Why would you give someone up if they were so special and important to you? Would that not indicate that the person you were with is not the one for you when someone else is taking up your every thought and your feelings are raw with emotion for them. In the past I loved my husband with all my heart and could not ever have imagined someone else making me feel otherwise. I know that if someone else got me into bed that it would be because they made me feel that way about them so why would I want to give them up. Can someone explain to me how you go back to the spouse and still feel for someone else. There is something far wrong with the relationship if another person can take away the emotion for the primary relationship. <P>My husband said his last tryst was just sex because he was away from home for three months and lonely. What a crock of ****. It was still a choice he made: 1. to be in that position and 2. he could have said no thank you. Unforgiveable in my book. Anyway, if someone out there can explain the yo-yo emotions I would be really pleased.<P>Thank you.<P>FET

Well, lets see... here is my 2 cents.<P>They could be running away from the responsibility in thier life. A role a wife or Husband can never fulfill since we will always represent responsibility.<P>They could be filling a hole in thier own self-esteem. My H tells me he was flattered someone else cound him attractive. He said it did not count that I found him attractive. He took that as a given because we are married - so in order for him to feel good about himself he needed attention from someone else.<P>Depression can drive people to affairs. <P>Of course problems in the marriage that have not been properly addressed can lead to an affair. Unmet needs. can also lead to an affair if a spouse finds themselve's to be weak enough to be vunderable to outside advances.<P>I am sure others have thoughts too.<P>Acacia<P>

Sometimes the OP is just plain wicked and regularly preys on lonely, vulnerable people.<P>Other OP are as needy as the WS, and yet are able to meet needs that are going unmet by the spouse.<P>Sometimes a moment of weakness intersects with time and opportunity.<P>It's exciting, it's dangerous, or it is peaceful and "meant to be", it is so different from the grind of daily life--no matter how good that life may seem to them usually.<P>Once spouse has crossed a line, they begin defending/justifying their "right" to have done so and continue doing so...even as they know they are now pond scum...or no, they aren't pond scum there must be something wrong with the betrayed spouse.<P>If they spend any amount of time together for some length of time, reality does creep into the affair. The OP has relatives, a job, hobbies, potential health problems, has to deal with the MP spouse, kids, etc. Their house has to be cleaned sometime...the fantasy gets cracks and the WS realizes what he has left behind.<P>The whole process can take a long time. It took my H almost 2 years to regain his senses. <P>Forevertrue, if you follow the MB principles, you may get your marriage back, but you have to want your spouse, you have to want your marriage enough to wade through the incredible pain infidelity causes. There are success stories here. And, unforgiveness can be your choice, just as forgiveness can be your choice. If you stay in unforgiveness, you'll only hurt yourself. Unforgiveness leads to anger, bitterness, depression, learning to forgive and let go of pain is for you--you don't even ever have to tell him you forgive him .<P>------------------<BR>Lor<BR>"Let love be genuine...hold fast to what is good; love one another." Rom 12:9-10