Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 I'm just curious why, when the affair is over ... when it has clearly been stated that it is over. When there has been NC for months and I have moved on to a healthy relationship. When I am healed from what took place, survived a divorce, improved myself ... do they have some kind of radar? Got an e-mail begging me to go see him today, he can't forget yada, yada, yada ... I pretty much said he burned me already and I couldn't go there any more. He is sullen and angry now. Should I resume NC? Can one ever be friends with someone when a relationship is over?
Confused4Now Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 I'm just curious why, when the affair is over ... when it has clearly been stated that it is over. When there has been NC for months and I have moved on to a healthy relationship. When I am healed from what took place, survived a divorce, improved myself ... do they have some kind of radar? Got an e-mail begging me to go see him today, he can't forget yada, yada, yada ... I pretty much said he burned me already and I couldn't go there any more. He is sullen and angry now. Should I resume NC? Can one ever be friends with someone when a relationship is over?BTDT....I don't get it either....I went NC with my xMW last year it lasted 3 months. My divorce was almost final...if I were to do it all over again....I would have told her to go take a flying leap. I have finally gotten to a point where I choose when I want to engage. Nothing she says phases me anymore. NOTHING!!! In fact I have pity for her....and I use to think she was stuck...but I think she just likes where she is. OH well lessons learned.
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 Good question .. think we were intellectually on the same plane .. discuss politics etc. Evidently, it's all or nothing with this guy.
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 You know what I think? He's probably in a low point in his marriage again and needs his ego stroked. The same patterns emerge, I reminded him of why things ended and nothing has changed. That I have a right to a real relationship with someone who respects, loves and wants to be fully present in my life. Then the jealousy switch turns on .. what the heck?
donnamaybe Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 They are hoping you'll allow them back while they're still married, and they're testing the waters. 1
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 They're is a selfishness there that in no way equates to love in my head. Then the anger? Where is that coming from?
donnamaybe Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 They're is a selfishness there that in no way equates to love in my head. Then the anger? Where is that coming from?He thinks you're there, all sad and sorry wishing you had him, and his precious ego is dented now to find you happy with someone else. What a jerk.
2sure Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 I'm just curious why, when the affair is over ... when it has clearly been stated that it is over. When there has been NC for months and I have moved on to a healthy relationship. When I am healed from what took place, survived a divorce, improved myself ... do they have some kind of radar? Because they want both. Even if he is the one that initiates NC...he occasionally will give a poke just to satisfy himself that having both is still an opting for him. Sometimes just knowing your an option is enough. 1
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 Very childish .. you'd think he'd be happy for me. Doesn't feel like love to me at all. Funny, I feel hurt that he is angry .. where is that coming from?
carhill Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 From reading here and in real life, it appears this seems to be a feature more of MM's than MW's. Far more men (MM's), and I'll include myself in the sample, seem to have difficulty letting go and moving on, compared to the women (MW's), even with black hole NC. Perhaps it's socialization to resist accepting failure and perceiving the end of the affair as such, much the same as why men seem to resist ending marriages proactively. Their fear of appearing as a failure or less than a success in society's and their own eyes drives them. Tog dog, big cheese, head honcho; all those buzzwords fly around in their heads. One potential... 1
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 I moved on for self-preservation .. my self-esteem took a hit with the divorce, then the healing from this. But, I'm okay and well .. I don't get the alpha male thing Carhill. It's a gender difference perhaps. If I knew he was happy in his marriage or having other flings .. and patching together what must be a bad situation "for the kids" - let it be. I just couldn't be that untruthful to myself, my set of ethics etc. - and it hit me in the face. I am being true to myself .. what matters to me, what love means to me .. playing second fiddle to someone who lives 1200 miles away just doesn't cut it. I've told him that .. and still no mention of leaving the wife ... so I know what I'm dealing with. Wish we could be friends as I have some sage advice to give the man on this process .. instead the blowback is just anger that I am rejecting him.
carhill Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 I can say, so far anyway, in my past experiences with MW's, they use you for what they want you for and then move on, without comment nor concern. I have not to this date seen any exceptions. It's like the intimacy never existed nor did the man. Granted my personal sample size is only about seven in total over the last 30 years, but it is a commonality I've noted. I think men could do well to learn from this, psychologically. Perhaps it is a version of what I learned in MC about acceptance; accept that it's over; accept that it's in the past now; accept that the love and hurt were there, were felt and are forever going to be an emotional memory. It's OK to feel; it's OK to feel love; it's OK to feel hurt. It's also OK to move forward in a clear and healthy manner.
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 Never used the guy ... I was there, he bailed, I moved on. Then the plea from afar ... I told him, you get out of the marriage and we'll see what we can do. I can't spend my life as a personal counselor for his marital issues and the subsequent issues with the kids. It isn't my marriage nor are they my kids. I walked my walk, he made a choice ... if I seem cold, I've accepted that he has made a choice and I have respected that. If he met me at all in the middle, I would not have moved on. It's the jerking around that bothers me the most .. come here, go away ... I finally had enough. 1
carhill Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 Yes, as a single man, I don't recall MW's having any significant nor substantive long-lived interest in anything beyond the most superficial aspects of my life and times. Their best game was during the initial infatuation and intimacy building phase, sometimes before I even knew they were married. I'm guessing it's much like this with MM's, with the additional kicker of getting the OP into the sack to stimulate oxytocin. Oh, almost forgot that potential; the Cheer's effect. By coming back periodically (like right when you've almost forgotten them), their contact brings back emotional memories of the intimacy and/or sex and, for the MM's anyway, brings them another opportunity to both unload as well as stimulate some more oxytocin. Obviously, many don't think it out this way, coldly and pragmatically, but it can surely happen that way in practice. Also, in my example, I'm talking about situations where the OP (OM/OW) is single and not married themselves. I found, as a married person, it was a lot easier to disconnect or walk away from attractions or unhealthy intimacies simply because I had some semblence of a partnership, albeit not the healthiest one, 24/7 at home and, later, a much healthier perspective due to MC. So, in that sense, I was an atypical MM in that I could go 'cold turkey'. I really don't have anything to prove in that way. No popularity contests will ever have me as a candidate. I'll never get a blow job in the oval office by an intern. Another possibility which comes to mind is that, generally, many men do not have intimate emotional connections with any humans other than the women they're in relationships with. If so, perhaps they are more prone to hanging onto those relationships, whether by marriage or affair, to a greater degree and with more tenacity and perhaps desperation than a man who has wider and more open intimacy in general, meaning he has emotional attachments to male and female platonic friends. TBH, whenever I hear the words from a woman that 'no one understands me like you do', heard many, many times over the decades, I know that something unhealthy is going to happen if I don't walk away. Any parallels in the MM world? I'll bet there are, just for different 'reasons'.
2sunny Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 he's selfish it may be a time where his W isn't paying attention at the moment and he feels the coast is clear he needs his ego stroked because he hopes YOU will allow him to re-enter his life he hasn't yet figured out what was broken in HIM that made him have the affair to begin with - thus, picking up where he left off is the easiest avenue to explore... if you do - you are still re-entering an A with the same broken man as before those are the usual reasons... 1
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 Not happening Sunny .. why the need to keep contacting? It's over, I've accepted that it's over, I left my marriage am divorced and moving on .. why the push and pull? He's stuck, I'm not?
carhill Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 Pretty simple. He moves to end his marriage; he loses power. Power is important to males. They work their whole lives to achieve it, display it, hoard it and protect it. Watch any man in a social situation and you'll see what I mean. This feature of a man's psyche *can* be benevolent and beneficial but it also has a darker side. Someone in another thread mentioned that men are territorial. Spot-on.
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 K, Carhill .. do these men have the capacity do understand what they do to women? Women they say they love? Wives, mistresses .. doesn't equate to love in my thinking. Can men be with one partner?
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 And in the meantime, he hates his life .. otherwise he wouldn't be trying to recapture or admit what he has done to his wife, his kids, me and whomever else. 1
2sunny Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 K, Carhill .. do these men have the capacity do understand what they do to women? Women they say they love? Wives, mistresses .. doesn't equate to love in my thinking. Can men be with one partner? in that moment - the MM isn't thinking of YOUR best interest - only his and getting his needs filled. good for you if you aren't going back... he would like to think otherwise though. stay strong - you deserve more than what he is (half) offering you. 1
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 I will Sunny, how in the world can anyone be that selfish .. I got it. Shutting him out. Enough, time to move on with my life.
carhill Posted October 20, 2010 Posted October 20, 2010 (edited) I'll endeavor to stick to men here...... I think there are socialized and genetic features of the male psyche and psychology which enable them to separate action from effect. A marked and garish example of this would be proactively plunging a bayonet into another human being he does not know, does not care about, does not love, does not hate, but rather merely because someone, an authority, told him to do it. Men are indoctrinated, whether we like to accept it or not, into a certain path from a very young age. Even though I grew up in a gentle, non-violent home, being bullied by, ta-da, young men taught me, purely by peer pressure, that a man was to stuff his feelings down and strike out in violence when necessary. All those lessons, both the lessons in gentle love from my parents and the more cruel and violent world outside, impacted my male genetics; the hard wiring from a quarter million years of evolution was being formed and molded to make me (or any other man) the adult male whom the MM is now. He has the capacity. His genetics and socialization largely determine how and what portion of that capacity he uses. Having been married and now reflecting upon it, I think the experiences of marriage taught me many lessons, and it is the time I now spend alone, reflecting on those lessons, is what impels and facilitates growth and change. The longer this goes on, the clearer it becomes. Boundaries solidify, behaviors reflect the lessons learned, and acceptance of what was and what is left is a more comfortable and peaceful state of mind. I had lunch with my ex yesterday after we filed the final paperwork at the courthouse and I saw the effects of the process. I could clearly be engaged but at the same time I saw, just as clearly, the incompatibilities and, rather than feeling frustration or resentment, I felt acceptance. I smiled, knowing I never have to see or hear her again, in peace. That's what time and reflection can do. Your MM, remaining in the milieu, may never find that clarity or peace. Some will. I envy those. Edited October 20, 2010 by carhill
Author Patrice Posted October 20, 2010 Author Posted October 20, 2010 Maybe so .. I have healthy connections .. I've grown and did my time in the divorce penalty box .. he is not helping me at this stage. Perhaps he knows my heart is no longer with him, his life's choices and I can't be a scapegoat for that .. he chose, he needs to deal with his choice. In the end, I ended a marriage, he chose to remain. So, let me move on already and be happy that I'm doing so. Why is this a difficult concept for men ... I'm not bugging him, demanding anything ... find another playmate and go.
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