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Maybe it's not YOUR "love story"


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This thought occurred to me recently while trying to process the breakup and ensuing turmoil of the affair. The fact that the actual "love story" is MM's and BS's, we, the APs are just supporting characters/cast members in their story (perhaps unsupporting depending on your view of it). The actual love story is THEIR journey together and the struggles that they encounter during that journey, e.g., affair. And finally, their ultimate triumph over those struggles, i.e., overcoming adversity and building a stronger marriage at the end.

 

 

Every marriage has its ups and downs. People who have been married forever will tell you that it's not always an easy road but ultimately, their commitment to loving each other no matter what, toughing things out and remaining a family helped them survive the hard times.

 

 

Ex MM and I are not the soulmates, his BS and him ARE the soulmates. I, unfortunately, just got briefly entangled in their journey together.

 

 

It's a different perspective but it's helping to see the light and move on. Maybe I will have my own story at some point.

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Yup and that's a good way to look at it.

 

I've been with my H 24 years. 24 more years from now, His intense 1 1/2 year affair will just be a blip on the radar, a bad patch in our relationship that actually made us stronger and closer.

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Thr truth has been spoken. This is what I realised and I am leaving things as they were. His side and my side.

 

It so hurts really, want to cry but thats the right thing to do. So be it.

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eye of the storm

If you can cheat on your spouse, they are not your soulmate. Or you don't have a soul.

 

A soulmate is someone you can't live without. They mean everything to you.

 

Having an A shows that you care more about yourself than your partner. You are choosing to do something that you know will devastate them if they find out. And while WSs do everything they can to not get caught, its not because they are worried about their BS's feelings, its because getting caught means they have to deal with conflict.

 

Just my opinion.

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I agree, although I don't believe in soulmates. I would gave had a different

Partner if I'd decided on different college all those years ago.

 

The mow who walked onto our set, so to speak, has played bit roles in a lot of marriages and families. My guess is she's not talented enough to handle the starring role in a real good love story, so just does cameos on the side. I really feel for her husband and kids who are wondering where mom's latest location is.

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If you can cheat on your spouse, they are not your soulmate. Or you don't have a soul.

 

A soulmate is someone you can't live without. They mean everything to you.

 

Having an A shows that you care more about yourself than your partner. You are choosing to do something that you know will devastate them if they find out. And while WSs do everything they can to not get caught, its not because they are worried about their BS's feelings, its because getting caught means they have to deal with conflict.

 

Just my opinion.

 

Yes, well but WS are also humans who bleed and therefore are not above f*ck ups and mistakes. Everything that you said above may be true for WS AT SOME POINT in their lives but people take stock of their wrongs, make amends and change their ways.

 

 

Just because I consider someone my soulmate doesn't automatically mean that I will never hurt them. Intentionally or unintentionally, we will hurt each other along the way. But then we also realize the error of our ways, we forgive each other for being human and fallible and we keep it moving.

 

 

That's just life.

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eye of the storm

Of course we all make mistakes. We say mean things sometimes, we create more work for our spouse sometimes, we don't give the attention they need sometimes, we forget special moments sometimes.

 

Banging someone else isn't a mistake. Its a choice. Its a choice to put yourself above the team. Its a choice to hurt your spouse and expose them to diseases and shame.

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A mistake is something that unintentionally happens. Once maybe twice. An ongoing A is not a mistake. It's a choice an action. You participate in over and over, until there are consequences to face.

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'Mistake', 'Choice,' 'Action'= semantics ladies. It still doesn't mean that you can't recognize your wrongs, make amends and turn things around for the better. We are all works in progress. No one is beyond redemption, which is why a lot of couples plagued with affairs end up reconciling successfully. Like someone else mentioned earlier, a 1.5 year affair is a blip on the radar of a 24 year marriage.

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eye of the storm

Again, just my opinion. But we often downplay the damage we do so we look better. Yes, I did all these terrible things....but it was just a mistake. Lets move on, mistakes were made.

 

And mistake does not equal choice. Huge difference. A mistake is not adding enough water to the rice pot. A choice is to make rice.

 

Look, Im an OW. So I am not clean in this conversation. But at no time will you hear me say it was anything but what it was to make myself look better or try to cover the walls with rose colored paint. I had an A, that was a choice. Not a mistake. A choice.

 

As far as BSs that R. There are a million reasons to R. Some do it for love, some for kids, some for comfort or social standing, some do it because they don't know anything else and think they don't have any other options.

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I think there is a tendency to romanticize the affair and for some to think the affair is the true love story and that the marriage is some boring "prison sentence".

Maybe for some the affair IS the love story and the APs do ride off into the sunset together,

BUT

I do agree with Rorocher, the love story IS very often the marriage and whilst the marriage train may derail for a while (due to all sorts of different reasons), the love bond is there and the married couple then get that train back on the track and they carry on with the journey.

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Ya sorry I don't buy it.....we all tell ourselves what we need to, to justify staying or ending it. Whatever we need to believe to move forward.

 

Are there marraiges who have been hurt and been damaged by an A. And somehow come out better on the other side? Of course there are. But í think it's a small percentage, where that is truly the case. That's my opinion so to say it's just a blip in a long story is bs. It's not a blip many times it's cataclysmic.....otherwise you wouldn't have posters still posting here year after year after year....

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I think true soulmates are two people who can go thru the fires of life and hell together and still find a way to love each other and forgive us our sins. Soulmates are not only made in good times.

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Ya sorry I don't buy it.....we all tell ourselves what we need to, to justify staying or ending it. Whatever we need to believe to move forward.

 

Are there marraiges who have been hurt and been damaged by an A. And somehow come out better on the other side? Of course there are. But í think it's a small percentage, where that is truly the case. That's my opinion so to say it's just a blip in a long story is bs. It's not a blip many times it's cataclysmic.....otherwise you wouldn't have posters still posting here year after year after year....

 

You can have a bad period of 10 years and come through it. Does that mean you're not in love? That it wasn't a good marriage? That you're not souls mates? I don't believe that

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If you can cheat on your spouse, they are not your soulmate. Or you don't have a soul.

 

A soulmate is someone you can't live without. They mean everything to you.

 

Having an A shows that you care more about yourself than your partner. You are choosing to do something that you know will devastate them if they find out. And while WSs do everything they can to not get caught, its not because they are worried about their BS's feelings, its because getting caught means they have to deal with conflict.

 

Just my opinion.

 

This is the perspective I see an affair from too. Hardly a romantic view of the marriage invaded by the affair JMHO.

Edited by SeenNotHeard
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I agree that an affair is not a mistake. It's a choice. It doesn't mean that bad choice can't be forgiven. I have done many selfish things that have hurt my husband that he has forgiven me for. The things that OW who aren't married or were never married may not understand is the bond that marriage gives you. At points you are forced to work through your issues. And unfortunately for OW sometimes you're just an "issue" that needs to be worked through in our marriage. (Even though it's unfair and you are a person with feelings) Which is probably why so many men leave he OW with the "Im going to Work on my marriage" line. It's not a line sometimes. Affairs bring to the forefront problems in a marriage and if there is still love there and a willingness to work on the issues that lead to the affair, then the marriage can usually be saved. A lot of times, once everything settles down, the marriage ends up being better because now they have learned to speak out and be open and let their spouses know before an issue gets to the point of spiraling out of control into affair territory

 

So it's not a mistake...it's a choice. But dont we always tell our kids "mistakes can be good because we learn from them". ?

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First off I don't believe in soulmates I don't believe there is one magical destined person that "completes" us. I believe that love is more than a "feeling" it's a choice it's an action.

 

Bad patches are going to happen , that's inevitable. But saying I love my spouse my partner while choosing to do something that is hurtful to them over and over without any change until I'm forced to change....I'm sorry that's not love...Again my opinion.

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We love to generalize and speculate but all we can know is our own experience.

 

After DD 19 months ago I confided in a friend and was surprised to learn that her husband had had an affair nearly 10 years earlier. And yet, they were so happy, and had gone on to have more kids, etc. She said yes she thought of it every day but it didn't define them. I think I'm just starting to understand that.

 

When I met my husband I was only 18, but I knew myself. I knew our personalities would always be compatible. I knew that I could trust him to do right by me even if we didn't work out. We lost our way and he hurt me very badly, but he has shown that I was right all those years ago. He has dug deeper and deeper and deeper and grown up so much, especially since the start of this year.

 

I know people here struggle with getting sucked into all the drama and chaos of others' lives on LS, for whatever reason . . . maybe you need to know you're not alone. Maybe you're replacing one addiction with another. I don't know. But I've come to feel recently that there's no substitute for being fully present in your life. When I am fully present in mine, connecting with my loved ones around me, being accountable to my friends and family, seeking their wisdom, then putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward is easier. And so is it any surprise that then my relationships are healthier and happier? No, because it's not luck.

 

I also found, incidentally, that when I posted a positive update about my reconciliation I got about five replies here. So if you don't see many positive outcomes reported here, don't assume it's because they're not happening.

 

My hope is that whatever your situation, you can start loving yourself and making healthy choices. If both spouses do that, then a better marriage can result, sure. An affair never makes a marriage better but it can force the spouses to confront things they didn't or wouldn't see before.

 

 

This poem came to mind as I was contemplating this:

 

"For What Binds Us" by Jane Hirshfield

 

There are names for what binds us:

strong forces, weak forces.

Look around, you can see them:

the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,

nails rusting into the places they join,

joints dovetailed on their own weight.

The way things stay so solidly

wherever they've been set down—

and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

 

And see how the flesh grows back

across a wound, with a great vehemence,

more strong

than the simple, untested surface before.

There's a name for it on horses,

when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

 

as all flesh,

is proud of its wounds, wears them

as honors given out after battle,

small triumphs pinned to the chest—

 

And when two people have loved each other

see how it is like a

scar between their bodies,

stronger, darker, and proud;

how the black cord makes of them a single fabric

that nothing can tear or mend.

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MidnightBlue1980
And unfortunately for OW sometimes you're just an "issue" that needs to be worked through in our marriage. (Even though it's unfair and you are a person with feelings) Which is probably why so many men leave he OW with the "Im going to Work on my marriage" line. It's not a line sometimes. Affairs bring to the forefront problems in a marriage and if there is still love there and a willingness to work on the issues that lead to the affair, then the marriage can usually be saved. A lot of times, once everything settles down, the marriage ends up being better because now they have learned to speak out and be open and let their spouses know before an issue gets to the point of spiraling out of control into affair territory

 

I do know this and it hurts. A lot. I am aware I am an issue which will be discussed in MC for the next year between them.

 

As Heartwhole posted though, people generally don't comment on anything positive and at this point, I feel like no one can relate to my situation so I've stopped giving updates. My husband and I have had a difficult year but things are better. We are so much better than ever.

 

As for xmm, he was not honest to his BS. He admitted to something, not sure what, but blamed me. She broke into his phone 2 weeks ago and found out the whole truth that he was the one to pursue me and said he loved me (he denied it), she found out the MC and sex were to give her false security. Understandably, she is over the edge. She was hiding in the parking lot to test me and him - supposedly she does believe from my emails that it's over but she has no trust in him, so she has a tracking device on him and follows him in general. She has been using his profile to test me on social media.

 

She is pulling him out end of this month and he does not know it yet but I am not showing the next two meetings. While I am sympathetic to her being upset and of course I was a part of it, I told my H the truth and my H told her the truth last Dec. She chose to call me a stalker. Now she knows the truth. She knows he lied all year. This is now their drama. I spent all of 2016 on 2015. I'm out, I'm done, never going to see him again, no goodbyes, when I return in Dec, I assume he will be gone. I can't have her hiding in the parking lot. I would assume she will be thinking I will be overly emotional the next 2 weeks, so I would think removing myself entirely would make her happy. I'm sure she will ask him about me. What he will think, I could care less. He is a pathological liar and a narcissistic sociopath. He thinks of only himself. Even now, I asked him - but you love her, you want to work it out and fix this mess, right? And he said, I'm not in a position to leave right now.

 

I'm done. I have family and a husband who stuck with me through all this torment all year. He is happy I am not going to go the next two weeks, he just wants me to do it for me, not for him. As to Sunshine's comment, I am not sure I believe in soulmates, but if I did, he would be mine. Is this my love story? I don't know but it is my life and I am determined not to carry this mess into 2017. There are those here who I know don't think I should be married since I was so hung up on xmm for so long but that is/was an addiction, not love. You can't love someone who is destroying you. He tried to destroy me. It's miraculous my H and I worked through this. He says the affairs were terrible but without them, we would not have evolved.

 

Probably the only reason we survived is my H also felt the pain of having an AP and having it end. He gets it. The pain, it is earth shattering.

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I don't necessarily believe in one soulmate sort of thing but I do believe that you can be close to someone enough to be described as soulmates. And I think that closeness is what saved my marriage. My husband and I both view my affair as a mistake and he wouldn't want me to see it as anything else. But we are more on the intellectual literal side of things. So one can literally only make a mistake if one makes a choice. It is an action that is wrong. It isn't to be confused with accident. But mistakes can cost lives. They can be big and end marriages or the can be trivial. My affair was the biggest mistake of my life. I was mistaken every step of the way. My judgement was so off those years I can only shake my head.

 

I never stopped loving my husband. But when you are a broken person with a bad habit your love isn't worth much. Not to yourself or your spouse. Thankfully my husband loved me enough to never feel that way about me. I don't deserve him but he he stuck with me and we got through this. And we are best friends and lovers.

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I do know this and it hurts. A lot. I am aware I am an issue which will be discussed in MC for the next year between them.

 

As Heartwhole posted though, people generally don't comment on anything positive and at this point, I feel like no one can relate to my situation so I've stopped giving updates. My husband and I have had a difficult year but things are better. We are so much better than ever.

 

As for xmm, he was not honest to his BS. He admitted to something, not sure what, but blamed me. She broke into his phone 2 weeks ago and found out the whole truth that he was the one to pursue me and said he loved me (he denied it), she found out the MC and sex were to give her false security. Understandably, she is over the edge. She was hiding in the parking lot to test me and him - supposedly she does believe from my emails that it's over but she has no trust in him, so she has a tracking device on him and follows him in general. She has been using his profile to test me on social media.

 

She is pulling him out end of this month and he does not know it yet but I am not showing the next two meetings. While I am sympathetic to her being upset and of course I was a part of it, I told my H the truth and my H told her the truth last Dec. She chose to call me a stalker. Now she knows the truth. She knows he lied all year. This is now their drama. I spent all of 2016 on 2015. I'm out, I'm done, never going to see him again, no goodbyes, when I return in Dec, I assume he will be gone. I can't have her hiding in the parking lot. I would assume she will be thinking I will be overly emotional the next 2 weeks, so I would think removing myself entirely would make her happy. I'm sure she will ask him about me. What he will think, I could care less. He is a pathological liar and a narcissistic sociopath. He thinks of only himself. Even now, I asked him - but you love her, you want to work it out and fix this mess, right? And he said, I'm not in a position to leave right now.

 

I'm done. I have family and a husband who stuck with me through all this torment all year. He is happy I am not going to go the next two weeks, he just wants me to do it for me, not for him. As to Sunshine's comment, I am not sure I believe in soulmates, but if I did, he would be mine. Is this my love story? I don't know but it is my life and I am determined not to carry this mess into 2017. There are those here who I know don't think I should be married since I was so hung up on xmm for so long but that is/was an addiction, not love. You can't love someone who is destroying you. He tried to destroy me. It's miraculous my H and I worked through this. He says the affairs were terrible but without them, we would not have evolved.

 

Probably the only reason we survived is my H also felt the pain of having an AP and having it end. He gets it. The pain, it is earth shattering.

 

MB I was actually partially thinking of you....all of the things you've shared. How many times have we seen it, the lies, false reconciliation. And maybe reading so much on LS gives a skewed view of things...not sure.

Like another poster said, we tend to see so many sad and hurtful stories not always positive.

And the truth is no one here really knows another's stories and struggles. We have a small window into a large room..

 

A couple of years ago I had a co-worker try to make passes at me. Yes I flirted I was tempted. He told me he had, had an affair a couple of years prior. He and his wife had done counseling. They'd gone through so much and reconciled. He said he was happy grateful she forgave him.

Yet here he was trying to get it on with me...I said how can you do this after everything you guys went through. After she forgave you and you've worked hard. Ultimately nothing at all happened. I loved my husband (then) could not imagine hurting him that way for something so senseless. And none of it seemed worth it to me. I felt bad for her.

 

He still occasionally will attempt to say things to me or hint at things. And it truly repulses me.

 

So maybe I just have a skewed view....or a more realistic view. For every "love story" you also have pretend one sided "love story".

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choice yes. A bad choice. Does remorse count nothing at all?..:(

 

If there was one bullet and it could hit my husband or OM , without second thought I would go covering my H. It feels so bad rationalising but guess I have to keep doing it. Karma.

Edited by freengreen
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Midnight blue-

 

I support you and am very glad things are looking up in your marriage. I can't wait until you are fully free of OM

 

Give his wife some slack in the stalking department, affairs make us very insecure and on edge and protective and crazy. I have sat in many a parking lot watching my H's truck to see if OW would come by. It's just something we BS have to work through within ourselves...it's not really anything to do with you although it may seem that way

 

I asked him - but you love her, you want to work it out and fix this mess, right? And he said, I'm not in a position to leave right now.

 

My H was famous for this. First, not answering the question that was actually asked. Second, for giving a carefully thought out answer. See. He could love his wife and want it to work out and fix this mess. But if he told you that, it would slam the door shut for him continuing the A someday. Plus if it gets back to his wife he can say he never said he didn't love her. He can tell his wife he told you he wasn't going to leave her. Which is technically true....but not the way that you understood his answer. See? They career their answered to fit it situations so their words can't come back to haunt them.

 

These men are smart. His answers mean nothing. I can't wait til he is out of your life.

 

Xoxo

Edited by aileD
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I think that if you said an OM/OW was just part of the married couples 'story' it wouldn't sound so hurtful. OW (or the affair with my H) was a huge part of our story for a long time. Now she's just an object in the rear view mirror I guess - like many other things that have happened to us as a couple, both positive and negative. She/the affair has had an impact but no more or less significant now than having children, moving house, H losing his job, his father's death.

 

Is it a 'love story' - I guess that depends on your viewpoint. To me, yes it very much is, and to H I beleive. Is it like a romance novel - nope - but it is still a story in which love pays a huge part.

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MidnightBlue1980

Sunshine - this is why I do not believe in MC unless both parties truly want to go, and how can you really know? Yes, xmm was lying the entire time in 2016 in counseling, and now both his wife and the counselor know the truth, and he said they are going to go all of 2017. What on earth is the point? How can you ever know if someone is telling you the truth at that point? I will say my H and I did not go to MC. We did not need to pay someone $150 an hour to listen to us talk. We talked the entire year, just the two of us. If you have to force someone to talk to you, IMHO it is not going to work.

 

AlieD, I consider him out of my life. I'm not going to the last two meetings this month so that's that. He will figure it out. I do understand why she was in the lot but again, I can't run the risk of her coming into the meeting. Again - I do get it, she has no idea what the truth is, lies on top of lies, which is why I am entirely removing myself from the situation. xmm nearly drove me to suicide this year, so I can only imagine how his wife must feel. I know what it was like to catch my own husband and it was nowhere near this level of deception. To discover you are being lied to at this level must be earth shattering. I won't be a part of it anymore.

 

To be honest, xmm does not need to really stay till the exact end date his wife is allowing him to stay. This is not a job where he gets paid, its a group of people together for business opportunities. He does not actually need to show up till the bitter end. If I was his wife I would say I've changed my mind and it's done. But this way at least when she asked him if I was there, he can say no.

 

I'm out.

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