Book Recommendation

[OWoman]

Here's my take on EA's, Owoman.

 

You've been involved in a number of PA's...but only one EA. You 'fell in love' with your last EA.

 

Sometimes, people "fall in love" (EA) and never get the opportunity to advance it to PA. In America, it tends to start EA in many cases and then end up 'progressing' to PA. People start out as friends/co-workers...they start communicating, the communications become more intimate and emotional...they fall in love (EA). Eventually, the decide to consumate that relationship, and it goes PA.

 

Granted, it happens the other way around too. And I'm wondering if PA's are more common where you live than EA's, given the different culture.

 

Tx for clarifying Owl - that helps a lot. But... that said this is now my problem with it:

 

What you've described - the "falling in love" - can happen unilaterally. A PA typically requires the other person to be present (physically, if not emotionally) so it's surely pretty clear when one has crossed the boundary into that. You've kissed, or touched, or gotten down and drrrty with someone you shouldn't have (ie not your SO). The exact point in the crossing may be unclear (was it the hug? When the tongue slipped down your throat? Or when your body fluids joined hands and danced together by the light of the moon?) but still, there were two (or more) parties present and engaged.

 

With "falling in love", one party can do that entirely on their own, while the other continues to enjoy a friendship, blissfully unaware. They don't regard the intimacy as inappropriate because it's in the context of a friendship, where one is emotionally intimate as with countless other friends, they don't realise that this friend has crossed some nebulous boudary in their own minds and that suddenly something normal and acceptable and healthy has morphed into something taboo.

 

It seems to me that an EA doesn't require the participation of two people; that it's quite possible to have an EA on one's own with the object of one's desires blissfully unaware that this is what is going down.

 

And so, I guess, the bizarreness of being accused of having and EA starts to make sense - to me, it was the friendship it had always been; to his (insecure) new W, it was a threat, given that she knew he'd discussed the R (and his reservations about it) from its outset, and given that she thought he loved me more than he loved her. (Though why a person marries someone they think is in love with someone else, is beyond me - asking for pain, IMO.) She probably does see it as inappropriate; to me and him, it's the friendship we've always had.

 

So now, rather than confused, I'm perplexed. I just wish that there were fewer insecure people in this world!

[mistresswchildren]

I read that one. It didn't help me. I highlighted everything in it. I told myself to be sensible, but the heart wanted to believe something different. You only take information in if you are ready for it, and at the time, I wasn't.

[Lookingforward]

Nope. This information would be good to help the OW/OM understand what's going on at home DURING the affair, especially after d-day...and that does have direct bearing on how the WS acts during this time as well. It would help them understand what he's going through and why, and prepare them for dealing with it from their end and with their goals as well.

 

It would also help them if they opted to end the affair as well, but just understanding what's going on in the WS's life as a result of the affair would make sense as well, no?

 

except that I don't CARE about those things, and I'm damned sure neither the exsMM or his W are reading this stuff to gain an insight into MY perspective LOL

 

It's over , it's done - I'm not going to sit and read and analyse it going "why why" - bottom line it really doesn't MATTER "why" - what counts is the result.

 

It wasn't like I set out to have an A with a MM - I thought I was having a new R with a sMM who was divorcing - so I'm really NOT all that interested in the "inner workings of all parties involved in an A"

 

Just my take on it.

[Lyssa]

I'd rather read autobiographies.