This looks like it is coming down to the adultery/not adultery debate. This is a Marriage Builder forum, so the vets are speaking to you under those guidelines. I am somewhat of a third party, I am learning the Marriage Builder concepts, but also questioning as I go. I was not giving you advice, just an opinion, as I believe that is what you asked. I dont think you committed adultery, a judgement error yes, a mistake certainly, adultery no. A lot of people are guilty of chatting up and ex on FB and wondering what if. You certainly took this to the next level, but I think its most important what you do now. I think you should follow the no contact advice given by the vets and move on.

1. Quit contacting the other skank
2. Shut down your facebook affair
3. Never contact the skank again
4. Tell your wife all about what you did and how you loved the other person.

Learn from this after you do these things, and never do it again.

There is no debate here. EA, PA just as damaging, both affairs. This site makes that abundantly clear.

Romeo - whay you need to do is show your wife your first post. Spread some light on the situation. THAT is your first step - it's called HONESTY.

THIS is what has been described as "nothing happened". These are the feelings that watt is saying should be kept secret from the BW.

NotRomeo has not had sex with this skank yet, but these feelings have already destroyed his marriage. He has no love for his wife. She is aware of his lost feelings for her but does not know the reason why.

She needs to be told what NotRomeo described here so that she can know what she is facing, and make a decision how to proceed. She cannot rebuild her marriage (if that is what she would like) if she does not know the depths of the assault it has faced.

The "feelings" won't shut off until you...

1. Go "no contact"
2. Tell your wife

The harsh reality of telling your wife and seeing the look of hurt on her face will swiftly clear your mind of these inappropriate feelings. You KNOW they are inappropriate which is why you want to end them AND keep them a secret. Your wife can help you crush these feelings. She may do so brazeningly at first but in the end, openness and honesty will only help your marriage.


These inappropriate feelings you are having, if you follow the logic...are essentially saying your life to this point is a mistake...that your CHILD is a mistake. Go home and tell your infant child this story. You couldn't do that if you were human. Your wife and child need you to man up and put these inappropriate feelings of "love lost" aside. You are not a teenager anymore you are a new father and new husband that is a little, er, a lot lost right now. Your wife is your real soulmate. We can't help you set aside these inappropriate feelings unless and until you END contact with this woman and start to process this situation.

Imagine showing up a Narcotics Anonymous meeting saying "I love Crack". I don't want to love it so please help me stop feeling like I love it. Well, step one...stop smoking crack. This other woman is just as dangerous as crack and the "feelings" you [and her] think you feel are ADDICTION type feelings. They are NOT based in reality (read 31 Reasons for more on that]. Your BRAIN is playing tricks on you (and her)....you must cease contact with the additive substance...withdraw...and THEN address the problems (lingering feelings, a marriage in turmoil).

Mr. Wondering

I feel so very sad for your wife Romeo.
I really do.

This is probably not the marriage she wanted either -- and now she has the added insult of you calling another woman your soulmate. I doubt you have been a wonderful husband through all of this. But she isn't pining over an adolescent romance, is she?


Cut contact with OW.
Have you read the concept of the lovebank? Your account with her will not disappear until you stop depositing to it.
Eventually, with her not contributing your your feelings -- they will go away.

Next -- what do YOU need to do to entice your wife back to intimacy?
Tell us about the courtship of your wife.

watt, you are the only person here so far who cannot see that this is adultery. Nobody else here is having a "debate".



watt, it is perfectly fair for you question as you go, as Dr Harley's plans relate to your own situation. What is MORALLY WRONG is for you, a new poster with a lot yet to learn, to offer your contrary advice to another new poster on Dr Harley's board. This is not an opinion forum; this is Marriage Builders.

Have you read this statement at the top of each page here?

"Sometimes you may hear alternative opinions that conflict with Dr. Harley's Ten Basic Concepts. These are often raised by those who have not solved their own marital problems, but still feel they are qualified to advise others. When this happens you can expect some members to explain why their approach won't work, and why Marriage Builders� offers a better solution. There are many who are offended when that happens, but please keep in mind that the ultimate purpose of this Forum is to discuss and learn Marriage Builders� concepts."

Please help this poster with Marriage Builders concepts and keep your posts helpful and productive. If you don't feel you can do that, kindly refrain from posting.

I take it that since you have come to Marriage Builders, you are seeking advice based on Dr Harley's work. You could easily have chosen other forums where advice is based on individual opinion, but you came here.

Here is Dr Harley's explanation of why cannot rebuild your marriage if you perpetuate the dishonesty of your affair:

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

You can read the full article here.

Please change the name of your thread. The utter thought of a soulmate is childish and ridiculous.

You need to grow up here and stop your teenage fantasy. Stop all contact with the OM immediately.

I do not agree with telling your W though. Once its over its over. Why put her through the pain just to ease your guilty conscience? You did it , you live with it

Okay, I'll bite. NotRomeo I was 48 years old when I met up again with the old b/f. We met when I was 13 and he was 15. We went out for 5 years and never had sex.

When we met again at a friend's funeral, 35 years later, we also said "**edit** Nothing has happened EVER. Nothing is going to happen. We agreed to this. I came here seeking advice on how to shut the feelings off." Thing is I thought I could control it all too. But....eventually it lead to an 18 month physical affair - as they always do.

See, your long winded post is nothing new to us here. We've heard it all/seen it all before. I was convinced fate had brought me back together with the man I was meant to marry.

Guess what. I made the choice to marry my H. I made the correct choice. I tried to rewrite history during my A - never loved him, always loved the OM blah, blah, blah ad infinitum. But the truth is I married my H because I loved him and because he was and is a wonderful man with whom I have everything in common including two wonderful adult kids.

The OM, despite me thinking he was some sort of knight in shining armour from my past, was a very ordinary man. Just a human man who I romantisised and gave superhuman qualities to. You know what, he just wasn't and isn't all that. My H is.

Yes, I had an 18 month A and yes, I went through a ghastly withdrawal but I count my blessings every day that I recovered my wonderful marriage with my wonderful H.

You are living in fantasy land. Y'know what - your "soulmate" is just a woman that you have built a dream around because life at 35 has got a tad boring. It's up to you to make your life something - not another woman.

oh and by the way - just because "nothing has happened" does NOT mean it is not adultery. I knew I was committing adultery the first time I met the OM secretly for lunch and I can assure you nothing happened then.

Watta, if you think what they have been doing on FB is "chatting" you are EXTREMELY naive. I didn't have sex with the OM until 3 months after we first met up again. We were NOT talking about the weather during our meetings. That EA I was having was just as damaging, just as nasty as sex. Men, funnily enough, often don't think of it as an A until "capitulation" i.e. intercourse. It's the Bill Clinton syndrome.

You can agree or not agree, but no marital recovery is based on a lie. Lying is never the solution. His wife can't very well work on their marriage if she is not told the truth.

She has a right and a need to know the truth since this is her life too. Lying to his wife is manipulative and cruel and prevents her from protecting herself from this affair.

Advocating dishonesty is irresponsible advice that won't help his marriage.

Pep

Oh sheesh, I missed that bit.....

Cue Twilight Zone music. doo doo doo doo Telepathy no less.

Ok, I was pretty bad but not that bad

This has got to be a joke

Hey Pep stop rolling on ME I can feel that.

Okay on a serious note. I am OFFENDED that you have attacked the very people who have helped MANY marriages recover and some people attain personal recovery. They all did this on their own time. To personally attack some of the BEST posters on this site and call them names IS CRAZY and extremely insulting.

You may not WANT to hear what they are telling you. I don't know what you hoped to find when you came on here, but you did GET WHAT YOU ASKED FOR. You got some AMAZING advice from the best people around. Truly. You need to do these things(do you see a recurring theme here?)

1 DELETE FACEBOOK
2 Tell your wife
3 Tell you children
4 Write a NO CONTACT letter to your "soul mate"
5 HOPE that your wife will forgive you
6 Listen to the people on here(with exception to the people who got BLASTED for their comments)
7 POST AGAIN WHEN YOU ARE READY TO TRY TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE AND ACTUALLY LISTEN
8 If your WIFE would like to TRY to RECOVER with YOU, tell her to come here. We can help her with HER choices.

I will tell you that if you are worried about your wife leaving you if you tell her, you should be more concerned that she WILL LEAVE if you don't and she still finds out. Give her a CHOICE since you took all of her choices away from her when you decided to bring this OW in to your M.

If you don't know which posters you should listen to, I will give you a hint. Mark, Mr W, Melodylane, Pepperband, Sugarcane, Bigkahuna, writer1, cobol_girl, Bubbles4u, blackraven, Justlearning, Lexxxy, KiwiJ and anyone else who comes along and is a vet. You don't understand how LUCKY you are to have THESE people posting to you. THEY ARE PART OF A MARRIAGE BULILDERS DREAM TEAM.

I hope you wake up soon.