I have been trying to be honest with my wife.
I don't ever want to have another A. Yesterday
I came home and told her what happened at work
and she blasted me for it.

There was a former female coworker came to our office to see her old friend, when she worked with us she was married and had an a with another coworker also married, anyway the guy in the a no longer works there, he almost left his wife for this woman.

She is still good looking and everything but I
tried to avoid her because I think she's trouble. A bunch of us go to lunch on thursdays,
it'a mixed company,my wife knows this, when I found out she invited herself, I declined but my friends kept telling me to come on so I finally went.

We get to the cars, she sits by me, we get to the restaurant, same thing. Now, she tells me her husband has left her for her best friend and so on.She's crying on my shoulder and telling me this and that.

Then she tells me she's lonely, hasnt had sex in 2 months, hands me her number, telling me to call her ,that she always liked me etc. Instead of throwing the number away, I put the damn thing in my pocket.

We go back to work, she ask for at least a hug,
I told her right in front of another female coworker, "no, I'm happily married and my wife would kill me". She finally leaves telling me to call her.

I went home , told my wife, took out the number, tore it up,( my wife has seen this woman,)
threw it away in front of her. She blasts me for it. I'm a dog!
So much for honesty.

Thank goodness that you:<p>1. told your wife
2. told the woman NO
3. tore the number up<p>Yes, your wife is upset. But nowhere near as upset as if you had taken her up on her sleazy offer. Good job!

Just my 2 cents worth. You said:<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr><strong>We go back to work, she ask for at least a hug, I told her right in front of another female coworker, "no, I'm happily married and my wife would kill me".</strong><hr></blockquote><p>Which says to me "I would hug you but if my wife found out that I did it she would be mad". <p>Then you said:<p><strong> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>She finally leaves telling me to call her.</strong><hr></blockquote><p>Which must have left your female co-worker and this other female predator thinking you might actually call her.<p>Trust once lost is hard to regain. IMHO you should be doing everything you can to help your wife to see that you won't allow anything to happen again.
Lunching with the a woman as you describe, doesn't really help to make a wife feel secure. Again just my opinion but I think you need to apologize to your wife and stay away from women like the one you described here.

I'm sure your intentions are good, but coming from the view of a BS, I see her point. All As start somewhere, and this woman (excuse me, slut) has made sure you know what she's offering. She didn't even just try to drop hints, she made you an offer. I, as your wife probably did, wonder just what kind of body language you showed this woman during this lunch. Were you hanging on her every word etc? Were you "making eyes" at her? Were you checking out what she had to offer? You must have been doing something for her to be bold enough to suggest a meeting with you and give you her number. Or else she fits the definition of a slut a lot more closely than you might think.

OH:<p>Good for you for talking about it with your W when you got home. Delicate thing to have to discuss, but doing so is far, far, better than keeping it to yourself, even if you are never likely to act on it. <p>TinyDancer is right, too. Clearly you could have done a bit more to defuse the situation as it was occuring, but I'm not surprised that you didn't, maybe it just means you didn't think of the "exact right things" to say or do during the moment. But keep telling your W about any future encounters like that one. Through feedback from her, you'll be better able to respond to the advances of this co-worker so that nobody (especially her and your W) gets the wrong idea about YOUR intentions.<p>Honesty isn't just the best policy, it's the only reasonable policy.

OH:<p>Good for you for talking about it with your W when you got home. Delicate thing to have to discuss, but doing so is far, far, better than keeping it to yourself, even if you are never likely to act on it. <p>TinyDancer is right, too. Clearly you could have done a bit more to defuse the situation as it was occuring, but I'm not surprised that you didn't, maybe it just means you didn't think of the "exact right things" to say or do during the moment. But keep telling your W about any future encounters like that one. Through feedback from her, you'll be better able to respond to the advances of this co-worker so that nobody (especially her and your W) gets the wrong idea about YOUR intentions.<p>Honesty isn't just the best policy, it's the only reasonable policy.

I'm both FBS & FWS, I'll try to translate here [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] .<p>BS don't realize how difficult it is for the WS to honest, the temptation to think "nothing happened, I don't want to upset the BS" is strong. If the BS is in a good mood, the WS doesn't want to bring them down. If there are in a bad mood, they don't want to make it worse. Sometimes it takes real courage and going for the long goal to be honest. <p>OnlyHuman, You did a good job telling.<p>Your W didn't react in a way that makes you want to be honest again. Talk to her. Tell her that. You want to be honest, but if she blows up at you, it makes it more difficult.<p>A BS hears stuff like this, triggers all over, and for many the first reaction is crying or yelling. But, once the BS understands if they make it safe for the WS to tell, the WS is more likely to be forthcoming.<p>Even if all the BS says is "Thank you for telling me, that was difficult to hear. Let me think about it and let's talk about it later?" And goes off and storms it through...the WS won't feel slapped for being honest.

To my knowledge, OH's W does not KNOW she is a BS. She falls into the category of being an "unsuspecting BS", although obviously she does suspect because OH's admitted behavioral choices indicate his lack of appropriate boundaries.<p>OH, the reason you are having a problem processing this encounter with the prospective OW and your W is because you are blaming honesty and your W's reactions for your own lack of insight and judgment.<p>My guess is that your W did not react adversely to your honesty, but that she reacted negatively to your obvious lack of insight and judgment and lack of responsibility for your choices in the situation.<p>This would be evident by such questions as, "Why did you go if you knew she was going to be there?" "And why didn't you sit next to someone else?" "Why did you even allow a conversation with her to take place, ESPECIALLY on those subjects?" "Why did you say 'my wife would kill me' instead of 'I love my wife and do not want to do anything that would cause her unhappiness'?" "Why did you even take her number?" and many more.<p>I'd be willing to lay down $ that your W's reaction to the information included these types of questions. If you had been honest with her and included with that an admission of the mistakes in judgment and action that you made and a plan of action for avoiding such bad judgment and actions in the future, her reaction would likely have been less confrontational and would have led to greater intimacy in your M.<p>This lack of insight and judgment is a common feature in the WS mentality. They seem to think that the fork in the road is when the genitals are exposed and that they have crossed no boundaries until genital contact is made, or else at some other slippery slope point along the infidelity road.<p>This is why Steve Harley makes the point that unmet ENs are not the cause of affairs, as many of we faithful BS whose ENs went unmet for prolonged periods of time can attest. The cause of an A is the failure of the WS to protect the BS and the M from his/her own weaknesses.<p>Those who avoid infidelity despite unmet ENs do so because they recognize their vulnerability to it and create a lifestyle and manner of relating to others that protects their spouse and the M (not to mention themselves!) from those vulnerabilities. That is where the fork in the road is--way before THAT type of eye contact, vibes, personal conversations, propositions, physical contact, etc.<p>For example, if one of your most important unmet ENs is Admiration, and you are in close proximity to someone of the opposite gender who compliments you, a little signal goes off alerting you that this situation could be dangerous to your M and make adjustments accordingly. That is where the fork in the road is. It is WAY before most WS think it is, which is why they end up in trouble.<p>When our EN for Admiration is unmet, our natural instinct is to drink up compliments like water in a desert. But we are not animals ruled by instinct. We are able to choose our behavior and do that which is in the best interest of our important relationships, which is ultimately in our own best interest.<p>Honesty begins with yourself first. When you are honest with yourself and examine how you end up in situations like that, and then share that insight honestly with your W, you will probably see a different reaction from her. When you tell her things like that and make it sound as if you did nothing wrong, and this female just glommed onto you from out of nowhere because you are just a babe magnet or whatever, then that kind of negates the honesty of showing her the number and all that.<p>You want her to stroke you for a near-miss rather than provide reassurance to her that that type of thing will not be happening in the future. She is blasting the lack of safety in your M. It's kind of like a drunk driver coming home and bragging that they almost crashed, but refusing to recognize the correlation of the drinking to the risk of crashing.<p>She may be relieved about what you avoided, but you still made many decisions up to that point that risked the safety of the M, and with your lack of recognition and ownership of that, she is living in fear of what will happen next time. That is the issue you need to address with her honestly and openly.<p>[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

Conqueror,
Well written post. I didn't realize OnlyHumans's BS didn't know she is a BS.<p>My observations remain the same, I'm not sure if your "faithful BS" was a dig at me, but I hope your invulnerability remains as impenetrable as long and under as difficult circumstances as mine did....<p>But, then I know it is futile to compare the different pains suffered through infidelity.<p>[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Lor (Lor) ]</p>

I'll probably have to answer one at a time because I keep getting kicked off line.

maggierose,
thank you, you know I didn't expect a reward but I didn't expect a kick in the teeth either.

TD,
wow you sound like my wife, how does, "no,I'm
happily married and my wife would kill me" turn into "I would hug you but if my wife found out that I did it she would be mad".

According to my wife I should have said" I'm happily married and I don't hug other women, esp skanks like you". Now that would have been nice,
right?

jamup,
I didn't do anything to this woman, I didn't care a whole lot for her when she worked with us.
I didn't hang onto every word, I didn't make eyes at her, I don't even know how to make eyes,
I've been married 20 years. There were 9 of us there eating, I'm pretty sure the others could hear the conversation. I wasn't checking out what she had to offer, anybody who has wanted it has pretty much had it I believe, and I don't want it.

2long,
when I found out she invited herself, and she did, she doesn't work with us anymore, I said I didn't want to go. My coworkers kept on, with the
" we always go" bit, so I did. I didn't drive, I got in the back seat, the front was full, another woman sit beside me, then she asked to trade places and she sat down beside me instead.

We got to the restaurant, I went to the bathroom,
when I came out, everybody was already sitting down, except her. The chairs were all took, she said, lets get our own table, I said "no" so I pulled up a chair to the table , she got one and sat beside me.

I don't know what else I could have done.

Why are you worrying about being "nice" to that woman? <p>I do not understand why it is not obvious that "my wife would kill me" means that your main concern is that your wife would be angry, not that you want to protect your marriage. <p>You could have easily said that the conversation was making you uncomfortable and then moved to a different chair.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr><strong>I'm happily married and I don't hug other women, esp skanks like you". Now that would have been nice, right?</strong><hr></blockquote><p>That response would have worked for me but I think you could say something on the lines of "I'm a happily married man and I don't hug other women. I love my wife very much and I don't need your phone number because I won't be calling you ever."<p>However if you hadn't gone to lunch with her, hadn't sat next to her, hadn't taken her phone number then chances are she wouldn't have felt it was ok to hug you. Actions speak louder than words or so they say.

lor,
My wife doesn't know everything about my affair.
She thinks it ended when it didn't. I never came clean about how long and how deep it was. It's a long story .

The thing is, I am trying to be honest now, but yes it feels like a slap in the face.

Only Human:<p>Sounds like you're getting great feedback here, and are giving it as well. Good for you! [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] <p>One thing you might try is to print out what has been said on this thread and show or read the whole thing to your W. I think we all have weaknesses to some degree, and maybe your W's concern is that yours are serious enough, because of your past A, that she's worried you could have been tempted by any one of those things that this gal said to you or did at lunch to put you together at the table and so on... <p>That you're putting the effort into telling this forum about your experience shows that you'd like your W to be assured that you wouldn't have an A with this or any other woman. And so maybe showing what you and others wrote here might be productive.<p>Persevere! [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lor (Lor):
<strong>My observations remain the same, I'm not sure if your "faithful BS" was a dig at me, but I hope your invulnerability remains as impenetrable as long and under as difficult circumstances as mine did....</strong><hr></blockquote><p>Lor,<p>I didn't have a quarrel with your observations. Mine were just mine based upon what I have learned. And no way was I making a dig at you and sorry if it came off that way.<p>Some of us have discussed this before--those of us who had unfulfilling marriages with most, if not all, of our ENs not being met by our spouse, and we have tried to analyze why we didn't have an A. If I had had to bet on it at any time in our M from 2 months after the wedding until D-day proved me wrong, I would have bet that *I* would have been the one to have the A. That's why I have a lot of empathy for the way especially female WS have described their feelings preceding and even during the A because I felt much the same and had the same longings, etc.<p>In comparing my thought processes (over that 10-year period of time when the unmet ENs were there and the opportunity was there multiple times) to those that have been shared with me by WS, my H included, I have come to some conclusions, which of course are general, but I think it partly has to do with self-image/self-worth as well as with the boundary issue I was pointing out.<p>Even when I was totally withdrawn and detached from my H and he wasn't a factor in my decision, what ultimately would stop me was my own sense of self and how I perceived myself, who I was. Even when I didn't care about betraying my H and even felt like he deserved it for the way he treated me, I knew that following through would be a betrayal of myself. Others have described their experience similarly.<p>When a person has a strongly developed sense of self, I suspect the boundaries between themselves and others are more clearly perceived. Anyway, that's part of the theory I have developed in trying to figure this out, especially since my H's case is one of a former BS in his previous Ms subsequently becoming a WS and I have had some help from him in making side-by-side comparisons of how and where our paths divided (I was a BS in my previous M as well).<p>So it was my VULNERABILITY and PENETRABILITY, definitely not any sense of invulnerability, that made the risk of my situation clear to me. I was scared to death of falling into a situation that I might not be able to get myself out of.<p>OH,<p>My guess is that what your W hears when you say something like "my W would kill me" and what she is concerned the OW heard is "my W is a B****". I discovered pretty quickly that to a predator the phrase "I'm married" or even "I'm happily married" means nothing and has no deterrant effect. Saying something like "I am very much in love with my H and am not interested in anything else." serves a dual purpose--it does a better job of slamming the door in the predator's face and more important, it demonstrates my love for my H and reassures him of it if he learns of it.<p>And all the other excuses in the face of this woman quite obviously targeting you are just that--excuses. You are not a victim. You have a voice and a body and you can use them to put distance between yourself and someone who is a threat to your M. Just because there is peer pressure doesn't mean you can't stand up to it and do what is in the best interest of your primary relationship.<p>For the most part, we women want our Hs to be our hero--to slay the fiery dragons and defend the fortress of the M and keep us safe. When you wimp out and whine what amounts to, "But they made me do it.", it undermines that feeling of safety and security. If you can't stand up to the taunt of "Aw, come on, everybody's going", then how are you going to slay the big dragons?<p>I suspect that's where your W's insecurity and frustration are coming from. Don't be discouraged. It takes practice. None of us has arrived at perfection yet [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] At least her reaction tells you how emotionally invested in you she is. Wouldn't you prefer that to indifference?<p>Does your W know that you are talking to other BS? 2long's idea of sharing our perspective on what might be going on inside your W is a good one. If you were to tell her what some of us have said and ask if that is how she might be feeling, it would probably go a long way in showing her that you "get it" and reassure her.<p>[ March 30, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>