personality traits of OW

[rumbleseat]

This is going to come across as hypocritical and ironic given the enormous amount of hurt caused by my A. I attribute a lot of the reason I got involved and stayed involved with MM to the fact that I care too quickly and too much. I've always said that I fall a little bit in love with everyone I meet. I love a backstory and the commonality of the human experience. As I got to know him, I was struck by how smart and funny and adorable and SAD he was. He reminded me of myself. As he shared his feelings about his home life, I recognized his need for attention and validation because they were similar to my own experience in my M. I wanted to save him. And myself.

 

Even after being thrown under the bus (and run over again and again) by him, my bleeding heart still cares about him. I pray daily for his happiness and health and that of his family. It would probably be simpler and speed up my healing not to care but I can't help it. Unfortunately in hindsight I can see how if I had extended the same empathy to our potential BSs, a lot of pain and suffering could have been avoided. :-/

 

 

Empathy and compassion are wonderful personality traits, but maybe you took them too far? I hope that you don't eliminate those from yourself, just maybe be more choosy about who you spend them on.

[rumbleseat]

I am confused why these personality traits require a relationship with a married person. I would actually think the exactly opposite.

 

 

One traits that some ow and om have is a sense of entitlement to whatever makes them happy, no matter what the cost to anyone else.

[cocorico]

I think the question is how they're unique to being an OW. Many of those traits could be any woman. What about being "independent" lead you to focus specifically on a man because he was married?

 

As I said - it was a poor fit for a full-time R. Men would simply want far more of me than I was prepared to invest. I was unwilling to compromise, and so had to find someone whose needs for those things were met elsewhere, hence: a MM.

 

Had I been less independent, more tolerant of bull****, less goal-directed and more willing to compromise, had fewer demands on my time and energy from ther directions, been less sated with intimacy, contact and love from other sources, been less confident, derived my affirmation from who I was with rather than what I do, been more conventional and more able to slip into societally define roles, a bog standard R with a SG may have sufficed. Having tried that many times and found it wasn't for me, I explored why and found what did work.

 

It's really not that difficult to understand.

[ladydesigner]

As I said - it was a poor fit for a full-time R. Men would simply want far more of me than I was prepared to invest. I was unwilling to compromise, and so had to find someone whose needs for those things were met elsewhere, hence: a MM.

 

Had I been less independent, more tolerant of bull****, less goal-directed and more willing to compromise, had fewer demands on my time and energy from ther directions, been less sated with intimacy, contact and love from other sources, been less confident, derived my affirmation from who I was with rather than what I do, been more conventional and more able to slip into societally define roles, a bog standard R with a SG may have sufficed. Having tried that many times and found it wasn't for me, I explored why and found what did work.

 

It's really not that difficult to understand.

 

Just curious, because you do sound a lot like me and I am a fMOW and BS, do you have to compromise more now that you are with your MM fulltime? I know before my WH's A I always seemed to compromise when I did not want to, since Dday I no longer compromise all MY time and am much more independent than I originally thought. I too have a no tolerance for BS (not blind spouse) now

[cocorico]

Just curious, because you do sound a lot like me and I am a fMOW and BS, do you have to compromise more now that you are with your MM fulltime? I know before my WH's A I always seemed to compromise when I did not want to, since Dday I no longer compromise all MY time and am much more independent than I originally thought. I too have a no tolerance for BS (not blind spouse) now

 

The R dynamic we established during the A worked for us, and continues to work for us in the M, although it is a FTR. Any compromise is minor - we're very well aligned on all the big things that really matter, and pretty well aligned on the smaller things. He's up for anything and willing to give it a go if I suggest something, and I'm pretty much the same. We rub along very comfortably, and because we love each other we're willing to make an effort.

[Sub]

Had I been less independent, more tolerant of bull****, less goal-directed and more willing to compromise, had fewer demands on my time and energy from ther directions, been less sated with intimacy, contact and love from other sources, been less confident, derived my affirmation from who I was with rather than what I do, been more conventional and more able to slip into societally define roles, a bog standard R with a SG may have sufficed. Having tried that many times and found it wasn't for me, I explored why and found what did work.

 

It's really not that difficult to understand.

 

I understand. I just think that's an unfortunate amount of hubris, to assume that being confident, goal-oriented and independent are unique to someone who needs a MM to be happy. It's an impressive resume, although the irony of one of them being "intolerance to bull****" isn't lost on me.

[William]

As this 'new member, long-time reader' logged in to post this thread, then logged out and hasn't returned, moderation will close this pending their return to elaborate on their own situation, as indicated in the opening post. Thanks for your participation!