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It's all fun and games until someone gets eviscerated


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ShamanLover

like so many others here, i’m struggling to move on and, paradoxically, the more time i spend on LS the worse i feel about my situation, because it makes me second guess the sincerity of my mm. there is so much cynicism on here, though much of it seems to be justified...

 

like so many others, my MM made it clear from the beginning that he had no intention of leaving his wife, which suited me just fine as i was in it just for the sex and that made him “safe" (I won’t elaborate on my motives at this point - if anyone is curious, you can check out my recent comment on Cymbeline's thread). i did find myself struggling with starting to bond but read a lot about NSA sex and tried to ride the waves and troughs of oxytocin and kept my feelings to myself. i played by the rules we had agreed to. things got intense quickly as so many others on here experienced, and several months into it, just as it was reaching fever pitch he ended things because he developed obsessive thoughts and feelings that started to bleed over into his real life and threaten his primary relationship.

 

(side note: i think this is one of the uniquely challenging things about affairs… it’s like topsy turvy land - all of the things we are seeking/rewarded for in the trajectory of “normal” relationships are seeds of destruction in affairs... generally you end a relationship because it is not going well enough, not because it is going too well...)

 

complicated by the fact that we were distant colleagues, we maintained intermittent civil LC after that (excruciating). about 6 months later, texts started drifting back into inappropriate territory, which led quickly back to explicit sexting. he finally suggested we meet to "talk things through". it came out during that conversation that neither of us had been able to stop thinking about one another during the intervening months (not just sexually, but romantically… whenever we saw anything particularly funny or beautiful or interesting, the other was the first person we thought about telling, and the experience felt diminished somehow because we couldn’t share it… that kind of thing), and that, despite having put effort into his relationship in the interim, it hadn’t improved, and if anything he had discovered that there was more missing in his marriage than just the sex that he had originally thought was his sole motivation for straying.

 

at that meeting, he reiterated that despite all of those insights, he intended to stay married because he was “satisfied”, he felt “in control” in the relationship, and it "worked for him” (yikes, but fair enough). so why, i asked, had he wanted to reconnect if he had no new information for me... if nothing had changed. what, i asked, had his blue sky scenario been in getting together. he told me he had hoped we could resume the physical part of our affair knowing that that was all it could be - ever (didn't we always know that?? maybe he was talking to himself??) - but that being in my physical presence again made it "blazingly" clear to him that he had to stop kidding himself and admit that he wanted much more than that from me, and always would. we couldn’t be “casual”, he said. he couldn’t handle the “disappointment” of perpetually contrasting what he had with me to what he has with his wife.

 

(i am reporting this all pretty clinically, but this conversation lasted for many hours and there were tears and histrionics on both sides and it, and the aftermath, have been some of the most acutely painful experiences of my life… all self-imposed, I know...).

 

so, in essence the shoe was on the other foot when compared to a lot of the stories I read on here. i always maintained that i never wanted him to leave his wife for me (and he confirmed during that final conversation that he had indeed never gotten that from me). all the way through, i was willing to take responsibility for managing my emotions to maintain the NSA contract that we had entered into, and I was willing to do that because the highs trumped the lows (yes, the connection/chemistry/sex was THAT good). i guess what pisses me off is that he spent MONTHS seducing me, he set the rules, i followed them (even though it very nearly killed me inside, but I always dealt with my pain privately and never laid it at his feet), and the moment HE couldn't handle it, HE collapsed and pulled the plug because HE developed feelings and couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

 

maybe it’s because he had more to lose as a MM than I as a single woman, but it just underlines in bold the imbalance in the power dynamic in a SOW-MM affair (cautionary tale!). maybe it's due to the same spinelessness that prevented him from dealing with his issues at home head-on instead of escaping into an affair. or maybe it was a big fat lie... reading on LS has made me cynical about whether or not his claim of having fallen for me was just an excuse, because everyone seems so certain that men are the ones who are able to compartmentalize. he told me he had learned from our experience that he wasn't capable of separating sex from emotion (at least not with me). i can see the collective eye roll from here, but what would he have to gain by lying about that? i feel like these boards have made me paranoid, and now I’m second guessing if it was so that i would go away quietly and not tell his wife? but I already HAD gone away - he was the one who reeled me back in only to change his mind yet again (wtf?!)

 

i know at the end of the day the "why's" don't make a damn bit of difference, but the unanswered questions are torturous. on my stronger days i know that none of us will ever have all of the answers we want/need, so we can choose to make meaning out of the experience in whatever way makes us feel most at peace, but at the same time i don’t want to delude myself and perpetuate a rose-coloured version of reality that keeps me stuck.

 

i’m not even sure what i am asking for in terms of support. you have been a lifeline for me and for the countless other lurkers who have sat on the sidelines in silent solidarity, commiserating with the heartaches of others and cheering them on in their triumphs, but not (yet) spoken up. thank you for being there, thank you for showing up for yourselves and for each other, and thank you for listening.

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Girlfromcali

He might have fallen for you but he's not leaving his wife.

 

He probably wants to have you both like mine does.

 

What do you want from this R?

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(((shamanlover)))

 

I won't write much because it's well past my bedtime! Just wanted to send you ((((hugs)))) and my very confident opinion that he had indeed developed feelings for you and that it wasn't just an excuse to get rid of you. We MM 's DO develop feelings despite our better intentions. It may take longer than for the average woman in an affair, but it happens to us too, and when it kicks in, boy does it take hold. For examples of this read the posts of confused9999, Dylon, myself and many other MM.

 

He's got it bad for you - no question in my mind at all based in what you've said. Probably best if you try to stay away from each other while the damage is still relatively small if you can. Especially as he is married...... With kids?

 

Wishing you all the very best - keep posting!

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Sunnycalb808

I just dont get why you couldnt find a single guy to screw.

 

Why do these OW invite so much drama and difficulty into their lives?

 

Thats what Id explore if I were you. Like what sort of underlying pathology is it, maybe a need for attention or to be "different" than the status quo?

 

Forget about figuring out his motives or actions; just know that whatever they are, they are self-serving

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I just dont get why you couldnt find a single guy to screw.

 

Why do these OW invite so much drama and difficulty into their lives?

 

Thats what Id explore if I were you. Like what sort of underlying pathology is it, maybe a need for attention or to be "different" than the status quo?

 

Forget about figuring out his motives or actions; just know that whatever they are, they are self-serving

 

Part of it is a desire for intense experience.

 

Affairs seem to provide that, but at great cost...

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Girlfromcali
I just dont get why you couldnt find a single guy to screw.

 

Why do these OW invite so much drama and difficulty into their lives?

 

Thats what Id explore if I were you. Like what sort of underlying pathology is it, maybe a need for attention or to be "different" than the status quo?

 

Forget about figuring out his motives or actions; just know that whatever they are, they are self-serving

 

Yeah, and it takes years out of your life where you're obsessing about some guy, and wondering every single thing they say and the meaning behind it...just to come to the conclusion that your special MM is exactly like every other.

 

It's nice to be different from status quo, but there's nothing interesting in that dynamic nor does anything good ever come out of it.

 

It is hurtful, destructive, and ultimately very predictable scenario. That is one the very rare experiences in my life that I'd like to delete. Although, then I wouldn't know what I know now. I guess everything is a learning experience.

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ShamanLover

@Girlfromcali it's a great question that I've asked myself many (many) times, and I can authentically say, I wanted it to continue exactly as it was. Around the time I met him, I had made some new acquaintances in the polyamorous world, was still licking my wounds from a painful breakup and not yet interested in a romantic relationship, and was keen to explore my sexuality (something I hadn't had a chance to do when I was younger). It was very clear to me that what made our connection so powerful - what allowed us both to go to places we had never allowed ourselves to go with anyone else before - was actually BECAUSE he was unavailable for a traditional courtship, not in spite of it. Of course it wasn't sustainable as it was - maybe (maybe) if he had been in an actual open relationship, and I had had other relationship/s on the side (I tried, but learned to my chagrin that I seem to be a one-man-woman), but probably not. I can't quite get a grasp on the chimera that I am mourning, but that doesn't make the process any less painful (maybe it makes it all the more so because there is no "body" to bury, if you know what I mean...)

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I just dont get why you couldnt find a single guy to screw.

 

 

This is brought up so often on this forum and I just don't understand the argument. This is not a justification of the OP's actions, but it's not like you can just easily find and ''click'' with any single person. There are so many things that go into a relationship - be it exclusive or casual - that you can't play it down to ''find a different guy to screw''.

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ShamanLover

@Jenkins Thank you for your kind, supportive words - you are such a warm, compassionate presence on this site. My gut tells me you are right about him falling for me (I remember the precise moment it happened in fact), but as I said the carnage on this site makes one doubt whether one's radar is on the fritz).

 

We are staying away from each other. No kids - he is "fixed" (coincidentally, part of the guilt on his part... his wife had to forego the experience of having children when she married him, and now she is beyond child-bearing years, so he feels responsible... just icky all around)

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Sunnycalb808
This is brought up so often on this forum and I just don't understand the argument. This is not a justification of the OP's actions, but it's not like you can just easily find and ''click'' with any single person. There are so many things that go into a relationship - be it exclusive or casual - that you can't play it down to ''find a different guy to screw''.

 

You shouldnt even be getting close enough to a MM to find out you "click" if you have decent boundaries.

 

Why is it so hard to just view certain people off limits. Ive worked for an attractive man for 12 years. We are both married and attractive and have a wonderful working relationship but there has never been a shred of appropriateness bc of both our boundaries.

 

My god with the internet you have access to an entire planet of single males.

 

Anyway OP i think you caught feelings. MM says he did as well. Who knows if its true or if he is just leaving the door open or perpetuating some fantasy. Ultimately it just takes time to get over someone Im afraid.

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Hi there and welcome to the forum

 

Sadly there will probably be many unanswered question for you in regards to AP. It's completely frustrating all around. Aside from the obvious mistake of the A itself, I've been questioning every detail, every interaction with AP and as a byproduct questioning all discernment with people and relationships.

 

I'm angry with my AP, but in all honesty I cared and loved him deeply. I don't think it was the same for him. But even though what I felt was probably based on a lie, it still hurts just as bad, maybe more so.

 

I think we can make ourselves crazy over analyzing every detail. Not sure how to stop that though. If you discover the magic answer later, please share. I will do the same :cool:

 

(((((Hugs))))

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Grey Cloud

I was in a similar situation. My xMM never said he would leave his wife and I guess we were both considered 'safe' because I was married too. I developed feelings very early on whereas I think he was better at compartmentalising. Until he started developing emotional feelings for me as well! Thats when he started thinking of me all the time and it affected things at home and his relationship with his w. So ironically things ended when our feelings were strong! However we were standing at a crossroad as we didn't want to leave our partners and knew we would destroy everything if we continued.

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like so many others here, i’m struggling to move on and, paradoxically, the more time i spend on LS the worse i feel about my situation, because it makes me second guess the sincerity of my mm. there is so much cynicism on here, though much of it seems to be justified...

 

like so many others, my MM made it clear from the beginning that he had no intention of leaving his wife, which suited me just fine as i was in it just for the sex and that made him “safe" (I won’t elaborate on my motives at this point - if anyone is curious, you can check out my recent comment on Cymbeline's thread). i did find myself struggling with starting to bond but read a lot about NSA sex and tried to ride the waves and troughs of oxytocin and kept my feelings to myself. i played by the rules we had agreed to. things got intense quickly as so many others on here experienced, and several months into it, just as it was reaching fever pitch he ended things because he developed obsessive thoughts and feelings that started to bleed over into his real life and threaten his primary relationship.

 

(side note: i think this is one of the uniquely challenging things about affairs… it’s like topsy turvy land - all of the things we are seeking/rewarded for in the trajectory of “normal” relationships are seeds of destruction in affairs... generally you end a relationship because it is not going well enough, not because it is going too well...)

 

complicated by the fact that we were distant colleagues, we maintained intermittent civil LC after that (excruciating). about 6 months later, texts started drifting back into inappropriate territory, which led quickly back to explicit sexting. he finally suggested we meet to "talk things through". it came out during that conversation that neither of us had been able to stop thinking about one another during the intervening months (not just sexually, but romantically… whenever we saw anything particularly funny or beautiful or interesting, the other was the first person we thought about telling, and the experience felt diminished somehow because we couldn’t share it… that kind of thing), and that, despite having put effort into his relationship in the interim, it hadn’t improved, and if anything he had discovered that there was more missing in his marriage than just the sex that he had originally thought was his sole motivation for straying.

 

at that meeting, he reiterated that despite all of those insights, he intended to stay married because he was “satisfied”, he felt “in control” in the relationship, and it "worked for him” (yikes, but fair enough). so why, i asked, had he wanted to reconnect if he had no new information for me... if nothing had changed. what, i asked, had his blue sky scenario been in getting together. he told me he had hoped we could resume the physical part of our affair knowing that that was all it could be - ever (didn't we always know that?? maybe he was talking to himself??) - but that being in my physical presence again made it "blazingly" clear to him that he had to stop kidding himself and admit that he wanted much more than that from me, and always would. we couldn’t be “casual”, he said. he couldn’t handle the “disappointment” of perpetually contrasting what he had with me to what he has with his wife.

 

(i am reporting this all pretty clinically, but this conversation lasted for many hours and there were tears and histrionics on both sides and it, and the aftermath, have been some of the most acutely painful experiences of my life… all self-imposed, I know...).

 

so, in essence the shoe was on the other foot when compared to a lot of the stories I read on here. i always maintained that i never wanted him to leave his wife for me (and he confirmed during that final conversation that he had indeed never gotten that from me). all the way through, i was willing to take responsibility for managing my emotions to maintain the NSA contract that we had entered into, and I was willing to do that because the highs trumped the lows (yes, the connection/chemistry/sex was THAT good). maybe it’s because he had more to lose as a MM than I as a single woman, but it just underlines in bold the imbalance in the power dynamic in a SOW-MM affair (cautionary tale!). maybe it's due to the same spinelessness that prevented him from dealing with his issues at home head-on instead of escaping into an affair. or maybe it was a big fat lie... reading on LS has made me cynical about whether or not his claim of having fallen i guess what pisses me off is that he spent MONTHS seducing me, he set the rules, i followed them (even though it very nearly killed me inside, but I always dealt with my pain privately and never laid it at his feet), and the moment HE couldn't handle it, HE collapsed and pulled the plug because HE developed feelings and couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

for me was just an excuse, because everyone seems so certain that men are the ones who are able to compartmentalize. he told me he had learned from our experience that he wasn't capable of separating sex from emotion (at least not with me). i can see the collective eye roll from here, but what would he have to gain by lying about that? i feel like these boards have made me paranoid, and now I’m second guessing if it was so that i would go away quietly and not tell his wife? but I already HAD gone away - he was the one who reeled me back in only to change his mind yet again (wtf?!)

 

i know at the end of the day the "why's" don't make a damn bit of difference, but the unanswered questions are torturous. on my stronger days i know that none of us will ever have all of the answers we want/need, so we can choose to make meaning out of the experience in whatever way makes us feel most at peace, but at the same time i don’t want to delude myself and perpetuate a rose-coloured version of reality that keeps me stuck.

 

i’m not even sure what i am asking for in terms of support. you have been a lifeline for me and for the countless other lurkers who have sat on the sidelines in silent solidarity, commiserating with the heartaches of others and cheering them on in their triumphs, but not (yet) spoken up. thank you for being there, thank you for showing up for yourselves and for each other, and thank you for listening.

 

You agreed to a NSA affair. Which means either participant gets to walk away at any time for whatever reason. If it was NSA then he doesn't owe you anything. It's not his fault that you chose to suffer in silence even though it "nearly killed" you. That was your choice and whoever heard of suffering for a NSA affair? The point of a NSA relationship is that there is no suffering because there are no feelings and no strings. NSA relationships are supposed to be fun and free and light. When the MM realized that it was no longer like that he was within his rights to walk away. I'm not sure how you can say he didn't keep up his end of the bargain. Again a NSA relationship means nobody owes anyone anything and either partner can end it at anytime. In a way you are not holding up your end of the bargain simply by having the expectation that he never end a NSA affair. He wasn't wrong to walk away when he developed feelings but he was wrong to try to pull you back in.

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Sunnycalb808

Is it possible uou are over romanticizing this affair or developing a narrative that helps you accept it? Its just odd bc you describe a basic NSA with no emotions....that you developed intense emotions for MM in, yet fully hid these feelings. So if you are hiding how you feel, not being open and forthright, how do genuine feelings and connection truly occur?

 

Ultimately you had major feelings and I assume wanted more but were willling to keep stuffing those down and continue as NSA. He ended it claiming he was having feelings. I believe he probably was but maybe those werent exactly the same as yours. Feelings arevso complex. So he ends it bc he wants stricly NSA.

 

I think you should figure out why you arent validating your own feelings and worth. Not everyone is cut out for NSA and trying to be NSA and stuffing down your true emotions that develop cant be good for you!

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ShamanLover

@anika99 Great points and I will take them on board. Re: "NSA", I left out a lot of what felt like extraneous details in my original post, but he had never actually heard that term before. When we started, I told him that as soon as I started feeling attached I'd be out. When my first inklings of bonding started, I reached out to my friends in the poly community for resources on how to manage what I was experiencing. It was me who then went to MM and introduced the concept of NSA and some rules I thought we could implement to protect our hearts. For reasons beyond the scope, a lot of those ended up backfiring and taking us deeper even faster. We were both just feeling our way through unfamiliar and disorienting territory, and clearly learned a lot along the way.

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ShamanLover

@Sunnycalb808 Really thought-provoking and insightful comments - thank you. I agree that stuffing feelings is unhealthy and undermines authentic connection. All I can say is that there are huge swaths of my story that remain untold here, and that the way we really felt about each other ended up being expressed in other ways. I think both of us were trying to play it cool because we wanted to keep going and whoever admitted to catching feelings first knew it was a deal breaker to the other - so it was kind of like a game of emotional chicken. Totally immature and self-destructive. By the time the truth came out it was like a Vesuvius and wrought so much more destruction that way. My experiment with NSA was just that - an experiment. It was indeed an abject failure and I learned that I am not wired that way... although I have successfully had physical relationships with other people and not gotten emotionally involved, so maybe all I learned is that I'm not wired that way with this particular person. I would love to be able to say that the emotional price I paid was worth it because of the value of the lesson it taught me, but the degree to which I can generalize from this unique experience to my love life as a whole is still an open question. Very confusing. But yes, open, honest communication will be non-negotiables going forward.

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' It was very clear to me that what made our connection so powerful - what allowed us both to go to places we had never allowed ourselves to go with anyone else before - was actually BECAUSE he was unavailable for a traditional courtship, not in spite of it. '

 

This nugget is very insightful imo. The specially intense connection is special largely because of this and while it might portend real, lasting love, it might not.

 

Inthink most men develop feelings after a while and it sounds as if he is genuinely in love with you. This doesnt obliterate the attachment and loyalty he feels to his wife, which is also love, of course - it's just that love changes over time.

 

I'm not at all sure that many men are emotionally aware enough in every day life to have thought about he psychology of any of this until the poo hits the fan. I had thought that women were generally more aware, but I now think they are less aware than I had assumed!

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imperfectangel
I just dont get why you couldnt find a single guy to screw.

 

Why do these OW invite so much drama and difficulty into their lives?

 

Thats what Id explore if I were you. Like what sort of underlying pathology is it, maybe a need for attention or to be "different" than the status quo?

 

Forget about figuring out his motives or actions; just know that whatever they are, they are self-serving

 

The whole idea of this part of the forum is to give support. It isn't just about screwing believe it or not

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The whole idea of this part of the forum is to give support. It isn't just about screwing believe it or not

 

I agree "THESE OW " as the previous poster sweepingly writes, are all individuals who come here looking for some insight and support.

 

Not every one of the OW wants to go out and randomly find a single guy to have sex with.

 

NO empathy whatsoever.

Poppy

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Hi Shaman,

 

Here is what I think:

 

Ow and MM can definitely love each other deeply.

 

That doesn't change the fact that the MM can be quite happy to stay in his real life, whether he is on good terms with his wife or not.

 

He gets quite comfortable with the idea of having an escape with the OW and then going back to the safety of his home environment. He already has a life, and is not about to give it up because he loves the OW.

 

If you can cope with that concept for the rest of your life, then do it.

It can be very destructive and isolating. It is a secret love that only exists between the two of you..... there is nothing else to it.

 

The longer the A goes on, the harder it is to let got.

 

Keep posting,

Poppy.

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imperfectangel
I agree "THESE OW " as the previous poster sweepingly writes, are all individuals who come here looking for some insight and support.

 

Not every one of the OW wants to go out and randomly find a single guy to have sex with.

 

NO empathy whatsoever.

Poppy

 

 

 

I don't understand why people that have nothing supportive to offer even post. I don't go into the infidelity section to gloat at BS's

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However we were standing at a crossroad as we didn't want to leave our partners and knew we would destroy everything if we continued.

 

 

 

You didn't see that you destroyed everything by starting in the first place? Or is one of those 'what my husband doesn't know won't hurt him' mentalities?

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loveisanaction

Very few women can do NSA type relationships. Most women are incapable of continuously sleeping with a man without bonding to him. There are some women who are in NSA relationships who have privately started developing feelings for their partner. They won't be vocal about it because they knew the terms of the relationship from the beginning. These women will pretend publicly that they're okay with the arrangement but privately they are hoping that the guy starts to develop feelings for them too.

 

Women release the chemical Oxytocin during sex which causes her to bond to the man she is continuously sleeping with.

 

OP, your married man did you no wrong, he told you what the arrangement would be should you embark on an affair with him. If you are hurting it's because you felt you could cheat nature...you can't.

 

I agree with the posters who said why on earth you would pick a married man to have NSA sex with when there are hundreds of men who would have given you exactly that. It is true that it's hard to find that person that you click sexually with but we should have enough integrity that if the only person we find sexually attractive is married then we should walk away.

 

The problem is most people have a problem saying no to themselves. If they want something they allow themselves to have it. That's okay if your pursuing a career. Not okay if it's somebody else's husband.

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You didn't see that you destroyed everything by starting in the first place? Or is one of those 'what my husband doesn't know won't hurt him' mentalities?

 

I didn't mean that in a judgmental way... although can tell that there are some touchy thing being said on this thread, I meant it as in why is it for you the emotional connection was the line versus the physical one?

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like so many others here, i’m struggling to move on and, paradoxically, the more time i spend on LS the worse i feel about my situation, because it makes me second guess the sincerity of my mm. there is so much cynicism on here, though much of it seems to be justified...

 

like so many others, my MM made it clear from the beginning that he had no intention of leaving his wife, which suited me just fine as i was in it just for the sex and that made him “safe" (I won’t elaborate on my motives at this point - if anyone is curious, you can check out my recent comment on Cymbeline's thread). i did find myself struggling with starting to bond but read a lot about NSA sex and tried to ride the waves and troughs of oxytocin and kept my feelings to myself. i played by the rules we had agreed to. things got intense quickly as so many others on here experienced, and several months into it, just as it was reaching fever pitch he ended things because he developed obsessive thoughts and feelings that started to bleed over into his real life and threaten his primary relationship.

 

(side note: i think this is one of the uniquely challenging things about affairs… it’s like topsy turvy land - all of the things we are seeking/rewarded for in the trajectory of “normal” relationships are seeds of destruction in affairs... generally you end a relationship because it is not going well enough, not because it is going too well...)

 

complicated by the fact that we were distant colleagues, we maintained intermittent civil LC after that (excruciating). about 6 months later, texts started drifting back into inappropriate territory, which led quickly back to explicit sexting. he finally suggested we meet to "talk things through". it came out during that conversation that neither of us had been able to stop thinking about one another during the intervening months (not just sexually, but romantically… whenever we saw anything particularly funny or beautiful or interesting, the other was the first person we thought about telling, and the experience felt diminished somehow because we couldn’t share it… that kind of thing), and that, despite having put effort into his relationship in the interim, it hadn’t improved, and if anything he had discovered that there was more missing in his marriage than just the sex that he had originally thought was his sole motivation for straying.

 

at that meeting, he reiterated that despite all of those insights, he intended to stay married because he was “satisfied”, he felt “in control” in the relationship, and it "worked for him” (yikes, but fair enough). so why, i asked, had he wanted to reconnect if he had no new information for me... if nothing had changed. what, i asked, had his blue sky scenario been in getting together. he told me he had hoped we could resume the physical part of our affair knowing that that was all it could be - ever (didn't we always know that?? maybe he was talking to himself??) - but that being in my physical presence again made it "blazingly" clear to him that he had to stop kidding himself and admit that he wanted much more than that from me, and always would. we couldn’t be “casual”, he said. he couldn’t handle the “disappointment” of perpetually contrasting what he had with me to what he has with his wife.

 

(i am reporting this all pretty clinically, but this conversation lasted for many hours and there were tears and histrionics on both sides and it, and the aftermath, have been some of the most acutely painful experiences of my life… all self-imposed, I know...).

 

so, in essence the shoe was on the other foot when compared to a lot of the stories I read on here. i always maintained that i never wanted him to leave his wife for me (and he confirmed during that final conversation that he had indeed never gotten that from me). all the way through, i was willing to take responsibility for managing my emotions to maintain the NSA contract that we had entered into, and I was willing to do that because the highs trumped the lows (yes, the connection/chemistry/sex was THAT good). i guess what pisses me off is that he spent MONTHS seducing me, he set the rules, i followed them (even though it very nearly killed me inside, but I always dealt with my pain privately and never laid it at his feet), and the moment HE couldn't handle it, HE collapsed and pulled the plug because HE developed feelings and couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

 

maybe it’s because he had more to lose as a MM than I as a single woman, but it just underlines in bold the imbalance in the power dynamic in a SOW-MM affair (cautionary tale!). maybe it's due to the same spinelessness that prevented him from dealing with his issues at home head-on instead of escaping into an affair. or maybe it was a big fat lie... reading on LS has made me cynical about whether or not his claim of having fallen for me was just an excuse, because everyone seems so certain that men are the ones who are able to compartmentalize. he told me he had learned from our experience that he wasn't capable of separating sex from emotion (at least not with me). i can see the collective eye roll from here, but what would he have to gain by lying about that? i feel like these boards have made me paranoid, and now I’m second guessing if it was so that i would go away quietly and not tell his wife? but I already HAD gone away - he was the one who reeled me back in only to change his mind yet again (wtf?!)

 

i know at the end of the day the "why's" don't make a damn bit of difference, but the unanswered questions are torturous. on my stronger days i know that none of us will ever have all of the answers we want/need, so we can choose to make meaning out of the experience in whatever way makes us feel most at peace, but at the same time i don’t want to delude myself and perpetuate a rose-coloured version of reality that keeps me stuck.

 

i’m not even sure what i am asking for in terms of support. you have been a lifeline for me and for the countless other lurkers who have sat on the sidelines in silent solidarity, commiserating with the heartaches of others and cheering them on in their triumphs, but not (yet) spoken up. thank you for being there, thank you for showing up for yourselves and for each other, and thank you for listening.

 

 

I haven't been on this side of the coin, so forgive my ignorance here... but if you were developing feelings for the man you were seeing and hiding them, why not just see two men in the same NSA fashion? I would think it would be harder to develop feelings that way.

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