It can also give the OP the opportunity to fake the care, consideration, and compassion for the sole purpose of getting laid.

Pep:

Excellent thread.

As a man? Who was wayward?

Step #1? Happened all the time. Lets chat, lets discuss. I'm just being a nice guy, right?

Signs I used to see before, and try to make happen, so that maybe, somehow, I could get farther with this woman.

I still recognize this in women. But I learned something about myself. That my pursuit of this in the other women, would result in serious issues. So, I CHECK MYSELF. I realize now that this relationship with this woman, could go farther, IF I LET IT. So, I do not associate or allow myself to be "friendly" around them any longer.

Example: We live in a small town. I walk to the bank. One of my son's best friends Mom is a teller there. She is cute, and smart. So, she does my banking when I walk in. I KNOW that this relationship could go farther.

I changed banks.
Flamingo knows of my potential weakness in regards to this woman.
My son, or Flamingo will drive to drop son off at his house.

These were my actions. I see the path leading away from Step #1 with this woman, so I need to make sure that I do not go anywhere near it.

I NEVER recognized that before MB. That path away from Step #1 was to be explored. That is the wayward mindset, and something that I did not have prior to MB.

So those who feel that YES, they have never entered step #1, like SC and even Ampy? That is something that they know about themshelves, and they are very fortunate.

LG

Very good thread - I was a very frequent no1er, in fact probably no3er aswell.

For THE A (I appreciate having read this thread that if I was a frequent no3er then maybe I was a serial cheater)I certainly felt some guilt at step 3, because of the amount of time I spent with OM.

Mostly skipped 10,11,12. H knew of nearly all our meetings (at least a couple of times a week), although there was some deceit.

Guilt overwhelmed before step 15

Preferred to play with boys at school(7-11). Play brass instrumet - always more boys. Worked in Chemistry - lots and lots and lots more boys and managed the work footaball team(male).

Wasn't until I had children 6 years ago that I started to mix with females.

I still have my passion for music which isn't shared with my H, but I now make an effort to involve him more and he supports me and tries to come to as many gigs as he can. It's a very male dominated group but I stick to a girlfriend in the group and share my passion with her (known her years, she also played vball with H)

All my friend friends are now girls except my H.

Define 'share'. Define 'passion'.

If your spouse can't work up a fig of interest in, say, exercise of any description (or can't, for physical reasons), does this mean you should suppress your passionate desire to swim / run / cycle / whatever and just sit on the couch with said spouse?

If your spouse majored in mediaeval architecture and has a passion for exploring ancient European cities, while looking at old buildings is an activity you try to work up some interest in, but just can't...would you expect your spouse to suppress his/her enthusiasm and try to develop a mutual interest in gardening or something?

What effect do you think it would have on a person to be asked to suppress a passionate interest for the greater good of the marriage (assuming there's been no infidelity)?

Isn't this saying that, if there's anything you're passionately interested in, that your spouse is not, you should give it up immediately because you're putting yourself in the danger area? Or just go straight to honest divorce?

Seems to me there's something not entirely healthy in this argument.

TA

Hey TA,

I kinda see where your going with this. Couple points, though. 'Skattorney' is in law school. She's passionate about it. I'm not. I drive the speed limit (or close to it), and I don't commit felonies. I'm interested in it enough to want to follow the law. She talks about it, and I listen and I "make the effort" to be a part of that world. Maybe it's dumbed down for me because I don't know an estoppel from a stop sign, but if she makes the effort, and I know it's a passion, I make the effort to be respectful of it. I don't know if that makes sense. Plus, since 'Skattorney' is on the verge of boarding the "D-Train", my perspective may be a bit jaded.

Two, passions can be stoked, but in a safe manner. Go with a same sex friend to visit all of the cool Norwegian architecture in Des Moines. Or take the spouse, but mix in stuff that is palatable to both people. Or maybe a larger tour group.

I don't know. I see what you're saying, TA. It's not feeling obligated to abandon those passions it's just pursuing them in a way that doesn't create undue risk. You are right -- tossing those passions aside because the spouse lacks the interest (AND the effort to become MORE INTERESTED) is probably not a healthy way of going through life.

TB

H isn't big into writing (unless you count his dissertation!), but he supports me, and I try to bounce things off him, etc. But I do have females with which I enjoy discussing/sharing/encouraging in this. I have gone to writing conferences before where there were both men and women, but I don't - outside the group conference activities - spend time with the men.

He LOVES those interactive type computer games like Runescape. I don't, but we talk about his "adventures," and he doesn't chat with the women on there.

So even though we don't both DO these things,we do share them, and we don't become companions with those of the opposite sex who do them. Does that make sense?

I will share this. A Year or so after D-day, I really felt led to incorporate a lot of our story into a novel. It poured out of me in just a few weeks. When H read it, he wantd me to change some things, and he just didn't feel all that comfortable with that story being shared "with the whole world" (he had more confidence in my success than I did!). Now, I knew that it was some of the best writing I had ever done, so part of me was really sad. And as a writer, major changes are sometimes very hard and personal. But I made changes. And I sat on the manuscript. After more time passed, H was positive (on is own) about the possibility of publication. And now it's a book. But if he had not been comfortable, it would still be in my flash drive. A personal passion is never worth hurting a spouse.

And that's what we're talking about in this thread, isn't it? How to identify risk. How to care about risk.

I love reading books and discussing them. I really, really do. H reads books, and makes an effort to read one or two that I'm passionate about...but he's not really that into it. The idea of a book group is anathema to him. So I belong to two book-groups, and get great pleasure from doing so. One group is mixed-sex; several of the men are about my age, quite attractive; I've been in it for about seven years so we know a reasonable bit about each other. The danger couldn't be more obvious if the men wore red flags behind their ears! So I am very, very careful in my dealings with those men - I don't discuss personal stuff, I don't have offline conversations with them. There's never been the slightest cause for marital alarm.

On the other hand, I've known at least one person who got involved with an online book group, and got 'chatting' with another member...and...


It seems to me that it's about an attitude to boundaries and risk, whatever the spouse is doing.

TA

I think that is a good point, TA. I think that EP's are just as much inward as they are outward.

I remember in our youth group having a set of Bible studies about purity called "How Far Is Too Far?" We talked about how - up to a point - there is an element of personaliation. For some, a nice long good night kis would be fine. For others, even holding hands might incite too much passion (can you tell I am a good old convservative southern Baptist?). For some, discussing a great book in a group setting is fine. For others, they need to restrict themselves to same-sex groups. I think once someone has gone down the wayward road, the protections need to get stiffer. That's just my own standard.

You know, Pep, this really made me think. It's actually quite an important question.

Yes, he's well aware that these are problem areas...for me. I don't think he sees them as dangers, because they would only be dangerous (to him) if I allowed my needs to be met by others to the point where I left the marriage. And, in that, he's got absolute trust that my boundaries won't allow that to happen.

In other words, he's relying on my boundaries and self-discipline to protect the marriage, rather than mutual EN-meeting. As long as he gets all his highest ENs met, it doesn't matter to him all that much whether I'm happy or depressed or p*ssed. He can be pretty darned sure that I wan't spend hours on the phone with a male friend, moaning about the state of my marriage.

He's shown that he's perfectly capable of stepping up his effort on some of those ENs (the empathy thing is one I leave to God). The pattern is that he steps up for a while, then tails off once he thinks the 'crisis' has passed.

Every 'advance' we've made in this tortured process, has come about after his complacency has been jolted. Going out for a 'date'- most out-of-character for me - was a huge shock to him. Filing for divorce, when he thought that a good Catholic girl would never do that, shocked him. Pointing out that I'd have a good case for an anullment, so I could remarry in the Church, deeply shocked him.

He'd tended to assume that I would put up with low levels of EN-meeting, in order to honour my commitment to the sacrament of marriage, rather than to him as a partner of worth. If I were a person with shaky boundaries, who might well allow myself to get swept away by some chatty bloke with a passion for the novels of Ian McEwan, he'd work much MUCH harder at pleasing me, I'm sure.

So my question is...does having healthy and reliable boundaries, and being a trustworthy spouse, actually weaken your position after your spouse has been unfaithful?


TA

Been out with my wife all afternoon, but people are missing something important in the word "share." "Share" does not just mean talking about something or confiding in someone about something. Sharing the same passions or goals means simply to hold them in common. When I talk about sharing the same passions, this is what I am addressing, not having conversations about it.

The conversation is part of working together and when two people are working on a common goal based on common beliefs and both have strong feelings about the subject you don't have to call each other to discuss you hopes and dreams because you already hold those things in common.

A worship band is a classic example; a man and woman working closely to develop music, present it to the church, each with a talent or gift for music, a dedication to being the best possible musically speaking and spending long hours together perfecting their craft while both spouses are home taking care of kids or simply don't share in the music stuff. It doesn't just take effort to prevent affairs from happening after years of working together like this, it takes a plan to prevent beginning to care more about each other than unmarried folks should care about each other. You can't just not do things, you have to do things proactively to prevent allowing another person to get into your life in a way that is not safe for your marriage.

Now if you suddenly add some sort of stress at home and then throw a trip, weekend seminar, day long bus ride or any of the common things that happen in such groups you have a recipe for disaster.

The late Shirley Glass developed a series of short questionnaires she called Quizzes to try to quantify the vulnerability of couples and individuals. They can be found here.

The three vulnerability quizzes together can be an eye opener for many people. As you take them, if you work on various ministries at church replace the idea of "work" with the work you do around the church and "happy hour" with some church sanctioned activity, maybe Bible study or other activity.

For those who think they score really well on these things, I would expect nothing less from the sample population we have here. We're a bunch of folks who understand this stuff at a level that few in our society comprehend.

Mark

This hurt the first time I read it because I could SEE exactly H's A and how it started right before my very eyes....That was about 18 months ago....

It still hurt today....took my breath away, unlike anything else in a while....

One day at a time....

not2fun

ps...I agree that EVERYONE has done step 1 at one time or another....

Ha, Pep, you know what suddenly occurred to me?

The guy I went on the movie 'date' with? I don't see him socially, but I do see him in a business context every couple of months. H knows this; in fact I usually come home and tell him that Guy has recommended a movie or a band (Guy has very good taste. Guy is also very attractive.). The relationship has so many red flags, I don't know why H doesn't have fifty fits about it! But he never says a word. And I realise that I'm REALLY annoyed that he trusts me that far. I WANT him to express some fear or concern or anger...but nothing.

And I also recognise that I am to some extent keeping my paperweight on Guy, just in case I ever dump H and divorce. So I'm not that trustworthy after all.

Self-awareness, it's a b*tch.

TA

But you see, we're talking about married people here and ANY such activity is too much for people married and not to each other. This isn't a case of deciding what's right for each person and seeing how far they can go before they fall into adultery. The sin happens when they entertain the notion for the first time without total revulsion at the thought.

(BTW, this is a dangerous thing to teach teenagers about sex too, I think. The slope on the hill is so gradual at first and the only way to tell that you have gone too far is when you have fallen off the edge. The swimming pool analogy works well for this. The only way to be sure you aren't going to end up over your head is to stay out of the water all together.)

Since we can't lock ourselves up and avoid having any contact at all with members of the opposite sex, then there has to be some way for us to make sure that we don't go too far and realize that ANY sort of temptation to go further IS too far already. Letting someone make us feel good because it feels good is infidelity.

This is where we have to understand our own weaknesses and do whatever it takes to protect them. If we can't work closely with someone of the other sex on a project without beginning to develop feelings then we should never do that under any circumstances, whether there are a bunch of other people there or not. Once we have shown a propensity for this kind of thing with those we have to interact with we have to change the whole thing all together. We either have to only do things where our spouse is doing the same things with us or we have to only do those things in same sex situations.

To be honest, I understand your meaning, but this context sort of jumped out at me...Yes, EPs need to be personal and they must keep our thoughts from going down the road to adultery and not just our bodies. It's the road to Waywardsville we need to stay off of. Saying we'll stop at the city limits means we have to be stronger than we already know we are. That's really how affairs get justified. The cheaters say that since they haven't crossed some line (one which they have determined is the line not to be crossed BTW)they aren't really cheating.

The most recent analogy in my Trouble Shooting thread is about staying away from trouble. We don't have affairs because we're being careless so much as because we aren't being cautious enough. We take too much for granted and one of the things we take for granted is that infidelity is a line we can't cross. It isn't a line at all, it's a direction and once we're going that way we are doomed to failure to protect our vows. If we decide that cheating is right, we've already cheated and broken our vows.

Mark

I've thought since your first post on this thread that your boundaries aren't as tight as you think they are and you are more vulnerable to an affair than you wanted to admit. What you were saying just pelted me with red flags.

This post convinced me I was right on the money.

I don't say this to throw stones or criticize. But you were here touting your methods of boundary-keeping and I want to discourage others from copying you. They are as weak as water, IMO. I've wanted to scream "NO, NO, NO! This is a ticket on the A Train!"

But you recognized and admitted it. At least I think that's what you did. I admire you for that much.

(emphasis mine)

Since I can't say these kinds of things without being stoned, I'm glad to see you did, Mark.

Pepperband, I nominate another of Mark's post for Notable status.

Now that you have responded, Mark, I can definitely see the wrong connotation in my analogy. I believe that there is a black and white distinction that needs to be made with EP's. I would never ever want someone to read my analogy and think, "see, this would be wrong for some people but not for me" and then find themselves in an affair.

Lurioosi,

How much flirting with someone who is not your spouse is too much?

How many hours spent with them instead of your spouse are too many?

How good does being with them have to make you feel before you need to stop being around them at all?

The four intimate ENs are special and need to be met by only your spouse. SF, RC, Affection and Intimate Conversation all need to be met by your spouse. SF should never be met by anyone else. RC and IC and Affection should never be met by anyone of the opposite sex. There are no unique circumstances. There isn't some conditions under which it might be OK for some people. These 4 are things that make us fall in love with people like nothing else.

As soon as we seek someone out because they are making us happy to be around them we're already in trouble. If we try to redefine an affair in order to allow what we are already doing we're already having an affair. As soon as we feel we have a clear view of a line that is not to be crossed we're already on the road to Waywardsville. ANY waywardness is too wayward.

Mark