This may be a funny ? but I always wondered if there were any other bs out there who thought they had more reason to have an affair than their ws.
My ws was not the husband I wanted or needed. He wasn't a very affectionate h - no hand holding etc. I always took care of the house and the kids - wanted help didn't usually get it. Always felt like I had to ask him to babysit his own kids if I wanted to go somewhere etc. I was married at 17 and had 3 kids by 21.
We raised 3 children and the youngest was a real challenge and there were times I thought my h blamed me for the way he was. The last 10 years before my h ea were not good at all. My h was very distant with me and sometimes down right mean. I always begged him to tell me what was wrong and he never would. But I still loved him. I turned to food and gained a whole lot of weight. Finally two years ago he asked me if I had an affair. There was a time almost 10 years ago I was really thin and hanging with a friend who had an affair - I stopped seeing her shortly after that. He thought I had an affair then but never asked me and kept it bottled up until he decided he didn't love me anymore. Asked me about it - I was furious - even though it probably would have been easy too because of the way he treated me it never even crossed my mind. I made a few changes - tried to be a better wife - didn't lose weight - can't seem to do that - did lose some right after d'day but have a long way to go. But we were still dealing with my ys and all of his problems and not so much with our marriage. My ys moved out last January and h started his ea shortly thereafter. I guess this ended up being more of a vent then a question.
I always felt like my h wasn't there for me emotionally yet I never strayed. Why did he???

Same here. I think I was too emotionally rundown for an affair -- sounds like you were, too.

Here's a quick suggestion:

The reason you didn't have an affair is because of :Lack of suitable opportunity and/or different character. And under character I would include things like: self-awareness ("I feel attracted to this person"; application of morals (i.e. strong ethics); and coping behavior (in your case, possibly the eating).

That said, everyone is supsceptible to an A, except those that don't have enough ENs to bother to form a relationship with anyone. But some people have better defenses against them than others - so some folks are pretty much A-resistant while others are A-supsceptible.

i can honestly say i was in the same position-marriage and life sucked. but this being my second marriage, i felt no way-no more men!!! the last thing i wanted was another man.LOL

Well given the fact that my wife had serious intimacy problems related to sexual abuse issues she had suppressed before I knew her I would say if anyone could be justified in having an affair it would be me.

But the bottom line it was not in my character. I did from time to time consider divorcing her mainly because of the lack of physical love but could bring myself to do that for the kids sake...besides I would have felt pretty shallow saying the only reason I want a divorce is my wife does do "it" enough and lacks interest when we do.....boy I can see me trying to explain all that to a $150 an hour attorney!

I had no affair because it is not in my character to do it...There were women who were attracted to me, and I'm sure if I was single, I would have pursued them. It was one thing that always pissed me off when I was trying to work things out...staying loyal to a person who is stabbing you in the back at the same time.

I guess that's the selfish side of me...thinking about how I lost a year of my youth trying to hold down the Alamo.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by T. T. H. O.:
<strong>I always felt like my h wasn't there for me emotionally yet I never strayed. Why did he???</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You did not stray because of your choice ... He did stray because he failed to put up his guard. Vent her but hanging there and hanging tough. Why don't you read Mojodiva's story ?

nikko not you !!!! lol !

-rh-

<small>[ April 21, 2003, 11:56 PM: Message edited by: redhat ]</small>

this is an interesting one,
I often feel I 'should' have been the one to have the A.
My WH has a very controlling mother. I got pregnant as a teen and his mom was furious and tried to make me abort. He actually told me then, he wanted that also. We split up and I kept baby. A while later he moved in with me and said he was not gonna do as his mom wanted, he realised he wanted me and D.
We got married and his mom was a HUGE problem in our M. She used emotional blackmail etc to get her way. She treats me terribly. She still treats H as a kid. H NEVER stood up to her, and always blamed me for 'making things difficult' for his mom. I would be in tears due to her treatment and he would not 'care'.
I think est is right in saying that oppurtunity is a major factor. I was at home with kids nearly all time. I don't think I'd have cheated, but who knows?
My WH was away working when he had his A. It was like an 'escape' from all the stress and facing his problems.
The good news is that now H has actually stood up to his mom and me and kids are his priority for first time ever. If it had been ME to have the A, I'm not sure this would have been the case.
At least some good has come of this pain that I don't think would have happened otherwise.

Thanks so much for all the replies. I guess I'm just trying to understand why I managed to stay in love with my h after the way he treated me for years and why he didn't. I never went to bars and hung out without my husband. As a matter of fact I stopped drinking all together about 15 years ago - always tried to take care of him no matter how difficult he made it. I did have opportunity - I have always worked outside the home but never really thought about it. I tried to meet my husbands en and he never did mine - again a big thing for me.
TTHO

TTHO I wonder did the affair serve as a wakeup call for your husband or does he behave the same way after the affair that he did before?

On a side note besides opportunity and personal values, some people do not go looking for this to happen.

Since you never gave off any signals that you might be available then that might explain why "opportunities" never arose.

Stunned Dad -
We are still in a limbo stage - he still has feelings for ow - for a while things were a little better then really bad now kind of so so - What really irritates me is that for 10 years or so he thought I had had an affair and didn't bother to ask me - let it fester and get to the point where he doesn't love me. He says he cares about me but that's it.
He said he wasn't looking but the ow told him she was(he denies not that she said it) She has been in a unhappy marriage and this is the 3rd maybe 4th ea she has been in(h doesn't believe this either). He has to be the only one you know. I guess I am venting again. He still works with her - I hate it but there isn't a whole lot of choice right now. I am leaving for a trip tomorrow and am feeling a little scared about it.
I was never looking for an opportunity - but still wonder why I didn't at least look for more emotional support.
Thanks for the reply
TTHO

I asked myself the same question, because my wife was getting more of her EN's met in our marriage than I was.

However, unmet EN's do not cause affairs, they cause lousy marriages. If you read Harley thoroughly and carefully, he does not say unmet EN's cause affairs, either, though it is a so common a misconception among his readers that I would say he should do some re-writing of his material. Reading SAA, it can be easy to conclude that unmet needs are the reason for affairs. Not so. Affairs are entirely the responsibility of those involved, and the reasons vary, though three of the most common issues are boundaries, character and learned sexual behavior.

Our MC worked w/ Bill Harley for 8 years, and one of his biggest dis-agreements w/ Bill was on this very issue, because according to him, in about 80% of men's affairs unmet EN's had very little to do with it. Yes, there were usually unmet EN's in their marriages, because no marriage is perfect. But, having the wife find out about and meet his most important EN's did not stop the affairs from re-kindling or stop the husband from having another. Harley is aware of this, which is why his plan for recovery is a lot more complicated than: 1.) Take the EN questionaire. 2.) Meet your husband's EN's. Our MC said that in his opinion, for that 80%, if the wife had been meeting the husband's top 5 EN's PERFECTLY, the husband still would have had the affair. If you want to learn more, read "The State of Affairs", by Todd Mulliken particularly the chapter on "The Double Life Man".

First of all I'm glad it wasn't a stupid question. So I guess what I'm hearing is that I could have been the perfect wife - meeting all of his needs and this still could have happened. I'm not saying I was - I made a lot of mistakes but never doubted my love for him or thought of someone else for my love.
If that's the case then what chance do I have of getting his love back??? Do I just give up?? Not sure what to do - I've been with him for so long that life without him is unimaginable. Maybe that's why I never strayed.
TTHO

This probably sounds pretty stupid or simplistic, but you can contribute your best to an environment where he can be happy and he is able to protect his feelings, then either he will be very miserable in his marriage or become closer to you.

One thought on not seeking emotional support. I never knew enough to realize I had a problem that needed support. I was a bit too proud and unwilling to share with others. I would always whip out some shallow answer about how we had our share of problems, but things were fine. Our marriage was supposed to be different. And leave it at that. Your case might be one of a million other reasons, but it's not atypical to not look for help.

Just curious, why wouldn't he believe that OW is on her nth EA? Who else would say this except OW?

<small>[ April 22, 2003, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: est ]</small>