WAT,

Great question. I have asked all my psychologist and psychiatrist friends the same. They all agree that the diagnosis is for professsionals to make. It is very hard to distinguish personality traits from disorders. We ALL exhibit traits of almost every personailty type out there. True disorders are not part of those lives, they ARE those lives.

Cerri,

Good to see you again.

Ok I have a question, well maybe it is a series of questions, but they are interlocked.

Why has honesty, commitment, Love (the verb), and mutual support been supplanted by "feelings" as a major goal in relationships?

It seems to me that "being in love" is accepted as an excuse for ANY dishonest behavior one would like to perform. It seems to me that many that come to this site are surprised that it takes work, and periods where needs are not met for marriages to work and prosper in the long run. It seems to me that sex has been vilified within a marriage, but perfectly fine if "one is in love".

But, when I think of WAT's situation, I am struck by the statistic that family tragedies such as losing a child now lead to divorce in ever increasing numbers rather than it leading to the couple pulling together and helping each other through such a devastating tragedy. My Grandmother, who died in the very early 80's at the age of 93 used to say you don't have to like your spouse all of the time but you do have to love them. She felt that marriage was a "lifetime " commitment and it was for her.

Where did that go? I guess it went with easy divorces, splitting the assests no matter who did what to whom, and with the messages on the media that "deep belief's" of any kind are the crutch of fools. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

So my questions is if I could ask, is how does honor, commitment, loyality, Love(the verb), and respect become fashionable again?

JL

Good heavens - I go away for a weekend of digging in the dirt and making myself ill on a final weekend fling at the amusement park and look at all these responses. Ok - back later to see what I can pull from the gravel in my head. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

C

Shattered - I don't know how much low self esteem contributes to having an affair. The more interesting point to make is how having an affair contributes to one's low self esteem.

See - self esteem doesn't come so much from external sources, what other people think of us - it comes from doing the right thing, taking risks, and behaving in a way that is ethical and congruent with integrity even (particularly) when doing so is unpopular, difficult or leaves one open to ridicule or contempt. So we gain self esteem when we do the right thing, when we behave in a way that is in line with our inborn integrity. We gain self esteem when we are courageous - which is not the absence of fear but making a concsious decsion to do something in spite of our fear.

So, if we look at self esteem in that light, it's quite easy to see that having an affair will do damage to a healthy self esteem and that it will be devastating to one that is already shaky. People say all the time that their affair partner makes them feel good - that s/he brings out the best in them - that they can be themselves and feel good about it. Believe me, this doesn't last. It's simply the infatuation obsessive state driven by biochemistry and it passes. Those people once felt exactly the same way about their spouses.

Stanley:

Entitlement is part of the answer. Almost all straying partners feel that they are in some way and for some reason entitled to do this thing which they think will bring them happiness and contentment. It doesn't. One of the things I tell people who are having affairs over and over again is that an affair is an unethical attempt to make something better in their lives. The problem is that no one ends up happy.

If there were oodles of happy outcomes and stable families following affairs we could make an ethical case for them (I don't do morals - I talk about ethics). But it doesn't happen. Everyone gets hurt, families get destroyed, and a basic building block of society is chipped away at.

What was she thinking? I dunno - have you asked her? "I'm wondering what happened that you got involved with ___? And then what? Was there something you were missing in our relationship? What were those things?"

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that she wasn't thinking much of anything. That she may or may not have thought this guy was nice, friendly, caring, whatever and then one thing led to another and before she knew how far in she was - it was too late. She may have even completely disliked him at one time but found through conversation that he was willing to listen, maybe made her laugh, and then it goes from there.

It's not so much what people are thinking as the fact that they don't think. We glamorize the infatuation state of love in our culture - we make it the be all and the end all of intimate relationships and we completely negate long term attachment. Attachment is the state of love where we feel deeply connected in a warm and safe way (rather than the obessive state) and where we feel secure, safe, cared for, etc. It's also the state of love where we have the depth of committment which allows us to focus on other parts of our lives (remember, not so obessive...).

People in stable long term marriages generally have a great deal of attachment. It's why they don't kick out a straying partner and why they don't divorce for an affair partner. But attachment is by its nature less intense (although deeper) - so when someone comes along who triggers the biochemistry of infatuation we tend to lose all track of the long term love we have for a spouse.

Sooo..... what I meant to say about the not thinking is that we are grossly uneducated about love, romance, passion and the brain chemistry that triggers those things. We are also terrifyingly uneducated about the risks to a marriage and what we need to do in order to minimize the chances of an affair.

Straying partners don't wake up one day and decide to have an affair - they slide into them gradually because they don't know the risks, they don't recognize the warning signs as they approach them, and they have no idea of where they're going until it's too late and they're completely sucked in. Straying partners aren't evil or malicious, they're confused, hurting, and ignorant.

Aussie2 - it's not at all uncommon that straying partners don't want to talk about the affair. Fear that you'll leave, embarassment, don't want to hurt you more than you've been hurt, fear of you being angry, any one of those and more could be the reason. The other reason - and this is more troublesome is the possiblity that not talking about it allows the conditons that made it possible for an affair to go on are still there and that s/he doesn't want to give those up.

If you suspect it's the latter you probably need to define a strategy to deal with that - it is of course a danger to your marriage. Since she's beginning to talk I would guess that's not the case and it's more likely to be the other stuff. The more you make it safe for her the more she'll be willing to talk about it. Unfortunately, that in itself will be pretty painful for you. A list of questions that are asked and answered is a good way to handle things - if she is willing to agree to that. She can even look them over ahead of time and have a chance to prepare herself.

Hey WaT! Nicetaseeya <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> I'm not a big believer in the epidemic diagnoses of personality disorders and I don't buy the idea of unmet needs as reasons for affairs. Affairs are an unethical attempt to fix something you don't like in your life - we fall into them through ignorance and we stay in them thanks to our biochemistry that is designed to keep the human race alive and genetically varied. Infidelity creates a state that looks a whole lot like narcissism - and confronted and exposed addictions (such as infidelity) look a whole lot like borderline personality disorder or even bipolar disorder. As long as a person is actively acting out an addiction it's pretty difficult to accurately pick out what else is going on. In order to diagnose a personality disorder symptoms have to have verifiably been present for a significant amount of time - perhaps even since late adolescence. I'm wary of thinking it's possible to do that while someone is actively addicted.

I have a friend who has recently been diagnosed as narcissistic. Bah humbug - she's having an affair and ruining a whole lot of lives in the process. She's also drinking to escape the pain of the destruction all around her. But when she's not doing those things she is incredibly sensitive to others in her life - both those close to her and the people she comes into contact with at work. She's not any more narcissistic than I am - she's an addict and she's behaving like one. My whine of the month is the fact that the addiction community and the marriage community do very little cross pollinating - and yet we see daily the effects of all sorts of addictions on marriage.

JL - great question! My personal view is that our media really drives this phenomenon that you talk about. The idea that we stay in a relationship because we feel like it. What kind of bunk is that? Even in really good relationships there are days when one partner or the other will think they've made the worst mistake of their lives and wish they could get out.

So, when we celebrate and glamorize people like my personal nemesis, Julia Roberts, and we call their affairs and home wrecking a 'love story' it trickles down to the rest of us. It's part of the dynamic that recognizes only the obsessive infatuation state as love and negates long term attachment. I dunno if you read any of the stuff at my yahoo group but this is something I wrote early this year that talks about just that. Did You Mean It When You Said....

I never fail to be amazed at people saying they are divorcing or leaving to be with someone else because they don't 'feel like' being married any more. Feel like? When did that sneak into the vows?

How does it become fashionable again? That my friend is my personal mission and the drive behind Marriage Fidelity Day. I want to do for infidelity what MADD did for drunk driving. (And if anyone owns a restaurant or knows someone who does and who would be sympathetic to the cause, I have a media event I want to stage that makes a very strong statement about infidelity.) We make it fashionable again by taking a stand. By being willing to be the lone voice in the darkness. By exposing affairs when we see them going on. By confronting people who are having affairs (calmly and with courtesy and respect). By protecting our own marriages.

C

My question about infidelity would be this:

Why is it that WS can betray us so horrendously, treat us so contemptuously, soil the purity of our marriages and risk their eternal soul's salvation with God by choosing actively to pursue affairs with sometimes deeply flawed OP ( though they are miracuously blinded to his flaws)YET we are not afforded the luxury of hatred and contempt for them?

My WW has surely plundered my love bank in the most malign way possible in a way ONLY she could do it: has taken me to my lowest point in my life ever and done this all quite knowingly yet I am cursed with still loving her enough that I am robbed of the luxury of vengeance and hatred.

If I could only hate her, as she so truly deserves, my life would be easier. I could get on with my life independently but instead I pussyfoot around, study MB, bite my tongue and generally behave as if I had the A not her in the vain hope that she might someday deign it fit to grace me with her favour once more.

I truly do not understand this. I always thought I would throw her out if she cheated on me, quite angrily and righteously. Yet I perhaps have never loved her more despite the hurt it causes me. Maybe a parallel of God's love for us despite our sin ?

God moves in mysterious ways indeed...

<small>[ August 17, 2004, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Bob Pure ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I'm not a big believer in the epidemic diagnoses of personality disorders and I don't buy the idea of unmet needs as reasons for affairs. Affairs are an unethical attempt to fix something you don't like in your life - we fall into them through ignorance and we stay in them thanks to our biochemistry that is designed to keep the human race alive and genetically varied. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Mmmm...I'm no psychologist, but I just can't make this fit my affair.

I'll give you that I didn't like much about my life at the time of my affair, and the affair was definitely about me trying to fix that pain, but your assertion seems to assume that I would have chosen to have an affair regardless of my mental state or marital condition. I can't agree with this.

Here is what I know:

I was depressed to the point that I was mentally ill. My judgement was impaired. My sense of self was distorted to the point that I had no moral compass to hold to. Hence, the pre-existing mental disorder.

Once in this state, I was able to rationalize that fulfilling my sexual needs via an affair was acceptable because my wife couldn't or wouldn't. I was not ignorant. I was ready and willing.

I'm convinced that I would not have chosen an affair if I had not been mentally impaired OR if my relationship has been functioning well.

So, I disagree with you. Normally, unmet needs would drive a mentally healthy person to seek an ethical solution to them. I was not a mentally healthy person. Therefore, my unmet needs drove me to attempt to meet them in another, less ethical manner.

Low

<small>[ August 17, 2004, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: LowOrbit ]</small>

My question would be this: "Why do some people make the decision to continue something that is clearly inappropriate and yet others can stand up and say no? I ask this because I have found myself in situations where I was attracted to someone and we were great friends. When I felt the feelings were becoming inappropriate I consciously stepped out of the friendship because I knew if it continued it would damage my marriage.

Yet my husband, who has always hated cheaters, allowed a friendship to continue on to new levels until they eventually were sleeping together. Clearly inappropriate when your married. Even once you may be able to say "It just happened", but not over a period of 18 months or longer. That is letting them off way to easily. And how can he look me in the eye and say he never thought he was in love with her? Why was he sleeping with her then?

Pure Bob,

At the risk of stealing Cerri's thunder, I will take a crack at your question. Have you ever heard the following quote by Eli Weismann (sp)?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The opposite of love is NOT hate, it is indifference. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You still love your W because you remember her as you married her, as you made your vows to her. You remember the good times. You still love her, but gradually you will find the love fading. It very likely will not be replaced by hate, but by indifference.

You may not realize this but this is one of the goals of this site. It is to get your marriage rebuilt or get you to the state of indifference. Plan B is a classic example and actually so is plan A.

You will find that as this evolves if your W persists in her actions that you will pull away. You will also realize you have done everything you could (plan A, plan B) to save the marriage. If it fails you will be able to walk away with few if any regrets and you will be indifferent. I know you don't think that now, but it happens.

You see this site is predicated on the fact that A's do end most of the time, but it acknowledges that some A's are walkaway A's. One does not know which one is which, because WS comments are so inconsistent.

So what you are doing is very proactive, and your emotional response is actually pretty normal. You vowed to love her till death do you part, and your response suggests that you are honoring that vow. But, gradually as you do all you can, you will sense a decrease in your love for her,and if she does nothing, you will reach a state of indifference. If you ended up in the state of HATE, you would never be prepared to move on with your life or enter another relationship. Hence you are told her to act lovingly, try your best, and let things take their course.

The idea is to prepare you for a renewed marriage or a much better next relationship. There is a reason why second marriages fail at a huge rate, and that is because people don't often learn why the first one failed.

Does that answer your question? Hope so.

God Bless,

JL

JL thats very clar to me now, thank you. I missed the point in reading SAA.

I don't want to countenance not spending my life with a repentant WW but I do know I can't go on loving her for ever unreciprocated. If she truly has become an unreconstructably unlovable person for me, I need to develop the indifference to cite to move on with my life.

However I am far from there yet. I am plan a-ing my buns off for a while yet.

Thanks again !

Just Learning,

Beautifully written, insightful post. I did not realize I was also moving down that path toward indifference

<small>[ August 18, 2004, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Cymanca ]</small>

My lawyer has been in Family Law practice for 29 years...she has also participated in politics during that time...we had quite a discussion one day of the things she has seen during her 29 years of practice...I really admire and respect this woman...she encourages woman to enter politics to help change some of the laws here in Canada...presently no fault divorce... she has seen first hand through her clients the pain of infidelty and the effects on not just the spouses involved but their families... she is proposing to set up a symposium and inviting the press for clients who are willing to come forward and tell their stories...some of them very horrific...the public needs to be aware of what one goes through during this tramatic time in their lives...I respect this woman for what she is trying to do to bring awareness to the public sector...

<small>[ August 18, 2004, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: New Outlook ]</small>

Bob - part of the dynamic that you're experiencing has to do with biochemistry as well. Helen Fisher's book Why We Love is a fabulous work that really speaks to this issue of infidelity. In a nutshell - there are three states of what we call love. They are biological drives to keep the human race alive and genetically strong.

They are -
Lust - which makes us make babies.
Romantic love (infatuation, characterized by obsession and a strong desire to spend every minute together) - this keeps parents together through the early years of the baby's life providing a better chance that the child will have what it needs to survive and to avoid being eaten by saber tooth tigers
Attachment - the deeper connected, contented, safe, commited state - keeps the parents together through the teenage and young adult years (when one wishes the saber tooth tigers had been successful at eating the young...) until they are ready to strike out on their own and begin the cylce all over again.

These states can occur simultaneously, consecutively, or independently. They can be for one person or for multiple people - with the exception of the romantic state which is usually only felt for one person at a time (and this is the big news - we know anecdotally that trying to meet romantic needs for a straying partner who is in love with someone else does not work - now we know it scientifically as well. The idea of doing a 'perfect PlA' and enticing your spouse home is not workable.)

Any one state can lead to any other.

So, back to your question of why do betrayed spouses hang on in the face of so much pain and betrayal? The answer lies in attachment.

Lust is easy to destroy - anyone who's been married for more than a week knows that. Ditto with romance we can kill romance pretty quickly and pretty definitively. But attachment..... ahhhhh..... that is a different story.

My belief is that attachment is grooved deeply into the brain and cannot be eradicated. It's why permanent no contact after an affair is so necessary - attachment as stated above - can lead to the other states and a reenlivening of an affair.

You stay and stick it out because you chemistry is programmed to do so. It's in the best interest of the human race over the long term if parents stay together.

On top of that is the cultural conditioning which supports and adds to that.

Now about the indifference thing. JL is right about that being part of the goal of Plan B. Not so much Plan A - but that particular part of the MB strategy is grossly misrepresented here at the forum - so it actually does lead to indifference - it wasn't intended to do so however.

I do things a bit differently - I don't aim so much for indifference with people who work with me - I go for detached and calm as a way to recharge for reconciliation (it's much harder work than an affair in progress) and as a way to protect from further harm all the entities in the relationship. The marriage, the betrayed parter, and the straying partner. If the marriage ends, then the betrayed partner has a level of healing already in the works and can move forward from there. And they have a bit more stamina to stick it out longer. Almost without fail, the betrayed spouse becomes the greater danger to the marriage than does the affair or the straying partner.

C

New Outlook - I would love to talk to your attorney friend. One of the things I'm working on is outreach to the legal community - and perhaps I could offer her some resources for her fight as well. If you think she might be interested, drop me a note at help@saveyourmarriagecentral.com and let's talk about making that happen. We need more people willing to take a stand.

C

LowOrbit,

your assertion seems to assume that I would have chosen to have an affair regardless of my mental state or marital condition. I can't agree with this.

Oh no! Not at all. I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear. I think there are a whole lot of things that figure into why people have affairs - and mental state most certainly has a whole lot to do with that. We see lots of affairs after the death of a child or parent - or when life gets chaotically stressed in one way or another.

My point is that people who have affairs aren't malicious evil beings out to hurt everyone in their path. They are doing something which harms their own inner integrity and they are being unethical - but there's a whole lot of reasons why they get to that place.


I was depressed to the point that I was mentally ill. My judgement was impaired. My sense of self was distorted to the point that I had no moral compass to hold to. Hence, the pre-existing mental disorder.

I am so sorry. That must have been a terrible time for you.

Once in this state, I was able to rationalize that fulfilling my sexual needs via an affair was acceptable because my wife couldn't or wouldn't. I was not ignorant. I was ready and willing.

Absolutely! Entitlement almost always plays in one way or another.

I'm convinced that I would not have chosen an affair if I had not been mentally impaired OR if my relationship has been functioning well.

I would agree.

So, I disagree with you. Normally, unmet needs would drive a mentally healthy person to seek an ethical solution to them. I was not a mentally healthy person. Therefore, my unmet needs drove me to attempt to meet them in another, less ethical manner.

Yep. And the only thing I would say to that is I believe we all have an obligation to address those things before we get too far into the slide of mental unwellness. That conflict avoidance is not benign but rather a malignant condition that sets us up for worse conflict in the end. At some point we all make a choice - that's where the ethics play into it. And yes, some people truly are impaired to the point where their ability to choose rationally is non-existant. I'm not buying that that's the case in most instances. I think it has more to do with being selfish than anything else.

And, just in case you don't know, I too am the one who had the affair in my first marriage. So I've been there. I've also been in a place of deep depression and with unmet needs.

C

SpouseGuess,
I wish I knew!!! (Not very helpful, is it?)
Hummmm....


Why do some people go too far and then get sucked in and others know right away to knock it off before that happens?

I think it probably has a lot to do with the individual. Their internal boundaries which are part of personal awareness. And the external boundaries they've agreed upon with their mate. A lot to do with a sense of entitlement - I can do what I want regardless of how it affects others.

Some people fall in love very easily - I'm one of them. Some people not at all. That makes a difference. What the not at all people can do in terms of interactions with others is a lot more than people like I can. The danger threshhold I guess - knowing it and knowing when to stop.

Willingness to protect the marriage. Not everyone acknowledges the risks and is willing to guard against them. And our culture insists that men and women can and should have close OS friendships away from their mate. Stupidity in the extreme.


And how can he look me in the eye and say he never thought he was in love with her? Why was he sleeping with her then?

Read what I wrote above about lust and obsession and attachment. It was probably lust and obsession. Those are a lot more fragile and easy to kill. The funny thing about the romance state is that when we're in love we think it's forever - soul mates. And when it ends we can't imagine we ever felt it. That of course explains the revisionist hx almost all straying partners come up with.

C

Cerri:

Your posts have been VERY HELPFUL to me. I thank you for taking the time to answer some questions my wife simply could not answer very well at all.

I asked if my wife if she knew she was hurting me? She said she didn’t feel she was hurting me because I was suppose to never find out. She felt she could lead a double life without causing any harm to the marriage. She told me she was always a good wife and I was satisfied with her. In the meantime she was telling her lover I was not interested in having sex with her. However, that was a lie---------- as soon as she the affair became physical she started to deny sex to me. I described to her the many instances when she said NO to me when I wanted to make love and she was very slow to admit that it was her who was becoming distant----- not me. She admitted it was her who damaged the marriage, but at the time she had no idea it was happening.

In some instances she gave money to the OM to help pay for the expenses of his trips to my city to sleep with my wife. I wrote an email to the OM and told him he was a scumbag for taking money from my wife who did not work. My wife was very upset because I had I insulted the OM. My wife told me it was not that much money anyway. She felt I came across as a cheapskate to the OM! I told her----- it is not how much money! It is the principle!!!!!!! She gave me a puzzled look and said Oh!

On another occasion she traveled to the city where the OM lived with two of my daughters. She attended a wedding and next day decided to have lunch with the OM before catching a plane back home. She took my daughters (11 and 20)with her. I Told her it was inappropriate to take my daughters to meet her lover. She was puzzled------ and said “what is the big deal?--------------- I didn’t have sex with him on that trip“. I then told her it would be inappropriate for me top take my daughters to meet my adulterous lover (if I had one) for lunch. All of a sudden it felt into place and she realized the stupidity of her action.

In another instance I suddenly took vacation time the week before Xmas. I remember my wife was upset about it because we did not have any trip planned. I could tell she was not cool with the idea. So one day I come home and she tells me I should go and visit my mother because she is to old and I need to spend time with her. She WAS VERY manipulative and bought a plane ticket after discussing it with my mom. Therefore I went to visit my mom by myself. You guessed right! It turns out the OM had made plans to come into town the week I was on vacation and that would have spoiled everything. My wife always saw the OM while I was at work. In any event the OM canceled the trip at the last minute because he was very ill. When I confronted my wife about inventing a trip for me so she could have time with the OM she said. Well-- at least you saw your mom and I could not see the OM because he was sick that week. Duh!! How can a person who seems noble and honest engage in such behavior?


My questions are:

1. Do some people who are involved in affairs lose contact with reality?

My wife is a smart woman, but her actions and thoughts seem so evil. I know for a fact she is not a bad person. She is very kind and a great wife. Why would anyone behave in that manner for the sake of a roll in the hay?

Just to second Cerri's comments about boundaries - I've heard Harley say something to the effect of: "A lack of appropriate boundaries is a pre-requisite for having an affair." That is not EXACTLY what he said, so don't quote me, but it sure applied to my wife. I think lack of appropriate boundaries in her OS relationships was probably the single biggest contributing factor to her having an affair. We both believed the modern myth that you can have close friendships with people of the opposite sex when you are married, as long as you have a good marriage. Not that we had an adequate definition of what a good marriage was, either, nor did we do a good job meeting each other's emotional needs. I avoided an affair because I was in the habit of setting safe boundaries in my relationships with women. I certainly wanted one to fill the emotional need vacuum left by our miserable marriage and my socially isolated life, but because I would not cross the little boundaries far far away from the question of "Will I have sex with this woman right now?", I never got to the point of having to decide whether or not to cross the last threshhold - at which point it is usually too late. When I questioned my wife about the details of just how exactly she made the decision to have a physical affair, she said that she had already crossed just about every other line she shouldn't have crossed, so what difference would it make? When I asked about crossing those other lines, she said, well, I wasn't going to cross the last one, so why not? It was only the last line I was trying to avoid crossing. She had had several (excessively) close friendships with male colleages before, and they had never become physical, so why should this one? While part of this kind of thinking is just the fog of the affair, much of it was what she really thought "normaly". The emotional affairs she had had in the past were not bad because they had not become physical affairs. Therefore they were not to be avoided. Physical affairs were bad, but emotional affairs (neither of us had ever heard of the term) were just good friendships.

Those are boundary issues.

Stanley: Yes they lose contact with reality. Not some. All.

Read back through your last post as if someone else had written it, and see if your wife's selfishness doesn't just leap out at you. She really wasn't thinking at all about you. Are you familiar with the term "Giver snap"?

And, I can almost guarantee it wasn't "just for a roll in the hay". When you figure out what it really WAS for, you will be far down the road to recovery.

<small>[ August 19, 2004, 11:24 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

Hi John <smiling and waving> How's life on your side of the city? Kids excited to go back to school? We just started football here (official state religion in WI) and already the chaos machine is moving into high gear.

Lack of boundaries definitely a prerequisite. Or even a misunderstanding about the need for boundaries in certain areas. We're so conditioned to think that it's ok to have close intimate relationships with anyone we want that we ignore the risks to the marriage.

The other thing I am more and more convinced is one of the biggest prerequisites to an affair (or divorce) is conflict avoidance. If you're not addressing issues in your marriage then you're closing the door on connectedness with your mate and becoming vulnerable to it with someone else. You're allowing walls to build up around yourselves - walls made of resentment, anger, loneliness.... eventually withdrawal. Also, you cannot avoid conflict (be nice <gag>) and do what needs to be done to bring an affair to a quicker end. This more than anything is what I see as the cancer that kills a marriage.

C

John39:

Read back through your last post as if someone else had written it, and see if your wife's selfishness doesn't just leap out at you. She really wasn't thinking at all about you. Are you familiar with the term "Giver snap"?

This is part of the puzzle. In reality she is a very unselfish person who puts the interest of others ahead of hers at all times. She is also one of those who have a hard time saying no and I suspect a lot of her actions (which appear so evil) have to do with the desire to please the OM.

In fact the day after D-day she immediately dump the OM. I know this is true because I heard the pleading voice of the OM in the many messages he left on her cell phone. I also read the many emails the OM sent pleading to work things out. In a sense she was now trying to please me. She seems to be a pleaser because she feels she is not good enough for anyone (always struggled with her self-esteem).

Then several weeks later she wanted to contact the OM because she felt he could be suffering.

She had her withdrawal and still has some of it.

I wish I could understand it all. BTW, the issue of avoiding the resolution of conflict played a big part in her affair. However, whatever conflict we had was minimal. She was simply 49 and two of our married kids were having severe marital problems.

I have more questions:

When my son separated his wife started to sleep around. I remember how my wife said that our son should not take his wife back because she slept with someone else. She said this while she was having a PA. Is that hypocrisy or what?