I understand. Please realize that you are still deep in the fog of idealization toward your affair-partner and still very much emotionally-addicted to him. That is why you are having a hard time seeing him & his behaviors negatively and truthfully. This will change as you withdraw from him and reconnect to your BH & family over time.

I know it is tempting to believe that your OM was �such a nice man�, �really understood me�, and �is a good person�. As others have suggested to you here, you are still viewing him through the lens of fantasy-infatuation�where he could do no wrong and was �perfect�. You never saw the �real� him because your relationship was a secretive and intermittent one. You never lived with him on daily basis for an extended period of time. You can bet that he has plenty of annoying habits and negative personality flaws that you never saw. More importantly, no matter �good he made you feel�, remember this:

His behavior was despicable and emotionally murderous towards others. He knowingly involved himself with another man�s wife and another girl�s mother. He didn�t care one whit how much he was hurting them and ripping apart their family while he was getting his sexual wants fulfilled. He also has a wife and kids. He was utterly disloyal and duplicitous to HIS OWN FAMILY too. He has inflicted horrible pain upon the people who loved and trusted him the most. I doubt very much that he would ever have been �close friends� with you leading up to the affair, if he hadn�t had a hidden sexual motivation and agenda he foresaw eventually coming to fruition.

This is not what a �wonderful man� does. There is no such thing as an �honorable cheat�.

I did ask HR and our IT department who coordinates the phones last week. They are not willing to change the number at this time but I am probably switching positions within the company in the next 2 weeks. At that point, they will do the change of the phone number --- Just takes alot to move the gears in a large company sometimes.

I am getting closer to being able to admit this but I want to be honest and say I'm not 100% there yet because I'm still in the fog. I'm working on it.

Some of the responses here seem to suggest that butterfly is a victim in all of this. The om is the evil doer. "he has spit in your face." could not this apply in both directions.? Might we not think of both of these two people as basically decent people who gave in to temptation. Too, I have some problems with the idea of radical honesty and the don't tell advice given here. Sometimes we cant handle the truth as was said in the movie. But, if we are to be radically honest and say what we feel might it not hurt someone is some cases? Having said that, I believe the collective wisdom on this board is worth more than money.

No one has suggested that she is a victim. The OM did spit in her face and that can't be denied.


Chaumont, are you familiar at ALL with Marriage Builders? If you were, you would know that MB does not prescribe using RH as a baseball bat.

Instead of posting to newcomers, how about familiarizing yourself with Marriage Builders material FIRST? That is what folks come here for.

Which books have you read and why are you posting here?

I'm certain if you went to your boss/supervisor/manaager/etc. at work and told them either a.) what's happened and/or b.) that you are being harrassed, they could find a way to change your cell phone number.

We hear excuses all the time about why this or that can't change and the bottom line is ~ if you want it to badly enough, it CAN.

BF, this is the path out of self delusion. As a recovering alcoholic, when I was in withdrawal found myself pining away for booze, I would do a REALITY CHECK and remind myself of the REALITY of being an alcoholic. I reminded myself of the degradation, the hangovers, the humiliation. There was nothing good about alcohol. Nothing. It brought me shame and destruction.
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Your logic knows the truth, that any man who DOES a married woman has no respect for her. You know this is true.

The key is to force your LOGIC to set your wayward emotions right. Your emotions are warped and need to be put to the side.

So everytime you find yourself glamorizing a sleazy affair, remind yourself of the degradation, the shame, the destruction left in your path. THAT is how we wake ourselves from the illusion.

Butterfly, did you tell them WHY?

Here's an example of how if you WANT to do something, brainstorming can help you tremendously: when my H's A ended and he was not at all confident that the OW would stop contacting him, he had a fellow employee change the VM on his work phone saying he no longer worked there (he was changing jobs soon anyhow) and that another employee was now taking over for him. It wasn't true that he was no longer working there (yet) but he was desperate enough to change his contact info that this is how he handled it.

You are going to need to start thinking outside of the box, butterfly...

That was all fine and good. But your open friendship as couples changed into something else and something inappropriate. Do you see that? At some point, you and OM developed a one-on-one romantic relationship out of view and earshot from your respective spouses. This had to have been done with some element of secrecy and deception toward them both. Once that happens, you aren�t in a �friendship� anymore; you are in an AFFAIR. Examples:

Secrecy�both of you had to spend time physically together that your respective BSs did not know about. I�m sure you two had communications (email, text, phone, etc.) that were also unknown to them as well.

Deception�both of you likely told half-truths (or outright lies) as an excuse to communicate or be together without detection or arousing too much suspicion. Common ones are �I�m going out with a friend� (never saying accurately WHO), �I have to work late so I�ll be home later than usual�, & �I think I�ll run out to the gym/grocery store/etc. for an hour or two��

There is simply no way that either of you told your respective BSs the FULL TRUTH about the communications and meetings between you and OM---otherwise you couldn�t have maintained the clandestine relationship. Neither of you said: �I had a phone conversation with (you/OM) today and we flirted and told each other about our feelings� or �I�m going out for a while to meet (him/her) and we are probably going to have sex.� Obviously, neither of the BSs knew about the extent or nature of the relationship between you & OM which is why it blew up when it was discovered. No WS ever asks their BS �Hey, honey, would you mind if I go over to OP�s house tomorrow when you are gone and flirt/make-out/have sex with him/her?�

melody , you ask what have I read, why am I here? I have read a lot of books, im here to learn, ask questions. Why are you here? You appear to indict the man , but excuse the woman. What if we turn this around and say , any woman who would do a married man does not love him is not his friend. That she degraded him, etc. Does it not work both ways?

Chaumont, I will ask outright, are you married? Are you a BH? Are you a WH? WW? BW? What's your story? People here generally like to know these things before they consider any advice.

"Alot of books" is not MARRIAGE BUILDERS books. This is the Marriage Builders forum. Which Marriage Builders books have you read?

If you are here to learn, WHY are you posting to newcomers and not starting your own thread asking questions? You are interfering with those of us who are trying to help this newcomer. Why not start your own thread instead of posting here?

I just wanted to clarify that I don't see myself as the victim in this...the victims are the children involved, and the two spouses who were cheated on. And the victims are the rest of the families that are now involved in the entire matter. I am in no way the victim.


Am I a bad person overall for what I've done? That depends on your view I guess. What I did, my actions, were despicable. It is not something that I can dismiss as "giving into temptation" but I have to admit as a grave mistake in judgement and a flaw in character. That doesn't mean I hate myself as a person (although there are times when I think I might) but it does mean that I hate my actions in the affair and the actions that led to it. But, I am willing to change, I am willing to become the better person that I know I can be. So, now I'm not the devil or an entirely bad person at the core. But I'm not an angel or even a good example of a moral, ethical person...at least not now. But that doesn't mean I can't become one in the future. I believe I can improve and I can be the person I should have been all along - the friend I should have been, the wife I should have been, the mother I should have been. But no, my actions weren't decent, or anywhere close.

I think I needed to be reminded of that so I'm glad it's there for me to continue to read. I just wanted to clarify how I feel about myself - as a sinner and not as a victim.

Understood and Thank You. I am trying to remind myself of this all the time. It is becoming easier to see this without having frequent 30 minute internal conversations with myself arguing my logic with my delusional emotions/addictions.

Butterfly, it seems to me you may be getting hung up because some of the characterizations of OM here don't mesh with your perceptions of him & of how he treated you. After all, you may be thinking (I think), "He treated me sensitively... he spoke kindly to me... he tried to understand me... he was attentive to me... he was a friend..." (I apologize if I'm being too presumptuous there.) Such perceptions might not jibe with your idea of, as some others have put it, �users, manipulators, opportunists, and pathologic liars without any character to speak of,� or someone who treated you as an unpaid wh*re. On the contrary, you regarded this man as "special."

Let me suggest you approach this in a slightly different way: by thinking not of his apparent actions, but his motives. Do you think he was being selfless? Do you think he was behaving as a person of integrity? Of course not. He liked the attention you gave him. He liked it when you satisfied his needs. He liked the thrill of being able to see you. So of course he treated you nicely, perhaps even chivalrously, as you perceived it.

But his motives were undoubtedly selfish. Even a fogged-out person can recognize, sometimes, that one doesn't help a troubled marriage by seducing one of the partners in that marriage.

Let's take this a step further: How about your motives? Were you helping out a friend in need? Giving him a much-needed confidante? An empathetic ear to complain to? Perhaps you saw it that way. But why? What was your motive? If you're honest with yourself, the answer is, because you liked it: You liked the attention he gave you. You liked the thrill of planning to see him. Your heart rate picked up when he called or when you saw an e-mail from him. Didn't it? You weren't scheming to hurt your husband -- or so you thought, right? In fact, you weren't even thinking about your husband very much during those blissful moments when you were getting ready to see OM, and when you were together, lost in conversation and whatever else. You weren't thinking of your husband's feelings. Or OM's wife's feelings. You did not consider them. You were inconsiderate. If you DID consider them, it was in terms of "how to keep this a secret, so no one will get hurt."

Except that you probably figured they'd be hurt if they found out. (That's why you both tried to conceal things, is it not?) Yet even knowing this, you and he decided to cross each successive line anyway. You chose to satisfy your wants & needs irrespective of your spouses' feelings & the potential pain for them. When people do this, it is the very definition of selfishness. So you can see how utterly selfish you were. And how utterly selfish he was.

So, you don't have to buy in to describing him as the root of all evil in order to "get" that he was selfish. But think about it: Utter selfishness is at the root of most of the evil that goes on in the world.

You will make progress when you begin to contemplate and acknowledge your and his utter selfishness. That doesn't mean you're doomed to be utterly selfish forever, or that you always were utterly selfish. It doesn't mean that you're currently a user or manipulator or unpaid wh*re. But utter selfishness is as bad in its own way as any of those epithets. I don't know why we often don't regard it as such.

Butterfly, it took me about 8 months of banging my head against mental walls, to fully get to the core of how utterly selfish I'd been during my affair. My affair partner thought I'd treated her nicely. I never spoke an unkind word to her, so I thought (and so she would�ve told you): I was attentive, I listened to her complaints about her marriage, I was her shoulder to cry on, I complimented her, I held doors open for her, I was even honest with her when I told her I'd never leave my wife � I was all of these things, and yet I was utterly selfish, in the way I neglected and deceived her husband and my wife. For the 10 & half weeks of my affair, I was a gentlemanly, attentive, walking pack of lies, without integrity. So were you, and so was your other man. It doesn�t get much worse. Don�t idealize him. Don�t fool yourself any longer. He was no more special than I. He was no better than I. Look around these boards, and you�ll see way too many of us for any of us to have been special. Once you start to get your head around that, he�ll lose his power over you and your marriage.

GloveOil, every once in a while I come across a post such as yours and I am nearly moved to tears. I also think perhaps it's time I took a break from Marriage Builders. Which may be hard to do, as I'm on the computer every day...

Your post is so full of elemental truth. It astounds me that some people can be so blinded, and in such denial about such things (and as a recovered alcoholic, I know a lot about denial!). How and why people don't see the inherent "wrong-ness" of affairs just boggles my mind. The self-delusion required to suspend one's sensibilities in people who don't seem otherwise disordered baffles me.

In my case, it's a double-whammy: My WW exhibited all the same behaviors of the typical wayward, but compounded the problem by having deep-rooted emotional problems that to this day prevent her from feeling remorse or guilt over the damage and destruction she's left in her wake.

How I wish people could read posts like yours and get that "Aha" moment! I know it took having that moment of clarity to get me off the booze, and since affairs are compared to addictions, I wish it were a lot easier to get waywards to wake up and see the truth.

I'm sorry, Fred. Wish I had the words to make things better. I wish I'd had that "Aha" moment 18 months ago in my own case... would've saved everyone here from ever having to meet me, and would've saved my wife the whole load o'what she didn't deserve.

Butterfly, is any of this making sense to ya?

Gloveoil, you are able to articulate things so very well. Fred, I am so so sorry that you are still having to suffer so much.

Butterfly, I'll give you two versions of the same person - an OM:

He was young, funny, a good listener, noticed the little things, found her attractive when nobody else seemed to noticed, actually wanted her, loved her writing, shared his music, vented with her about their mutual job stresses, was her friend

He was immature, ascribed to overall moral "relativity," conjured up images of her while he got off and called it "a fantasy," ragged on her H, had no boundaries with married women, knew she thought she loved him but still gave her attention because it fed his ego and, hey, maybe he could get into her pants that way, and he eventually did.....all of this while teaching art to her 2 young children, fraternizing with her H at school functions and teaching her daughter private guitar lessons. And when the going got rough, he basically threw her under the bus.

Now, she wasn't a victim. She was a willing participant. She screwed up big time. And four years later, she cannot even fathom why she thought giving him up was a hard thing...what a jerk!

One of these days you'll get there too. I painted this picture of the OM while I was foggy....a picture I cannot even believe now. Just focus on what IS real.

Oh my...wiser words have never been spoken. Kudos, GO.

Butterfly, I concur with the other posters. The first few weeks of fog kept my H nuts- "she will always be special to me", etc.

Now he would give his right arm to back in time. Not just because he realizes what he did to us, our family, our friends, his career - but he realizes what garbage the OW actually is. Her behavior, now that he can think, has really shown her to be worse than the usual OW - she is crazy.