Oh, as for the wedding, I am planning not to go (unless OM will not be there)...though I have no clue how that's going to work out.

Thank you for your concern and persistence.

DH�s belief that this is �no big deal� is [probably] allowing me some freedom to minimize it (infatuation/EA). When I thought of going to the wedding, there was no question that I must go. It�s our friend�s wedding. It�s just taboo to decline a wedding invitation. But the fact that you ALL were appalled that I even considered going�I was surprised. It�s not like I�m going to have a chance for SF with OM at the wedding. With DH there. Given my exposure. And everyone else there. So there would be a barrier between us. That�s how I was thinking of it.

There may, however, be a chance for eye contact and flirtation�which got all of this stuff started in the first place. I hoped I�d just say �hi� to OM but otherwise keep my mouth shut. I asked DH last night what he thought of his friend flirting with me. Meggy is very insistent that I reveal OM�s side of this. I started out with how he feels about flirting�and his exasperated face promptly appeared.

He said that he �doesn�t think like that� and he doesn�t want to hear this. In any case, due to your reactions, I see NC differently. With �serious� NC, if OM was on his deathbed, I couldn�t even tell him goodbye�because I would have committed to NC FOR LIFE�and there is no exception, no matter how small. Wow. Well�now I see why you�re shocked that I would go to the wedding. It doesn�t matter if there is a barrier between us or not. No means No. Period. Okay.

So I told DH that we shouldn�t go to the wedding for the NC. He said that his friends would be mad at him for life and we�re going.

Meggy, I told him that he should read my posts 3 times in our conversation last night and he declined. He is simply not going to aggravate himself. As long as I am not sleeping around, there is no problem.

DH explained that like there are different types of Christianity, there are different types of M. Perhaps, your Ms need MB principles to survive; ours does not. We have trust that does not require spying or NC. The bottomline is that when it comes right down to it neither of us will cheat (PA).

As you know, I am not a fan of the �harsh� words. *lol* It�s practically impossible for me to say, �DH, that�s where you�re wrong because I am not all that sure that I could resist f* him if he decides to take it to that level�� DH knows of my �fantasies� but does not want to hear details. [FYI: I have been doing fairly well not seeing OM over the last month since I have been exerting all of my emotional energy dealing with you guys *LOL*]

It feels like I am going to ruin my M (trying to tell him stuff he doesn�t want to hear) in order to save my M. That would defeat the whole purpose. How would MB be successful for me if I push DH away? I am not meeting his �peace of mind� EN as I continue to pursue this against his will.

It feels like I am going to ruin my M (trying to tell him stuff he doesn�t want to hear) in order to save my M. That would defeat the whole purpose. How would MB be successful for me if I push DH away? I am not meeting his �peace of mind� EN as I continue to pursue this against his will.

I'm not analyzing it...just how am I going to get that out of my mouth to DH who I love? DH might leave me.

That is really confusing. I can't be in love with both of them.

what u posted is very beautiful Melody, but unfortunately very few people practive this radical honesty...

FM,

Have you told your husband that you have fallen in love with OM? That is what this is really all about. It isn't just that you are "attracted" to him or that you find him "cute" or "a hunk" or any of that sort of thing. You have fallen in love with the guy.

If your husband doesn't see that as a problem, I see only a couple of possibilities. Either you haven't told him that, just that way, or he doesn't really think love is a viable goal for a marriage and only logical decisions can effect his life with you.

Falling in love is really a form of insanity when it comes right down to it. People do all sorts of crazy things in the name of being in love. The news almost every day has at least one story about a husband or wife who has murdered a spouse, or someone else's spouse or in some cases their own children in the name of being in love.

An EA is every bit as dangerous to a marriage as a PA in many cases. In some instances it can actually be worse. What happens is that a comparison begins to take place wherein the WS starts to actively and consciously compare the BS to the affair partner. While at the time this seems to be a logical and data processing sort of thing, it really is not.

Our brain processes data and logic primarily on the left side. It is an area that can sort information, apply past lessons very rapidly, make adjustments to our own actions and interactions with others and can modify those actions in response to whatever information our senses are giving us.

Our emotions are from the other side of our brain and really don't process information and data as much as simply respond to stimulus as it is provided. We FEEL based on what is taking place rather than examining what is taking place.

Now if a stimulus is provided to us repeatedly, and that stimulus provides us with an emotional response and whenever we have that emotional response a particular person is also present at the same time, before long, the person becomes sufficient stimulus to cause the emotional response. The response becomes what is called a directed response and the person becomes what is known as a directed stimulus. The mere presence of the person is sufficient to cause the emotional response.

Now if the person, now a directed stimulus is causing a good emotional response, when it becomes a directed response, their simple presence causes us to have that good emotional response. This is some of the science behind the Love Bank model. When that person has reached the point of being a directed stimulus so that they alone trigger a good emotional response in the pleasure center of our brain, we say we have fallen in love with that person.

What is really taking place is a bunch of chemicals including serotonin (the chemical that makes us have a sense of well being), dopamine (the feel good chemical), and the precursor to dopamine called PEA flood the receptors in our brain and give us a feeling that can even be hard to describe. It is often marked by elevated blood pressure and heart rate, feelings of euphoria and a bunch of other stuff we add together to define what we call being in love.

But those same chemicals, working in the same part of the brain are what causes addictions to things like alcohol and crack. Falling in love isn't just LIKE an addiction, it IS an addiction in the purest sense of the word.

An affair is really just a fantasy of sorts. An affair partner doesn't have to supply anything beyond the stimulus to feel good. He or she doesn't have to provide for paying of bills, raising children, maintaining a house, doing laundry, cooking meals...nothing except making each other feel good.

In addition, when we first fall in love with someone, we are only with that person when they are providing that stimulus. They aren't there at all when we have a negative emotional response to something, least of all to something they might or might not have done. So all they do is feed pure feelings and emotions and be around when we are feeling our best.

And here is where the problem takes place when an affair is beginning to do its work in the emotional state of a WS. This comparison starts to happen wherein the BS is compared to the AP. But since the logic part of the brain is not engaged in the feeling associated with the affair partner, what is being compared is the real world relationship with the BS versus the fantasy life that is really only the good feeling being generated by the AP when we are together.

Now on the surface, we see the comparison as one based on sound logic. We put together this list of Pros and Cons similar to the old method you might have been taught in school. You list the Pros or things for something in one column and the Cons or things against on the other side. Once thoughts are exhausted, we compare the columns and whichever is longer is the "right" decision or choice.

But when this AP BS comparison takes place we aren't comparing the benefits and negatives of being faithful and fixing the marriage or the benefits of having an affair (which are entirely selfish things related to our emotions)and the negative consequences of having the affair. Rather what we compare is the negative data of the real relationship with the BS versus the emotional high derived from the stimulus of the AP.

So we are comparing a feeling with day to day life, an emotional response with reality. The logic and data processing part of our brain can identify all the negative things about the BS while the emotional side of our brain can only imagine the feelings the AP causes us to feel.

Seldom do women leave their husbands because they are "attracted to" another man. They don't abandon their children and end a marriage because a guy is a hunk or because he is good at flirting or better at kissing than their husbands. They do however leave their husbands because they have fallen in love with someone else. It happens so often that this very forum exists to help those caught in such a situation whether the betrayed or the betrayer. Almost never does a woman leave her husband for great sex, so it is almost never about sex for most women. It is however about having other ENs met by a guy who makes them fall in love by meeting those ENs and causing her to feel things she thought were long dead.

The PROBLEM with falling in love with someone to whom you are not married when you are married to someone else is that unless something is done to reverse the trend, eventually the process will play out in ways that from the beginning can not even be imagined by those involved.

Once we are married, it is our responsibility to prevent ourselves from falling in love with anyone else. It can only happen if we don't actually do anything to prevent it and once it happens, the logical parts of our brain are subservient to our emotions. We end up following our heart rather than leading it and the result for marriage is always destruction and hurt beyond what you can even begin to explain to someone who has not experienced it first hand. Affairs don't happen because we meet someone special. They happen because we don't prevent ourselves form having them and we don't prevent ourselves from having them because we are making choices with the part of the brain that can't process data and logic and only feels emotions. WE WANT to feel good, so we let someone make us feel good until feeling good is all that matters to us.

The choices that protect a marriage, those that prevent infidelity, need to be made on purpose and by design, based in the left side of our brains where right and wrong, logic and reality are processed rather than in the right side where all we can do is feel what is being provided by whatever stimulus we are experiencing at the moment.


If you want to save your marriage, abandon the notion that you can only get a little high from the addiction of loving another man and still make rational, logical and data based decisions and choices. Tell your husband that you have fallen in love with his best friend and you want to renew your relationship so that you can be in love with each other all over again.

If that is your intent in being here, then MB can help but only if you accept the idea that falling in love is something that can be done on purpose and that you have the ability to choose who you are going to allow to do the things that bring that about.

Love might be a form of insanity, but you and your husband can be insanely in love with each other if you learn what it takes for that to happen and begin doing the things that can bring that to fruition.

Mark

But he will not hear of this NC thing. Maybe he spoke to OM about me (after the first exposure) and they have agreed that OM isn't interested in me. Otherwise, you'd think he would hear me...and, at a minimum, not talk to me about OM.