agree that i was not meeting his ENs at the time he had the A, I was not meeting them because his choice to be with the relative instead of me.
And he did not really act like most waywards i read here on MB in that he did not rewrite our marital history and he never told me he did not love me. He took full blame for everything that happened.
I still look back throughout our M and see that he has had selfish wayward tendencies since the beginning. And he has not really ever been very good at meeting my ENs even though i have shared them with him vocally in every way i know how. Yet i practice EPs to the inth degree to ensure that i could hardly even have a chance to have an A much less have i ever even considering cheating.
Last edited by Still_Crazy; 12/03/09 08:15 AM. Reason: added thoughts
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Mine wasn't even feeding me and I couldn't even drag myself across the floor to the kitchen to get something to eat. And when I could drag myself around, she put the food out of my reach.
So no, she wasn't meeting any of my needs.
Evil [censored].
I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
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Pariah, the fact that your WW is not in jail scares me.
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Mine wasn't even feeding me and I couldn't even drag myself across the floor to the kitchen to get something to eat. And when I could drag myself around, she put the food out of my reach.
So no, she wasn't meeting any of my needs.
Evil [censored]. Can we say Kathy Bates (Misery)?
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My husband went to an island 3 yrs ago and said admitted to "hanging" out with young woman while there. He said they didn't kiss or have sex.
He has been interacting with her over the past 3 years via email telling her he loves her, exchanging pictures and possibly sending her money. How can a little encounter amount to a 3 year relationship over the internet and phone calls? He says it is just phone sex.
Please help me see through this. I don't feel I can trust him anymore and this isn't the first time he has denied a relationship with another woman.
I am so confused and hurt!
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atlantacutie, please start up a new thread so posters can help you. Posters won't see your post buried down here at the bottom of a Tiger thread.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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You know what, some BSs could NEVER have an A. I, for one consider someone who so selfishly cheats on their spouse and stays with them the same as I do a child molester. To me saying that a WS who continues to stay with their spouse and cheat on them is like saying a child molester cannot help themselves because they can't help it; because they are lonely; because they were abused. Cobol, I would consider this a far stretch. WS and child molester's aren't even in the same category. My H was a WH. My daughter was molested. No matter what he did to ME and the kids, it does not even compare to the hell and anguish that that monster did to my daughter. What H did to me, nearly broke me, but that monster stole my 9 yr. old D's innocence.....and in my heart of hearts, I have yet to seen a WS as horrible as the child molester (and there are some pretty rotten ones on here.....) not2fun
Last edited by not2fun; 12/03/09 03:22 PM.
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* raises hand * I thought EVERYBODY was unfulfilled in marriage so I tolerated not having my ENs met.
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When my WS admitted what was going on (EA with co-worker) it was because he was ready to take it further. his comments were, i'm not happy you're not happy, not for a long time. i don't know if i want to be married, you would be better off without me, you deserve better, we're just two lonely people living together.
i was shocked out of my stupor, he wasn't all right, but he was'nt all wrong. i wonder if anyone, put in the wrong circumstance would make the wrong decision. Starving people don't care what they eat, they are just hungry.
i plan to keep my husband full.........
Me:BS-47
Him:WH-45
married 25 yrs
DD:22:married Dec 09
DS:20
DS:17
EA:Feb 09-May 09
Contact thru Sept.09
Nc in place Nov 09
trying to recover since then
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Mine wasn't even feeding me and I couldn't even drag myself across the floor to the kitchen to get something to eat. And when I could drag myself around, she put the food out of my reach.
So no, she wasn't meeting any of my needs.
Evil [censored]. Yikes, sounds like Betty Davis' caretaking routine in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane". I think she served her disabled sister(Joan Crawford) a rat.
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I lost so much weight, I would have loved to have even a rat to eat.
I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
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