24 hrs nc...not like him...fearing d-day

[KarmasTestDummy]

 

I feel the negative perception is well-deserved and helps some people open their eyes and see the affair for what it really is. Most of the time, no one wins.

 

And well said BB07. Sometimes I wonder if the OW's who stick around don't really know what a pure, unselfish love is like. Maybe they don't think it exists. Or maybe they're just fine with settling for something that's less than the genuine article.

 

Knockoffs might be ok sometimes for designer bags or jewelry but not for love.

 

Ding ding ding! I can't agree more that the reason I accept less than i deserve is that I am absolutely clueless about what pure unselfish love is other than always being the one to provide it.

1. My mother was a serial cheater on my father til I was 11

2. She finally divorced my dad after settling down with a mm. He moved in, and even raised me til I moved out at 17, but he never divorced his wife

3. My older sister also modeled adultery in her relationships

4. I was a very insecure child with few friends and even fewer boyfriends

5. I fell in love with the first man to throw me a bone and an escape from my life

6. He abused me for 10 years and cheated on me' for 4 of them

7. Every relationship since has been give give give and no reciprocation (this was the first mm but prior guys I dated after my separation all seemed to either still be hung up on their exes still or emotionally unavailable

 

Bottom line is I am almost 30 years old and have never been loved unequivocally or unconditionally. How can I expect more when it's all I know? I feel unworthy of genuine undying love.

[donnamaybe]

Bottom line is I am almost 30 years old and have never been loved unequivocally or unconditionally. How can I expect more when it's all I know? I feel unworthy of genuine undying love.

Awww, hon, I'm SO sorry you feel this way! No one should have to feel like that.

 

I hope you at least analytically know you DO deserve it, because you do. It seems that since all the examples you've been shown since a young age are examples of faithlessness and betrayal, that that's all you think you can expect. There really ARE men with integrity who would be DYING to find a nice gal like you. Please don't settle for less!

[Star_Bright]

I can agree with that. In a long term romantic relationship you will hopefully find both selfish and altruistic love. Once there is only altruistic love however, you run the risk of an affair. The selfish love actually protects marriages from affairs.

 

It is when it is only altruistic love present, that you get the line:

"I love you, but I am not in love with you."

Affair warning!

 

Huh? If you unselfishly love someone, you won't cheat on them. Because you care about what's best for them. If you selfishly love someone, for them being there for you and for what they give you, but not because you really unselfishly love them and want to put their needs and desires first, then you could cheat on them, because it's all about you (the general you/ MM who selfishly loves his wife and OW).

 

So I don't follow your line of reasoning at all.

[BB07]

Bottom line is I am almost 30 years old and have never been loved unequivocally or unconditionally. How can I expect more when it's all I know? I feel unworthy of genuine undying love.

 

I hear you KTD and I heart you too. I so understand because I have a lot of crap in my family history also and I sometimes wonder if I'm ever going to be healthy and happy with myself. Hon.......you still have a lot of time to get it right. Me........not so much, as I'll be 50 in about a week. It's doing a # on my head among the other stuff.

 

There is a nice decent single guy out there for you......I know it.

[jennie-jennie]

Huh? If you unselfishly love someone, you won't cheat on them. Because you care about what's best for them. If you selfishly love someone, for them being there for you and for what they give you, but not because you really unselfishly love them and want to put their needs and desires first, then you could cheat on them, because it's all about you (the general you/ MM who selfishly loves his wife and OW).

 

So I don't follow your line of reasoning at all.

 

Read Francesco Alberoni's book Falling in Love and Loving. It's a really good book. After you've read it, you will understand my reasoning.

 

http://www.fallinginlovecenter.it/pdf/falling_inlove_and_loving.pdf

[PhoenixLady]

"Selfish" has no place in a healthy relationship. IMO, of course.

 

Awww, hon, I'm SO sorry you feel this way! No one should have to feel like that.

 

I hope you at least analytically know you DO deserve it, because you do. It seems that since all the examples you've been shown since a young age are examples of faithlessness and betrayal, that that's all you think you can expect. There really ARE men with integrity who would be DYING to find a nice gal like you. Please don't settle for less!

 

Have to echo Donna's posts here. I totally agree. And some of us are just late bloomers, Karma. I didn't find my guy until after 30. Just hold out for what you deserve and keep holding your head up.

[fooled once]

Even rearing a biological child is tough. Worth it (most days LOL) but tough. The teen years and even relationships with adult children can be pretty tricky at times.

 

It takes a special kind of person to be a good and loving step-parent. In talking to people, I can't tell you how many people complain about their step-children, especially men, in my experience, seem to complain about the step-children more. No offense to men. That has just been my experience. I can certainly believe that M with step-children have a higher D rate.

 

My daughter, with a young son, was in a LT relationship, engaged to a man who had custody of his 12 yo daughter. They went to counselling, everything! Issues surrounding the children finally ended their relationship, and it wasn't even a live-in relationship! My daughter, a very loving person and good with children, vowed never to date a man with children still living at home. It's pretty much a deal breaker for her.

 

I am a stepmother to 2 now-adult kids. They have been in my life for over 13 years. It has been a heck of a ride and wasn't sure if I would make it out the other side. I also have a son from my first marriage.

 

Steplife is NOT for the weak. It is a hundred times tougher than raising my own child. I am very happy to say I have a loving healthy relationship with my step daughter and I never, ever expected to have that.

 

So if some people consider it 'baggage' then those people shouldn't be involved with a man with children. Even when the children grow up, they are still in our lives. My son is not and never has been my 'baggage'. He is MY child and if I dated a man who didn't accept him (not love him, but accept him) then he wasn't worth dating.

[MorningCoffee]

When he was with me, he was blissfully happy. He was not one bit concerned about me suffering because of his choices.

 

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I knew it was true. Yes, he might have wonderful feelings for me, and while he was with me, BUT he was not actually concerned about ME or MY feelings. He was not concerned about me being lonely, or alone, or the turmoil and pain his situation would cause. He was not concerned about my long-term happiness, about giving me what was best for me. That's when I realized that he was doing only what felt good to him, no concern for the damage and devastation his choices might cause me. That's when I knew his "love" for me was totally selfish, self-centered and self-serving. I know I'm rambling here, but it was a bitter and life-changing epiphany.

 

Love is wanting the best for the person you love. Just like my MM, there is no way yours is thinking about what is best for YOU. Until that is the case, what he had/has for you is not real love. Not the kind you and I and most everyone else wants.

 

I excerpted the above because I so want to agree with it!

 

I remember the last day we were together, my ex-AP/MW said how she wished she could take away my pain, but that was just a very minimal acknowledgement of how painful it all had become for me.

 

Mostly during the affair she shared about how I made her feel good, loved, sexy, and calm. Not too much ever about me and my side of things.

 

Hard to believe, looking back, how long I made excuses for her in my head, so I could keep hanging onto the roller coaster ride. Relieved it is done and I am healing.

[Fieldsofgold]

I excerpted the above because I so want to agree with it!

 

I remember the last day we were together, my ex-AP/MW said how she wished she could take away my pain, but that was just a very minimal acknowledgement of how painful it all had become for me.

 

She could have started by making choices that would

not put you in a potentially painful place!

 

Mostly during the affair she shared about how I made her feel good, loved, sexy, and calm. Not too much ever about me and my side of things.

 

Because that was what was really important to her - what you did for HER, how you made HER feel!

 

Hard to believe, looking back, how long I made excuses for her in my head, so I could keep hanging onto the roller coaster ride. Relieved it is done and I am healing.

 

(comments in bold)

 

It IS amazing how long we can hang on, trying to make sense of it; trying make it work, to make it be that they DO care for us like we do them, even when time and again it just won't add up that way. I'm glad you're off the roller coaster, and that you're healing.

[jennie-jennie]

She could have started by making choices that would

not put you in a potentially painful place!

 

Because that was what was really important to her - what you did for HER, how you made HER feel!

 

It IS amazing how long we can hang on, trying to make sense of it; trying make it work, to make it be that they DO care for us like we do them, even when time and again it just won't add up that way. I'm glad you're off the roller coaster, and that you're healing.

 

If we use your logic, FOG, should not the OW end the affair to save the WS from pain, IF she really loved him?

 

Why is it a one-way street here?

 

You have two adults who agree to have a relationship which they obviously enjoy enough to continue it. Once the pain is too strong for one of them, that person ends the relationship.

 

Why push over the responsibility for my pain to my partner? And vice versa.

 

Nobody is forcing anybody to be in a relationship. If it hurts too much, end it.

[jennie-jennie]

If we use your logic, FOG, should not the OW end the affair to save the WS from pain, IF she really loved him?

 

Why is it a one-way street here?

 

I am talking about the conflicted MM here. Not the MM who merely uses the OW.

[greengoddess]

I agree. Maybe I should put it this way - I don't want a close personal relationship with a selfish person.

 

 

but aren't all married men selfish people. They don't think about the ow's feelings that is stuck with half a relationship and they don't think about their wifes feelings either. Having an affair is an extremely selfish act. If you weren't being selfish you would come clean.

[greengoddess]

I am talking about the conflicted MM here. Not the MM who merely uses the OW.

 

 

why would the mm be conflicted? He has the best of both worlds. A loving wife and kids at home and a loving mistress waiting in the wings for when he is not home. It is a perfect situation for him. I would think the only conflict would come from when the ow pressures him a little which I am sure you probably do not do jennie. His life is perfect in his eyes. Yours and his wifes suck in my opinion.

[PhoenixLady]

No such thing as "conflicted" MMs. They're all users, IMO. And, as I see it, all OWs are being used in one way or another.

[PhoenixLady]

why would the mm be conflicted? He has the best of both worlds. A loving wife and kids at home and a loving mistress waiting in the wings for when he is not home. It is a perfect situation for him. I would think the only conflict would come from when the ow pressures him a little which I am sure you probably do not do jennie. His life is perfect in his eyes. Yours and his wifes suck in my opinion.

 

I agree 100% with this.

[donnamaybe]

No such thing as "conflicted" MMs. They're all users, IMO. And, as I see it, all OWs are being used in one way or another.

I can understand someone being "conflicted" at the get go, but when an A has gone on for YEARS, there's no conflict IMO.

[Silly_Girl]

I understand someone not being conflicted, and then a little later becoming conflicted because things have grown beyond what they perceive as their control, or beyond something manageable. But I would be utterly exhausted if I were conflicted for years, and I'm not sure I could make a good job of anything.

 

In my case I think I'd have to choose to have 1 satisfactory/okay/good/great relationship instead of 2 crap ones. Because if I was doing that I would be messing both the relationships up.

[greengoddess]

I understand someone not being conflicted, and then a little later becoming conflicted because things have grown beyond what they perceive as their control, or beyond something manageable. But I would be utterly exhausted if I were conflicted for years, and I'm not sure I could make a good job of anything.

 

In my case I think I'd have to choose to have 1 satisfactory/okay/good/great relationship instead of 2 crap ones. Because if I was doing that I would be messing both the relationships up.

 

which oftentimes both relationships become crap ones because of all the past baggage of the affair and the mm goes on to a fresh relationship.

[Star_Bright]

Have to echo Donna's posts here. I totally agree. And some of us are just late bloomers, Karma. I didn't find my guy until after 30. Just hold out for what you deserve and keep holding your head up.

 

I can relate too! I'm almost 30 and have never been in a healthy relationship. I have had a lot of relationships where the guy adores me but I just don't feel a spark for him. I think I tend to date "safe" guys that would do anything for me, but that I'm really not that into, because I'm afraid of getting hurt. With the exception of MM of course.

 

And my parents married young and hate each other so I don't think I ever had a good role model of love. Maybe when I was very young. I'm not using that as an excuse, but trying to figure out what real love is all about.

[PhoenixLady]

I can understand someone being "conflicted" at the get go, but when an A has gone on for YEARS, there's no conflict IMO.

 

Yes, I agree. After a certain point, it's no longer a conflict but a decision.

 

Star Bright, hang in there. For some of us it happens a little later than others. That's ok. You'll appreciate it that much more when it does happen.

[jennie-jennie]

No such thing as "conflicted" MMs. They're all users, IMO. And, as I see it, all OWs are being used in one way or another.

 

This shows of very low understanding of the position many MM are in. Could it be because you yourself have no experience of an affair?

[jennie-jennie]

I can understand someone being "conflicted" at the get go, but when an A has gone on for YEARS, there's no conflict IMO.

 

As I know a conflicted long term MM intimately, I know they exist. It is a matter of fact, not opinion.

[KarmasTestDummy]

I can relate too! I'm almost 30 and have never been in a healthy relationship. I have had a lot of relationships where the guy adores me but I just don't feel a spark for him. I think I tend to date "safe" guys that would do anything for me, but that I'm really not that into, because I'm afraid of getting hurt. With the exception of MM of course.

 

And my parents married young and hate each other so I don't think I ever had a good role model of love. Maybe when I was very young. I'm not using that as an excuse, but trying to figure out what real love is all about.

 

Where are these safe guys? I could use one of them right about now. I'd love to be adored. My mm said I'm intimidating to guys. After I left exh I got a world of renewed confidence, lost weight, had a tummy tuck and implants, have a good job and education. I'm friendly and perky and I think pretty attractive, so what am I doing wrong?

[KarmasTestDummy]

For what its worth the nc and acceptance that its over is going pretty well. I'm staying busy, and social, and posting here a lit and its keeping my mind in the right place.

[donnamaybe]

For what its worth the nc and acceptance that its over is going pretty well. I'm staying busy, and social, and posting here a lit and its keeping my mind in the right place.

It's worth EVERYTHING hon! And thank you for getting this thread back to YOU!

 

I'm so glad to see you are being proactive about taking charge of your life and your well being. Atta girl!!!