My story "feels" different from all the rest, but I suppose it isn't. I'll spare the details of the relationship. But in short I was the cheater AND the other woman. For a year I had a very loving, passionate wonderful romance with a man. His wife was a friend of mine (making it even worse). He and I fell so deeply in love. It was like we had been knocked in the head with the realization that we were each other's soulmates. We made plans, talked and hoped for a future. I didn't know when it would happen but I was willing to wait, though I was impatient.<P>My husband is a good man. His wife is a good person too. But it just felt like everything on the earth and in heaven pointed to he and I being together. His wife did find out and so did my husband. It was a nasty scene for a while. Me; wanting to die, My husband; loving me and not knowing what to do, Her; sending me hate mail, Him; not sure if he should go with his heart or his head.<P>In the end he stayed with her. After the limbo of several months and good medication, I was able to handle it. But this is SO HARD. I have committed myself to trying to work things through with my husband. But the total separation from HIM is the worst. I miss him like someone has cut off my arm. I feel empty without him. I feel that my dreams will never come true. I feel resentment at the way that affairs are viewed and how the participants are viewed. I feel resentment that everyone tells me to forget it or put it behind me. I find myself clinging to my memories of him and unable to let go of my love for him because it is all I have left.<P>I'm in counseling for myself, marriage counseling and on medication. But nothing is curing my grief. I know only time will heal. But is there ANYONE out there who feels the same? Is there anyone who still has love in their heart for their lover? Is there anyone who still reserves part of their dreams only for them? I need to know that, in this, I'm not alone.

snobird:<P>Lately I have been thinking about relationships.<P>Would we have ended up with our spouse if we had gone to a different school ?<P>If we had worked somewhere different?<P>If we had lived in a different part of the country ?<P>We meet people because our friends introduce us, we go to school together, we grow up together, we hang out at the same bar, we work together.<P>Are we really "soul" mates ? <P>Are we "killing " ourselves staying married because we're supposed to ? <P>I am the BS, but I hear you. I wonder how my H felt when he ws w/ the OW...if he had met her before he met me would he have married her ? Maybe I would be the OW.<P>Who the hell knows ? <P>I have tried to look around. I have had a "few" dates. Even though MB says NO WAY. My experience was I had absolutely no feelings for the OM...I wanted my H. All that said to me was I still loved him, especially after what he had done (4+ A's over 13 yrs)...However, I have no idea what I would have done or will do if I meet someone and feel differently. <P>I'm sure many of the WS on this site can help you.<P>Keep posting.

Maybe your are thinking about HIM so much, so that you don't have to deal with the issues in your own marriage. It's always easy to push problems with your mate to the side to focus on something that felt new and exciting. I call it the "CALGON TAKE ME AWAY SYNDROM"! It's always easier to run away from the problem than to stay and figure out what the problem was and work through it.

I'm unable to forget, too, but I'm unable to forget my H looking in my eyes and swearing he didn't make plans to meet this OW. He told me point blank he told her he was happily married and they could not meet. Then I found their emails making plans to meet ON MY BIRTHDAY! <P>I'm unable to forget the day I found out my H had oral sex with a woman just 2 weeks before our wedding and they were talking about a future together (she didn't know about me).<P>I'm unable to rid my body of the pain in my heart finding that my H is capable of such lies and deceit! <P>I'm unable to forget the night last year when I puked because I was so upset!<P>I am unable to forget about all the secret email addresses I found so my H could have email sex!<P>I am unable to forget the 2 days my H disappeared to meet a woman in another state he'd been emailing with!<P>If you love your H, yet can't forget the incredible love for your OM then set your H free - be an honorable woman and stop torturing your H. Leave your marriage and let your H heal from your betrayel. If you don't feel gut wrenching remorse then move to Plan B because you will not recover.<P>I wish my H had the balls to look me in the eye and tell me the truth rather than lie!<P>Have a GREAT week!<P>

snobird,<P>I think it's very possible to understand how you feel. In your own words, a loving, passionate wonderful romance is going to be very, very hard to get over. If it's even possible.<P>A basic principle of MB (as I understand it anyway) is a committment to the relationshio (marriage) that your in. Which is at the exclusion of any other, simply because you can't have it both ways. It's based on the premise that when you married it was because you were in love and 'as life got in the way' you lost the game plan. If you choose to, you can regain that love again and be just as passionately and just as romantically in love with your H now as you were then. And this is the decision you have to make - which relationship do you want to be in - which of these will you commit to?<P>It's a tough place you're in at the moment but give yourself time. No rush decisions. The other principle of radical honesty is also a good one. Try it on yourself and then on your husband. Both of you need to commit and both of you need to work at fulfilling each others ENs. It's not a one-way street. <P>good luck, and keep venting here. It helps. It really does<P>- Freddy<P>[This message has been edited by Freddy (edited September 13, 2001).]<p>[This message has been edited by Freddy (edited September 13, 2001).]

Hey all, and thanks for the words of encouragement. (Except Free2B---Hey we all have our crosses to bear. Lets not be comparing scars. Trying to figure out my own recovery does not include feeling guilt for yours).<P>I am trying and have said that I am committed to rebuiling my marriage. I would give ANYTHING if I could transfer my feelings of love, connection and passion from Him over to my husband. As for facing our problems, we have identified many of the things that had been eating at me for a few years and worn away my love for him. To his credit he is trying very hard to fix things. I DO care for him and love him. As I said he is a very good person. And honestly I don't think that I would be still alive if it wasn't for him. Just knowing his expectations of me and needing me here every day keeps me going.<P>But as I said, there is great recluctance on my part to just call my affair "a product of unfulfilled needs." It felt REAL. I don't want to just catagorize it as bad/cry for attention/running away from my problems/etc. There was too much joy and happiness in it. I would LOVE to just forget it all. But I can't and don't even seem to want to.<P>They say time cures all and I'm doing all that I can to follow the steps of recovery. This is just so hard.

snobird,<P>who said you had to forget the A? Why can't the memories stay in a very special place in your heart. Hey, when I think back to old girlfriends, one or two of them still have a place in my heart. I mean these were real love and I hurt so terribly when they were over. It's just that I don't let these get confused with the relationship that I'm in now.<P>The difference here is that your love is a recent one so the feelings are just that much more intense. One of the tips in HN/HN is that couples need to spend time together. The recommendation is at least 15 hours a week doing fun things. Why don't you start here - just meet with your H as often as you can. Go on dates. Call him 2 to 3 times a day. Keep talking to him. Focus and let your love for each other build again.<P>Remember, the OM has made his decision. He's not there for you anymore. So it really is something which for him is over. So, you can't go back to what you had. You can only go forwards.<P><BR> <P><BR>

SnoBird,<P><B>I'm sorry</B> for the anger behind my words! I am not trying to make you feel guilty for my situation, nor am I trying to compare scars. It's just unfathomable to me that people can love more than one person in a romantic relationship. <P>I am no better than my H, I guess, as I'm unable to move to Plan B yet we have had multiple fake recoveries. Perhaps that's the true root of my anger.<P>I don't typically lash out!<P>

Sno,<P>As the BS it is hard for me to see life from the other side, but your post got me thinking. What is wrong with knowing that your affair was the result of unmet/unfulfilled emotional needs? It doesn't mean that the feelings of being in love were not valid. They happened in response to your letting someone other than your husband meet your emotional needs. What you did was wrong (even long before the affair became physical); the emotions that followed were natural and normal.<P>Think of our marriages as being the result of unmet emotional needs. We were single, we had needs for companionship, conversation, sexual fulfillment, etc. We met our spouse and we met each other's needs. If we hadn't, we wouldn't have fallen in love and married.<P>You met OM at a time when life, carelessness, whatever had gotten in the way of you and your H meeting each others' needs. (Remember you most likely were failing to meet his emotional needs as badly as he was failing to meet yours.) Marriage makes a lot of us lazy. It seems to bring out the worst in us rather than the best (unless we make a real effort to continue to understand and meet our spouses needs' and to get our own needs met in the honorable, moral way--within the relationships that we have said we are committed to.) We all take our spouses for granted. We stop the courting behavior that attracted us to each other in the beginning. We start to think that we have to make our spouses be more like us instead of recognizing and cherishing the differences. There is a play that makes the rounds of summer stock. I think that the accurate title of the play is "I love you. I love you just the way you are. Now Change."<P>What was there with your husband can be regained if *both* of you are willing to work hard at it. I think Dr. Harley is a bit of a behavorist--think back to college psychology and Skinner and the rats. When our needs are met, we respond with positive emotions. We don't plan them, we probably don't even really control them they just happen as a response to having our needs met. *If* we allow *only* our spouse to meet those needs (and speak up honestly *and* with care to let our spouse know when those needs aren't being met) we can continue to be in love with our spouses.<P>As for the affair, while you might feel justifed in having had your affair, I would keep that private from your spouse. If I heard my husband saying that there was any justification for his behavior (not reasons for the cooling off of our marriage) he would be out the door on his a**. While there may have been unresolved issues in our marriage, he was absolutely, totally 100% to blame for stepping outside the marriage to get them met. The two are separate issues. There is no justification for having an affair. It is wrong. Period. and probably the most painful injury one human can inflict on another and still leave them alive (sort of alive anyway). <P>As for still having good feelings for the lover, I don't see why you wouldn't. I have good feelings for former boyfriends. I just don't share those thoughts with my H. I truly don't know how he feels about the woman he had a 7-year affair (and a child) with. I don't ask. His thoughts are private as are mine. He says he loves me and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, not her. His actions say that what he says is true. I leave it at that. If his thoughts were so obsessive that they affected his behavior in the marriage they would become an issue.<P>Just as a BS's pain over an affair will diminish with time, I think that your strong feelings of love for and grief over the absence of your lover will fade over time and probably be replaced with a rather general warm feeling for him.<P>Have you both filled out the Harley's emotional needs questionnaire? If not, I would urge you to and then put in place a plan for *each* of you to meet the other's needs. Block out time that is just for the two of you--the Harleys urge 15 hours a week spread out in two or three hour chunks, not just all day Saturday and Sunday. Turn off the TV, put aside your private interests and find things to do together that bring up good feelings about each other.<P>Watch those LBs also!<P>Best of luck. You are doing the right thing. Not to dismiss how strongly you felt for your lover, but it might help to admit that even if you two had left your spouses and married, in a couple of years you would have been in a similar situation. When you married your husband I am sure that you never dreamed that you would someday be in a marriage that doesn't feel very fulfilling and that you would be in love with another man, but it happened. Real life would have eventually gotten in between you and your lover and you might have found yourself wondering how the numbing down of a relationship had happened to you again. Plan A is really about making yourself a better person. Looking at your faults and selfish behaviors and working on them. Even if the marriage doesn't work out, you come out a better person on the other side of a good Plan A. Real life gets in the way of real love unless we make a very strong effor to place our relationship at the very top of our priority list.<P>MJ