In EA with long-lost first love

[beach]

The MC is seeing each of us individually as well as together and promises absolute confidentiality, which I have relied on. I don't know if this is a conflict of interest, he says that "his client is the marriage", but if he told my wife the things I've told him, it'd all be over.

 

It's been a good marriage and I love my family and I don't want a divorce. She's done nothing to deserve any of this. I need a way to let go of FL but feels impossible.

 

It ends with your affair person when you end it.

 

It's as simple as that.

 

End it.

 

 

End it IF you intend to stay married.

[No Limit]

You are on your merry way to your own doom. Prepare yourself for the fallout.

[GorillaTheater]

If you don't mind, please tell me how you got free of your "toxic attachment." Because I've had mine for more than 30 years and its strength has never been greater.

 

One sure way would be to leave your wife for her and find that she has annoying habits, can be tiresome to be around, and often boring to talk to. Kind of like you, me, your wife, and everybody posting on this thread.

 

You're hooked on a concept, not a flesh-and-blood woman. Your wife can't compete with that, and even if she could she shouldn't have to.

 

Leave your marriage or don't, but choose. If you choose your marriage, then go No Contact with the OW. I suspect you'll find over time that what you feel for this woman, isn't love, it's chemicals masquerading as love. Those chemicals will dissipate over time.

[Mal78]

I don't think I could add much more than Owl did, we'll said.

 

I think most of us, including myself could remember their first real romance. So much invested in growing that lust, love and Infatuation with one another. Then all of a sudden... it wasn't meant to be. You both move on, think fondly of each other. Neither of you know if or how much the other does remember.

 

Life is quite distracting isn't it? Life is real. Life is a blessing and a curse. Chopped full of responsibilities and good times, fun and agony, joy and sadness...ect. Your W sees every aspect of you, you of her and yet through it all you are still together. The good, bad and the ugly. You can't be sure this first love could have endured that. Given the statistics, your age back then and your ages now the odds aren't great that you would still be married. First "true" loves don't necessarily stand the test of time when you throw *life* in the mix.

 

You are certainly not honoring either women by involving yourself in this EA. Your wife, for obvious reasons and your OW because she has been in your wife's position. Next conversation ask her in depth the he** she went through, the agony and how it almost destroyed her. The sleepless nights, the worrying about the future, the kids, the finances...ect

 

Ask her what hurts more, the actual *act* of the A or the fact he was "in-love" with his AP. Regardless if that was the case or not, I imagine your wife would be torn to bits to know you are *in-love* with this women, you have always loved her and the feelings for her doesn't compare. It wouldn't matter if the relationship was not physical. That would kill me.

 

There is no realistic opportunity to figure out if you took the next step with your OW that it would work unless you discuss the potential with your wife and she was good with it. Taking it further will only push the confusion and make it harder to make rational decisions.

 

My experience:

I had long lost love contact me on FB. *instant flutters*, heart drops "what's the potential"?

 

Life was discussed, he knew whom I married. The conversation was pretty friendly, lasted a day and something clicked. *old* feelings are coming up and eventually they are going to come out. He invited me out "for a chat" and that's when I ceased conversation. I unfriended and blocked him immediately from FB. He wasn't "threatening" however he was a "threat" to my marriage. I didn't owe him anything including an explanation for my instant cut off. All I owe anything to is my husband and marriage.

 

It's not too late to take that route, a few months in the early 80's does NOT out weigh 30 years of life with your wife. Your children, the home, the traditions, the illnesses, the losses, the achievements....ect the list could go on in favor of life with your wife.

 

The situation is daunting but not bleak. You can over come it.

 

Good luck.

[carhill]

OP, I can't say if this is relevant to your situation or not but my longtime EA as a young man, abandoned after a number of years, was revisited as a much older man, with our roles reversed and, in the moment, that 'whatever' which existed a generation or more ago was just as intense, and remained intense, for the period when we interacted, probably a couple years or so. Yeah, the 'realities' of everyday life did provide a 'check' and I ultimately think the lady made a far more compatible choice with the guy she's been living with, and was when we reconnected, but that didn't obviate the relevant feelings and perceptions of the moment.

 

One aspect I did note, and I think more markedly after MC provided some tools for clarity, is that I could see some of my general behaviors reverting to those of long ago, de-evolving in a sense, and generally being a bit out of sync with the man I had become in life because of life.

 

In the end, we finished our business, said a heartfelt (on my part anyway) goodbye and I have only positive thoughts about the lady, her children and now grandchildren and her current BF. The 'connection' has passed after 3 decades. Everything has its time.

[harrybrown]

So your wife runs into her first love.

 

She is having an EA, maybe a PA. Would you want to know?

 

She is thinking of her first love all the time, and it puts a distance between you.

She has built a wall between you. You can see the wall and the distance, she can't. She is too hooked too much on her first love to realize the damage and the wall she is building in your marriage to keep you out.

 

You want to tear the wall down, but she is addicted to her first love.

 

How would you feel about her betrayal? Do you deserve to know where her emotional feelings are used on someone else?

 

Take a walk in your wife's shoes. Either tell her the truth or do the 180 with your "first love".

 

You are throwing away your real love, your wife and family. There was a reason you broke up with her, and she got divorced and is going nowhere with her current relationship.

 

Think about your wife and kids and stop being so selfish.

[MBlair71]

Thank you to everyone who has posted in response to this, especially those of you who have experienced similar situations. I haven't done real drugs in a long time, but this has been every bit as powerful, addictive and compelling.

 

Contact with FL has diminished significantly since our last conversation (2/12) which was when I told her my wife had discovered the reconnection. She is dissatisfied with her current sig other, but is conflicted about our EA as well, we've both said if we were free we'd definitely be together (I do think this is true, at a minimum we would have arranged to spend time together to see) but have attempted to keep in contact without endangering the main relationships, which has been difficult and may be impossible.

[Mr. Lucky]

We met in college in 1981, I was 22 and she was 19.

 

If you were 22 in 1981, you're mid 50's now, a transitional time for many men.

 

Have you discussed in IC that part of the pull may not be her but what she represents? Youth, freedom and a carefree life are quite different than most of our middle-aged experiences of career, mortgage, bills and uncertain future. You can feel you're living your life in service of others when college was more about you and what you wanted. Big difference.

 

I agree your wife should know (sounds like she already suspects) what you're dealing with but that's up to you. Regardless, this wake-up call may be a chance to push the reset button and approach marriage, family and job in a different way. Those around you may also appreciate the chance to discuss goals and objectives. Something positive could still come out of this...

 

Mr. Lucky

[MBlair71]

If you were 22 in 1981, you're mid 50's now, a transitional time for many men.

 

Have you discussed in IC that part of the pull may not be her but what she represents? Youth, freedom and a carefree life are quite different than most of our middle-aged experiences of career, mortgage, bills and uncertain future. You can feel you're living your life in service of others when college was more about you and what you wanted. Big difference.

 

I agree your wife should know (sounds like she already suspects) what you're dealing with but that's up to you. Regardless, this wake-up call may be a chance to push the reset button and approach marriage, family and job in a different way. Those around you may also appreciate the chance to discuss goals and objectives. Something positive could still come out of this...

 

Mr. Lucky

 

That's the hope. And the timing from an age standpoint is almost a cliché. In fact, my father had an affair around the same time in his life (1986-7) around the time my parents had been married 29 years, they wound up getting divorced, he married the AP in 1991-she is 25 years younger and now those chickens have come home to roost. They are splitting up this year and overall have struggled. He's a cautionary tale but IDK if it would have been better for he and my mom to stay together, but their split could definitely have been handled better.

[Owl6118]

ten characters

Edited March 16, 2015 by Owl6118

[thummper]

Your wife really doesn't deserve this. Go on and be with *sigh* your true love. Give your wife a special gift: divorce papers and the sight of you leaving. Let her find a man worthy of her love and devotion, something you seem to want to give to someone else.

[MBlair71]

ten characters

 

 

What does this mean?

[Mr. Lucky]

My wife discovered what has been happening in November, by accident, after seeing FL’s text messages coming in (out of state number). I minimized things as much as possible, telling her it was platonic and FL and I were not still in love…she seems to believe this, but is skeptical enough to have insisted on MC, which we have done and is ongoing.

 

How was your wife concerned enough to insist on MC but not so alarmed as to do some digging or monitoring?

 

Are you sure you're not minimizing her angst and pain?

 

Mr. Lucky

[Owl6118]

What does this mean?

 

I made a post but had need to rethink it. Loveshack does not let you flat out delete posts, they always have to have a minimum of ten characters left after you edit them. So, when you want to delete all the content of a post, it is a sort of tradition to leave the phrase "ten characters" to signal that it is an empty placeholder for the vanished message.

 

I will have more for you later. Sorry, its been a very busy day.

[MBlair71]

I made a post but had need to rethink it. Loveshack does not let you flat out delete posts, they always have to have a minimum of ten characters left after you edit them. So, when you want to delete all the content of a post, it is a sort of tradition to leave the phrase "ten characters" to signal that it is an empty placeholder for the vanished message.

 

I will have more for you later. Sorry, its been a very busy day.

 

 

No problem, I appreciate your taking the time to respond. Thank you.

[Owl6118]

OK, how do you get over it. I am going to write from the perspective of something I suspect we have in common, which is the brain chemistry of substance abuse. I am a sober alcoholic (20 years). And though you have not written this, I will hazard a guess that you also have suffered or continue to suffer from depression.

 

So I will start by giving you one piece of advice. I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, you get an individual counselor for therapy separate from your marriage counselor.

 

To be blunt, emotional affairs are a maladaptive coping mechanism, like using, like drinking. What you are experiencing as soulmate connection is a rush of endorphins. It feels amazing because it is anesthatizing you from chronic, intense spiritual pain that you have probably been carrying and coping with most of your life. But your more adaptive coping strategies are failing you and you are reaching back for a maladaptive one: flooding your brain with endorphins at any cost.

 

You need professional help to unpack this, and help from a therapist whose client is you not your marriage.

 

Second, you need to take a long break from this EA. NO CONTACT. How do you get sober from any drug? You quit using. You take it day by day while you detox. And you start the work, which as you know can take months or years, of learning to live and love without the crutch.

 

Here are things you can and should think about. You would do much better thinking them through with a therapist but you can start thinking about them today.

 

1. Why, really, did you use in the past? Did you do the work when you got clean to understand what pain you were anesthetizing?

 

2. Have you lived with depression most of your life? Years of dysthymia--chronic self criticism, joylessness, long periods of hard-to-pin-down but pervasive unhappiness?

 

3. How did you feel when you were using? Do you see any comparisons with how you feel when you get a message from your EA partner?

 

4. Think about your life like a project at work. Get some quiet time and write a project plan for your life with your affair partner. Write it out like a proposal. All of it, with a timeline and plans for mitigating the downside consequences.

 

a. She moves nearby.

b. you start a full physical affair

c. When do you tell your wife?

d. How do you plan to move out?

e. What are you going to tell the kids? What is your plan for dealing with the longterm consequences for them (nicely spelled out by a poster earlier in this thread?)

f. What is your financial plan for funding your divorce and your kids education and any spousal support. I mean a spreadhseet--dollars and sense. This is real life.

g. How do you plan to support your mental health during the necessary months of lying to your wife and to your MC?

 

Dude, own the consequences of the choice you have been contemplating. Spell it all out. Try it on for size.

 

I will be stunned if you can look at the plan and convince yourself this is a good life. Yes, all your nerve ends are thrumming for another hit of EA bliss. But just like any other addict you are compartmentalizing away the costs. Break down the compartment and see if you can bare to look at the costs.

 

Really, it all boils down to one thing. Getting honest. Not with your wife first, or with EA partner. But with you. Can you start to get honest with yourself, even for a few moments of clarity?

 

At the moment you are in so much pain and so addicted to the treatment you have been administering (emotional intimacy from AP) that you will not think about coping with life without the treatment.

 

But life is real and going on anyway.

 

How are you going to live? With integrity, and the chance for joy that comes from self-honesty and self-respect and self-love? Or in pain, and the neverending cycle of treating it with a hit?

[MBlair71]

OK, how do you get over it. I am going to write from the perspective of something I suspect we have in common, which is the brain chemistry of substance abuse. I am a sober alcoholic (20 years). And though you have not written this, I will hazard a guess that you also have suffered or continue to suffer from depression.

 

So I will start by giving you one piece of advice. I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, you get an individual counselor for therapy separate from your marriage counselor.

 

To be blunt, emotional affairs are a maladaptive coping mechanism, like using, like drinking. What you are experiencing as soulmate connection is a rush of endorphins. It feels amazing because it is anesthatizing you from chronic, intense spiritual pain that you have probably been carrying and coping with most of your life. But your more adaptive coping strategies are failing you and you are reaching back for a maladaptive one: flooding your brain with endorphins at any cost.

 

You need professional help to unpack this, and help from a therapist whose client is you not your marriage.

 

Second, you need to take a long break from this EA. NO CONTACT. How do you get sober from any drug? You quit using. You take it day by day while you detox. And you start the work, which as you know can take months or years, of learning to live and love without the crutch.

 

Here are things you can and should think about. You would do much better thinking them through with a therapist but you can start thinking about them today.

 

1. Why, really, did you use in the past? Did you do the work when you got clean to understand what pain you were anesthetizing?

 

2. Have you lived with depression most of your life? Years of dysthymia--chronic self criticism, joylessness, long periods of hard-to-pin-down but pervasive unhappiness?

 

3. How did you feel when you were using? Do you see any comparisons with how you feel when you get a message from your EA partner?

 

4. Think about your life like a project at work. Get some quiet time and write a project plan for your life with your affair partner. Write it out like a proposal. All of it, with a timeline and plans for mitigating the downside consequences.

 

a. She moves nearby.

b. you start a full physical affair

c. When do you tell your wife?

d. How do you plan to move out?

e. What are you going to tell the kids? What is your plan for dealing with the longterm consequences for them (nicely spelled out by a poster earlier in this thread?)

f. What is your financial plan for funding your divorce and your kids education and any spousal support. I mean a spreadhseet--dollars and sense. This is real life.

g. How do you plan to support your mental health during the necessary months of lying to your wife and to your MC?

 

Dude, own the consequences of the choice you have been contemplating. Spell it all out. Try it on for size.

 

I will be stunned if you can look at the plan and convince yourself this is a good life. Yes, all your nerve ends are thrumming for another hit of EA bliss. But just like any other addict you are compartmentalizing away the costs. Break down the compartment and see if you can bare to look at the costs.

 

Really, it all boils down to one thing. Getting honest. Not with your wife first, or with EA partner. But with you. Can you start to get honest with yourself, even for a few moments of clarity?

 

At the moment you are in so much pain and so addicted to the treatment you have been administering (emotional intimacy from AP) that you will not think about coping with life without the treatment.

 

But life is real and going on anyway.

 

How are you going to live? With integrity, and the chance for joy that comes from self-honesty and self-respect and self-love? Or in pain, and the neverending cycle of treating it with a hit?

 

It's obvious you've been in my shoes. I'm 28 years sober, started a little more than one year after last conversation with FL in 1985. I was lucky not to have anything catastrophic happen that year to me or anyone else. It did feel like I had moved on from her for awhile, but she was never COMPLETELY out of my thoughts. Ironically, the MC asked me last week if I was concerned about possibly drinking/using due to the stress of the EA and it's impact on current life.....this has not been an issue at all, I have no need to go back to that ever, but you are right, the endorphins are just a substitute for those other substances. And every email, text and especially conversations are hits. I crave them and it feels like withdrawal when I don't get them.

 

IDK about depression, if so it's not profound, I've functioned reasonably well, am in good health, work is Ok, etc.

 

I have thought many times of possible life with FL over the past year. It wouldn't be impossible, but it would be a seismic event in the lives of many people and I'm not positive she would agree to do it if I asked. But every practical consideration weighs against it, especially for me. The utter finality of NC feels like giving up that hope forever though and is very hard to face.

[beach]

Write out your affair in a 4th step. Share your 5th step with a trusted friend or sponsor. Don't forget the "harms done" portion of step 4... Harm to self - harm to others.

 

See what it looks like on paper. See what column 5 of step 4 looks like = "how did I participate"?

 

How much of YOUR power are you handing her? Is it out of balance?

 

What principles are you living by? What can YOU change about this?

 

Let us know what it looks like on paper, ok?

[Mrs. John Adams]

When my fil died..he received a sympathy card from his "first love" . He called her and they began seeing each other...she had had 4 husbands.

 

A short time later they married.

 

Because of the way it was handled...all of the children suspected that there had been hanky panky going on behind the scenes.

 

We will never know the truth I guess...but I do know it alienated him from his children to his dying day. She of course outlived him and took his money....which I am sure made my mil turn over in her grave.

 

I tell you this because...I want to ask you if the potential damage you are about to inflict upon your innocent family is worth the thrill you are receiving from your "first love" ? Is she worth destroying everyone else that you love and care about? And if she is a person of character....why would she even become a part of your life in the first place ?

 

I fear this whole scenario you have painted will end very badly.

Put your heart back Into the hands of the one you gave it to when you chose to marry her. Let " first love" take her place back in history.....where you left her in the first place.

[Mr. Lucky]

I'm not positive she would agree to do it if I asked.

 

If that's true then she's just using you - and you her - for emotional validation.

 

What's missing from your marriage or wrong with you that you wouldn't turn to your wife for that?

 

Mr. Lucky

[MBlair71]

FL texted yesterday, first time she's reached out in almost three weeks. We texted last night for an hour and might talk tonight. Things not going that well for her, part of me wants to comfort her and part knows I should begin distancing myself. This will be excruciating, because I really have loved her for 33 years and ending it forever is a bleak prospect...OTOH I feel like W is beginning to trust a little again and betraying that does not feel good.

[beach]

FL texted yesterday, first time she's reached out in almost three weeks. We texted last night for an hour and might talk tonight. Things not going that well for her, part of me wants to comfort her and part knows I should begin distancing myself. This will be excruciating, because I really have loved her for 33 years and ending it forever is a bleak prospect...OTOH I feel like W is beginning to trust a little again and betraying that does not feel good.

 

Have you written out that 4th step yet? To gain clarity is of utmost importance.

 

There's really no emotional sobriety when you're tangled up in betrayal...

[Mr. Lucky]

This will be excruciating, because I really have loved her for 33 years and ending it forever is a bleak prospect...OTOH I feel like W is beginning to trust a little again and betraying that does not feel good.

 

MBlair71, I'd like to ask you something and have you answer from an intellectual rather than emotional basis.

 

How can you love a romantic partner you don't see for 30 years? And at the end of those 30 years of NC, what exactly are you in love with?

 

Mr. Lucky

[MBlair71]

MBlair71, I'd like to ask you something and have you answer from an intellectual rather than emotional basis.

 

How can you love a romantic partner you don't see for 30 years? And at the end of those 30 years of NC, what exactly are you in love with?

 

Mr. Lucky

 

Great question. I've been trying to figure this out for a long time. My best explanation is that we were each other's first loves, not necessarily first relationships, but first all-out, head over heels, unforgettable, once in a lifetime loves. That did not end when the relationship did, and I think it wound up being a love that was interrupted for all that time and when we found each other, it picked up where it left off. Now after a year, we've shared our histories and lives and gotten to know each other in the present and still feel as strongly as we did when we were together-and we still have our memories too. We spoke last night for an hour and a half and could have gone twice as long at least. We don't run out of things to say and I still feel like I'm rediscovering her every time we talk. It's very powerful-and bittersweet at the same time.

[Steen719]

Great question. I've been trying to figure this out for a long time. My best explanation is that we were each other's first loves, not necessarily first relationships, but first all-out, head over heels, unforgettable, once in a lifetime loves. That did not end when the relationship did, and I think it wound up being a love that was interrupted for all that time and when we found each other, it picked up where it left off. Now after a year, we've shared our histories and lives and gotten to know each other in the present and still feel as strongly as we did when we were together-and we still have our memories too. We spoke last night for an hour and a half and could have gone twice as long at least. We don't run out of things to say and I still feel like I'm rediscovering her every time we talk. It's very powerful-and bittersweet at the same time.

 

Given that you feel this way, I don't understand why you do not leave your wife to be with her. I am not being insincere; I really mean it. Having been the wife in this situation, I can tell you that your wife can sense what you feel and consciously or not, your feelings will erode away at her self esteem. That is not a temporary feeling, either. It colors the way you feel about yourself. You continuing to be touch with your FL is just cruel and so selfish, that I find it difficult to understand why you would do this to your wife. However, one thing I have learned in my lifetime is that you cannot teach someone empathy. You can mouth that you can see what you are doing to your wife, but you, sir, have no idea.

 

You are not doing your wife any favors by staying with her and trying to make your marriage what you want with your FL. Be an honest person and lay everything out on the line for your wife. She is living your lies and that is just not fair to her or your children.