Chipping away at the wall of affair fog EVER so slowly

[stevie_23]

So…I had a thought before (yes, another one).

 

I was thinking about the thread where Realist has been going back and forth on that rollercoaster with his OW, and I was remembering how when my ex-MM left me for a month back in June 2012, after he got sick, got married, everything changed for him and he thought we couldn’t be together.

 

Now, I’m not going to say he lied to me about all this (because I know he didn’t, and this isn’t the point of the thread), but after we came back together afterwards, we felt we were even stronger at that point than ever before, because we had weathered the storm.

 

Well. NOW I see this is a bit delusional. I was wondering in the back of my head if Realist and his OW DO end up getting back together for any length of time, whether they’d see themselves as stronger than ever in their affair because they got through this hard time. And I thought to myself, NO WAY. It weakens it and then it crumbles and you can never go back to how it was before when things were “easy”.

 

So I then realised, the only reason my ex-MM and I felt our relationship was “stronger” was because our lives were crumbling from the stress of being in an affair, being with someone we couldn’t REALLY be with, lying to our partners, hiding things, trying to live 2 lives, grasping to the reduced time we had together by that stage in our relationship, clutching at any straw we had to stay together and justify this as “weathering the storm”, when really, it was already the end.

 

We felt we were stronger as a couple because we were USING each other due to our greater NEED for each other (a crutch, an emotional outlet, a comfort or security blanket, a “fix” for our addiction) based on the increased stress and unhappiness in our lives, which our affair relationship caused in the FIRST PLACE!!

[Catplates]

So…I had a thought before (yes, another one).

 

I was thinking about the thread where Realist has been going back and forth on that rollercoaster with his OW, and I was remembering how when my ex-MM left me for a month back in June 2012, after he got sick, got married, everything changed for him and he thought we couldn’t be together.

 

Now, I’m not going to say he lied to me about all this (because I know he didn’t, and this isn’t the point of the thread), but after we came back together afterwards, we felt we were even stronger at that point than ever before, because we had weathered the storm.

 

Well. NOW I see this is a bit delusional. I was wondering in the back of my head if Realist and his OW DO end up getting back together for any length of time, whether they’d see themselves as stronger than ever in their affair because they got through this hard time. And I thought to myself, NO WAY. It weakens it and then it crumbles and you can never go back to how it was before when things were “easy”.

 

So I then realised, the only reason my ex-MM and I felt our relationship was “stronger” was because our lives were crumbling from the stress of being in an affair, being with someone we couldn’t REALLY be with, lying to our partners, hiding things, trying to live 2 lives, grasping to the reduced time we had together by that stage in our relationship, clutching at any straw we had to stay together and justify this as “weathering the storm”, when really, it was already the end.

 

We felt we were stronger as a couple because we were USING each other due to our greater NEED for each other (a crutch, an emotional outlet, a comfort or security blanket, a “fix” for our addiction) based on the increased stress and unhappiness in our lives, which our affair relationship caused in the FIRST PLACE!!

 

It goes around in a circle until you break it completely... but you probably know that by now.

 

xMM and I would reunite, thinking this would be the time we could survive anything.. Now it seems so silly because as you wrote, it was the affair that was giving us grief in the first place.

[stevie_23]

I think where people get messed up and deluded is because often the person himself / herself IS actually good to you, for you, etc. If there’s genuine love in the affair, that is. You can really find someone you could realistically (sometimes) be truly happy with. But it’s the affair situation that makes it virtually impossible for it to work out happily and successfully. So they kind of stick together because of the person, feeling strong and united against the bad situations that are hurting them…not realising until after it’s over or one of them is strong enough or tired enough to walk away, that the situation is not usually able to be separated from the relationship as a whole, and there will ALWAYS be stress and unhappiness because of that, no matter how good the people are together.

[Act Two]

Good post! This is something I read about in the book Torn Asunder, dealing with infidelity (from a spiritual perspective). The very act of breaking up, getting back together further enmeshes a couple in an affair. That back/forth rollercoaster ride is actually (this is how I picture it) like a net that is tangling the couple up together so that it becomes like a trap. Until, as someone else posted, the grief from the whole thing outweighs the high and someone is strong enough to recognize that, the couple will continue in this pattern. While in it, it may feel like "our love is so strong we just can't stay away" but it is really an addiction.

[LFH]

I think where people get messed up and deluded is because often the person himself / herself IS actually good to you, for you, etc. If there’s genuine love in the affair, that is. You can really find someone you could realistically (sometimes) be truly happy with. But it’s the affair situation that makes it virtually impossible for it to work out happily and successfully. So they kind of stick together because of the person, feeling strong and united against the bad situations that are hurting them…not realising until after it’s over or one of them is strong enough or tired enough to walk away, that the situation is not usually able to be separated from the relationship as a whole, and there will ALWAYS be stress and unhappiness because of that, no matter how good the people are together.

 

I think you may have a very strong point.

I think that unless you are truly content with no additioanl expectations you are going to have that dynamic. Most people aren't ok with that. In other situations I know I woulnd't be. Good post!

[stevie_23]

Act Two - yes, I think the grief and stress and tension for both of us, PLUS the hardship of him having to dodge and lie and hide and then constantly be ashamed and embarrassed and guilty when his wife kept finding out about us, just made the good points (and there were many, but ALL of them related to us as a couple and us as people, while NONE related to the actual situation we were in) less worth enduring the bad for.

 

Yeah, it is SUCH an addiction. We acknowledged we were addicted to one another quite early on. But there was also love in there. It was based on love but I realised later that my NEED for him (addiction) was stronger than my love for him, which is unfair and unhealthy.

 

LFH, yeah…it’s really hard to separate the people from the relationship-situation because logically, you’d assume that it’s the people who CREATE the relationship and the dynamic within that. And that’s true, except in many affair situations. The relationship dynamic is instead created within ANOTHER one or two relationships that are pre-existing at the time the affair relationship is born. So…it’s already warped even at conception. Expectations exist before it even begins. And everything that follows is built on top of that foundation which is…just NOT a stable foundation for a relationship! (mostly)

 

As you say, expectations are VERY important. My ex-MM and I began with the expectation that we would somehow be in a relationship that ENRICHED each other’s normal lives and did not take anything away from it. He didn’t want me to leave my partner and I didn’t want to walk all over his partner and their relationship either. We were ok for a while. Until of course…those affair requirements sneak in. The fact we couldn’t have contact if either of our partners were around – so thus begins the lying, the hiding, the secrecy. The fact we then switched our expectations to wanting to really BE with the other person, INSTEAD of our own partners. Oops. This was the early turning point that began SO many of our problems.

[stevie_23]

Hmm. It definitely didn’t make things easier for him, that’s for sure, our continued relationship. It made him emotionally happier, but on all other levels, it took him further and further away from where he needed to be in reality. For me…it hindered me too because it just prolonged the inevitable heartbreak.

 

We knew what made each other tick, definitely. I don’t think he manipulated me in that way. I think if anything, I manipulated HIM. He’s the one who kept trying to leave, in a way.